http://rajivawijesinha.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/hypocrisy-or-delusions-%e2%80%93-the-wickedness-of-david-miliband-and-bernard-kouchner/#more-2918
Hypocrisy or Delusions – the Wickedness of David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner
June 30, 2011 in Post-Colonial Practices
David Miliband with Bernard Kouchner
Last week, after a long silence, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, former Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom and France, weighed in again to attack Sri Lanka. They had last hunted together in April 2009 when they came to Sri Lanka to try to save the terrorist Tigers from defeat at the hands of Sri Lankan forces.
Why did they do this? With regard to David Miliband, Wikileaks made it clear that he was doing this for electoral purposes. The explanation given to the Americans for his keeness was that ‘with UK elections on the horizon and many families living in Labour constituencies with slim majorities, the government is paying particular attention to Sri Lanka’. In short, Mr Miliband was willing, in order to enhance his own political prospects, to stop Sri Lanka overcoming the terrorist forces that had caused such suffering in the country, and in India too, over such a long period.
Bernard Kouchner was probably not so cynical. Certainly he made a better impression in Sri Lanka, where he seemed much more polite, unlike the bumptious Miliband. In fact Kouchner is later reported to have admitted to his envoys in Sri Lanka that he had been wrong about the situation. They indeed had reported more objectively, and the Ambassador at the time – who was honest enough to admit, after he got to Sri Lanka, that he had not known before that it was the Sri Lankan state that had funded all services in Tiger controlled areas – was refused an extension for his honesty.
But Kouchner , though a shrewd operator, did have the excuse of being an amateur and an idealist of sorts. And one can forgive the French their ignorance about Sri Lanka – as with another fish out of water, a Junior Minister who also had to be dismissed soon enough, who solemnly asked us if we had stopped using child soldiers. She clearly did not know the difference between the government and the Tigers, and more obviously she did not care.
The British however had no excuse for their monumental hypocrisy and lies. Thus Miliband, along with Kouchner, now claim that they came to Sri Lanka ‘to draw attention to the human suffering, to call for humanitarian aid and workers to be allowed in, and to call for the fighting to stop.’ On the contrary, the message they delivered was that the fighting had to stop, and Miliband, contrary to the position of the Co-Chairs on Sri Lanka, who had asked the Tigers to surrender, dodged the question put to him by the BBC in that regard.
Miliband’s culpable ignorance is apparent even in the latest article he has co-authored, if that is the right word, with Kouchner, who once again seems to have been taken along for the (or a) ride. He talks about ‘refugee camps that had been created to house Tamil refugees from Jaffna’, forgetting that Jaffna had been in government hands for years, and the camps were for the civilians from the Wanni, which the Tigers had previously controlled, who had been forced to accompany the Tigers in their retreat, to act as human shields.
The article declares that there was ‘Random shelling in areas of fighting — including after the government had announced an end to fighting’ which is nonsense because the fighting continued to the middle of May. The further claim that they saw ‘Tamil life treated as fourth or fifth class’ is nonsense, as those who were rescued from the Tigers have testified, and as the UN has acknowledged in noting how the government managed to avoid the humanitarian catastrophe that so many doomsayers were confidently predicting.
Amongst these were the two senior British diplomats in Sri Lanka, both handpicked as having served previously in David Miliband’s private office. And while the Deputy was at least human, his boss was described by a colleague as a total yes-man. His lack of social skills made him quite unfit to represent his country, and it seems that he was only made an ambassador because of his unquestioning loyalty to his Minister.
Miliband’s total lack of attention to fact is apparent when he talks about the UN Secretary General visiting Sri Lanka in March 2009, when the visit was in May, after the war ended, well after Miliband’s April visit. He claims then that Ban Ki-moon ‘wrenched from President Rajapaksa a commitment to independent investigation of alleged human rights abuses’ which is a total mis representation of what was said in the joint statement.
That characterization is typical of Miliband’s pompous approach – which he displayed in India too, as the BBC correspondent there graphically described to me – which was also indicated in his claim about how he and Mr Kouchner lectured the Sri Lankan President – ‘When we met President Mahinda Rajapaksa and members of his government, we argued that his government had legal obligations to its people, whatever the heinous tactics of the Tamil Tigers. We also urged a recognition that to win the peace, President Rajapaksa needed to reach out to Tamil minorities to make real the constitutional pledges of equal treatment for all Sri Lankans.’
Miliband assumes the rest of the world does not understand such principles. But he also forgets that, when he visited, there was no peace, and he tried to prevent peace by giving the Tigers a new lease of life.
Miiband again talks nonsense in relying for his next arguments on the panel of Experts that Ban Ki-moon set up to advise him on accountability issues. He claims that ‘tens of thousands of people lost their lives in the space of three months at the beginning of 2009’ which again ignores facts since, at the time Miliband visited at the end of April, the worst case possibility, which the UN declared was not reliable, was around 7,000 altogether.
But Miliband’s determination to persecute Sri Lanka was apparent from the moment after we defeated terrorism. He instigated a Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which he admitted in the House of Commons was intended to charge us with War Crimes. This put the kibosh on the efforts of his diplomatic sidekick in Colombo, who claimed that the session was intended to ensure that we treated the displaced well and resettled them quickly. There was no peep of acknowledgment however that their initial gloomy prognostications had been wrong, though we have now resettled almost all the 300,000 displaced, with full access to services such as education and health.
Miliband however continues to preach, asking whether the government will ‘recognize that the continued failure to resettle Tamils in an equitable way, and give them economic opportunities as well as social rights, is a dangerous cancer at the heart of Sri Lanka’s future?’ He obviously has not bothered to look at what is happening in Sri Lanka now, and the massive developments in infrastructure and educational opportunities in the area. We can certainly do better, but to talk of ‘continued failure’ is nonsense, and it is a pity that he does not read the reports of those on the ground with regard to progress.
Finally, when David Miliband, who was fully complicit in the attack on Iraq, claims that a failure to put Sri Lanka in the dock might ‘only fuel the arguments of those who want to take the law into their own hands’, one realizes he is talking from experience. Such efforts at justifying neo-colonial excesses should be recognized for the hypocrisy they are. But more seriously, such relentless hostility to a government that has got rid of terrorism from its shores suggests an even more insidious agenda – continuing turmoil for countries in which grand panjandrums like David Miliband can interfere at will.
Daily News 29 June 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/07/01/fea01.asp
Sri Lanka’s humanitarian effort:
Assistance to Jaffna Peninsula
Consequent to the LTTE attack at Muhamalai on August 11, 2006 it was not possible to use the A-9 (the main land route to Jaffna) and this resulted in the following significant challenges with regard to the Jaffna district.
* Supplies to the Jaffna Peninsula, which was through the A9 land route now had to be delivered by sea and air.
* Jaffna which was dependent on about 5,000 private traders for supplies, had to depend on 523 branches of Multi-Purpose Co-operative Societies (MPCS) when private traders ceased trading because of LTTE threats.
* The civilian population of Jaffna felt isolated as they were cut off from the South after road transport and communication between the peninsula and the rest of the island was severed. Uncertainly gripped the people.
The entire effort to keep Jaffna supplied had to depend on sea and air transportation and the CGES commenced operations having to cope with the following challenges:
*The unwillingness of vessel owners to charter vessels to the North due to the terrorist threat, demands of higher charter fares and war risk premiums.
* The inability to use the normal sea routes and the need for lengthy diversions, resulting in additional voyage time and cost.
* Refusal by the International Committee for Red Cross (ICRC) to lend its flag to enable terrorism risk-free shipping operations.
* Inadequate facilities for unloading at Kankesanturai (KKS) and Point Pedro (PPD) harbours.
* Bad weather during the North-East monsoon that made vessel unloading difficult and risky.
* Sudden breakdown of private trader network owing to LTTE threats and having to narrow down the distribution mechanism from a broader private trader network to a small number of MPCS sales outlets.
* Having to restore the local economy, by ensuring the supply of inputs (e.g. fertilizer) and facilitating the sale of local produce outside the peninsula.
Civilian cargo vessel
GA food convoy
Special logistics hub in Vavuniya
The LTTE attempted to disrupt supplies with attacks to food ships. Thus exerting indirect pressure on government to divert its military assets way from engaging the LTTE, towards protecting supply lines. ICRC refused its presence in supply ships as a monitoring body. In January 2007 LTTE suicide boats attacked MV Liverpool, a civilian cargo vessel which was unloading essential supplies at the PPD harbour. This attack on a civilian vessel resulted in destablising the other vessels that were bringing cargo to the people of Jaffna. The PPD harbour was also closed for operations as it was vulnerable to further attacks by the LTTE. A small fisheries harbour at Myliddy was renovated quickly with the construction of a new pier by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and was used for cargo operations thereafter.
In addition to the attempt of disrupting food supplies, the LTTE made many attempts to disrupt civilian life in Jaffna by instilling a fear psychosis in the minds of the civilians. In its endeaours to bring life to a halt; the schools, public transport, fuel supplies, functioning of the hospitals, etc were closed under LTTE threats.
This LTTE strategy was aimed at creating a humanitarian crisis in the Jaffna peninsula, and to instigate external intervention. The LTTE also attempted to create a siege situation to force the peninsula into submission.
Despite these challenges, the continued efforts of the government resulted in restoring normalcy to Jaffna within a short space of time, providing the required food, medicine, non food needs of the population and ensuring the maintenance of essential services of Jaffna. Special attention was paid during this period to keep the Jaffna economy moving as usual. Subsidy fertilizer provided by the government was sent in two vessels for both seasons of the year. Animal feed required for cattle and poultry farming was also provided regularly. Large quantities of construction materials were regularly supplied to help ongoing housing construction in Jaffna. Arrangements were also made to transport Jaffna produce i.e. Chillies, onions to Colombo by returning ships.
Public transport
With government forces gaining ground, the schools that were closed due to LTTE pressure were reopened within two months. All medical supplies to the Jaffna teaching hospital and other hospitals were airlifted including medical staff. The public transport was enhanced by providing 35 additional buses. Passenger transport in and out of the peninsula by sea and air was established within two months. A regular fuel supply was maintained by hiring a separate vessel by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to supply fuel regularly and also establishing a storage tank to store fuel.
The additional costs were borne by the government. GoSL was implementing a civilian centred humanitarian response.
While the humanitarian assistance to the Jaffna peninsula continued, the CGES made special arrangements to ensure regular supplies continued to the Vanni. Essential supplies into the Vanni were categorized into three groups;
*Monthly rations to the IDPs under the World Food Programme (WFP)
*Supply of essential items to IDPs displaced prior to 2005 by the MRDRS
*All supplies to Co-operative Societies for commercial purposes.
Quantities of food items to be sent to the Vanni un-cleared areas for the abovementioned three categories of recipients were decided in consultation with the WFP, the Ministry of Nation Building, the Ministry of Resettlement and the respective Government Agents (GA) on the ground.
Security forces
With regard to provisions of medical supplies, the Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition decided on the quarterly supplies to the two districts in consultation with the Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) of the respective districts. Even with the deterioration of the security situation, additional supplies were sent at their request. Once the requirement was decided the request was forwarded to the CGES for facilitation of transport with assistance from the security forces. In order to maintain regular transportation, a fleet of 300 trucks, belonging to the ‘Lorry Owners’ Association’ in Killinochchi were registered with the GA Vavuniya and maintained.
The distribution of food and other essential items in respective districts were carried out by the network of co-operative outlets under the supervision of the GAs and relevant UN staff.
The distribution of food and dry food items among the displaced families was done, based on the ration cards given to each displaced family by the WFP or the GoSL, depending on their category.
Medical supplies were received by the respective RDHS and distributed to all the functioning government hospitals.
LTTE attacks
This process continued until the supply by road was halted in January 2009, due to increasing attacks by the LTTE. The GA Vavuniya was entrusted with the task of coordinating all operations at Vavuniya on behalf of the CGES to ensure effective delivery to the two districts. The UN had its focal point to monitor the operation at the office of the GA Vavuniya. To be continued
Courtesy: Presidential Task Force for Resettlement, Development and Security in the Northern Province 2011
Thursday, June 29, 2011 - 4.00GMT
Thursday, June 29, 2011 - 4.00GMT
Only 3, 470 ex LTTE cadres in custody
The government has already released nearly 75 percent of the over 11,000 former Tamil Tiger cadres following rehabilitation.According to Secretary to the Ministry of Rehabilitation A. Dissanayake, out of the 1,1696 cadres only 3,470 are remaining to be released.By end of June a total of over 9,200 ex LTTE cadres have been released, Dissanayake said. The former cadres are given vocational training and language training at rehabilitation centers set up two years ago.Dissanayake said they can avail themselves loan facilities for self-employment at the end of rehabilitation.
http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/Current_Affairs/ca201106/20110629further_drop_in_idps.htm
Further drop in IDPsOnly 14, 725 to be resettled
The total number of IDPs is now reduced to 14, 725 with the Government's expedited resettlement process. This number includes 13 566 IDPs in Menik Farm Relief Village and 1, 159 IDPs in Jaffna Ramavil transit camp.
According to the Chief Co-ordinating Officer of the Competent Office for the IDPs, 1669 IDPs from 485 families were resettled in Suvandirapuram, Pudukudirippu on 22 June. Another 1115 IDPs from 308 families were resettled in Devapuram on 24 June while 91 IDPs from 24 families were resettled in Chemmali East, Marithimeipattu on the same day. A further 919 IDPs from 285 families were resettled in Vallipuram on 27 June.
Measures have also been taken to resettle another two batches of IDPs in the areas of the same district within the next week. Accordingly, 1200 IDPs from 339 families will be resettled in Udayarkattu North on 30 June while 639 IDPs from 195 families will be resettled in Kumarapuram, Marithimeipattu on 04 July, the Chief Co-ordinating Officer said.
The Government has resettled 2, 56, 413 IDPs in their places of origin as at yesterday (27.06 2011). This number includes 2, 18, 842 IDPs from Menik Farm Relief Village, 9, 851 IDPs from Jaffna district and 27, 720 IDPs released from all centers for humanitarian reasons.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=28985
Why did ‘genocidal’ GoSL save 300,000 civilians, 11,000 LTTE cadres
Ex-Foreign Minister asks:June 29, 2011, 9:16 pm
By Shamindra Ferdinando
BogollagamaResponding to a US threat to examine ‘other options’ unless Sri Lanka quickly addressed war crime allegations, former Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said that Sri Lankan military effort against the LTTE was definitely an integral part of the US-led global war on terror.
