The Tamil Refugee Council (TRC) although commending the pledge produced by Crown Resorts Proprietor James Packer to view the documentary on Sri Lanka’s killing fields – the ‘No Fire Zone‘, called upon him to look beyond the profit motive and empathize for the Tamils.
James Packer
TRC Spokesman Trevor Grant issuing a statement had stated, “During the meeting exactly where Packer had promised to watch the documentary, he had said his heart bleeds for the people caught in the conflict. . . When he sees it, he can’t fail but enable his heart to bleed for the 70,000 Tamils murdered by the Rajapaksa regime.”
Grant has pointed out the British Prime Minister David Cameron who viewed the Emmy-nominated documentary had described it as one of the ‘most chilling documentaries’ he has watched and states that it brings property the brutal end to the civil war and the immense suffering of the thousands of innocent Tamils.
“We urge him to reconsider hopefully he can see beyond the profit motive and enable his heart to bleed for the Tamils,” Grant has stated additionally.
Packer had agreed to watch the documentary No Fire Zone – a documentary that focuses on the mass slaughter of thousands of innocent Tamil civilians throughout the final months of the war in Sri Lanka – in the course of the annual general meeting of Crown Resorts in Perth this week following he was questioned about the planned 450 million USD casino joint venture in Colombo. A regional refugee activist Victoria Martin-Iverson had presented him with a copy of the documentary.
In the course of the meeting he had expressed his sympathy for innocent civilians in such circumstances as were the Tamils in Sri Lanka for the duration of the final phases of the conflict in 2009.
The LTTE achieved a partial victory yesterday when the General Court of the European Union (CVRIA) annulled the proscription on the organisation based on procedural grounds.
Though the LTTE was placed on the EU list relating to frozen funds of terrorist organizations in 2006 based on references to decisions made by Indian authorities, the LTTE contested their upkeep on the list. They stated prior to the CVRIA that their confrontation with the Government of Sri Lanka was an ‘armed conflict’ that falls inside the which means of the International Law, subject only to International Humanitarian Law and not to Anti-Terrorist legislation. They had gone on to state that getting included in the list relating to frozen funds is primarily based on ‘unreliable grounds’ that do not derive from decisions of competent authorities.
In consideration of the submissions made by the LTTE, the CVRIA noted that the Court finds that an authority of a state outdoors the EU maybe a ‘competent authority’ provided that the Council verifies at the outset that the legislation of the third state ensures protection of the rights of defense and of the correct of powerful judicial protection equivalent to that assured at the EU level. The Court noted that since such an examination was not carried out by the Council with reference to the stance it took in such as the LTTE in the list, but had been based on ‘factual imputations derived from the press and the internet’.
As such the CVRIA annulled the Council measures preserving the LTTE on EU list of terrorist organizations.
It nevertheless declared that the EU law on the prevention of terrorism also applies in armed conflict, inside the meaning of international law and as a result the LTTW can not claim the existence of an armed conflict precludes a feasible application of the EU law with regard to them.
Basic Court of the European Union
PRESS RELEASE No 138/14
Luxembourg, 16 October 2014
Judgment in Joined Circumstances T-208/11 and T-508/11 Press and Info Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) v Council
The Court annuls, on procedural grounds, the Council measures keeping the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on the European list of terrorist organisations
However, the effects of the annulled measures are maintained temporarily in order to ensure the effectiveness of any attainable future freezing of funds.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are a movement which opposed the Government of Sri-Lanka in a violent confrontation which resulted in the LTTE’s defeat in 2009.
In 2006, the Council placed the LTTE on the EU list relating to frozen funds of terrorist organisations and has maintained them on that list ever since, referring to, inter alia, decisions of Indian authorities.
The LTTE contest their upkeep on the list. They submit that their confrontation with the Government of Sri-Lanka was an ‘armed conflict’ inside the meaning of international law, subject only to international humanitarian law and not to anti-terrorist legislation. In addition, the maintenance on the list relating to frozen funds is based on unreliable grounds which do not derive from decisions of ‘competent authorities’ within the which means of Typical Position 2001/931/CFSP.(1)
In today’s judgment, the Court finds that EU law on the prevention of terrorism also applies in ‘armed conflicts’ within the which means of international law. Therefore, the LTTE cannot claim that the existence of an armed conflict precludes a feasible application of EU law with regard to them.
As regards the choices of Indian authorities relied upon by the Council, the Court finds that an authority of a State outdoors the EU may possibly be a ‘competent authority’ within the which means of Frequent Position 2001/931. Even so, the Council must very carefully confirm at the outset that the legislation of the third State guarantees protection of the rights of defence and of the proper to powerful judicial protection equivalent to that assured at EU level. The Court finds that the Council did not carry out such a thorough examination in the present case.
The Court finds that the contested measures are primarily based not on acts examined and confirmed in decisions of competent authorities, as needed by Common Position 2001/931 and case-law,(2) but on factual imputations derived from the press and the internet.
