What a time bomb Sri Lanka's Eastern Province Chief Minister Pillaiyan is sitting on!

(May 20, 2011,  Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka government sources say that the Tamil People's Liberation Tigers (TMVP) party led by Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan agreed to corporate with the government further as TMVP delegation met the President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday.

The TMVP leader and the Chief Minister raised the problems he and his party men were facing. A team of Army reportedly raided the house of the Chief Minister without a warrant, as TMVP accuses. It is reported that the President instructed the Inspector General of Police to take measures to conduct investigations in line with the law and to pay due respect to the privileges of the Eastern Province Chief Minister.

Then who ordered the raids, if the President is against them? Some media reported that the raid was conducted under the orders of the Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

The Police was also instructed by the President to speed up investigations regarding the arrested TMVP provincial councilor Pradeep Master. He was arrested last week in suspicion for the killing of a coordinating secretary of Deputy Minister Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan, a rival of the TMVP.

The President reportedly highlighted at the meeting the need of respect by all sections of the society to the rule of law.

The Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa, Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayaka, Inspector General of Police Mahinda Balasuriya and President's Secretary Lalith Weerathunga also participated in the discussion.

Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayaka appears as the person who arranged the meeting for Pillaiya. That means Pillaiyan has no very good rapport with the President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The clashes between paramilitary politicians Deputy Minister Karuna Amman and the Chief Minister Pillaiyan haunt the Batticaloa district since a long time. Karuna who nearly lost the entire ground and fled to UK once to be arrested and imprisoned there for breach of immigration laws fought back after returning to the home country.

He somehow won the heart of the ruling family and elevated into national politics as a Deputy Minister and a Vice President of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

The killings that took place in Batticloa last week appears as a direct clash between these two paramilitary leaders.

However, with Karuna's advent to the ruling family, Pillaiyan is in a very disadvantaged position. He seems sitting on a time bomb as metaphorically said by certain media. It is a time bomb of which the remote controller is in other people's hand. It may be in the hands of his arch rival Karuna.

One thing is definite. Pillaiyan who has been sidelined by the government will not be able to win a future election for a Provincial council or any other set up that will be created in future, especially in a context the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has reappeared and invaded the main stream politics of Tamil polity.

However, Karuna will cling to power still preventing his enemy's hold. Power is power and the color of the power will not be a matter to Karuna. Poor Pillaiyan! Unknown gunmen killed the Chief Minister's secretary at Athurugiriya some times back. Culprits are yet to arrested.

Lanka-e-News that appears since recently a pro-Pillaiyan media says that Pillaiyan has the widest support of the former paramilitary cadres. It also hints that Pillaiyan has a huge arms cache as well.


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Sri Lankan village woman Kawamma the real miracle of Somawathi

(May 17, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Kawamma, a 79-year-old village woman and a mother of three from Wariyapola in Sri Lanka’s Northwestern Province, is the real miracle of Somawathi, a Buddhist temple in the Eastern Province. However, she is an ordinary village woman apparently uneducated.

More than 800,000 devotees flocked in this forest-locked temple to see the body rays of Lord Buddha from the dagaba in the temple on May 09th. Torrential rains and heavy traffic jam caused a stampede in which at least three persons were dead. Over 25 persons were hospitalized and some were missing for days.

Kawamma lost contact with her group of devotees and finally lost in the jungle and survived there for eight days until two Muslim fishermen that were fishing in Mahaweli River at Sungawila found her.

She had bruises in her body but she was healthy, Police said. Police admitted her in the hospital. She said to media that she did not eat anything but drank water from puddles and roamed chanting Buddhist ‘Gatha’.
The woman told the police she survived in jungle without any food for eight days drinking only water. She is a resident of the address Netiya, Malagane, Nuwarakanda, Wariyapola in the Kurunegala district.

Poor response from Sri Lankan Muslim militants to the call to surrender arms

(July 06, 2009) Police sources say that the Muslim armed groups in the Eastern Province have surrendered a fraction of the arms and ammunition they are believed possessing.

The deadline for surrenderin arms concluded on July 04 after extension. Armed groups surrendered a small number of weapons including 18 T-56 automatic rifles.

Deputy Inspector General of Batticaloa Central Edison Gunathilaka said to Lakbima News newspaper on Sunday the intelligence reports had revealed that jihadist militants possess 250 T-56 assault rifles.


Minister of Health, Eastern province, M. L. A. M. Hisbullah said he distributed 600 weapons to villagers to be used to defend the Muslims from Tigers.

He said he received them from the late President R.Premadasa and distributed them a day after an incident of massacre in Kathankudi in August 1990. “We never kept these weapons to fight the security forces. We used them to fight against the Tamil Tigers.”