There couldn’t be any dispute over that, Bogollagama said in a brief interview with The Island yesterday. The ex-MP emphasised that it would be a huge mistake for the international community to decry Sri Lanka’s successful war against the LTTE on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations made in the controversial ‘Darusman Report’ and the Channel 4 film, ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’. Responding to a query, Bogollagama said that the US action targeting Sri Lanka hadn’t been prompted by domestic political issues like the case of the UK and some other European countries. "We never practised extra-judicial killings as a state policy, in spite of repeated LTTE provocations and target killings in the South, including high profile political assassinations," Bogollagama said.
The US support had, Bogollagama said, facilitated the Sri Lanka campaign. "We benefited immensely from their assistance ranging from the Offshore Patrol Vessel ‘Courageous’ to intelligence leading to some of the operations targeting LTTE ships on the high seas and measures to deny LTTE financial support. The US also thwarted attempts by the LTTE to acquire weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles," the former Foreign Minister said. "We need to discuss the war crimes issue with the US and bare the on-going attempt to discredit the country at the behest of the LTTE rump," he said.
Referring to ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ Bogollagama pointed out that the very basis of the charge that Sri Lanka had ordered UN staff out of Vanni in Sept. 2008 to conduct a war without witnesses had now been proved wrong. The ICRC had been present at Puthukudirippu on the Vanni east front until Jan. 2009, Bogollagama said adding that the international community couldn’t be unaware that the government had gone out of its way to ensure food supplies to
civilians trapped in the war zone until shortly before the LTTE collapsed.
Bogollagama said that the government of Sri Lanka had been accused of waging what the LTTE rump and a section of the media called a genocidal war against Tamil speaking people. But they had forgotten that even after the UN quit Kilinochchi at the behest of the government in Oct. 2008, the World Food Programme (WFP) continued to move overland food convoys until Jan. 23, 2009. Although overland food convoys had to be stopped, the government again with the support of the international community had moved 3,150 MT of food, including vegetables from Feb. 19, 2009 to May 8, 2009, Bogollagama said.
The ex--Foreign Minister said if the government had wanted to exterminate the entire Vanni community, it wouldn’t have sent them food and medicine and allowed the ICRC to carry out an operation to evacuate the sick and wounded from the war zone. The government had also allowed a group of Indian medical personnel to be stationed at Pulmoddai, north of Trincomalee to receive the sick and the wounded, Bogollagama said. Had there been deliberate artillery strikes by the Sri Lankan Army on makeshift medical facilities in the war zone as alleged by "Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields" the military wouldn’t have facilitated evacuation of the wounded, he said.
Bogollagama said those levelling war crimes allegations against SriLanka turned a blind eye to the fact the Sri Lanka military had acknowledged the detention of over 11,600 LTTE cadres following the conclusion of the war. "If the military didn’t want witnesses, it could have massacred them or held them in detention for many years. But within two years of the conclusion of the conflict, over 7,000 ex-LTTE personnel are now free and living with their families. There is a likelihood of the remaining personnel being released by end of this year. An army struggling to hide indiscriminate military action will never ever release thousands of detainees soon after the war," Bogollagama said.
The government had, through the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, gone to the extent of involving the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in an unprecedented plan to help ex-LTTE cadres find employment, he said. "What all our critics have to realise is that the government throughout the offensive never sought to deny international organisations access to civilians. The UN and other foreign agencies employed hundreds of Tamil workers living in areas under LTTE control. In fact, the LTTE detained Tamils employed by the UN for helping civilians to reach government-held areas, at an early phase of the Vanni offensive," the former Kurunegala District MP said.
Why did ‘genocidal’ GoSL save 300,000 civilians, 11,000 LTTE cadres
Ex-Foreign Minister asks:June 29, 2011, 9:16 pm
By Shamindra Ferdinando
BogollagamaResponding to a US threat to examine ‘other options’ unless Sri Lanka quickly addressed war crime allegations, former Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said that Sri Lankan military effort against the LTTE was definitely an integral part of the US-led global war on terror.
There couldn’t be any dispute over that, Bogollagama said in a brief interview with The Island yesterday. The ex-MP emphasised that it would be a huge mistake for the international community to decry Sri Lanka’s successful war against the LTTE on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations made in the controversial ‘Darusman Report’ and the Channel 4 film, ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’. Responding to a query, Bogollagama said that the US action targeting Sri Lanka hadn’t been prompted by domestic political issues like the case of the UK and some other European countries. "We never practised extra-judicial killings as a state policy, in spite of repeated LTTE provocations and target killings in the South, including high profile political assassinations," Bogollagama said.
The US support had, Bogollagama said, facilitated the Sri Lanka campaign. "We benefited immensely from their assistance ranging from the Offshore Patrol Vessel ‘Courageous’ to intelligence leading to some of the operations targeting LTTE ships on the high seas and measures to deny LTTE financial support. The US also thwarted attempts by the LTTE to acquire weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles," the former Foreign Minister said. "We need to discuss the war crimes issue with the US and bare the on-going attempt to discredit the country at the behest of the LTTE rump," he said.
Referring to ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ Bogollagama pointed out that the very basis of the charge that Sri Lanka had ordered UN staff out of Vanni in Sept. 2008 to conduct a war without witnesses had now been proved wrong. The ICRC had been present at Puthukudirippu on the Vanni east front until Jan. 2009, Bogollagama said adding that the international community couldn’t be unaware that the government had gone out of its way to ensure food supplies to
civilians trapped in the war zone until shortly before the LTTE collapsed.
Bogollagama said that the government of Sri Lanka had been accused of waging what the LTTE rump and a section of the media called a genocidal war against Tamil speaking people. But they had forgotten that even after the UN quit Kilinochchi at the behest of the government in Oct. 2008, the World Food Programme (WFP) continued to move overland food convoys until Jan. 23, 2009. Although overland food convoys had to be stopped, the government again with the support of the international community had moved 3,150 MT of food, including vegetables from Feb. 19, 2009 to May 8, 2009, Bogollagama said.
The ex--Foreign Minister said if the government had wanted to exterminate the entire Vanni community, it wouldn’t have sent them food and medicine and allowed the ICRC to carry out an operation to evacuate the sick and wounded from the war zone. The government had also allowed a group of Indian medical personnel to be stationed at Pulmoddai, north of Trincomalee to receive the sick and the wounded, Bogollagama said. Had there been deliberate artillery strikes by the Sri Lankan Army on makeshift medical facilities in the war zone as alleged by "Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields" the military wouldn’t have facilitated evacuation of the wounded, he said.
Bogollagama said those levelling war crimes allegations against SriLanka turned a blind eye to the fact the Sri Lanka military had acknowledged the detention of over 11,600 LTTE cadres following the conclusion of the war. "If the military didn’t want witnesses, it could have massacred them or held them in detention for many years. But within two years of the conclusion of the conflict, over 7,000 ex-LTTE personnel are now free and living with their families. There is a likelihood of the remaining personnel being released by end of this year. An army struggling to hide indiscriminate military action will never ever release thousands of detainees soon after the war," Bogollagama said.
The government had, through the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, gone to the extent of involving the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in an unprecedented plan to help ex-LTTE cadres find employment, he said. "What all our critics have to realise is that the government throughout the offensive never sought to deny international organisations access to civilians. The UN and other foreign agencies employed hundreds of Tamil workers living in areas under LTTE control. In fact, the LTTE detained Tamils employed by the UN for helping civilians to reach government-held areas, at an early phase of the Vanni offensive," the former Kurunegala District MP said.
Intelligence unit and database connected to Interpol:
http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/06/30/sec01.asp
Intelligence unit and database connected to Interpol:
SL to enhance border security
Project will help identify passengers arriving and leaving Sri Lanka instantly:
Sandasen MARASINGHE
Shantha Kulasekara
The government has planned to establish a Migration Intelligence Unit and a National Stolen and Lost Travel Document Passport database with “on-line real-time access” to Interpol’s global database to enhance Sri Lanka’s border security, strengthening its counter terrorism capacity.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) initiated this project under the directions of the Defence Ministry, International Organization for Migration, Migration Management Head Shantha Kulasekara told the Daily News.
The government will implement the project by the end of this year.
“The Interpol database services will be integrated with Sri Lanka’s immigration information system through the National Central Bureau,” he said on the sidelines of a two day workshop at the Taj Samudra Hotel yesterday morning hosted by IOM with the participation of senior officials from the Defence Ministry, Department of Immigration and Emigration, Criminal Investigation Department and State Intelligence Services. Kulasekara said with the implementation of this project the Immigration Border Control System will be able to access the Interpol database services within a split second which consists of over 20 million data on lost passports and related documents.
He added that the authorities would be able to identify the passengers arriving and leaving Sri Lanka instantly or before hand so that the arrival or the departure of high risk passengers could be prevented beforehand if needed. Kulasekara said that cross border criminal activities such as money laundering, drug trafficking, illegal arms trade, financial fraud and people smuggling, which are the main avenues for financing terrorism all over the world, are conducted due to a relaxed international travel environment and improvement in transport worldwide.
He added that this move was of great importance to protect our borders and enhance the capacity of counter terrorism. The workshop is a component of a government of Canada funded project to support Sri Lanka’s border security by strengthening its capacity to collect, analyse and share immigration intelligence. It is also a part of a boarder global Counter-Terrorism Capacity Building Programme established by the Canadian government.
Intelligence unit and database connected to Interpol:
SL to enhance border security
Project will help identify passengers arriving and leaving Sri Lanka instantly:
Sandasen MARASINGHE
Shantha Kulasekara
The government has planned to establish a Migration Intelligence Unit and a National Stolen and Lost Travel Document Passport database with “on-line real-time access” to Interpol’s global database to enhance Sri Lanka’s border security, strengthening its counter terrorism capacity.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) initiated this project under the directions of the Defence Ministry, International Organization for Migration, Migration Management Head Shantha Kulasekara told the Daily News.
The government will implement the project by the end of this year.
“The Interpol database services will be integrated with Sri Lanka’s immigration information system through the National Central Bureau,” he said on the sidelines of a two day workshop at the Taj Samudra Hotel yesterday morning hosted by IOM with the participation of senior officials from the Defence Ministry, Department of Immigration and Emigration, Criminal Investigation Department and State Intelligence Services. Kulasekara said with the implementation of this project the Immigration Border Control System will be able to access the Interpol database services within a split second which consists of over 20 million data on lost passports and related documents.
He added that the authorities would be able to identify the passengers arriving and leaving Sri Lanka instantly or before hand so that the arrival or the departure of high risk passengers could be prevented beforehand if needed. Kulasekara said that cross border criminal activities such as money laundering, drug trafficking, illegal arms trade, financial fraud and people smuggling, which are the main avenues for financing terrorism all over the world, are conducted due to a relaxed international travel environment and improvement in transport worldwide.
He added that this move was of great importance to protect our borders and enhance the capacity of counter terrorism. The workshop is a component of a government of Canada funded project to support Sri Lanka’s border security by strengthening its capacity to collect, analyse and share immigration intelligence. It is also a part of a boarder global Counter-Terrorism Capacity Building Programme established by the Canadian government.
Another 1,066 resettled in North Wednesday, 29 June 2011 03:13
http://print.dailymirror.lk/news/news/48494.html
Another 1,066 resettled in North
Wednesday, 29 June 2011 03:13
Test and pic by RomeshMadushanka
One thousand and sixty six displaced people left their temporary camps in Vavuniya to be resettled in the original places of residence at Vallipuram and Puthukudirippu in the Mullaitivu district, the Resettlement Ministry said yesterday.
The ministry said 630 of them had lived in the Kadirgamar temporary relief village while the rest were from the Ananda Kumaraswami village.
Resettlement Minister Gunaratna Weerakoon said the displaced people had been resettled after the land mines had been cleared and confirmation obtained that the area was safe.
He said the government would provide dry rations for six months until the newly settled people could fend for themselves and added that infrastructure facilities such as electricity, roads and livelihood would be provided by the government.
The minister said each of the families who left the camps were given a parcel of dry rations worth Rs.4,500 at a total cost of Rs.1.2 million.
The minister said 254,039 people had been resettled so far in the Northern Province and those still living in camps would be resettled before the end of this year adding that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had asked the relevant authorities to complete the process of resettlement as early as possible.
Another 1,066 resettled in North
Wednesday, 29 June 2011 03:13
Test and pic by RomeshMadushanka
One thousand and sixty six displaced people left their temporary camps in Vavuniya to be resettled in the original places of residence at Vallipuram and Puthukudirippu in the Mullaitivu district, the Resettlement Ministry said yesterday.
The ministry said 630 of them had lived in the Kadirgamar temporary relief village while the rest were from the Ananda Kumaraswami village.
Resettlement Minister Gunaratna Weerakoon said the displaced people had been resettled after the land mines had been cleared and confirmation obtained that the area was safe.
He said the government would provide dry rations for six months until the newly settled people could fend for themselves and added that infrastructure facilities such as electricity, roads and livelihood would be provided by the government.
The minister said each of the families who left the camps were given a parcel of dry rations worth Rs.4,500 at a total cost of Rs.1.2 million.
The minister said 254,039 people had been resettled so far in the Northern Province and those still living in camps would be resettled before the end of this year adding that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had asked the relevant authorities to complete the process of resettlement as early as possible.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=28810
Post-war recovery project receives unexpected boost due to increased inward remittances
Tamil Diaspora renew faith in BOC-led banking system
June 27, 2011, 8:31 pm
BOC mobile unit at Menik FarmBy Shamindra Ferdinando
With the collapse of the LTTE, many Tamils living overseas have begun transferring money to their relatives, particularly the war displaced in the Vanni region. Expatriate Tamils are utilizing the services of the State Banking network, with the Bank of Ceylon (BOC) accounting for the lion’s share in the growing inward remittances market.
Banking sources told The Island that there had been a marked increase in remittances from many countries, including Norway, Canada, US, Malaysia and Singapore.
Since the conclusion of the war in May 2009, thousands of new accounts have been opened with two State banks, BOC and People’s Bank as well as with Seylan Bank, National Savings Bank, Sampath Bank and Commercial Bank. The BOC is the main beneficiary of the banking boom in areas once under LTTE control. Northern Tamils have received well over one billion rupees from their relatives living abroad through the BOC since May 2009. Other State and private sector financial institutions, too, have stood to gain from the surge in the inward remittances market, according to banking sources.
Intelligence sources told The Island that the ongoing investigation by the Government of the Netherlands into LTTE financial networks would prove that funds raised abroad had never been utilized for the benefit of the war affected. Theirs was an operation to bolster the group’s power to acquire arms, ammunition, and equipment and bribe various influential persons in the West, sources said. The LTTE went to the extent of threatening those living in areas under their control to force their loved ones to make regular payments to the war effort.