Therefore the Court annuls the contested measures whilst temporarily sustaining the effects of the final of those measures in order to make certain the effectiveness of any possible future freezing of funds.
The Court stresses that these annulments, on fundamental procedural grounds, do not imply any substantive assessment of the question of the classification of the LTTE as a terrorist group inside the meaning of Common Position 2001/931.
1 Council Typical Position of 27 December 2001 on the application of certain measures to combat terrorism (OJ 2001 L 344, p. 93) 2 See Article 1(4) of the Frequent Position and Case:C-539/ten P and C‐550/ten P Al-Aqsa v Council and Netherlands v Al-Aqsa
NOTE: An appeal, limited to points of law only, may possibly be brought before the Court of Justice against the decision of the Basic Court within two months of notification of the selection.
NOTE: An action for annulment seeks the annulment of acts of the institutions of the European Union that are contrary to European Union law. The Member States, the European institutions and men and women might, beneath specific conditions, bring an action for annulment just before the Court of Justice or the General Court. If the action is well founded, the act is annulled. The institution concerned need to fill any legal vacuum developed by the annulment of the act.
In 2015 our government will only invest Rs.12,150 to educate the average major or secondary school student for the complete year.[1] This is due to the fact Sri Lanka’s education spending budget for 2015, which pays for all teachers’ salaries, college infrastructure, and any other cash spent by the Ministry of Education, will only be 364 million dollars. For some context, Sri Lankan Airlines lost 157 million US dollars in 2012[two] and constructing the Mattala airport cost 209 million US dollars.[3]
Sri Lanka plans on spending over two billion US dollars on defence.[4] 1.74 billion of this sum, 12 % of the country’s total expenditure, will be spent on the Army, Navy and Air Force alone. A lot of the remainder will be spent on the coast guard, civil security, registration of persons and so on. Contrary to popular perceptions only200 million US dollars, or 9 percent of the defence budget, has been allocated for improvement activities.
We will only devote 74 million US dollars on our foreign ministry in 2015. Sri Lanka has 51 diplomatic missions abroad[5], so that’s much less than 1.five million US dollars per mission per year – not to mention the expense of the foreign ministry’s essential Colombo operations. Despite Sri Lanka’s precarious international relations – with increasingly strained relations with the West, the OIC, other states in the Global South and possibly even India – the foreign ministry’s budget improved by only .5 %. By contrast, the government price range as a complete improved by 18 percent.
40% of the 14 billion US dollar budget is controlled by the President, who is the Minister of Law & Order Highways, Ports and Shipping Defence & Urban Improvement and last but not least Finance & Organizing. Just for very good measure, Basil Rajapaksa controls another six%. Therefore, the average expenditure controlled by the remaining 65 members of Cabinet is a mere 115 million US dollars per year.
As opposed to all other ministries no breakdown of the Highways, Ports & Shipping ministry expenditure was offered in the Appropriation Bill.[six] This ministry accounts for 11% of all government expenditure. On the other hand a fundamental breakdown was offered for the tiny Ministry of National Languages & Social Integration which accounts for only .04% of the spending budget.
[1] The final education census, performed in 2008, counted 3,929,234 students in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s education spending budget was USD 364,332,304. This means expenditure per student was USD 92 per annum.
Responding to the Colombo Telegraph story “Exposé: Centre For Policy Alternatives Defrauded And Hoodwinked Donors” the Centre for Policy Options says that it will post a response to the allegations in the next two weeks.
Dr. Sara
The CPA’s potent Executive Director, Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttuwho is currently in London attending a conference titled ‘The media in post war Sri Lanka: supporting democratisation in the era of the ‘War on Terrorism’” organized by “The International Association of Tamil Journalists”.
The CPA web site says “The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is conscious of an report in the Colombo Telegraph website titled ‘Exposé: Centre For Policy Options Defrauded And Hoodwinked Donors’ published on ten October 2014. The article contains a number of allegations against the organisation and particular members of the employees. As the Executive Director is travelling on perform, CPA will post a response to these allegations on his return to Sri Lanka in the next two weeks.”
Alarming Colombo Telegraph on the CPA’s clarification, a Sri Lankan very good governance activist stated “if the CPA is not an authoritarian organisation, why does it require two weeks to respond? It looks like ‘Saravanamuttu is the CPA’, that is how the NGO technique operates”. “No difference to the Rajapaksas, we each day, hear: Mahinda, Mahinda, Mahinda Chinthana and so forth” she further stated.
The Greeks had no single term to express what we imply by the word ‘life.’ They used two terms that, despite the fact that traceable to a widespread etymological root, are semantically and morphologically distinct: zoē, which expressed the straightforward reality of living typical to all living beings (animals, guys, or gods), and bios, which indicated the type or way of living proper to an person or a group” – (Gerogoi Agamban 1998)
The news that a section of the faculty of University of Colombo had decided to stop their academic engagements to bring an end to the on-going rather inhuman ragging inside their university (and other greater education institutions) is disturbing and welcoming.
