Doctored Realty: am I a football Aiya?

MR: Get out! You boasted to defeat JVP. But you couldn't even make your brother on board.

VV: Ouch, my back! Am I a football Aiya?

Sri Lanka's average remittances per person reach US$131

(October 13, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka's average remittances per person has reached US$131 making it a nation with the largest per capita remittances in South Asia. On average the remittances per person in South Asia is US$33. Sri Lanka's average is eight times higher than the regional average.

US$2,527 million remittances that were sent to Sri Lanka by migrant workers accounted 8% of GDP in 2007.

These facts were revealed by UNDP Resident Representative Neil Buhne when presenting the findings of the 2009 Human Development Report (HDR) based on the concept of “Overcoming Barriers: Human mobility and development” held at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations in Colombo yesterday.

Migration for employment mostly by females is high in Sri Lanka who work as domestic help workers in most Middle Eastern countries that has increasingly contributed towards the country’s remittances over the years.

Around 252,021 Sri Lankans, majority of them females, secured foreign employment in 2008 and 218,459 in 2007 according to Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau statistics. 

At the presentation of the report for 2009, there is a fervent call to reduce the transaction costs for migrants to obtain employment in other countries. 

Sri Lanka media has reported a large number of incidents the local politicians including Ministers are involved in rackets of human trafficking for lucrative gains.

Sri Lankan court aquits two journalists wrongfully prosecuted by police

(October 13, Colombo - Lanka Polity) A Sri Lankan court yesterday acquitted two journalists that were charged by police for non-divulging information vital for investigations to police.

The two journalists were the Editor of Lanka-e-News website Sandaruwan Senadheera and his News Editor Benet Rupasinghe. They were arrested by police following they took measures to inform the authorities regarding the abduction of a fellow journalist by unknown groups.

On June 01, Poddala Jayantha, the Secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association, was abducted by an armed group in a white van. Later he was found dropped on a roadside after severely beating him and making him to eat his own hair and beard. The journalist still walks with the help of crutches.

Lanka-e-News news editor Benet Rupasinghe was informed by an eyewitness about the abduction and he immediately took steps to inform the family of the abducted journalist and the other authorities including the President's office and the police about the incident.

However, police later arrested them and charged for non-divulging information to police. Yesterday police informed court they had not found evidence against the journalists and said further investigations were underway. However, the magistrate aquitted the journalists although police wanted to carry on the investigations.

The police action is widely regarded as a repressive measure against two disciplined citizens that acted lawfully in accordance with information they received.

Meanwhile, sources close to the two journalists said that they were not going to take legal action against the injustice caused to them. This is considered another indication of the repressive environment that prevails in the country.

(Photo: Lanka-e-News Editor Sandaruwan Senadheera with the attacked journalist Poddala Jayantha)

More Sri Lankans risk lives in the efforts to migrate to Australia

(October 12, Colombo - Lanka Polity) More Sri Lankans are taking risks to migrate to Australia looking for green pastures in small fishing crafts despite repeated warnings of Australia to avoid illegal migration. Last week, media reported that Australia had hired a advertising agency to make aware the Sri Lankans on the risks of their efforts to migrate to Down Under.

However, with the trying economic conditions and the human rights conditions in the island, some people do not hesitate to pay huge sums of money to traffickers to take them to Australia in fishing craft in a very dangerous journey.

Indonesian authorities yesterday captured a group of about 260 migrants from Sri Lanka who are suspected of trying to sail to Australia, a navy spokesman said to AP Sunday.

An Indonesian warship intercepted a cargo ship carrying the group off Anak Krakatau, a volcanic island in the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra islands, said Lt. Col. Supriono, a spokesman for the Western Fleet of Indonesian Navy to AP.

The report further said that

He said the navy then sent three other warships to help transport them to Merak seaport in Banten province on the western end of Java. Some of the migrants refused to be taken off the cargo ship.

Harry Purwanto, head of Banten immigration office said the group, which includes some women and children, would be kept in Banten while they were identified and then would be transferred to immigration detention centers in the capital of Jakarta or other big cities.

Migrants from war-ravaged countries often sail through Indonesian waters on their way to Australia.

Last week, Indonesian police in eastern province of East Nusatenggara detained 22 illegal migrants — 19 Iranians, two Iraqis and one Afghan — who were trying to get to Australia.

Sri Lanka media highlights President Mahinda Rajapakse must have given the Nobel Peace Prize

(October 12, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka that is in a new diplomatic brawl with world super power US is moving further ahead to mock Norwegian Nobel Committee for giving US President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize instead of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse.