Presidential Task Force for Resettlement, Development and Security in the Northern Province said that a total of Rs. 1,908.71mn had been deposited in 50,982 new accounts opened by the war displaced following the end of war in May 2009. The new accounts comprised 36,954 with BOC, People’s Bank (9,334), Sampath Bank (170), National Savings Bank (863), Seylan Bank (3,326) and Commercial Bank (335).
People who returned to the army controlled areas during the war deposited Rs. 1,908.71 mn with banks.
Post-war recovery project receives unexpected boost due to increased inward remittances
Tamil Diaspora renew faith in BOC-led banking system
June 27, 2011, 8:31 pm
BOC mobile unit at Menik FarmBy Shamindra Ferdinando
With the collapse of the LTTE, many Tamils living overseas have begun transferring money to their relatives, particularly the war displaced in the Vanni region. Expatriate Tamils are utilizing the services of the State Banking network, with the Bank of Ceylon (BOC) accounting for the lion’s share in the growing inward remittances market.
Banking sources told The Island that there had been a marked increase in remittances from many countries, including Norway, Canada, US, Malaysia and Singapore.
Since the conclusion of the war in May 2009, thousands of new accounts have been opened with two State banks, BOC and People’s Bank as well as with Seylan Bank, National Savings Bank, Sampath Bank and Commercial Bank. The BOC is the main beneficiary of the banking boom in areas once under LTTE control. Northern Tamils have received well over one billion rupees from their relatives living abroad through the BOC since May 2009. Other State and private sector financial institutions, too, have stood to gain from the surge in the inward remittances market, according to banking sources.
Intelligence sources told The Island that the ongoing investigation by the Government of the Netherlands into LTTE financial networks would prove that funds raised abroad had never been utilized for the benefit of the war affected. Theirs was an operation to bolster the group’s power to acquire arms, ammunition, and equipment and bribe various influential persons in the West, sources said. The LTTE went to the extent of threatening those living in areas under their control to force their loved ones to make regular payments to the war effort.
Presidential Task Force for Resettlement, Development and Security in the Northern Province said that a total of Rs. 1,908.71mn had been deposited in 50,982 new accounts opened by the war displaced following the end of war in May 2009. The new accounts comprised 36,954 with BOC, People’s Bank (9,334), Sampath Bank (170), National Savings Bank (863), Seylan Bank (3,326) and Commercial Bank (335).
People who returned to the army controlled areas during the war deposited Rs. 1,908.71 mn with banks.
http://www.nationalsecurity.lk/MCNS/defence-security/index.php
Commonwealth Secretariat welcomes SL's measures to probe Channel 4 allegations
28 Jun 2011 - 15:11
There is "understandable widespread abhorrence at what Channel 4 purports to show"The Commonwealth Secretariat welcomes the measures taken by Sri Lanka to address the allegations of war crimes leveled against it by the British television station Channel 4 in a recently aired video.The Commonwealth Secretary-General's Spokesperson in a statement said the Sri Lanka Ministry of External Affairs has informed the Secretariat that if the allegations levelled in the television programme are found to be genuine, the country's own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) will take due note and remedial measures will be taken by way of legal sanctions."The Secretariat welcomes this undertaking to establish the facts of the situation, and to complete a full, credible, and thorough investigation that reflects Commonwealth values and principles to which all members subscribe," the Commonwealth Secretariat said.Noting that there is "understandable widespread abhorrence at what the programme purports to show," the Commonwealth said it has conveyed these to the Sri Lankan government.The Commonwealth Secretary-General has made this statement on 23 June 2011 in response to queries received, the Spokesperson stated.The Commonwealth Secretariat said it has received expressions of concern about the contents of a recent television programme concerning the conflict in Sri Lanka.The government has informed the Secretariat that the video footage will be given the attention that it obviously merits, by the LLRC.Courtesy: PRIU
Print E-
Commonwealth Secretariat welcomes SL's measures to probe Channel 4 allegations
28 Jun 2011 - 15:11
There is "understandable widespread abhorrence at what Channel 4 purports to show"The Commonwealth Secretariat welcomes the measures taken by Sri Lanka to address the allegations of war crimes leveled against it by the British television station Channel 4 in a recently aired video.The Commonwealth Secretary-General's Spokesperson in a statement said the Sri Lanka Ministry of External Affairs has informed the Secretariat that if the allegations levelled in the television programme are found to be genuine, the country's own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) will take due note and remedial measures will be taken by way of legal sanctions."The Secretariat welcomes this undertaking to establish the facts of the situation, and to complete a full, credible, and thorough investigation that reflects Commonwealth values and principles to which all members subscribe," the Commonwealth Secretariat said.Noting that there is "understandable widespread abhorrence at what the programme purports to show," the Commonwealth said it has conveyed these to the Sri Lankan government.The Commonwealth Secretary-General has made this statement on 23 June 2011 in response to queries received, the Spokesperson stated.The Commonwealth Secretariat said it has received expressions of concern about the contents of a recent television programme concerning the conflict in Sri Lanka.The government has informed the Secretariat that the video footage will be given the attention that it obviously merits, by the LLRC.Courtesy: PRIU
Print E-
http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20110628_03
108 ex LTTE members preparing for GCE(A/L) in 2011
Rehabilitation Commissioner General, Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe said that one hundred and eight former LTTE members who are undergoing rehabilitation are preparing for the forth coming GCE (A/L)examination in August 2011.
Further he stated that all former LTTE members who are in rehabilitation centers in North and East would be integrated to the society by the end of this year. According to the sources still there are 3,500 persons in rehabilitation centers
Over 50 percent of the rehabilitated ex-combatants had successfully completed the GCE (O/L) examination last year.
According to the rehabilitation Commissioner General another group of 600 rehabilitated former LTTE cadres is to be released in Vavuniya in the first week of July 2011.
108 ex LTTE members preparing for GCE(A/L) in 2011
Rehabilitation Commissioner General, Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe said that one hundred and eight former LTTE members who are undergoing rehabilitation are preparing for the forth coming GCE (A/L)examination in August 2011.
Further he stated that all former LTTE members who are in rehabilitation centers in North and East would be integrated to the society by the end of this year. According to the sources still there are 3,500 persons in rehabilitation centers
Over 50 percent of the rehabilitated ex-combatants had successfully completed the GCE (O/L) examination last year.
According to the rehabilitation Commissioner General another group of 600 rehabilitated former LTTE cadres is to be released in Vavuniya in the first week of July 2011.
http://rajivawijesinha.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/refugee-from-sun-sea-ordered-deported-for-role-in-tamil-tiger-propaganda-video/#more-2907
Refugee from Sun Sea ordered deported for role in Tamil Tiger propaganda video
June 28, 2011 in Post-Colonial Practices
443 adults and 49 children are among the refugees who have travelled for 3 months in the cargo ship MV Sun Sea.
While various media outlets in Britain are enthusiastically attacking Sri Lanka, evidence is emerging in Canada which suggests that some of the monstrosities attributed to Sri Lankan soldiers may well have been perpetrated by the Tigers. I have cited previously a report of a trial in which a man admitted that he had been involved in the cold blooded killing of wounded Sri Lankan soldiers.
‘The migrant testified that at the end of a particular battle, there was a “call” for Tigers with AK-47 rifles to come forward. Under questioning from his lawyer Fiona Begg, he testified that he took the call as an invitation — not an order — to take part in the killing of wounded Sri Lankan soldiers, who were being held inside a house.‘
It seems this involvement stopped short of him actually shooting them himself, though it is a moot point whether he asked others to do the horrible deed instead –
Kevin Hatch, the representative for the Canada Border Services Agency seeking the man’s deportation, told the board that in an earlier interview, the man said that he had sent others around him to go — though there was a question of whether that statement had been accurately interpreted. Asked to clarify, the man testified Tuesday that he just mentioned to others around him that there had been a call for people with AK-47s to come forward.
It would seem that this man believes that ‘just mentioning’ to others that people with AK-47s were ‘invited’ to come forward did not make him culpable, and I have no doubt the brilliant intellects at Channel 4 would come to the same conclusion. After all the Canadian newspaper does rather hopefully say that ‘It was never made clear Tuesday whether the detained Sri Lankan soldiers were actually executed.’
The original - including giggling girl with a camera filming other girls supposedly running from a scene of battle
Perhaps indeed the whole exercise was simply a spoof to frighten the poor wounded Sri Lankan soldiers, before feeding them turtle soup and making them generally comfortable. For soon afterwards another Canadian newspaper described yet another occupation in which the Tigers engaged. An article in ‘Postmedia News’ of the ‘Vancouver Sun’ on May 31st 2011 describes how yet another migrant from ‘the MV Sun Sea’ was ordered to be deported after the Immigration and Refugee Board found that ‘his activities in Sri Lanka -including an appearance in a Tamil Tiger propaganda video -constituted membership in a terrorist organization.’
The spoof - dated 10/05/2009
This character it seems ‘was never a formal member of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and never participated directly in the group’s armed struggle’. However it was found that he was ‘more than a mere sympathizer and that his contributions to the LTTE were much more than minimal or marginal.’ He had participated ‘in a fictional movie portraying an attack on Sri Lankan army forces. The movie also showed LTTE fighters training and engaging in hand-to-hand combat.’
Rather splendidly, his lawyer, a man called Shepherd Moss, ‘had argued that the movie could have been entertainment, or even a spoof.’ The adjudicator however decided that ‘the movie was LTTE propaganda, made to support their war aims’.
Isaipriya in Tamil Tiger Uniform
Mr Moss it seems is rather like those Channel 4 worthies who decided that Ms Isaipriya was a journalist whose work for the LTTE did not qualify her to be considered a terrorist. Even though she was dressed in military fatigues for the photograph in the identity card issued to her by the LTTE, she is seen by Channel 4 as a civilian who was not involved in combat operations due to her health condition. Presumably for Channel 4 Goebbels too was simply a civilian who should not have been tried at Nuremberg – indeed, given the tactics they use, based on the belief that, the larger the lie, the more credible it is, they would have awarded Goebbels a medal and made him Honorary Chairman of their company, as its chief inspiration.
Channel 4 did seem to recognize that Issipriya glorified Black Tigers who carried out suicide missions, but her role in thus pushing youngsters into that disgusting task must seem to them not a war crime, but rather a reason for an Emmy, or whatever it is the British media rejoices in. In this regard I should note that the Norwegian Embassy, when they were told that the website of the LTTE Peace Secretariat was glorifying suicide cadres, told them that this item should be removed. Sadly, UNDP, which had also contributed to the LTTE Peace Secretariat website, did not have a similar sense of responsibility and, though they agreed that what the LTTE was doing was wrong, they did not think it incumbent upon them to protest at this abuse of their generosity for what they had assumed was the promotion of peace.
Given that Mr Thamil Chelvam, the Head of what was supposed to be the LTTE’s political wing, went around in military fatigues – and indeed had a child soldier in such fatigues at his funeral – it must have been clear to anyone actually concerned with abuse of the Tamils of the Wanni that the LTTE made no distinction between civilians and cadres. The more senior of its functionaries fulfilling civil roles, such as Thamil Chelvam and Issipriya were naturally dressed in military uniform and would have held appropriate ranks in the forces.
But, like the fast thinking Mr Moss, perhaps Channel 4 would argue that this was simply for entertainment, just a spoof, to take in the children of the Wanni and make them think there was no alternative to military life, when really they would have been allowed to continue in school if they had only asked nicely when they were being dragged away.
More intelligent analysis will however make it clear that
The LTTE ordered (or requested) that captured Sri Lankan soldiers should be executed.
The instrument of choice was the AK-47, and even those who did not agree with the decision simply ‘mentioned to others…that there had been a call for people withAK-47s to come forward’.
Others involved in the LTTE made propaganda films for the LTTE
A lawyer appearing for one such person claimed that such a film could have been a spoof
Channel 4 has shown a film that it has described in different ways on different occasions
Despite initial denials, it is now admitted that that film was edited, and that what is presented as a sequence was filmed at different times and (according to one so-called UN expert) at different locations
Is it not quite likely that experienced makers of propaganda films, who delighted also in spoofs (and we have the picture of a giggling girl with a camera filming other girls supposedly running from a scene of battle), might have filmed one of their executions to suggest that it was Sri Lankan soldiers doing the executing, and that the victims were terrorists rather than the wounded soldiers who were so ruthlessly shot with AK-47s?
Daily News 23 June 2011
Refugee from Sun Sea ordered deported for role in Tamil Tiger propaganda video
June 28, 2011 in Post-Colonial Practices
443 adults and 49 children are among the refugees who have travelled for 3 months in the cargo ship MV Sun Sea.
While various media outlets in Britain are enthusiastically attacking Sri Lanka, evidence is emerging in Canada which suggests that some of the monstrosities attributed to Sri Lankan soldiers may well have been perpetrated by the Tigers. I have cited previously a report of a trial in which a man admitted that he had been involved in the cold blooded killing of wounded Sri Lankan soldiers.
‘The migrant testified that at the end of a particular battle, there was a “call” for Tigers with AK-47 rifles to come forward. Under questioning from his lawyer Fiona Begg, he testified that he took the call as an invitation — not an order — to take part in the killing of wounded Sri Lankan soldiers, who were being held inside a house.‘
It seems this involvement stopped short of him actually shooting them himself, though it is a moot point whether he asked others to do the horrible deed instead –
Kevin Hatch, the representative for the Canada Border Services Agency seeking the man’s deportation, told the board that in an earlier interview, the man said that he had sent others around him to go — though there was a question of whether that statement had been accurately interpreted. Asked to clarify, the man testified Tuesday that he just mentioned to others around him that there had been a call for people with AK-47s to come forward.
It would seem that this man believes that ‘just mentioning’ to others that people with AK-47s were ‘invited’ to come forward did not make him culpable, and I have no doubt the brilliant intellects at Channel 4 would come to the same conclusion. After all the Canadian newspaper does rather hopefully say that ‘It was never made clear Tuesday whether the detained Sri Lankan soldiers were actually executed.’
The original - including giggling girl with a camera filming other girls supposedly running from a scene of battle
Perhaps indeed the whole exercise was simply a spoof to frighten the poor wounded Sri Lankan soldiers, before feeding them turtle soup and making them generally comfortable. For soon afterwards another Canadian newspaper described yet another occupation in which the Tigers engaged. An article in ‘Postmedia News’ of the ‘Vancouver Sun’ on May 31st 2011 describes how yet another migrant from ‘the MV Sun Sea’ was ordered to be deported after the Immigration and Refugee Board found that ‘his activities in Sri Lanka -including an appearance in a Tamil Tiger propaganda video -constituted membership in a terrorist organization.’
The spoof - dated 10/05/2009
This character it seems ‘was never a formal member of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and never participated directly in the group’s armed struggle’. However it was found that he was ‘more than a mere sympathizer and that his contributions to the LTTE were much more than minimal or marginal.’ He had participated ‘in a fictional movie portraying an attack on Sri Lankan army forces. The movie also showed LTTE fighters training and engaging in hand-to-hand combat.’