Disturbing since ragging of such cruel nature should nonetheless exist, welcoming as the faculty members have decided to address this seriously.
Universities are not only about earning a degree or helping towards that. They are centers of societal citations and (re)type procedure within the context of information gaining and transferring. Passing exams and achieving a degree is deemed a core element of that method aimed at the discipline of systemic thought evaluation. But the complete objective of university education is severely undermined if the advancement of vital nonacademic person building sphere is non-current or deliberately dismantled. In such definitions, Sri Lanka universities have a checked history of person and collective violence. I am not certain if a thorough going research has been ever undertaken to examine the culture of (physical, sexual and social) violence inside the universities of Sri Lanka. If not, it seems an urgent necessity.
The nexus of violence
When we discover the concern of university violence, it robotically gravitates about the query as if the epicenter of such phenomena is correlated to the waves of political power struggles outside of these universities. As all universities in Lanka are nevertheless state funded and operate below the political sub structure, such cross fertilization of state power politics and normativity of violence can not be separated. Lanka’s postcolonial history is fractured with junctures of direct body politics of violence. 1971 JVP armed struggle showed that by then Lankan universities had turn into the ideological cradle of legitimization of collective violence. Such process and their historical weight crushes the thin layer of social fabric inside universities. In a Foucauldian sense, Lankan university politics quintessentially submerges with the biopolitcal dynamics outdoors. For Foucault (1997) “biopolitics is a new technologies of power for violence [that] exists at a diverse level, on a diverse scale, and has various bearing places, and tends to make use of extremely diverse instruments inside the state governing structure”. In Lanka, certainly such biopolitics and sovereign exceptionalism usually constructs the primary filed of politics. Beneath biopolitics, life, society and energy grow to be indistinct. Violence against the new comers by the seniors -who ironically were ragged by their seniors when entering university, then becomes the recurrent dynamic connected to the nature of politics at big.
The thought of positions – ascribed or accomplished – as an instrument of oppressive energy- is an intrinsic feature of Lankan politics. More than 4 centuries of colonial oppression and the historical feudal and monastic control more than the peasant citizenry that is romantically memorialized as ‘ideal’ type of governance in the well-liked discourse have moralized a energy game of violence. The struggle for control is deeply dichotomized and sharply projected as elitist versus non-elites or the peripheral rural versus the urban center. On the foundation of such mindset, a violence political culture is normalized by structural political operation. Such illiberal undemocratic behave had turn out to be the norm of elected politicians in the current history. When the state concretizes such patterns as privilege of rule, while a wider civic society became prepared spectators, violence for energy and particular display of energy over the layer quickly under is inevitable. It is a truth the J R Jawawardane , Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickramasinghe are representative of such elitist energy circles in Lanka. For the very same reason in a comparative sense, the level personal corruption of the above three are marginal as witnessed in Premadasa and Rajapakse eras. Each Premadasa and Rajapaksa are nevertheless deemed as representatives of the oppressed class, who in my analyses in turn became super oppressors. What operates inside the universities also travels on a parallel trajectory. It is secure to suspect that the culture of violence on campus attracts students from rural background. It is for this purpose from Daya Pathirana to Sanjeewa Bandara are either victims and/or part of that violent political approach. It appears that all university of Lanka from Jaffna to Ruhuna has an equal level of potentiality to make such violence. Demographical, socioeconomic and pre university expertise of violence of the leaders of this ragging culture may shed some valuable sociological keys to unlock this paradigmatic process of internal /external violence.
A challenged academia
As I have argued elsewhere it will be an crucial moral example when the academia can initial lead the campaign against such ill democracies within them. This will then earn the correct to be heard when they moralize their demands just before the wider society and then lastly with the state. Lankan academics are a unique group of individuals working below completely difficult situations. Lack of reward or recognition, lack of physical and monitory resources for desired researches, constant party politicization, and the looming fear of really unionized students who carry an immediate capacity for violence are some continual reality they are called to deal with. Nevertheless academic integrity does not cease at ethics of paper marking and moral partnership with students. That is the minimum currency. In truth the by-laws. Constant instance of individual development for intellectual assentation and to play the part of an agent provocateur for positive modifications within the campus are a portion of the ‘internal social contract’ that faculty members of universities can aspire to. While most surely such practices might prevail, they are mainly based on individual worldviews. What is needed now is to make such a portion of the overarching academic faculty culture.
Three decade of LTTE terror politics and equally or deeper state terror have only legitimized the acceptance of direct biopolitics on campuses as typical. Ragging that humiliates and seeks to manage the newcomers is homophobic and stems from a subterranean heteronormativity mindset. Ragging also displays deep crisis of understanding of individual and collective energy and the politics behind them. The majority of the present regime – have turn out to be the monopoly of such oppressive power mobilization. Such has become the well-known culture. The thought of militarizing the universities has only future deepen the crisis.
