Freedom offered by Sri Lanka government to Tamil IDPs backlashes

(December 21, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka government says it has opened the main highway from Colombo to Jaffna and people now can travel on the road without passes issued by the Ministry of Defense. The government has sped up the resettlement of Tamil refugees and say they provide all facilities to the people 'liberated' from the iron arm of the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE).

President Mahinda Rajapakse has called an early presidential to get himself elected for a second term before the warmth of the war victory wanes. However, with the ex-Army Commander Sarath Fonseka's coming forward as the opposition common candidate, Sinhala polity is divided and the winner of the presidential depends on minority votes.

President Mahinda Rajapakse has directed his powerful brother Basil Rajapakse, an adviser, for bargaining votes for freedom among the desperate Tamil IDPs. As a result, the Tamils of Vanni now enjoy better treatment from the 'liberator.'

But the 'freedom' also has repercussions. People are on the verge of opening their mouths on the experiences in the hands of the 'liberators' who are now facing war crime allegations due to the inhuman conduct in the final phase of war.

At least one Tamil woman who lived in the government declared 'no fire zone' until 'liberated' by the 'humanitarian operation' of the state security forces has opened her mouth to global media. Thamilvani Gnanakumar, 25, was in the 'no-fire zone' assisting people in health care and she was released after confining her for several months in Manik Farm 'welfare village' what she calls a concentration camp. Vani, a biomedical graduate, is a Sri Lankan origin UK citizen and talked to The Observer from her house in Essex describing her harrowing experience.

She says she waited until now to reveal the full scale of her ordeal in the hope of avoiding reprisals against friends and family held with her. They have now been released after the Sri Lankan government bowed to international pressure this month and opened the camps.

Following are several excerpts from her interview with the UK newspaper:

"It was a concentration camp, where people were not even allowed to talk, not even allowed to go near the fences.

"They were kept from the outside world. The government didn't want people to tell what happened to them, about the missing or the disappearances or the sexual abuse. They didn't want anyone to know.

"Sexual abuse is something that was a common thing, that I personally saw. In the visitor area relatives would be the other side of the fence and we would be in the camp. Girls came to wait for their relatives and military officers would come and touch them, and that's something I saw.

"The girls usually didn't talk back to them, because they knew that in the camp if they talked anything could happen to them. It was quite open, everyone could see the military officers touching the girls," she said.

"Tamil girls usually don't talk about sexual abuse, they won't open their mouths about it, but I heard the officers were giving the women money or food in return for sex. These people were desperate for everything.

"One time I saw an old man was waiting to visit the next camp and this military officer hit the old man. I don't know what the argument was, but the officer just hit him in the back.

"In the same area people were made to kneel down in the hot weather for arguing with the officers. Sometimes it lasted for hours.

"They were asking people to come in and take their names down if they had any sort of contact [with the Tamil Tigers]. They did an investigation and then a van would come in and they would take them away and nobody would know after that. I know people still searching for family members.

Kumar said that on arrival at the camp, near the northern town of Vavuniya, she was put in a large tent with several people she did not know. The camp was guarded by armed soldiers and ringed with high fences and rolls of razor wire. "The first two or three days I was alone there still scare me. When I arrived at the camp I put my bag down and just cried. That feeling still won't go. I just don't want to think about those two or three days in the camp, the fear about what was going to happen to me.

"For the first few days I didn't eat anything. We didn't know where to go to get food. I thought, 'Am I dreaming or is this really happening?' I never thought I would end up in a camp." Tens of thousands of people were crammed into flimsy tents which provided little respite from the intense heat. Toilets and washing facilities could not cope with the demands and food and water were in short supply.

"You have to bathe in an open area in front of others, which I find very uneasy. I stayed next to the police station, so every day I had a bath with the police officers looking at me, men and women. Everyone can see you when you are having a bath. So I would get up early in the morning about 3.30am, so it was dark," she said.

Kumar was held in the best-equipped part of the camp, but even there conditions were dire. "It is not a standard a human being can live in. The basic needs like water and food [were] always a problem. Most of the time you were queuing for water.

"The toilets were terrible, and there was not enough water, so we could not clean them. There were insects and flies everywhere. After two or three days of continuous rain, the sewage was floating on the water and going into the tents and everyone [was] walking through it, up to knee height." She was finally released into the custody of the British High Commission in early September.

Sri Lanka President to dissolve parliament by early January?

(December 20, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka President is likely to dissolve the parliament by early January, government sources say.

The parliament meetings are now adjourned till January 5. Opposition protested this move of the government to cancel the meetings stating that it would undermine he accountability. The President has reportedly taken this step to deploy his mega cabinet in his presidential campaign island wide. President Mahinda Rajapakse is running for the second term in the snap presidential to be held on January 26,  

The parliament is to debate the proposal to extend the emergency regulations by one month on January 5. Sri Lanka is ruled under emergency for decades and the extension month by month without strict opposition is customary in the parliament.