Rather splendidly, his lawyer, a man called Shepherd Moss, ‘had argued that the movie could have been entertainment, or even a spoof.’ The adjudicator however decided that ‘the movie was LTTE propaganda, made to support their war aims’.
Isaipriya in Tamil Tiger Uniform
Mr Moss it seems is rather like those Channel 4 worthies who decided that Ms Isaipriya was a journalist whose work for the LTTE did not qualify her to be considered a terrorist. Even though she was dressed in military fatigues for the photograph in the identity card issued to her by the LTTE, she is seen by Channel 4 as a civilian who was not involved in combat operations due to her health condition. Presumably for Channel 4 Goebbels too was simply a civilian who should not have been tried at Nuremberg – indeed, given the tactics they use, based on the belief that, the larger the lie, the more credible it is, they would have awarded Goebbels a medal and made him Honorary Chairman of their company, as its chief inspiration.
Channel 4 did seem to recognize that Issipriya glorified Black Tigers who carried out suicide missions, but her role in thus pushing youngsters into that disgusting task must seem to them not a war crime, but rather a reason for an Emmy, or whatever it is the British media rejoices in. In this regard I should note that the Norwegian Embassy, when they were told that the website of the LTTE Peace Secretariat was glorifying suicide cadres, told them that this item should be removed. Sadly, UNDP, which had also contributed to the LTTE Peace Secretariat website, did not have a similar sense of responsibility and, though they agreed that what the LTTE was doing was wrong, they did not think it incumbent upon them to protest at this abuse of their generosity for what they had assumed was the promotion of peace.
Given that Mr Thamil Chelvam, the Head of what was supposed to be the LTTE’s political wing, went around in military fatigues – and indeed had a child soldier in such fatigues at his funeral – it must have been clear to anyone actually concerned with abuse of the Tamils of the Wanni that the LTTE made no distinction between civilians and cadres. The more senior of its functionaries fulfilling civil roles, such as Thamil Chelvam and Issipriya were naturally dressed in military uniform and would have held appropriate ranks in the forces.
But, like the fast thinking Mr Moss, perhaps Channel 4 would argue that this was simply for entertainment, just a spoof, to take in the children of the Wanni and make them think there was no alternative to military life, when really they would have been allowed to continue in school if they had only asked nicely when they were being dragged away.
More intelligent analysis will however make it clear that
The LTTE ordered (or requested) that captured Sri Lankan soldiers should be executed.
The instrument of choice was the AK-47, and even those who did not agree with the decision simply ‘mentioned to others…that there had been a call for people withAK-47s to come forward’.
Others involved in the LTTE made propaganda films for the LTTE
A lawyer appearing for one such person claimed that such a film could have been a spoof
Channel 4 has shown a film that it has described in different ways on different occasions
Despite initial denials, it is now admitted that that film was edited, and that what is presented as a sequence was filmed at different times and (according to one so-called UN expert) at different locations
Is it not quite likely that experienced makers of propaganda films, who delighted also in spoofs (and we have the picture of a giggling girl with a camera filming other girls supposedly running from a scene of battle), might have filmed one of their executions to suggest that it was Sri Lankan soldiers doing the executing, and that the victims were terrorists rather than the wounded soldiers who were so ruthlessly shot with AK-47s?
Daily News 23 June 2011
http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/06/27/fea17.asp
Death Eaters and the Return of Dark Lords of Terror
Hell-bent on making the 'layer-cake of lies' against Sri Lanka:
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, MP
Starring
David Miliband as Peter Pettigrew Navanethem Pillay as Dolores Umbridge Gareth Evans as Gideon Lockhart Jon Snow as Rita Skeeter Alan Keenan as Nagini Joan Ryan as Bellatrix Lestrange And Ban Ki-Moon as Prof Severus Snape
In May 2009 we thought the Terrorist Tigers had been vanquished. Prabhakaran was dead, along with many of his fighting cadres, and most of the rest had surrendered. It was true that some had got away in the preceding months, and a few more managed to escape, but these by and large made their way out of the country. Sri Lanka itself seemed free of terror and terrorist activities. Though the remnants of the LTTE abroad continued to stick to their original agenda, it seemed that resurrection of the movement that had wreaked so much damage was unlikely.
Rita Snow
Peter Pettigrew Miliband
Dolores Pillay
Recently however there are signs that the movement feels it has got a new lease of life. Taking advantage of what it sees as the vulnerability of the Sri Lankan government to international pressure, it has also endeavoured to convince the majority of the Tamil people abroad that the LTTE agenda can be revived. Most worryingly, it is also trying to stir dissension amongst Tamils in Sri Lanka, who would much rather work together with the rest of the country to ensure rehabilitation and reconciliation.
The strength of the old LTTE identity in other countries struck me, watching the one but last Harry Potter film, as arising from the dividing up of the LTTE persona in the way in which the evil Lord Voldemort had divided up his sole and stored the parts in seven horcruxes all over the world. While the list may not be exhaustive, we can see then the way in which LTTE rumps, in Britain and France and Canada and the United States and Australia and South Africa and India, have tried hard to make sure that their destructive agenda dominates discourse in those countries.
Once one realized how similar the LTTE was to Voldemort, the parallels flowed thick and fast. We have for instance Navanethem Pillay, who behaves exactly as Dolores Umbridge did, who was supposed to teach students to defend against the Dark Arts in the fifth Harry Potter book. What she did instead was to bully the decent people in her class, making them for instance torture themselves by a gruesome form of self confession, carving an admission of guilt into their own palms. So too Navenethem Pillay, instead of worrying about terrorism and real evil, uses her position as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to humiliate those who provided the best defence against terror.
And, just in case it might seem that I am upset about Dolores Pillay because of her relentless attacks on Sri Lanka, let me quote what one of the brighter Australians I know said - ‘Any denunciation is welcome of the preposterous Pillay woman. She’s just been in Australia denouncing us as a Syria-like human-rights abuser. Her ignorance and lack of proportion is breath taking, matched only by her arrogance and self-righteousness.’
In three of the books the teacher supposed to provide instruction against the Dark Arts turns out to be pretty nasty. One of them however is simply a gullible self-promoter called Gideon Lockhart. His opinionated flamboyance was similar to that of Gareth Evans, who first tried to make waves in Sri Lanka in 2007 by suggesting that other countries should interfere in Sri Lanka.
In invoking the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect, while also putting himself forward as the Lord Protector, he suggested that genocide and ethnic cleansing were occurring in Sri Lanka.
He did this with no idea of what he was talking about, as he admitted when he asked his speech writer what was meant by ethnic cleansing. The answer was the LTTE expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province in 1990, though anyone listening to Gideon Evans or reading his text would have assumed he was talking about recent events.
The speech writer was Alan Keenan, who has been the most dangerous perhaps of the death eaters, slithering in and out of Sri Lanka like Voldemort’s familiar Nagini.
He seems to have laid his cards on the table in a recent interview he gave to a French lady called Angelique Mounier-Kuhn, in which (in the Google translation of the French) he is supposed to have indicated that foreign governments meant the ‘want other people lead the Sri Lanka’. He goes on to made clear what he meant in adding that ‘However, from Iraq to Libya, experience shows that it is risky to push for a change regime.’
Nagini went around delivering death to all those Voldemort wanted to get rid of. These included Severus Snape, who had done his best to help those opposed to the Death Eaters whilst keeping the trust of these latter.
His predicament was in a sense similar to that of Ban Ki-Moon who, though he has often been suspected of wickedness by those fighting terror, had good reason for his circumspection. We must remember though that Snape did his best to protect Hogwarts, no easy task towards the end when Death Eaters had been placed all around him.
Having had to cope with Navanethem Pillay and Louise Arbour and Martin Lee, Ban Ki-Moon must know exactly how Snape felt.
However, with the support of heads of the old agencies, such as those of UNDP and WHO and ILO (Juan Somavia indeed looks a bit like the gentle giant Hagrid), one hopes good will triumph in the end, and that Ban Ki-Moon will not be sacrificed by Nagini Keenan in his push for regime change all over the world.
Given the desperate efforts of Jon Snow at Channel 4 to present lies and half truths as evidence of allegations he has concocted, I need hardly comment further on his resemblance to Rita Skeeter. But I should note that J K Rowling leaves it open as to whether Rita is simply an amoral journalist willing to do anything to grab attention, or whether she has more sinister motives, to which she has been brought by the emphatically wicked.
Whether wicked or not, Snow certainly resembles Rita Skeeter in other ways. I was reminded of her preposterous costumes in reading the British Sunday Times characterization of his ‘comic ties and jocund socks... It is a pathetically and worryingly childish pose in a man approaching retirement’.
The Sunday Times was more serious in criticizing the journalistic aspect of the performance - ‘Snow’s commentary was intemperate and partisan, and it was all held together by assumptions. Channel 4 News has drifted from providing news broadcasts into being an outlet for nodding spokespeople and assorted NGOs and environmental pressure groups, or anyone who can provide interesting or sensational film. It follows the old American news adage, “If it bleeds, it leads”.’
Who then are the people Snow is providing an outlet for? I have no doubt LTTE personnel are amongst those who have fed Channel 4 information, along with Sri Lankans of all groups who like Alan Keenan want regime change. But most insidious of all are the old Channel 4 patrons in the form of the last Labour government, with its now open champions such as Joan Ryan of former - and no doubt future - terrorists, crudely and unashamedly partisan like Bellatrix in the last few Harry Potter books.
It was Channel 4 after all who questioned the Lancet’s account of 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq by claiming, on October 29th 2004 if I have it right that ‘without bodies can we trust the body count?’ This is very different from their bald assertion, with no evidence at all, that there were 40,000 civilian deaths in Sri Lanka. But the reason for these double standards was made evident by the note in the New Statesman on November 15th 2004 I believe which said ‘Channel 4 delivered a hatchet job, based on Downing Street briefing’.
Tony Blair may have been responsible for many of the excesses and the cover-ups in Iraq, but he was certainly ably assisted in the latter period by his preferred successor David Miliband, who seems now to be the prime mover in the effort to resurrect the LTTE.
Miliband looks rather like Barty Crouch, who escaped from Azkaban in the guise of his old mother, and subsequently imitated Mad-Eye Moody as the Professor of Defence against the Dark Arts. His venom when he is found out makes clear the nasty inner nature of the cherubic youth who kept changing character.
David Miliband’s latest outburst about Sri Lanka however suggests a more weaselly nature than that of the relatively passive Barty Crouch. In his effort in 2009 to save Prabhakaran, his determination to take revenge on Sri Lanka through the Special Session of the Human Rights Council which he declared was to do with War Crimes (as well as the deprivation of GSP plus, when one of his sidekicks Lady Aston sent a different response to the one anticipated by her peers in Brussels), and now his leaping into the fray with a tendentious and misleading article in the New York Times, he shows himself the most determined Death Eater of them all.
He reminds me then of Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed his friends to keep in with Lord Voldemort, who turned himself into a rat to escape justice, and then when back in human form cut off his arm to ensure the return of the Dark Lord. I hope nothing quite so bad happens to Miliband. But I suspect he has forgotten, if he ever knew it, that Voldemort means a wish for death, and that the destruction terrorists can perpetrate on body and soul are immeasurable.
We have to hope then that this motley crew do not succeed. India I believe has destroyed its own horcrux, in line with the destruction of Voldemort’s Diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Despite the efforts of LTTE sympathizers to revive LTTE support in the South, I believe the Indian government will not allow terrorism to flourish again, as opposed to support for the Tamil population.
But elsewhere the residue of the terrorist movement lives on. We need to identify those elements that give it strength, and prevent their support from creating more suffering, and death and destruction, for this country that needs peace, for the world that could do without covert and overt encouragement of the Dark Lords of Terror.
Death Eaters and the Return of Dark Lords of Terror
Hell-bent on making the 'layer-cake of lies' against Sri Lanka:
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, MP
Starring
David Miliband as Peter Pettigrew Navanethem Pillay as Dolores Umbridge Gareth Evans as Gideon Lockhart Jon Snow as Rita Skeeter Alan Keenan as Nagini Joan Ryan as Bellatrix Lestrange And Ban Ki-Moon as Prof Severus Snape
In May 2009 we thought the Terrorist Tigers had been vanquished. Prabhakaran was dead, along with many of his fighting cadres, and most of the rest had surrendered. It was true that some had got away in the preceding months, and a few more managed to escape, but these by and large made their way out of the country. Sri Lanka itself seemed free of terror and terrorist activities. Though the remnants of the LTTE abroad continued to stick to their original agenda, it seemed that resurrection of the movement that had wreaked so much damage was unlikely.
Rita Snow
Peter Pettigrew Miliband
Dolores Pillay
Recently however there are signs that the movement feels it has got a new lease of life. Taking advantage of what it sees as the vulnerability of the Sri Lankan government to international pressure, it has also endeavoured to convince the majority of the Tamil people abroad that the LTTE agenda can be revived. Most worryingly, it is also trying to stir dissension amongst Tamils in Sri Lanka, who would much rather work together with the rest of the country to ensure rehabilitation and reconciliation.
The strength of the old LTTE identity in other countries struck me, watching the one but last Harry Potter film, as arising from the dividing up of the LTTE persona in the way in which the evil Lord Voldemort had divided up his sole and stored the parts in seven horcruxes all over the world. While the list may not be exhaustive, we can see then the way in which LTTE rumps, in Britain and France and Canada and the United States and Australia and South Africa and India, have tried hard to make sure that their destructive agenda dominates discourse in those countries.
Once one realized how similar the LTTE was to Voldemort, the parallels flowed thick and fast. We have for instance Navanethem Pillay, who behaves exactly as Dolores Umbridge did, who was supposed to teach students to defend against the Dark Arts in the fifth Harry Potter book. What she did instead was to bully the decent people in her class, making them for instance torture themselves by a gruesome form of self confession, carving an admission of guilt into their own palms. So too Navenethem Pillay, instead of worrying about terrorism and real evil, uses her position as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to humiliate those who provided the best defence against terror.
And, just in case it might seem that I am upset about Dolores Pillay because of her relentless attacks on Sri Lanka, let me quote what one of the brighter Australians I know said - ‘Any denunciation is welcome of the preposterous Pillay woman. She’s just been in Australia denouncing us as a Syria-like human-rights abuser. Her ignorance and lack of proportion is breath taking, matched only by her arrogance and self-righteousness.’
In three of the books the teacher supposed to provide instruction against the Dark Arts turns out to be pretty nasty. One of them however is simply a gullible self-promoter called Gideon Lockhart. His opinionated flamboyance was similar to that of Gareth Evans, who first tried to make waves in Sri Lanka in 2007 by suggesting that other countries should interfere in Sri Lanka.