We all want Lanka achieves its complete academic potentiality which is no doubt world class. We can demand the state to make greater education an independent but interdependent zone of democracy and intellectual free of charge considering. For this end, continual vigilant to secure guard the free of charge education program and its democratic influence on the wider society is basic and not negotiable. Nevertheless, what is a pure summation of such freedom and democracy if the 1st population of the university- the students do not not appreciate and conduct themselves as representatives of such aspirations. Humiliating ragging and physical violence against the newcomers diminishes all such ethos. Ragging of all forms should be stopped. Quickly and with out apology. The collective action of the faculty members is a good first step in that direction
Reference Agamben, Giorgio (1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University Press pp 1 Foucault, Michel (1997). Society Need to Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. p. 242
*Dr. Suren Rāghavan is a Sri Lankan academic- at present visiting professor at University of St Paul – Ottawa and a Senior Study Fellow at the Centre for Buddhist Studies – University of Oxford. [email protected]
Journalists and scholars will collect this Saturday, October 11, to discuss the challenges of covering issues in Sri Lanka in the existing international context.
The conference, titled “The media in post war Sri Lanka: supporting democratisation in the era of the ‘War on Terrorism’” will take place at the West London University in London. It aims to create an exchange of suggestions and insights amongst academics and experts on the part of media for counteracting the delegitimisation of democratic process in post-war Sri Lanka in the Age of the ‘War on Terrorism’.
The one-day conference seeks to uncover the challenges, troubles and obstacles faced by media and journalists in upholding international human rights norms and their implications for democratisation in Sri Lanka. As a result, starting with the media, which has a role as a social institution in advertising democratisation, the conference seeks a broader understanding of the problems facing those searching for to promote international human rights norms in Sri Lanka these days.
Journalists, media scholars and media activists from Sri Lanka, India, Europe and North America will present papers at the conference, with the chance for discussion amongst the audience and speakers following the sessions. Speakers contain Professor Rune Ottosen from Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Dr Ibrahim Seaga Shaw, Lecturer in Media, Human Rights and Politics at Northumbria University, Dr. Walid Al-Saqaf, Director of the Master of Worldwide Journalism Programme at Orebro University, Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Mr. J.S. Tissainayagam, an award-winning journalist in exile and Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, Assistant Professor in Intercultural Theology and Inter religious Research at the Irish College of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin.
In an appalling show of his close affiliations with the Rajapaksas, de facto Chief Justice Mohan Pieris has stated in Courts these days that the ‘only individual who knows every thing is the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Secretary.
Pieris and Gotabaya
This remark had been created by Pieris today throughout the hearing of a Basic Rights application (No: 414/14) where a group of Agricultural engineers/professionals had challenged the new service minutes, pointing out it has deprived them of getting promoted to higher positions in the Agricultural Department due to being forced to remain portion of the Sri Lanka administrative service.
While the case was being heard, Pieris had told that he is properly conscious and knowledgeable on solid waste management and agriculture and had gone on to criticize the engineers, calling them ‘useless’. At this point, the lawyer appearing on behalf of the petitioners, Manohara De Silva had pointed out the de facto CJ should not let his personal information interfere with the ongoing case although adding that the only information that should be applied is legal expertise.
Even so, Pieris had dismissed De Silva’s statement adding that as a judge, he has the power to refer to his individual expertise as effectively.
As the hearing proceeded, specific comments had been made on the Colombo Municipal Council, which is not at all relevant to the case that was becoming heard. However, Pieris had continued to comment on it as he moved on to speak about the Sathutu Uyana fund, which he had claimed was initially mismanaged but is now in right hands of MOD Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
“The only person who knows almost everything is the Defence Secretary. He also knows about waste management,” the de facto CJ had stated shamelessly violating skilled ethics and the independence of the judiciary. Manohara de Silva had responded to this claim stating, “But I do not want him to do the job of my customers.”
“Tyranny, like hell, is not simply conquered.” – Paine (The American Crisis)
Hopefully it is a fabrication, created in Medamulana, like the ‘news’ of America softening its stance towards Sri Lanka or Premier Modi wanting the TNA to participate in the newest All Parties Conference.
According to Irida Divaina, the JVP has decided to boycott the Presidential election, if Mahinda Rajapaksa is a candidate[i]. The logic is that President Rajapaksa can’t contest for the third time and if he does so it will be an illegal act which in turn will transform the election into an illegal exercising. The JVP, it is becoming reported, will neither field a candidate in such an illegal election, nor take part in a joint oppositional alliance. Alternatively the JVP will conduct a national campaign, educating the voters about the illegal nature of the election.
In other words, the JVP will (implicitly or explicitly) advocate an election boycott. It will confuse, confound and demoralise the anti-Rajapaksa camp and deprive the opposition of tens of thousands of a lot necessary votes. That such an outcome will advantage none but the Rajapaksas is apparent and certain.