Sri Lanka government's major electronic propaganda organ Independent Television Network (ITN) highlighted Canadian National Post newspaper had stated that the Nobel Peace Prize should have been given to President Rajapaksa and not Barack Obama. The state television said that the Canadian Post had told that giving Obama the Nobel Peace Prize was comical. (http://www.itn.lk/news_05_20091010.html)

ITN noted that the reason is that the Sri Lankan President ended terrorism definitively at one stroke. It is one of the only times in the history of modern warfare that a terrorist movement has been utterly destroyed in such a fashion.

ITN further said quoting unnamed analysts that the Nobel Committee handled by Norway that helpeda Tamil Tiger terrorists of Sri Lanka could not be expected to offer President mahinda Rajapakse the Nobel Peace Prize.

The United States has already lodged a “strong protest” to Sri Lanka over remarks by Prime Minister, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, on state radio that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has forgotten the “Monica Lewinsky episode” and should “put her house in order.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, addressing the UN Security Council, on September 30, noted that rape has been used as a weapon of war in the Balkans, Burma, Sri Lanka and elsewhere and that in too many countries and in too many cases, the perpetrators of this violence are not punished, and so this impunity encourages further attacks.

The rulers of Sri Lanka whose human rights record under President Mahinda Rajapakse is being questioned by the West are pushing away the island nation from its traditional allies like US and Europe to new found bossom friends like China, Russia, Iran and Libya etc.

Sri Lanka Army killed 22,000 LTTE cadres; lost 192 officers and 5,200 men

(October 11, Colombo - Lanka Polity) The Sri Lankan Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen Sarath Fonseka told The Island daily here on Saturday, that in the two-year-and-10-month long Eelam War IV, the Sri Lankan army had killed 22,000 fighters of the LTTE and captured over 9,000.

“This is 90 per cent of the total losses inflicted on the LTTE by all the security forces,” Fonseka said at the end of the army’s 60th anniversary celebrations.The General, who led the army to victory in the 2006-2009 operations known as Eelam War IV, claimed that the army was responsible for the destruction of 70 per cent of the assets of the LTTE’s sea and air wings also. One of the key factors, which helped the army defeat the LTTE was rapid modernisation and fresh recruitment, he said. The army grew in manpower from 116,000 to 200,000 in three years. New recruits held captured areas while experienced troops took part in the offensives.

However, the army lost 192 officers and 5,200 men and 27,000 suffered battlefield injuries.“The army bore 96 per cent of the casualties in this war,” Fonseka said. “No one can match or come close to the army’s contribution to the war,” he added.

Is Sri Lanka's Rajapakse regime losing the ground?

(October 11, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Although Sri Lanka's ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) came into power in the home province of President Mahinda Rajapakse recording a massive victory at Southern Provincial Council election, the ruling alliance seems losing the firm hold five months after it defeated the Tamil's violent struggle for a homeland in the north and eastern parts of the island. 

Voter turnout was average 69.24% despite massive propaganda campaign of the ruling alliance in Southern Province. The state media propagated exaggerated statistics on voter turnout that sharply contrasted with the data issued by independent monitors right in the mid-day news bulletins in an attempt to attract more voters to the polling centers.

The government used almost all public property from the powers of the executive presidency and state-owned media to public roads for the ambitious propaganda campaign that targeted to achieve 80% votes for the ruling alliance. Mud slinging on opposition politicians were carried out by state media even on the election day. However, the UPFA could record 67.88% only while the major opposition was voted 25.09% and the Marxist nationalist People's Liberation Front (JVP) gained 6.11% from the province. 

UPFA amassed 72.39% votes at Uva Provincial Council election held immediately after the military victory over the Tamil rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE). Southern Province UPFA result was lower than the February 14th North Western Provincial Council result that gave 69.43% votes to UPFA even before the military defeat of the LTTE. 

Four Rajapakse brothers that run the country might not be happy with the result they achieved from their home district Hambanthota from where they expected gratitude for the rapid development conducted there. The government has promised a service harbor, an international airport, an international cricket stadium, rail road and many other developments to this district which is one of Sri Lanka's poorest in many terms. They could achieve 66.95% only in Hambanthota and it was the lowest percentage out of the three districts. 

Ruling alliance's former ally JVP gained 11.01% votes from Hambanthota district. JVP was the main force that ushered Mahinda Rajapakse to presidency in 2005 but they did not assume cabinet portfolios and quit the alliance soon after.