In invoking the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect, while also putting himself forward as the Lord Protector, he suggested that genocide and ethnic cleansing were occurring in Sri Lanka.
He did this with no idea of what he was talking about, as he admitted when he asked his speech writer what was meant by ethnic cleansing. The answer was the LTTE expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province in 1990, though anyone listening to Gideon Evans or reading his text would have assumed he was talking about recent events.
The speech writer was Alan Keenan, who has been the most dangerous perhaps of the death eaters, slithering in and out of Sri Lanka like Voldemort’s familiar Nagini.
He seems to have laid his cards on the table in a recent interview he gave to a French lady called Angelique Mounier-Kuhn, in which (in the Google translation of the French) he is supposed to have indicated that foreign governments meant the ‘want other people lead the Sri Lanka’. He goes on to made clear what he meant in adding that ‘However, from Iraq to Libya, experience shows that it is risky to push for a change regime.’
Nagini went around delivering death to all those Voldemort wanted to get rid of. These included Severus Snape, who had done his best to help those opposed to the Death Eaters whilst keeping the trust of these latter.
His predicament was in a sense similar to that of Ban Ki-Moon who, though he has often been suspected of wickedness by those fighting terror, had good reason for his circumspection. We must remember though that Snape did his best to protect Hogwarts, no easy task towards the end when Death Eaters had been placed all around him.
Having had to cope with Navanethem Pillay and Louise Arbour and Martin Lee, Ban Ki-Moon must know exactly how Snape felt.
However, with the support of heads of the old agencies, such as those of UNDP and WHO and ILO (Juan Somavia indeed looks a bit like the gentle giant Hagrid), one hopes good will triumph in the end, and that Ban Ki-Moon will not be sacrificed by Nagini Keenan in his push for regime change all over the world.
Given the desperate efforts of Jon Snow at Channel 4 to present lies and half truths as evidence of allegations he has concocted, I need hardly comment further on his resemblance to Rita Skeeter. But I should note that J K Rowling leaves it open as to whether Rita is simply an amoral journalist willing to do anything to grab attention, or whether she has more sinister motives, to which she has been brought by the emphatically wicked.
Whether wicked or not, Snow certainly resembles Rita Skeeter in other ways. I was reminded of her preposterous costumes in reading the British Sunday Times characterization of his ‘comic ties and jocund socks... It is a pathetically and worryingly childish pose in a man approaching retirement’.
The Sunday Times was more serious in criticizing the journalistic aspect of the performance - ‘Snow’s commentary was intemperate and partisan, and it was all held together by assumptions. Channel 4 News has drifted from providing news broadcasts into being an outlet for nodding spokespeople and assorted NGOs and environmental pressure groups, or anyone who can provide interesting or sensational film. It follows the old American news adage, “If it bleeds, it leads”.’
Who then are the people Snow is providing an outlet for? I have no doubt LTTE personnel are amongst those who have fed Channel 4 information, along with Sri Lankans of all groups who like Alan Keenan want regime change. But most insidious of all are the old Channel 4 patrons in the form of the last Labour government, with its now open champions such as Joan Ryan of former - and no doubt future - terrorists, crudely and unashamedly partisan like Bellatrix in the last few Harry Potter books.
It was Channel 4 after all who questioned the Lancet’s account of 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq by claiming, on October 29th 2004 if I have it right that ‘without bodies can we trust the body count?’ This is very different from their bald assertion, with no evidence at all, that there were 40,000 civilian deaths in Sri Lanka. But the reason for these double standards was made evident by the note in the New Statesman on November 15th 2004 I believe which said ‘Channel 4 delivered a hatchet job, based on Downing Street briefing’.
Tony Blair may have been responsible for many of the excesses and the cover-ups in Iraq, but he was certainly ably assisted in the latter period by his preferred successor David Miliband, who seems now to be the prime mover in the effort to resurrect the LTTE.
Miliband looks rather like Barty Crouch, who escaped from Azkaban in the guise of his old mother, and subsequently imitated Mad-Eye Moody as the Professor of Defence against the Dark Arts. His venom when he is found out makes clear the nasty inner nature of the cherubic youth who kept changing character.
David Miliband’s latest outburst about Sri Lanka however suggests a more weaselly nature than that of the relatively passive Barty Crouch. In his effort in 2009 to save Prabhakaran, his determination to take revenge on Sri Lanka through the Special Session of the Human Rights Council which he declared was to do with War Crimes (as well as the deprivation of GSP plus, when one of his sidekicks Lady Aston sent a different response to the one anticipated by her peers in Brussels), and now his leaping into the fray with a tendentious and misleading article in the New York Times, he shows himself the most determined Death Eater of them all.
He reminds me then of Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed his friends to keep in with Lord Voldemort, who turned himself into a rat to escape justice, and then when back in human form cut off his arm to ensure the return of the Dark Lord. I hope nothing quite so bad happens to Miliband. But I suspect he has forgotten, if he ever knew it, that Voldemort means a wish for death, and that the destruction terrorists can perpetrate on body and soul are immeasurable.
We have to hope then that this motley crew do not succeed. India I believe has destroyed its own horcrux, in line with the destruction of Voldemort’s Diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Despite the efforts of LTTE sympathizers to revive LTTE support in the South, I believe the Indian government will not allow terrorism to flourish again, as opposed to support for the Tamil population.
But elsewhere the residue of the terrorist movement lives on. We need to identify those elements that give it strength, and prevent their support from creating more suffering, and death and destruction, for this country that needs peace, for the world that could do without covert and overt encouragement of the Dark Lords of Terror.
Monday, June 27, 2011
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_11A/Jun27_1309144615JR.php
Over 100 former LTTE members in Sri Lanka preparing to take GCE A/Level Mon, Jun 27,
June 27, Colombo: Commissioner General of Rehabilitation in Sri Lanka, Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe has said that 108 former members of the terrorist outfit, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are preparing to take the GCE Advanced Level examination in August this year.
The former Tiger cadres are currently undergoing rehabilitation, the Commissioner General has said.
Over 50 percent of the rehabilitated ex-combatants had successfully completed the GCE Ordinary Level examination last December.
Ranasinghe has observed that all former LTTE members currently undergoing rehabilitation will be re-integrated to society by the end of the year. There remain 3,500 persons in rehabilitation centers in the North and East.
Another group of 600 former LTTE cadres is to be released in the first week of July in Vavuniya following rehabilitation.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=28781
Over 365,000 IDPs return to North
June 26, 2011, 10:01 pm
by Shamindra Ferdinando
The UN and its NGO partners, in their latest bulletin dealing with the situation in May 2011, have said that in May, 58 families (171 persons) returned to their areas of origin in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi from Menik Farm and Kodikamam Ramavil IDP facilities.
They said a further 620 families (2,130 persons) living with friends and relatives, too, had returned to their homes in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts.
According to the latest available official data, since the conclusion of the conflict, 110,652 families (365,082) have returned to the Northern Province. The returnees comprised those displaced before April 2008 and after. Among the returnees are post-April 2008 displaced consisting of 45.024 families (157,269 persons).
Following the conclusion of the war, 5,284 families (17,488 persons), displaced since April 1, 2008 remained in welfare camps, awaiting clearance to return to their places of origin. Besides them, 2,360 families (8,521 persons), displaced before April 2008, too, remained in welfare centres.
A total 189,221 IDPs are living with host families.
Over 365,000 IDPs return to North
June 26, 2011, 10:01 pm
by Shamindra Ferdinando
The UN and its NGO partners, in their latest bulletin dealing with the situation in May 2011, have said that in May, 58 families (171 persons) returned to their areas of origin in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi from Menik Farm and Kodikamam Ramavil IDP facilities.
They said a further 620 families (2,130 persons) living with friends and relatives, too, had returned to their homes in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts.
According to the latest available official data, since the conclusion of the conflict, 110,652 families (365,082) have returned to the Northern Province. The returnees comprised those displaced before April 2008 and after. Among the returnees are post-April 2008 displaced consisting of 45.024 families (157,269 persons).
Following the conclusion of the war, 5,284 families (17,488 persons), displaced since April 1, 2008 remained in welfare camps, awaiting clearance to return to their places of origin. Besides them, 2,360 families (8,521 persons), displaced before April 2008, too, remained in welfare centres.
A total 189,221 IDPs are living with host families.
http://www.news.lk/home/18327-sri-lanka-among-worlds-developing-economies
Sri Lanka among world’s developing economies
The 15th annual report of US Merril Lynch Bank has listed Sri Lanka as one of the ten countries in the world with rapidly developing economies. Out of these ten countries, six of them are in Asia.
Hong Kong has been listed in the first place followed by Vietnam. The other countries in the region listed are Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore and India. The report says that there is an ascendancy of the rich in this region, and they have achieved wealth similar to those in the Northern American states.
The report’s findings illustrate how Asia’s economies are growing much more quickly than developed countries and, in the process, minting scores of new millionaires and billionaires. Asia’s growth has been powered by China and India, whose economies grew 9 percent to 10 percent last year while European and North American growth was in single digit levels.
It was in 2010 that for the first time Asia has overtaken Europe in absolute numbers of wealthy people. It has been for the second year that Asia’s combined wealth had been bigger than that of Europe’s. (niz)
Sunday, June 26, 2011
http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20110626_01
31 houses hand over to war heroes completing "Api Wenuwen Api" 4th phase
www.defence.lk">Completing the fourth phase of the "Api Wenuwen Api" housing project launched by the Ministry of Defence, 31 houses were handed over among the war heroes and their families in Badulla and Hambantota districts under the patronage of Commander-In-Chief His Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday, 25th June.
Inaugurating the function, His Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared open the house built at Athiliwewa for war hero Corporal J.K Vipula Kumara while the main function was held at the Athiliwewa primary school at Thelulla in Wellawaya, Monaragala district.
Ministry of Defence launched the "Api Wenuwen Api" housing project to construct 700 housing units island-wide for the war heroes and it is notable that, many Sri Lankans living in here and abroad, showing their gesture on security forces, have contributed to the "Api Wenuwen Api" housing fund at the request of HE President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The Api Wenuwen Api Fund was a concept of President Rajapaksa, and after years of hard work and dedication by Secretary Defence Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the President's brainchild now has become a tangible reality and so far succeeded in providing hundreds of houses to war heroes across the country while catering for many other social welfare matters of service personnel in combined forces and Police.
The "Api Wenuwen Api" housing project was supervised by defence Ministry's Seva Vanitha Unit under its leadership of Chairperson Mrs Ioma Rajapaksa.
Vice President of Defence Ministry's Seva Vanitha Unit Mrs Indu Rathnayake speaking to defence.lk said that this project will continue to build houses for war heroes covering all districts of the country. "So far 88 houses were given to service personnel in Kandy, Kurunegala, Matara and Hambantota districts in the first, second and third phase of the project", she added.
"In the fourth phase of the project 28 army personnel, one navy sailor and two air forces personnel received houses" she further said.
Governor of Uva Province Nanda Mathiw, Ministers Nimal Siripala De Silva, Sumedha G Jayasena, Luxman Senevirathna, Jagath Pushpakumara, Uva chief minister Shasheendra Rajapaksa, deputy minister secretary to the president Lalith Weerathunga, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, parliamentarians representing Badulla and Moneragala districts, members of provincial council, additional secretaries and senior officials of ministry of defence, senior officers of armed services and police, family members of war heroes received houses and public in the area also participated at the event.
Friday, June 24, 2011
http://www.news.lk/home/18305-ch-4-should-get-off-its-moral-monopoly-drstuart-reiss-uk
Ch 4 should get off its moral monopoly - Dr.Stuart Reiss, U.K.
Friday, 24 June 2011 14:59
While British Politicians make use of the ignominious Darusman report and the doctored Channel 4 Film on the behest of and under the bribe of LTTE-rump to agitate against Sri Lanka, an independent and unbiased Doctor in the Department of Surgery of the William Harvey Hospital, in U.K, Dr. Stuart Reiss has written the under mentioned article condemning the doctored Channel 4 film. Given below is the full text of Dr. Stuart’s article.
"I have followed the misfortunes of the Sri Lankan conflict over the years and it`s very clear to me that both Tamils and Singhalese are relieved that it`s finally over.
The country is beginning to recover from its horrible aftermath and the international community should help Sri Lanka heal its wounds.
However the Channel Four program titled `The killing fields of Sri Lanka` served rather to inflame them.
It`s clear that Channel Four has an agenda of discrediting the Sri Lankan government and this is accomplished at the expense of truth and good journalism.
The documentary insisted that the Sri Lankan government carried out deliberate and systematic attacks on Tamil civilians. This is wholly untrue and is a reprehensible suggestion.
It is as ridiculous to suggest that the British Army deliberately targeted all republican Irish citizenry during the height of the Northern Ireland conflict.
A sovereign democratic government will not met out mob justice using it`s armed forces on it`s own citizens, and Tamils are as much Sri Lankans as are Singhaleese and other ethnic minorities in the country.
It was particularly evident during the end stage of the Sri Lankan conflict that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) held Tamil civilians hostage, denying them the very freedom that the LTTE allegedly sought for them.
Throughout the long history of this conflict various methods have been tried to bring about a peaceful settlement and to encourage the LTTE to enter mainstream politics.
This included direct intervention by Sri Lanka`s powerful neighbor India.
However, the LTTE rejected all these efforts in pursuit of an independent Tamil state under its control.
It was unacceptable for a terrorist state to exist and export its evils such as suicide bombings, therefore the Sri Lankan Government carried out its duty to protect and serve its citizens by removing the LTTE terrorists from their area of dominance.
Unlike in Afghanistan and Iraq the Sri Lankan government did not need foreign intervention to accomplish this task.
Contrary to what the documentary suggested, every effort was made by the Sri Lankan government to extract civilians from the combat zone, and local journalists were given unprecedented access to the front lines.
Perhaps the government didn`t allow some western journalists - such as Chanel Four - with a liberal bias towards the LTTE terrorists, into the frontline to prevent truth being a casualty and to avoid military attack plans being divulged to the enemy.
Embedded journalists in combat zones are a privilege allowed by the government.
It was no secret that the United States armed forces disliked Al Jazeera correspondents in the front lines during the last Iraq war, and directly attacked the Al Jazeera building on the outskirts of Bagdad.
This was not the case in Sri Lanka, where Chanel Four correspondents were only escorted out.
The UN chose to leave the combat zones in North Eastern Sri Lanka, as they abandoned Rwanda, Kosovo, and many other places.
The Sri Lankan government merely highlighted the fact that it couldn`t guarantee the safety of UN officials.