This may be the JVP’s way out of its personal political conundrum. Anura Kumara Dissanayake is a marvellous speaker, factual, logical and forceful. But his leadership is not enough to make an sufficient turnaround in the JVP’s electoral fortunes. The Uva elections indicated, as did earlier provincial polls, that the JVP will fare incredibly badly if it contests the presidency separately. The JVP is certainly reluctant to assistance a UNP candidate. Since among them, Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wickremesinghe, seemed to have killed the prospect of a joint oppositional platform, the JVP is attempting to locate a face-saving formula.
Did the Rajapaksas – or their allies – have something to do with the JVP’s surreally stupid decision? Following all, the Rajapaksas reportedly bribed the LTTE for imposing an election boycott on Tamil voters in 2005. Vellupillai Pirapaharan would have created the decision since he was rearing to unleash the Final Eelam War, but he clearly did not mind generating some economic gains, on the side. Mr. Pirapaharan was not a Rajapaksa stooge he was not in cahoots with the Rajapaksas. He was, or thought he was, getting diabolically clever. He was going to aid Mahinda Rajapaksa into energy, take Rajapaksa money and use it to defeat the Rajapaksa government in the battlefield. We know how that program ended.
If the boycott-story is accurate, the JVP is remaking Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s deadly mistake. The Rajapaksas will use the JVP boycott to win the election and then, getting secured familial rule by appointing a Rajapaksa as PM, will hammer the opposition into submission, which includes the JVP. Just as ordinary Tigers and ordinary Tamils paid the price tag of Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s colossal inanity, ordinary JVPers and their families will have to pay the price of JVP leaders’ hara-kiri logic.
Hopefully sense will prevail, and the JVP will abandon this suicidal-homicidal choice. But the very fact that such an inane thought has been mooted, plus the divisive and destructive conduct of Sajith Premadasa and his cohorts, indicates that the Uva Guarantee can well turn into a mirage, an additional tragic may possibly-have-been. (Sajith Premadasa conduct is the opposite of his father’s. Ranasinghe Premadasa worked, harder than every person else, for the party sans situations. His attitude was “First we will canvass the whole nation and then ask for our due place”[ii].)
The outburst of post-election violence in Uva (which reached unprecedented levels) is yet another signal of coming events. The Rajapaksas are not going to go, lawfully and democratically. They will do every thing they can, from trickery to thuggary, to remain.
“Better to destroy than to make cost-free,” Schiller’s Grand Inquisitor tells a wavering King Philip in Don Carols. That would be the Rajapaksa attitude, as Siblings, Sons and Nephews ready themselves to face a suddenly not-so-specific future.
The Plague of Tyranny
Jean-Claude Duvalier, ‘Baby Doc’, died yesterday of organic causes. At 19 years he inherited the presidency from his father and ruled supreme for the subsequent 14 years. Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier came to power electorally and transformed Haiti into a tyranny and himself into its president-for-life. Over the subsequent numerous decades, the Duvaliers made Haiti into a byword for repression and murder, poverty and backwardness.
The still ongoing plight of Haiti indicates that receiving rid of a tyrant may turn out to be the straightforward element. Recovering from tyranny is a far arduous task. Restoring to well being institutions and human habits undermined by tyranny frequently proves to be beyond the frail capacities of newly liberated lands and their newly free of charge individuals. The longer a tyranny lasts, the tougher it is to create a democracy on its ruins. This is especially so exactly where tyrants have undermined and destroyed all countervailing powers and institutions, turning nations into their private/familial preserves.
The inclusion of de facto Chief Justice Mohan Pieris in the presidential delegation to Vatican demonstrates (again) the degradation of one particular of the most fundamental pillars of the state. Right now the upper judiciary is a mere appendage of the Ruling Family. If the Rajapaksas can be evicted next year, it may nevertheless be feasible to repair the damage and restore the judiciary to overall health. But if Rajapaksa rule continues for a lot of a lot more years, the virus of subservience will infect the entirety of that august institution and even the memory of judiciary as an independent pillar of state will vanish. The next generation, like the next generation of judges and lawyers, will think it natural and normal for the judiciary to act as an instrument of Rajapaksa energy.
As Joachim Fest pointed out, “At initial the numerous violations of the law by our new rulers nonetheless caused a degree of disquiet…. quickly life went on as if such crimes had been the most all-natural factor in the world”[iii].
Rulers set trends. We learnt to drink tea from the British. The Sinhala-Buddhist morality espoused by Anagarika Dharmapala and his ideological descendents is much more akin to English Puritanism, German Calvinism and Victorian values. The colourful costume worn by the Kandyan kings and aristocracy (which goes by the misnomer, ‘Mul Anduma’, original dress) was naturally copied from the European fashions of the 15th/16th century, brought to Lanka by the Portuguese. These days the kurrakkan shawl of the Rajapaksas has grow to be a fashion accessory among the new elite and these aspiring to that status. Rank nepotism, abuse, impunity and intolerance are some of the Rajapaksa values which are percolating into larger society. 5 far more years of this contamination, and even the ousting of the Rajapaksas will not suffice to bring Lanka back to overall health and sense.