There was a very plausible danger of the LTTE killing UN employees and blaming it on the government.
Clips chosen for the Chanel Four documentary were emotive, screaming people and the crowd outside the UN offices showed the real horrors of any war.
They didn`t show direct evidence of the Sri Lankan government`s cruelty. Perhaps the Tamil civilians begging the UN to stay, were afraid of exactly what followed, that the LTTE taking them hostage and used as a human shield, or the forcible conscription of their children.
The alleged aftermath of a Sri Lankan army bombardment of a hospital showed buildings very much intact and patients lying on their beds.
As for the execution videos, these have been proven to be inauthentic by the Sri Lankan government.
Mr. Gordon Weiss, the former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, who was interviewed extensively in the documentary has published a book titled `The Cage` about his experiences of the final days of the war against the LTTE. Its worth quoting a chapter in page 216 of the book in its entirety:
`It remains a credit to many of the front line SLA (Sri Lanka Army) soldiers that, despite odd cruel exceptions, they so often seem to have made the effort to draw civilians out from the morass of fighting ahead of them in an attempt to save lives.
Soldiers yelled out to civilians, left gaps in their lines while they waved white flags to attract people forward and bodily plucked the wounded from foxholes and bunkers.
Troops bravely waded into the lagoon under fire to rescue wounded people threading their way out of the battlefield or to help parents with their children, and gave their rations to civilians as they lay in fields, exhausted in their first moments of safety after years of living under the roar and threat of gunfire.`
Gordon Weiss is a hostile witness for the Sri Lankan government, however Chanel Four chose not to show any of the positive comments he made in his book focusing entirely on the negative.
The capture of LTTE carders was made difficult by their suicide policy and the danger to civilians in the conflict zone.
Many LTTE suicide bombers crossed over to government held lines mixed in with the population only to detonate their bombs in the presence of Army personnel, causing heavy civilian deaths.
Despite all its sophisticated technology, the US navy seals team in its mission to capture or destroy Osama Bin Laden, chose to kill him rather than take him captive, as precaution against a suicide bomb concealed in his person.
The killing of LTTE leaders was inevitable, as they would not surrender.
War is an evil that ultimately reduces the humanity of its participants, however it is a well used conflict resolution tool of mankind.
A surgeon will hack a diseased limb to save the body.
It is unpleasant, but often has to be done.
War also serves to highlight peaks of humanity and the personal sacrifice of individuals for the greater good.
Once its ended, a healing has to begin, and this process can only happen if scars are allowed to settle.
Chanel Four should get off its high horse of moral monopoly and allow Sri Lankans to sort out their own issues." (Niz.)
Ch 4 should get off its moral monopoly - Dr.Stuart Reiss, U.K.
Friday, 24 June 2011 14:59
While British Politicians make use of the ignominious Darusman report and the doctored Channel 4 Film on the behest of and under the bribe of LTTE-rump to agitate against Sri Lanka, an independent and unbiased Doctor in the Department of Surgery of the William Harvey Hospital, in U.K, Dr. Stuart Reiss has written the under mentioned article condemning the doctored Channel 4 film. Given below is the full text of Dr. Stuart’s article.
"I have followed the misfortunes of the Sri Lankan conflict over the years and it`s very clear to me that both Tamils and Singhalese are relieved that it`s finally over.
The country is beginning to recover from its horrible aftermath and the international community should help Sri Lanka heal its wounds.
However the Channel Four program titled `The killing fields of Sri Lanka` served rather to inflame them.
It`s clear that Channel Four has an agenda of discrediting the Sri Lankan government and this is accomplished at the expense of truth and good journalism.
The documentary insisted that the Sri Lankan government carried out deliberate and systematic attacks on Tamil civilians. This is wholly untrue and is a reprehensible suggestion.
It is as ridiculous to suggest that the British Army deliberately targeted all republican Irish citizenry during the height of the Northern Ireland conflict.
A sovereign democratic government will not met out mob justice using it`s armed forces on it`s own citizens, and Tamils are as much Sri Lankans as are Singhaleese and other ethnic minorities in the country.
It was particularly evident during the end stage of the Sri Lankan conflict that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) held Tamil civilians hostage, denying them the very freedom that the LTTE allegedly sought for them.
Throughout the long history of this conflict various methods have been tried to bring about a peaceful settlement and to encourage the LTTE to enter mainstream politics.
This included direct intervention by Sri Lanka`s powerful neighbor India.
However, the LTTE rejected all these efforts in pursuit of an independent Tamil state under its control.
It was unacceptable for a terrorist state to exist and export its evils such as suicide bombings, therefore the Sri Lankan Government carried out its duty to protect and serve its citizens by removing the LTTE terrorists from their area of dominance.
Unlike in Afghanistan and Iraq the Sri Lankan government did not need foreign intervention to accomplish this task.
Contrary to what the documentary suggested, every effort was made by the Sri Lankan government to extract civilians from the combat zone, and local journalists were given unprecedented access to the front lines.
Perhaps the government didn`t allow some western journalists - such as Chanel Four - with a liberal bias towards the LTTE terrorists, into the frontline to prevent truth being a casualty and to avoid military attack plans being divulged to the enemy.
Embedded journalists in combat zones are a privilege allowed by the government.
It was no secret that the United States armed forces disliked Al Jazeera correspondents in the front lines during the last Iraq war, and directly attacked the Al Jazeera building on the outskirts of Bagdad.
This was not the case in Sri Lanka, where Chanel Four correspondents were only escorted out.
The UN chose to leave the combat zones in North Eastern Sri Lanka, as they abandoned Rwanda, Kosovo, and many other places.
The Sri Lankan government merely highlighted the fact that it couldn`t guarantee the safety of UN officials.
There was a very plausible danger of the LTTE killing UN employees and blaming it on the government.
Clips chosen for the Chanel Four documentary were emotive, screaming people and the crowd outside the UN offices showed the real horrors of any war.
They didn`t show direct evidence of the Sri Lankan government`s cruelty. Perhaps the Tamil civilians begging the UN to stay, were afraid of exactly what followed, that the LTTE taking them hostage and used as a human shield, or the forcible conscription of their children.
The alleged aftermath of a Sri Lankan army bombardment of a hospital showed buildings very much intact and patients lying on their beds.
As for the execution videos, these have been proven to be inauthentic by the Sri Lankan government.
Mr. Gordon Weiss, the former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, who was interviewed extensively in the documentary has published a book titled `The Cage` about his experiences of the final days of the war against the LTTE. Its worth quoting a chapter in page 216 of the book in its entirety:
`It remains a credit to many of the front line SLA (Sri Lanka Army) soldiers that, despite odd cruel exceptions, they so often seem to have made the effort to draw civilians out from the morass of fighting ahead of them in an attempt to save lives.
Soldiers yelled out to civilians, left gaps in their lines while they waved white flags to attract people forward and bodily plucked the wounded from foxholes and bunkers.
Troops bravely waded into the lagoon under fire to rescue wounded people threading their way out of the battlefield or to help parents with their children, and gave their rations to civilians as they lay in fields, exhausted in their first moments of safety after years of living under the roar and threat of gunfire.`
Gordon Weiss is a hostile witness for the Sri Lankan government, however Chanel Four chose not to show any of the positive comments he made in his book focusing entirely on the negative.
The capture of LTTE carders was made difficult by their suicide policy and the danger to civilians in the conflict zone.
Many LTTE suicide bombers crossed over to government held lines mixed in with the population only to detonate their bombs in the presence of Army personnel, causing heavy civilian deaths.
Despite all its sophisticated technology, the US navy seals team in its mission to capture or destroy Osama Bin Laden, chose to kill him rather than take him captive, as precaution against a suicide bomb concealed in his person.
The killing of LTTE leaders was inevitable, as they would not surrender.
War is an evil that ultimately reduces the humanity of its participants, however it is a well used conflict resolution tool of mankind.
A surgeon will hack a diseased limb to save the body.
It is unpleasant, but often has to be done.
War also serves to highlight peaks of humanity and the personal sacrifice of individuals for the greater good.
Once its ended, a healing has to begin, and this process can only happen if scars are allowed to settle.
Chanel Four should get off its high horse of moral monopoly and allow Sri Lankans to sort out their own issues." (Niz.)
http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/06/25/news55.asp
President Rajapaksa wants IDPs resettled by year end
Hemanthi GURUGE
Resettlement Minister Gunaratne Weerakoon, vowed that all IDPs living in relief villages would be resettled before the end of this year.
The Minister also said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa, had instructed to expedite and complete the resettlement process before the end of this year.
All IDPs who are living in Kadirgamar and Ananda Coomaraswamy relief villages in Vavuniya, will go back to their original homes. He made these comments during a visit to the IDP camps in Vavuniya.
So far 243,787 people have been resettled by the Ministry in their original places. At least 7,156 IDPs were living in Kadirgamar relief village and 9,132 IDPs were living in Ananda Coomaraswamy relief village. The government would provide all necessary facilities to the resettled people, the Minister said.
The process had so far been slow due to the clearing of land mines and it was necessary that their respective areas were cleared fully before the resettlement process was to be completed.
President Rajapaksa wants IDPs resettled by year end
Hemanthi GURUGE
Resettlement Minister Gunaratne Weerakoon, vowed that all IDPs living in relief villages would be resettled before the end of this year.
The Minister also said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa, had instructed to expedite and complete the resettlement process before the end of this year.
All IDPs who are living in Kadirgamar and Ananda Coomaraswamy relief villages in Vavuniya, will go back to their original homes. He made these comments during a visit to the IDP camps in Vavuniya.
So far 243,787 people have been resettled by the Ministry in their original places. At least 7,156 IDPs were living in Kadirgamar relief village and 9,132 IDPs were living in Ananda Coomaraswamy relief village. The government would provide all necessary facilities to the resettled people, the Minister said.
The process had so far been slow due to the clearing of land mines and it was necessary that their respective areas were cleared fully before the resettlement process was to be completed.
UK doctor condemns doctored Channel - 4 film
http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/06/25/news23.asp
UK doctor condemns doctored Channel - 4 film
Dr Stuart Reiss, a doctor in the Department of Surgery of the William Harvey Hospital, UK has condemned the doctored Channel 4 film.
Excerpts of Dr Reiss' article:
"It is clear that Channel Four has an agenda of discrediting the Sri Lankan government and this is accomplished at the expense of truth and good journalism.
"The documentary insisted that the Sri Lankan government carried out deliberate and systematic attacks on Tamil civilians. This is wholly untrue and is a reprehensible suggestion.
"It is as ridiculous to suggest that the British Army deliberately targeted all Republican Irish citizenry during the height of the Northern Ireland conflict.
"A sovereign democratic government will not mete out mob justice using its armed forces on its own citizens, and Tamils are as much Sri Lankans as are Sinhalese and other ethnic minorities in the country.
"It was particularly evident during the end stage of the Sri Lankan conflict that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held Tamil civilians hostage, denying them the very freedom that the LTTE allegedly sought for them.
"Contrary to what the documentary suggested, every effort was made by the Sri Lankan government to extract civilians from the combat zone, and local journalists were given unprecedented access to the front lines.
"Perhaps the government didn't allow some Western journalists - such as Chanel Four - with a liberal bias towards the LTTE terrorists, into the frontline to prevent truth being a casualty and to avoid military attack plans being divulged to the enemy.
"It was no secret that the United States armed forces disliked Al Jazeera correspondents in the front lines during the last Iraq war, and directly attacked the Al Jazeera building on the outskirts of Baghdad.
"This was not the case in Sri Lanka, where Channel Four correspondents were only escorted out.
"The UN chose to leave the combat zones in North Eastern Sri Lanka, as they abandoned Rwanda, Kosovo, and many other places.
"The Sri Lankan government merely highlighted the fact that it couldn't guarantee the safety of UN officials.
"There was a very plausible danger of the LTTE killing UN employees and blaming it on the government.
"Clips chosen for the Channel Four documentary were emotive, screaming people and the crowd outside the UN offices showed the real horrors of any war.
"They didn't show direct evidence.
Perhaps the Tamil civilians begging the UN to stay, were afraid of exactly what followed, that the LTTE taking them hostage and used as a human shield, or the forcible conscription of their children."
UK doctor condemns doctored Channel - 4 film
Dr Stuart Reiss, a doctor in the Department of Surgery of the William Harvey Hospital, UK has condemned the doctored Channel 4 film.
Excerpts of Dr Reiss' article:
"It is clear that Channel Four has an agenda of discrediting the Sri Lankan government and this is accomplished at the expense of truth and good journalism.
"The documentary insisted that the Sri Lankan government carried out deliberate and systematic attacks on Tamil civilians. This is wholly untrue and is a reprehensible suggestion.
"It is as ridiculous to suggest that the British Army deliberately targeted all Republican Irish citizenry during the height of the Northern Ireland conflict.
"A sovereign democratic government will not mete out mob justice using its armed forces on its own citizens, and Tamils are as much Sri Lankans as are Sinhalese and other ethnic minorities in the country.
"It was particularly evident during the end stage of the Sri Lankan conflict that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held Tamil civilians hostage, denying them the very freedom that the LTTE allegedly sought for them.
"Contrary to what the documentary suggested, every effort was made by the Sri Lankan government to extract civilians from the combat zone, and local journalists were given unprecedented access to the front lines.
"Perhaps the government didn't allow some Western journalists - such as Chanel Four - with a liberal bias towards the LTTE terrorists, into the frontline to prevent truth being a casualty and to avoid military attack plans being divulged to the enemy.
"It was no secret that the United States armed forces disliked Al Jazeera correspondents in the front lines during the last Iraq war, and directly attacked the Al Jazeera building on the outskirts of Baghdad.
"This was not the case in Sri Lanka, where Channel Four correspondents were only escorted out.
"The UN chose to leave the combat zones in North Eastern Sri Lanka, as they abandoned Rwanda, Kosovo, and many other places.
"The Sri Lankan government merely highlighted the fact that it couldn't guarantee the safety of UN officials.
"There was a very plausible danger of the LTTE killing UN employees and blaming it on the government.
"Clips chosen for the Channel Four documentary were emotive, screaming people and the crowd outside the UN offices showed the real horrors of any war.
"They didn't show direct evidence.
Perhaps the Tamil civilians begging the UN to stay, were afraid of exactly what followed, that the LTTE taking them hostage and used as a human shield, or the forcible conscription of their children."
Thursday, June 23, 2011
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_11A/Jun21_1308594615CH.php
ICRC commended Sri Lanka Navy for evacuating Tamil civilians safely during the warTue, Jun 21, 2011, 12:00 am SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
June 20, Colombo: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) commended the Sri Lanka Navy for its "valuable and effective" collaboration in evacuating civilians stranded in the war zone during the final phase of the war with Tamil Tiger terrorists, a recently uncovered document reveals.