The Opposition has been buoyed by Uva. But Uva represents a possible, a chance, an opportunity and not a certainty. The Rajapaksas will do everything in their energy to avert the opposition from capitalising on Uva. The unresolved crisis in the UNP and the JVP’s choice to boycott elections are merely the 1st stumbling blocks in the opposition’s achievable path to victory.
Uva opened a trapdoor. It can be widened into an exit for the Rajapaksas.
It can be done. But will we do it?
[i] JVP concerns statement about presidential elections: If Mahinda Comes We won’t – Irida Divayina – five.ten.2014
[ii] Quoted in ‘President Premadasa and I: Our Story’ – B Sirisena Cooray
Border Aggression and Civilian Massacres – Component 3
We saw in earlier chapters that Gandhiyam and other social service NGOs assisting Tamils in these border areas had been getting targetted from late 1982. Gandhiyam was sealed in April 1983 and its leaders detained. On the eve of the July ’83 violence Gamini Dissanayake created veiled threats of robust-arm techniques against Tamils settled in areas earmarked for Sinhalese colonisation (Chapter five). In the prison massacre, Dr. Rajasundaram, probably the single most active worker among these refugees in the field, was murdered by the State in a most contemptible manner.
In the weeks following the July violence there was an air of impunity and anarchy and also, as we shall see, grand plans to drive away the Tamil settlers and even destroy old Tamil villages along border places and put in militarised Sinhalese settlements. And whom did these strategists decide on as their model? Why, Israel of course! Gamini Dissanayake was at the forefront and for him it was a continuation of what was begun just before the July 1983 violence. He was soon joined by Ravi Jayewardene who, as the President’s security advisor, was a important figure at operational level.
On the 1 hand Jayewardene was speaking to the Indian Government’s envoy G. Parthasarathy who was attempting to push by means of a political settlement to the ethnic dilemma, but on the other he was making overtures to the US in a bid to obtain a military remedy. The num- ber of Tamil militants nevertheless was then tiny and the escalation sought by Jayewardene was to prove really expensive.
In the afternoon of 30th September 1983, the US Defence Secretary Casper Weinberger flew into Colombo and had talks with President Jayewardene for the duration of a short stopover. This was picked up by the Indian Press, which speculated about US military help to Sri Lanka in re- turn for naval facilities at Trincomalee. The manner in which the Sri Lankan foreign ministry dealt with the matter was to look for difficulty where none existed. They issued a statement that Weinberger had decided to take this route whilst flying from Peking to Islamabad in Pakistan, and had made a refuelling cease in Colombo. They stressed that it was none of India’s business. While Weinberger was here on a 90 minute stopover, the statement said, Jayewardene invited him to tea and they met. The Foreign Ministry by its haughty attitude gave an impression that a favourable deal with a super energy was involved. These developments have been the context in which the Indian Government took a choice in late 1983 to train and arm Tamil militant groups.
What the US was hunting for, would grow to be clear later. The US and Britain did not want to confront India by becoming straight involved in Sri Lanka. The Weekend columnist Don Mithuna (30.9.84), quoting the London Economist, mentioned: “The Americans produced up for their own cold-shoul- dering of Sri Lanka by offering a go-among, Gen- eral Vernon Walters, who helped to draft the agree- ment signed last Might (1984) with Israel.” Regardless of denials by the US Embassy in Colombo, that there had been some direct US help is suggested by the American author of Only Man is Vile. William Mc Gowan quoted a Sri Lankan Air Force pilot telling him (in 1987) that a Vietnam War veteran had flown several operations in this country.
Sri Lanka had broken diplomatic ties with Israel in 1970 in maintaining with a Third Globe consensus when the Left-leaning government led by Mrs. Bandaranaike was voted into energy. Jayewardene’s government that was elected in 1977 was anxious for Israeli help. That it had produced speak to with Israel ahead of the July 1983 violence was confirmed in an interview to the veteran journalist Mervyn de Silva by Mr. David Matnai, initial head of the Israeli Interests Section in the US Embassy (Sunday Island two.9.85).
There was a single matter regarding which sections of both the Sinhalese and the Tamil elite drew inspiration from Israel – the border places of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. The former saw in the Israeli example a indicates to breaking the back of Tamil nationalist aspira- tions and preserving a unitary Sri Lanka below the hegemony of the Sinhalese elite. The Tamil elite saw in it a means of securing the sparsely populated border areas from additional intrusions by the State by means of colonisation. The Western Jewry’s Zionist dream of Israel, was made viable by absorbing a large quantity of Shepardim Jews who till then had been living with dignity among the Arab individuals, and to whom Israel’s violent and iniquitous creation brought insecu- rity. The Sinhalese and Tamil elite’s border projects also, like the Zionist dream, had to be accomplished by proxy.
The Sinhalese elite looked to pushing militarised colonies of deprived Sinhalese into the North-East in an Israeli West-Bank style ex- pansion into Arab territory. Numerous amongst the Tamil elite drew inspiration from Leon Uris’ Exodus which glorified the pioneering spirit of post Planet War II Jewish refugees in Palestine. Although young Tamil school leavers were can- vassed, it was largely the Tamil refugees from the Hill Nation with couple of other options in the globe who settled in these regions.
According to Sinha Ratnatunga, President Jayewardene entrusted the process of creating con- tact with Israel to his son Ravi in October 1983. Thereafter Cabinet Secretary G.V.P. Samarasinghe had a secret meeting with senior Israeli officials in Europe in the course of November 1983 (see Ratnatunge’s Politics of Terrorism p.162). The deal for Israeli intelligence knowledge was finalised later throughout UN Common Assembly ses- sions in New York and was formally operational by May possibly 1984.
Sinha Ratnatunga (p.315 of the book above) gives us an insight into the mind of the Sinha- lese establishment: “The President who is also the Minister of State Plantations also hopes to increase the plantation business in the Eastern Province. The twin objective is to develop the unused land as effectively as establish a stronger presence of the State in the area… At the initial stage, separatist [i.e. Tamil] youths objecting to such programmes could attempt to disrupt its workings, but the newly established Planters Corp [sic] supported by the typical forces might be required to defend these schemes.”
This euphemistic description no doubt takes into account the sensibilities of the Australian readership of the book. Interestingly, Don Mithuna says in the write-up of September 1984 quoted above: “The Israeli Interests Section itself has reportedly claimed that they are right here not to train any soldiers but to promote their diplomatic image as well as for “agricultural” purposes.” Mervyn de Silva told the Mossad Commission (CDN 20.7.91) that as of August 1984, there were re- portedly up to six domestic intelligence authorities from Israel operating with the Government ‘to establish a new intelligence network against the Tamils’.
Against these developments it becomes easy to recognize what was in the Government’s thoughts when the Joint Services Particular Operations Command (JOSSOP) was formed on a directive from the President at the starting of October in 1983. It was a joint organisation of the three solutions and the Police along with some civilians under Navy Commander Rear Admiral Asoka de Silva as Co-ordinator-in-Chief. Its stated purpose was to “co-ordinate anti-terrorist activities in the districts of Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaitivu and Trincomalee” (Rohan Gunasekera, Island 13.11.84). Yet another important role of JOSSOP was to oversee civil affairs such as land- settlement.
With such a high-powered organisation in location, the 1st operation to the credit of the Rear Admiral was announced in the Press a week af- ter Casper Weinberger’s check out. It was described as a ‘flush out’ operation. It had nothing at all to do with flushing out ‘terrorists’ armed to the teeth who have been certainly quite scarce at that time. This was about corralling human beings, males, girls and youngsters, and deporting them to god knows exactly where. There was no direct connection with Weinberger of course, but the context sug- gests exactly where the Government was heading.
The item by Peter Balasuriya in the Island of 7th Oct.1983 titled ‘Gandhiyam Movement’s squat- ters to be evicted’, said: “… It is stated that more than fifty stateless families, comprising practically 250 males, women and youngsters had been brought from the program- tations and settled on 500 acres earmarked by the Government for the settlement of landless villagers inside the electorate under a Planet Bank project. This encroachment had started two years ago when the Gandhiyam Movement launched a large-scale encroachment in the jungle regions of Vavuniya and Mullaitivu and other places off Vavuniya.”
It claimed that beneath a land policy scheme with Planet Bank help, landless peasant families in the Vavuniya District had been picked by the Government Agent for settlement in 500 acres of virgin forest at Pavatkulam, but was unable to proceed due to the fact of encroachers sponsored by the Gandhiyam. The aim of the stated operation was clearly to establish a Sin- halese settlement making use of Globe Bank funds. It was barely two months after the communal violence and Tamil allotees, if any, were not going to take up land in the mixed region south of Vavuniya below the supervision of the armed forces they did not trust. Gamini Dissanayake was minister of lands and Mahaveli develop- ment, and what’s far more, the second-in-command at JOSSOP was D.J. Bandaragoda, Added Secretary, Mahaveli Improvement!
Bandaragoda had been the best Govern- ment Agent for Trincomalee from the point of view of the Sinhalese State, who used each and every sub- terfuge to push Sinhalese settlement. The cam- paign against the Gandhiyam by way of the Press was first orchestrated by the Government 10 months earlier, in the course of the 1-sided Referen- dum campaign, on 28th November 1982 (see Sect. eight.2). Mr. R. Sampanthan, MP, discovered it sin- ister adequate to contact Jayewardene immedi- ately. The reference to the Gandhiyam in the Press report cited (Island 7.ten.83) was symptom- atic of sick minds that had lost any sense of pro- portion. It stated at the end:
“The activities of the Gandhiyam move- ment and its leaders in Vavuniya and other components of the Eastern Province are now the sub- ject matter of investigations by the CID and ISD. Some of its leaders are currently in cus- tody while some escaped recently after the Batticaloa jail break.”