In a letter dated 14 February 2009, Paul Castella, then Head of ICRC in Sri Lanka, on behalf of the organization expressed his appreciation to the then Navy Commander Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda and the Navy for "valuable and effective collaboration to save many people's lives" following the successful medical evaluation that took place on 10 and 12 February.
The ICRC head said it was a complex operation, which was extremely demanding for all.
"Your men, either at sea or on land, succeeded in an exemplary manner to carry out their essential task to protect the State and its citizens and simultaneously to care for the sick and wounded," Castella wrote in the letter, a copy of which obtained by ColomboPage recently.
"They displayed a strict discipline and respect of rules of engagement and at the same time a very respectful and kind attitude to help those in need," the letter said.
The ICRC official, in addition to others who were involved in the medical evacuation, commended especially, the service of Director General of Operations at the Navy Head Quarters, the officiating Commander Eastern Naval Command, in Trincomalee and the Deputy Area Commander North in Jaffna for their "many sleepless hours coordinating the operation and played a crucial role to make it (the operation) a success."
(Sri Lanka Navy Photo)
During the last few months of the war amid intense fighting Sri Lanka Navy provided security to the ICRC and assisted to ferry over 11,000 sick and injured Tamil civilians in 31 operations over the sea to safety in Trincomalee.
The Naval doctors provided emergency medical treatment to the patients upon disembarkation at Pulmoddai in Trincomalee and rushed them to the field hospitals in the area
ICRC commended Sri Lanka Navy for evacuating Tamil civilians safely during the warTue, Jun 21, 2011, 12:00 am SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
June 20, Colombo: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) commended the Sri Lanka Navy for its "valuable and effective" collaboration in evacuating civilians stranded in the war zone during the final phase of the war with Tamil Tiger terrorists, a recently uncovered document reveals.
In a letter dated 14 February 2009, Paul Castella, then Head of ICRC in Sri Lanka, on behalf of the organization expressed his appreciation to the then Navy Commander Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda and the Navy for "valuable and effective collaboration to save many people's lives" following the successful medical evaluation that took place on 10 and 12 February.
The ICRC head said it was a complex operation, which was extremely demanding for all.
"Your men, either at sea or on land, succeeded in an exemplary manner to carry out their essential task to protect the State and its citizens and simultaneously to care for the sick and wounded," Castella wrote in the letter, a copy of which obtained by ColomboPage recently.
"They displayed a strict discipline and respect of rules of engagement and at the same time a very respectful and kind attitude to help those in need," the letter said.
The ICRC official, in addition to others who were involved in the medical evacuation, commended especially, the service of Director General of Operations at the Navy Head Quarters, the officiating Commander Eastern Naval Command, in Trincomalee and the Deputy Area Commander North in Jaffna for their "many sleepless hours coordinating the operation and played a crucial role to make it (the operation) a success."
(Sri Lanka Navy Photo)
During the last few months of the war amid intense fighting Sri Lanka Navy provided security to the ICRC and assisted to ferry over 11,000 sick and injured Tamil civilians in 31 operations over the sea to safety in Trincomalee.
The Naval doctors provided emergency medical treatment to the patients upon disembarkation at Pulmoddai in Trincomalee and rushed them to the field hospitals in the area
http://www.news.lk/home/18294-tourism-attracts-more-foreign-investments
Tourism attracts more foreign investments
Thursday, 23 June 2011 09:20
Sri Lanka attracted 327,902 tourists during the first five months of this year compared to 233,922 tourists in the first five months of 2010, which is a 40.2 percent increase on year on year basis. Tourist arrivals increased by 46.1 percent in 2010 to 654,476 from 447,890 in 2009 surpassing all the previous arrival records.
Investments in the tourism sector has accounted for US$ 132 million during the first quarter of this year making it the highest ever quarterly Foreign Direct Investment inflow into Sri Lanka for the tourism sector. Direct employment in the tourism sector increased to 72,899 by the end of 2010 from 52,071 in 2009, while indirect employment increased from 55,023 in 2009 to 77,032 in 2010. Total income from tourism increased to US$ 575.09 million in 2010 from US$ 349.03 million in 2009.
Among the programmes launched to improve the tourism sector in the country include a home stay and boutique hotel programme, rural youth training programmes, handicraft and cottage industry development programme and village tour and stay (Grama Charika) programme for the tourist sector in order to percolate the benefits of tourism to the lower segment of the society.(niz)
Tourism attracts more foreign investments
Thursday, 23 June 2011 09:20
Sri Lanka attracted 327,902 tourists during the first five months of this year compared to 233,922 tourists in the first five months of 2010, which is a 40.2 percent increase on year on year basis. Tourist arrivals increased by 46.1 percent in 2010 to 654,476 from 447,890 in 2009 surpassing all the previous arrival records.
Investments in the tourism sector has accounted for US$ 132 million during the first quarter of this year making it the highest ever quarterly Foreign Direct Investment inflow into Sri Lanka for the tourism sector. Direct employment in the tourism sector increased to 72,899 by the end of 2010 from 52,071 in 2009, while indirect employment increased from 55,023 in 2009 to 77,032 in 2010. Total income from tourism increased to US$ 575.09 million in 2010 from US$ 349.03 million in 2009.
Among the programmes launched to improve the tourism sector in the country include a home stay and boutique hotel programme, rural youth training programmes, handicraft and cottage industry development programme and village tour and stay (Grama Charika) programme for the tourist sector in order to percolate the benefits of tourism to the lower segment of the society.(niz)
http://www.news.lk/home/18297-shavendra-silva-dismantles-the-channel-4-lie
Shavendra Silva Dismantles the Channel 4 Lie
Thursday, 23 June 2011 12:37
Answers offered by Sri Lanka’s make Ch 4 conspirators speechless
The Sri Lankan Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Major General Shavendra Silva has been able to dismantle the fake allegations of human rights violations and war crimes leveled at Sri Lanka through the Channel 4 video at a meeting held at the Church Center in New York recently. (21)
The meeting was organized by three well known humanitarian organizations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group indenting to exert pressure on Sri Lanka by screening the Channel 4 documentary to the representatives of all member countries of the UN.
The fact finding session was held thereafter and Major General Shavendra Silva brought forth a number of points proving the incidents in the documentary contain false information and its a mere dramatic presentation based on false facts with a plan to discredit Sri Lanka.
Major General Shavendra Silva showed that the so called evidences in the documentary are given by a female, Venni Kumar who appears under three names in different places. As such, he questioned the credibility of the documentary which is based on the evidence given by a single female who was said to have been in Sri Lanka six months before the end of the war, but actually had come to the island in 2008, January.
He further said that, the doctor who appears on the documentary giving proof of war crimes committed by Sri Lankan forces had revealed that the LTTE forced them to act and pretend in front of the camera, at an interview done by the Rupavahini Cooperation, the national television channel in Sri Lanka.
The producers of the documentary were also present at the meeting and the audience was convinced that the documentary was based on false facts. Major General Shavendra Silva’s effort would possibly give zero credibility and value to any efforts taken in tarnishing the image of Sri Lanka in future.
Shavendra Silva Dismantles the Channel 4 Lie
Thursday, 23 June 2011 12:37
Answers offered by Sri Lanka’s make Ch 4 conspirators speechless
The Sri Lankan Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Major General Shavendra Silva has been able to dismantle the fake allegations of human rights violations and war crimes leveled at Sri Lanka through the Channel 4 video at a meeting held at the Church Center in New York recently. (21)
The meeting was organized by three well known humanitarian organizations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group indenting to exert pressure on Sri Lanka by screening the Channel 4 documentary to the representatives of all member countries of the UN.
The fact finding session was held thereafter and Major General Shavendra Silva brought forth a number of points proving the incidents in the documentary contain false information and its a mere dramatic presentation based on false facts with a plan to discredit Sri Lanka.
Major General Shavendra Silva showed that the so called evidences in the documentary are given by a female, Venni Kumar who appears under three names in different places. As such, he questioned the credibility of the documentary which is based on the evidence given by a single female who was said to have been in Sri Lanka six months before the end of the war, but actually had come to the island in 2008, January.
He further said that, the doctor who appears on the documentary giving proof of war crimes committed by Sri Lankan forces had revealed that the LTTE forced them to act and pretend in front of the camera, at an interview done by the Rupavahini Cooperation, the national television channel in Sri Lanka.
The producers of the documentary were also present at the meeting and the audience was convinced that the documentary was based on false facts. Major General Shavendra Silva’s effort would possibly give zero credibility and value to any efforts taken in tarnishing the image of Sri Lanka in future.
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_11A/Jun23_1308810700JR.php
Sri Lanka government to resettle all remaining IDPs in the North before end of the year
Thu, Jun 23, 2011, 12:01 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
June 23, Colombo: The Sri Lankan government says that all internally displaced persons (IDPs) will be resettled before the end of the year as the government by then expects to complete the demining operations in the North.
The government has so far resettled 243,787 displaced persons in their respective home lands. However, there still remain 7,156 IDPs at the Kadirgamar relief village and 9,132 IDPs at the Ananda Kumaraswamy relief village in Vavuniya.
Persons from the Mullaitivu District are yet to be resettled while the resettlement of the IDPs from other districts has been completed. The government attributes the delay in the resettlement programme to the de-mining programme that is being carried out in the North.
In total 373,593 persons of 114,561 families have returned to the Northern Province. The number includes the families displaced in the later stages of war after 2008 and also the families displaced earlier due to the ethnic cleansing by the LTTE before 2008.
Resettlement Minister Gunaratne Weerakoon who visited the Kadirgamar relief camp yesterday, has said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had instructed to expedite and complete the resettlement programme before the end of the year.
Officials of the Resettlement Ministry and the government officials of Vavuniya District have held a special discussion Wednesday in the Kadirgamar Village on the progress of the resettlement process in Mullaitivu and Vavuniya districts.
Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 06.45GMT
Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 06.45GMT
Channel 4 rejected previous request for video and textual information – LLRC
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has said the British television Channel 4 network that aired two videos of alleged war crimes committed in Sri Lanka had previously refused a request by the Commission for textual information on the first video.
LLRC Spokesperson Lakshman Wickremasinghe told the media the Commission was yet to decide on the mechanism to probe the latest Channel 4 video telecast on June 14 since the Channel 4 had turned down a request for material made by the Commission earlier.
The LLRC had written to Channel 4 requesting for video material and textual information on the Channel 4 video footage aired in august 2009.
According to LLRC spokesman Channel 4 had responded saying the Commission could examine the film, but had refused to give any textual information related to the video.
The Government rejected the video saying that the disturbing images in the Channel 4 film aired without any guarantee of their authenticity have the potential to incite hatred amongst different communities in Sri Lanka, including future generations, and adversely affect the ongoing national reconciliation process.
No evidence of mistreating deported Tamils – British MP
While claiming that the British government does not accept that all Tamil asylum seekers are in need of international protection, British Immigration Minister Damian Green said there is no evidence that those previously deported Sri Lankan asylum seekers to Sri Lanka have been mistreated by the Sri Lankan authorities.MP Green told the British House of Commons,” the UK Border Agency does not routinely monitor the treatment of individual failed asylum seekers who return to their home country. We believe that the best way to avoid ill-treatment is to make sure that we do not return those who are at risk. We do this by ensuring that trained caseworkers make the right decisions based on the circumstances of each individual case and by providing a right of appeal to the independent courts,” he said. He also stated that the UK Border Agency carefully considers all asylum claims and human rights claims including those from Tamils on their individual merits in accordance with UK international obligations against the background of the latest available country information.“We do not accept that all Tamil asylum seekers are in need of international protection. This view has been endorsed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of NA v. UK 2008. An Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Country Guidance case in October 2009 agreed with the European Court and affirmed that in some cases there is a reduced the risk to Tamils than previous case law had identified,” MP Green said.According to MP Green, if an applicant demonstrates a need for international protection, asylum is granted. If their application is refused, they have a right of appeal to the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Unified Tribunal framework. “In this way we ensure that we provide protection to those asylum seekers who need it,” he said.“The protection needs of individual asylum seekers are assessed on an individual basis and are based on the risk they would face on return to their country of origin now, not on risks they may have faced in the past,” he added.
http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/06/23/sec02.asp
Lanka’s ambassadors clarify fact from fiction:
INGO attempt to mislead UN gathering foiled
Sri Lankan diplomats yesterday foiled an attempt by International Non Governmental Organizations to mislead a gathering at UN Church Centre by screening the documentary titled ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’.
They convinced the gathering of the inconsistencies and the biased narration of the documentary.
Major General Shavendra Silva
Dr. Palitha Kohona
The screening of this documentary at UN Church Centre was sponsored by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group who claimed that the documentary reinforces the findings of the Controversial Darusman Report. Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Palitha Kohona and Deputy Permanent Representative Major General Shavendra Silva proved that the Channel 4 video fiasco is a well-planned ploy to tarnish a country which succeeded in eradicating a deadly terrorist organization which held thousands of innocent civilians hostage.
Though Ambassador Major General Shavendra Silva accompanied Ambassador Kohona to the screening, he was not invited by Amnesty International. Perhaps due to the fact that the Deputy Permanent Representative, Ambassador Silva, is the only person who witnessed first hand what transpired during the final stages of the conflict.
The documentary “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” was screened at the UN Church Centre yesterday. The event was sponsored by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and The International Crisis Group, who claimed that the documentary reinforces the findings of the Darusman Report.
During the opening statements, Amnesty International stated that the documentary presented “very strong evidence of war crimes” and that there was a “consistent pattern of human rights violations within the Sri Lankan forces.” Human Rights Watch also alleges that this documentary proves that war crimes were committed and that “the Sri Lanka government cannot be relied upon for justice”. The purpose of this screening, they claimed was to urge the international community to conduct independent investigations.
All of the above accusations as well as the credibility of the Channel 4 documentary was scrutinized by Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Dr. Palitha Kohona and Deputy Permanent Representative, Ambassador Major General Shavendra Silva, who were given the opportunity to respond to the documentary. Though Ambassador Major General Shavenrda Silva accompanied Ambassador Dr. Kohona to the screening, he was not extended an invitation by Amnesty International. Perhaps due to the fact that the Deputy Permanent Representative, Ambassador Silva, is the only person who witnessed firsthand what transpired during the final stages of the conflict.
The inconsistencies as well as the biased narration of the documentary were immediately brought to the audience’s attention by the Ambassador Shavendra Silva. Proclamations which were known to be blatant lies as well as the true identities of the individuals in which the movie revolves around were pointed out by Ambassador Silva. Video evidence to support these explanations was unfortunately not permitted to be displayed by Amnesty International.