The truth was that Gandhiyam was completed. Its offices were sealed on 6th April 1983. Of the two leaders arrested, Rajasundaram was mur- dered and the ‘some’ who escaped was in truth one – A. David. These whom the Gandhiyam had looked soon after now faced the tender mercies of the JOSSOP. The talk of investigation by the CID and ISD was only a threat to these who may well come forward to continue Gandhiyam’s work. The nasty items often being said about Rajasundaram did not strike these say- ing them as utterly indecent and unfair to a self- less and committed man whom their agents had murdered with no giving him a opportunity to ex- plain himself in court. Living in this state of thoughts was to see ghosts, as with the alacrity with which the chiefs of the Mahaveli Authority in the wake of the anti-Tamil violence of July, took measures against imagined organised hordes of Tamils occupying lands they had designated for Sinhalese colonisation.
The trigger of the JOSSOP nonetheless necessary speaking the Gandhiyam to life and attributing to it all kinds of amazing actions in order to play on Sinhalese fears. This created a climate of self-justifying repression and a blind escalation of the conflict. With every step the Government was suspending the democratic signifies to right- ing a incorrect. About this time, thanks to the 6th Amendment, nearly all the parliamentary rep- resentatives of the Tamils had lost their seats in Parliament, producing thus a symbolic break. By the end of 1983, except for these most discern- ing about the consequences of big-energy in- volvement, practically all the Tamils have been pleased about India’s support for the Tamil militant groups. The Government’s simple-minded ar- rogance had carried relations with India to breaking point.
Speaking up organised hordes of Tamils en- croaching on borderlands with Gandhiyam aid was to be the stuff of orchestrated campaigns for the duration of those occasions. The use of foreign help to es- tablish militarised Sinhalese settlements became an situation with the publication of Viktor Ostrovsky’s book (see Sect. 20.five). This was pi- ously denied. But that was part of the game. We saw above an indication of how Planet Bank money was to be employed. Not extended ahead of, the Mahadivulwewa settlement had been estab- lished in the Trincomalee District employing subter- fuge to circumvent Tamil protest. The income involved came from the European Union.
To be continued..
*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Energy – Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click right here
Clarifications and an investigation into the reports circulating with regard to High Commissioner Nonis’s assault and resignation is a need to taking into consideration their implication for Sri Lanka’s international relations, UPFA MP and political analyst Professor Rajiva Wijesinha says.
Rajiva Wijesinha MP
Professor Wijesinha, when asked about his opinion on the “Chris Nonis–Sajin Vass episode“, mentioned “The stories circulating with regard to Higher Commissioner Nonis’s resignation certainly need to have investigation as you recommend. What was reported of Minister Keheliya Rambukwella’s comments on in his resignation suggests confusion and provided the implications for our international relations, clarifications are vital.”
He also suggested this incident is in relation to the comments he has produced concerning a concerted try to take away the most effective and loyal non-profession diplomats in the service and accused External Affairs Ministry Secretary Kshenuka Seneviratne of getting behind a lot of of the these attempts.
“There is an attempt to take away effective and loyal non-career diplomats we have, Dayan in Paris, Tamara in Geneva, Asitha Perera in Rome, Palitha Kohona in New York, and later I think even Sarath Kongahage in Berlin and Chris Nonis in London. So the alleged motives for the assault of Chris are fascinating, not least since a single of these envoys told me some time back that Sajin thinks he runs Kshenuka but the reality is the other way round,” he told Colombo Telegraph.
He went on to state that despite these warning signs, it is unfortunate that the President continues to entrust foreign relations to Senevirathne, Vass and GL Peiris as Sri Lanka is bound to fail if the country’s foreign relations continue to remain in their hands.
“But those whom the gods wish to destroy they 1st make mad – and drink can contribute to this, if reports are appropriate,” he added.
Though the LTTE was placed on the EU list relating to frozen funds of terrorist organizations in 2006 based on references to decisions made by Indian authorities, the LTTE contested their upkeep on the list. They stated prior to the CVRIA that their confrontation with the Government of Sri Lanka was an ‘armed conflict’ that falls inside the which means of the International Law, subject only to International Humanitarian Law and not to Anti-Terrorist legislation. They had gone on to state that getting included in the list relating to frozen funds is primarily based on ‘unreliable grounds’ that do not derive from decisions of competent authorities.
Sri Lanka plans on spending over two billion US dollars on defence.[4] 1.74 billion of this sum, 12 % of the country’s total expenditure, will be spent on the Army, Navy and Air Force alone. A lot of the remainder will be spent on the coast guard, civil security, registration of persons and so on. Contrary to popular perceptions only 200 million US dollars, or 9 percent of the defence budget, has been allocated for improvement activities.
According to Irida Divaina, the 
The inclusion of de facto Chief Justice 