Ambassador Major General Shavendra Silva informed the audience, that one visual shown in the documentary, displaying an aerial bombing to a specific target in the jungle area, but the Channel 4 uses that particular clip fighter jets purposly bombing a civilian gathering but it was two separate locations but the narrator tried to portray that the casualties occurred owing to the bombing, which the audience accepted.
General Silva informed the audience during this clip, the filmmaker uses two eyewitnesses namely Vany Kumar and Dr. Shanmugaraj. Vany Kumar she had three different aliasas in different locations. Namely, Damilvany Kumar, Vany Kumar, Damilvany Gananakumar. The Channel 4 programme says she had been in Sri Lanka only for six months but Ambassador Silva highlighted her stay in Sri Lanka, what her family in the UK has informed through the guardian.co.uk in an interview and proved to the audience that she was infact an LTTE activist and her credibility in the documentary.
Ambassador General Silva also shed light on several statements made by Dr. Shanmugaraja who admits to have given false information to the International Media due to LTTE pressure.
The filmmaker Cullum McRae seemed devastated when Ambassador Silva pointed out the false translation depicted during the clip where civilians are in a trench was also brought to light. The civilians in the trench are shown shouting at the cameraman for recording this and the false translation provided for the Tamil being spoken, is clear evidence that this was infact staged.
Finally, the filmmaker in a desperate attempt to save his image in front of the audience informs that Ambassador Silva would have appeared in front of the LLRC which he had not done. At this moment Ambassador Silva, informs the audience again how untrue the facts and the allegations made by the filmmaker without knowing the correct information where Major General Silva has appeared twice in front of the LLRC to present testimonies. The Filmmaker and the NGO were rendered speechless with the abundance of facts being thrown at their faces. The attendees informed that it was a failure on the part of the NGO to try to present false information.
The audience virtually had no questions during the discussion period following the outstanding counter presentations by Ambassador Dr. Kohona and Ambassador Major General Silva who clarified fact from fiction of this “mocumentary”. The screening which intended to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka was remarkably countered, where even the filmmaker himself, Callum McRae seemed to concede to the points made by the two senior diplomats.
http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/06/24/news17.asp
SL Diaspora in Italy requests UNSG:
‘Ignore fake Darusman Report’
Sri Lanka Freedom Party president in Italy D G Kumarasinghe, Sri Lanka Association president Ananda Seneviratne and SLFP Women’s Front president Visaka Rajasingha, who are members of the Sri Lankan Diaspora in Italy in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon state:
“Your Excellency,
We, the members of the Sri Lankan Diaspora living in Italy, comprising Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, together with Italians are submitting a special appeal to Your Excellency requesting that you not take any further action on the Darusman Report. We also wish to mention that as signatories to the petition, we support, wholeheartedly, your re-election bid to continue your work for another term as the Secretary General of the august body. We believe our Government in Sri Lanka and all other Governments, who are friends of Sri Lanka, would support your candidature to ensure your re-election.
We, the Sri Lankan Diaspora, resident in Italy, are pacifist. We believe that all war is evil, whether it is endorsed by convention or moral obligation or by pseudo ratification from anybody as it entails human suffering and civilian casualties.
History is replete with such atrocities suffered by human beings and civilians due to wars, whether they were the Great Punic wars between Rome and Carthage or the recent drone attacks in Libya, where in the capital, Tripoli, several children, women and civilians were killed, or whether in the name of destroying Weapons of Mass Destruction invading a sovereign state of Iraq even without the sanction of your Security Council which resulted in the death of from 101,360 -111,720 civilians. Your esteemed predecessor Kofi Annan unequivocally stated and admitted that invasion of Iraq by US and UK forces was illegal. Similarly, in Afghanistan, after the invasion, the civilian casualties have been rising and this has caused many children and women to die in attacks carried out by aircraft, perceived to be targeting terrorists groups. Your Excellency, most wars are wars of invasion. The recent civilian uprisings in the Middle East are against dictatorships where people are yearning for democracy.
The Sri Lankan ethnic conflict was not an invasion, neither was it a war nor was it an offensive directed at removing a megalomaniacal dictator, who had caused nearly 100,000 people to die due to his acts of terrorism. We have enjoyed independence and democracy for the last 63 years. Our nation is one of the longest surviving democracies in Asia. We have enjoyed universal franchise for more than 100 years. This peaceful environment and democratic traditions that have lasted for nearly hundred years and ethnic harmony which lasted for centuries were shattered by a megalomaniac terrorist who ruled the North and the East and his terrorist outfit was described by the Central Intelligence Agency in America as the most ruthless and most powerful terrorist organization in the world. This terrorist introduced the concept of the suicide bombers and perfected the suicide kit. His knowledge and expertise in terrorism was exported to other major terrorist groups in the world including Al-Qaida and Taliban. After the introduction of the suicide bomber, world peace had been shattered. It has engulfed the Middle East and other parts of the civilized world. The world is without a strategic answer to the concept of human beings willing to kill themselves for a cause and the whole strategy of winning a war by killing the enemy without killing yourself has been rejected by this ingenious method of terror introduced by this terrorist and the civilians had been the main target of these suicide missions.
We Sri Lankan Tamils, especially those living in Palermo, Reggio Emila and Lecce, have come to Italy as refugees to escape the terror unleashed by the megalomaniacal terrorist Velupillai Prabhakaran, who killed anyone who refused to obey his orders. Our children were taken as soldiers. Together, with our Sri Lankan Sinhalese brethren, we suffered 30 years in a veritable hell hole with human bombs, car bombs and landmines killing and maiming more than 100,000 Sri Lankans, irrespective of their ethnicity. No Government, International Agency or NGO would dare to identify and point the finger at Velupillai Prabhakaran and make an appeal to the UN or any other body to arrest and bring him to justice for the crimes against humanity or war crimes. Instead, many of these agencies purportedly and covertly supported the organization though it was prohibited as an illegal outfit and the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world. Those who are trying to accuse the Sri Lankan Government today are the very people who supported the terrorists killing civilians with impunity, killing women and children only made headlines in Sri Lanka and did not make any impact the world over. All Presidents of our country, out of desperation to end this conflict and bring peace and happiness to the citizens of our country, strived to engage in political dialogue with the terrorist. The result was that they were killed or maimed along with other political leaders who believed in settling the dispute by discussion. The killing of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not warrant these organizations to call for an international inquiry or frame charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity. Instead, the Western media refused to call V. Prabhakaran or his gang as terrorists.
Excellency, for thirty years we have suffered in silence. Our mothers, sisters and children died due to terrorism, our political leaders were assassinated. The only path left for some of us was to become refugees in another country. Thousands left for India. Thousands migrated to other countries expecting liberation from terrorism. Today we have been liberated. Our citizens in the North and East have been moved out from Camps and they are breathing a sigh of relief as their children are safe from being conscripted as child soldiers. Everyone is cherishing the democratic ideals and is in pursuit of happiness. Most Sri Lankans in Italy are making arrangements to return to Sri Lanka and enjoy the newly found freedom. Today, there is unbelievable racial harmony, camaraderie and fellowship amongst the Sinhalese, Tamils and the Muslims. Sri Lankans have forgotten the deep scars and wounds inflicted during the ethnic conflict. Even those who suffered during the last stages of the war found new found happiness in democracy where racial tension and hatred have healed and are being healed. Ethnic violence has been relegated to history and we are living as brethren as one great family.
Therefore, any attempt by any group to dig into the past and open the wounds that have been healing would create suspicion amongst the various ethnic groups and would only result in bringing back the demons of the past, founded upon ethnic diversity, racial hatred and terrorism. Therefore, as a man of great learning and a man who has been elevated to one of the most important positions in the World and further being an Asian, we are assured you would not consider creating divisions among the peaceful environment that exists in Sri Lanka. We believe in the remarks you have made that you have no power or any authority to take any further action on a report by an advisory committee appointed by you. We also take this opportunity to thank the Rome-based UN Agencies such as FAO and IFAD who had helped during this conflict and other UN Agencies (UNHCR) for the assistance to refugees. Sri Lanka, as the first and the only country in the world which has defeated terrorism, has to be supported in its endeavour to bring back civilian administration to the fore.
We expect Your Excellency to support the initiative of the Government to rehabilitate the hardcore terrorists and resettle the displaced people in their homes and help the Government to expedite the demining process. This would be the greatest contribution made by you as a Secretary General to ensure long lasting peace, brotherhood, and equanimity prevails amongst the various ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.
Assuring you of our highest consideration.”
SL Diaspora in Italy requests UNSG:
‘Ignore fake Darusman Report’
Sri Lanka Freedom Party president in Italy D G Kumarasinghe, Sri Lanka Association president Ananda Seneviratne and SLFP Women’s Front president Visaka Rajasingha, who are members of the Sri Lankan Diaspora in Italy in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon state:
“Your Excellency,
We, the members of the Sri Lankan Diaspora living in Italy, comprising Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, together with Italians are submitting a special appeal to Your Excellency requesting that you not take any further action on the Darusman Report. We also wish to mention that as signatories to the petition, we support, wholeheartedly, your re-election bid to continue your work for another term as the Secretary General of the august body. We believe our Government in Sri Lanka and all other Governments, who are friends of Sri Lanka, would support your candidature to ensure your re-election.
We, the Sri Lankan Diaspora, resident in Italy, are pacifist. We believe that all war is evil, whether it is endorsed by convention or moral obligation or by pseudo ratification from anybody as it entails human suffering and civilian casualties.
History is replete with such atrocities suffered by human beings and civilians due to wars, whether they were the Great Punic wars between Rome and Carthage or the recent drone attacks in Libya, where in the capital, Tripoli, several children, women and civilians were killed, or whether in the name of destroying Weapons of Mass Destruction invading a sovereign state of Iraq even without the sanction of your Security Council which resulted in the death of from 101,360 -111,720 civilians. Your esteemed predecessor Kofi Annan unequivocally stated and admitted that invasion of Iraq by US and UK forces was illegal. Similarly, in Afghanistan, after the invasion, the civilian casualties have been rising and this has caused many children and women to die in attacks carried out by aircraft, perceived to be targeting terrorists groups. Your Excellency, most wars are wars of invasion. The recent civilian uprisings in the Middle East are against dictatorships where people are yearning for democracy.
The Sri Lankan ethnic conflict was not an invasion, neither was it a war nor was it an offensive directed at removing a megalomaniacal dictator, who had caused nearly 100,000 people to die due to his acts of terrorism. We have enjoyed independence and democracy for the last 63 years. Our nation is one of the longest surviving democracies in Asia. We have enjoyed universal franchise for more than 100 years. This peaceful environment and democratic traditions that have lasted for nearly hundred years and ethnic harmony which lasted for centuries were shattered by a megalomaniac terrorist who ruled the North and the East and his terrorist outfit was described by the Central Intelligence Agency in America as the most ruthless and most powerful terrorist organization in the world. This terrorist introduced the concept of the suicide bombers and perfected the suicide kit. His knowledge and expertise in terrorism was exported to other major terrorist groups in the world including Al-Qaida and Taliban. After the introduction of the suicide bomber, world peace had been shattered. It has engulfed the Middle East and other parts of the civilized world. The world is without a strategic answer to the concept of human beings willing to kill themselves for a cause and the whole strategy of winning a war by killing the enemy without killing yourself has been rejected by this ingenious method of terror introduced by this terrorist and the civilians had been the main target of these suicide missions.
We Sri Lankan Tamils, especially those living in Palermo, Reggio Emila and Lecce, have come to Italy as refugees to escape the terror unleashed by the megalomaniacal terrorist Velupillai Prabhakaran, who killed anyone who refused to obey his orders. Our children were taken as soldiers. Together, with our Sri Lankan Sinhalese brethren, we suffered 30 years in a veritable hell hole with human bombs, car bombs and landmines killing and maiming more than 100,000 Sri Lankans, irrespective of their ethnicity. No Government, International Agency or NGO would dare to identify and point the finger at Velupillai Prabhakaran and make an appeal to the UN or any other body to arrest and bring him to justice for the crimes against humanity or war crimes. Instead, many of these agencies purportedly and covertly supported the organization though it was prohibited as an illegal outfit and the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world. Those who are trying to accuse the Sri Lankan Government today are the very people who supported the terrorists killing civilians with impunity, killing women and children only made headlines in Sri Lanka and did not make any impact the world over. All Presidents of our country, out of desperation to end this conflict and bring peace and happiness to the citizens of our country, strived to engage in political dialogue with the terrorist. The result was that they were killed or maimed along with other political leaders who believed in settling the dispute by discussion. The killing of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not warrant these organizations to call for an international inquiry or frame charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity. Instead, the Western media refused to call V. Prabhakaran or his gang as terrorists.
Excellency, for thirty years we have suffered in silence. Our mothers, sisters and children died due to terrorism, our political leaders were assassinated. The only path left for some of us was to become refugees in another country. Thousands left for India. Thousands migrated to other countries expecting liberation from terrorism. Today we have been liberated. Our citizens in the North and East have been moved out from Camps and they are breathing a sigh of relief as their children are safe from being conscripted as child soldiers. Everyone is cherishing the democratic ideals and is in pursuit of happiness. Most Sri Lankans in Italy are making arrangements to return to Sri Lanka and enjoy the newly found freedom. Today, there is unbelievable racial harmony, camaraderie and fellowship amongst the Sinhalese, Tamils and the Muslims. Sri Lankans have forgotten the deep scars and wounds inflicted during the ethnic conflict. Even those who suffered during the last stages of the war found new found happiness in democracy where racial tension and hatred have healed and are being healed. Ethnic violence has been relegated to history and we are living as brethren as one great family.
Therefore, any attempt by any group to dig into the past and open the wounds that have been healing would create suspicion amongst the various ethnic groups and would only result in bringing back the demons of the past, founded upon ethnic diversity, racial hatred and terrorism. Therefore, as a man of great learning and a man who has been elevated to one of the most important positions in the World and further being an Asian, we are assured you would not consider creating divisions among the peaceful environment that exists in Sri Lanka. We believe in the remarks you have made that you have no power or any authority to take any further action on a report by an advisory committee appointed by you. We also take this opportunity to thank the Rome-based UN Agencies such as FAO and IFAD who had helped during this conflict and other UN Agencies (UNHCR) for the assistance to refugees. Sri Lanka, as the first and the only country in the world which has defeated terrorism, has to be supported in its endeavour to bring back civilian administration to the fore.
We expect Your Excellency to support the initiative of the Government to rehabilitate the hardcore terrorists and resettle the displaced people in their homes and help the Government to expedite the demining process. This would be the greatest contribution made by you as a Secretary General to ensure long lasting peace, brotherhood, and equanimity prevails amongst the various ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.
Assuring you of our highest consideration.”
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