The President is expected to dissolve the parliament after January 5, sources say. The term of the current parliament ends in April 2010 and the Election Commissioner and the political parties need time to go for a general election.

Sri Lanka's major opposition has united to campaign for the victory of the common opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka. However, both capitalist United National Party (UNP) as well as Marxist People's Liberation Front (JVP) have announced that they will run individually in the general election.

Obama’s speech disappoints and fuels frustration

COPENHAGEN (AP) US President Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit on Friday saying he was convinced the world could act "boldly and decisively" on climate change.

But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embrace bold measures, after world leaders had been working desperately against the clock to try to paper over an agreement to prevent two years of wasted effort — and a 10-day meeting — from ending in total collapse.

Obama, who had been skittish about coming to Copenhagen at all unless it could be cast as a foreign policy success, looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders.

He offered no further commitments on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries beyond Hillary Clinton’s announcement yesterday that America would support a $100bn global fund to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

He did not even press the Senate to move ahead on climate change legislation, which environmental organisations have been urging for months.

The president did say America would follow through on his administration’s clean energy agenda, and that it would live up to its pledges to the international community.

"We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say," Obama said.

But in the absence of any evidence of that commitment the words rang hollow and there was a palpable sense of disappointment in the audience.

Instead, he warned African states and low island nations who have been resisting what they see as a weak agreement that the later alternative — no agreement — was far worse.

"We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years. But here is the bottom line: we can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, and continue to refine it and build upon its foundation," he said.

"Or we can again choose delay, falling back into the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years. And we will be back having the same stale arguments month after month, year after year – all while the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible."

He also took a dig at China, drawing attention to its status as the world’s biggest emitter and reinforcing America’s hardline on the issue of accountability for greenhouse gas emissions.

The lacklustre speech proved a huge frustration to a summit that had been looking to Obama to use his stature on the world stage – and his special following among African leaders – to try to come to an ambitious deal.

The president was drawn into the chaos within minutes of his arrival at Copenhagen, ditching his schedule to take part in a meeting of major industrialised and rapidly emerging economies.

Responding to Obama’s speech, a British official said: "Gordon Brown is committed to doing all he can and will stay until the very last minute to secure a deal... but others also need to show the same level of commitment. The prospects of a deal are not great."

Tim Jones, a spokesman for the World Development Movement, said: "The president said he came to act, but showed little evidence of doing so. He showed no awareness of the inequality and injustice of climate change. If America has really made its choice, it is a choice that condemns hundreds of millions of people to climate change disaster."

Friends of the Earth said in a statement, "Obama has deeply disappointed not only those listening to his speech at the UN talks, he has disappointed the whole world."

The World Wildlife Fund said Obama had let down the international community by failing to commit to pushing for action in Congress: "The only way the world can be sure the US is standing behind its commitments is for the president to clearly state that climate change will be his next top legislative priority."

The extent of crisis in the talks has taken leaders by surprise. The Brazilian leader, Lula da Silva, told the conference that the all-night negotiating sessions took him back to his days as a trade union leader negotiating with his bosses.

THE UNSEEN INJUSTICE IN WORLD TRADE

(Editorial of Daily Mirror 2009-12-19)

Just a few of us remember the historic Non Aligned Conference also called the Bandung Conference held in April 1955 - historic since it was the first time in the history of the world that leaders of Asian and African peoples met together in one of their own countries for a dialogue on matters of common concern.  The conference was the precursor of the non aligned movement. It was largely the initiative of President Sukarno of Indonesia and was co-sponsored by Burma (now Myanmar) Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) India and Pakistan.Perhaps the most important paragraph in the Final Communiqué of the Bandung Conference was a call for collective action to stabilize the international prices of primary commodities. Unfortunately subsequent international arrangements to do so have been scuttled by developed countries. The economy of almost all developing countries depend on the export of commodities such as rubber, sugar, tea, cocoa, coffee and coconut. In the decades following the Bandung Conference, the need to resolve the low prices, the volatility in prices and demand for commodities was a major part of international economic discussions and initiatives. A major part of the work of UNCTAD in its first two decades focused on hosting negotiations between commodity producing and consuming countries giving rise to several producer-consumer commodity agreements and the establishment of a Common Fund for commodities.  However in the 1980s major developed countries, led by the United States and United Kingdom decided that these commodity agreements clashed with their new free market philosophy and withdrew their interest and support for these agreements.  By the end of the 1980s, the organization running these arrangements were unable to carry out their most important functions relating to the purchase and maintenance of stocks and the management of prices which were to remain within an agreed band.  In December 2002 the United Nations General Assembly called on UNCTAD to convene a group of independent eminent persons to examine and report on commodity issues.  The report presented to the UN Assembly in October 2003 came up with several proposals including the following: Developing countries are the victims of subsidy policies in the developed countries which harm producers of many agricultural commodities who are facing unfair competition from developed country farmers. The report called for the speedy resumption of negotiations leading to agricultural liberalization in the North.Unfortunately up till today the negotiations are deadlocked in the World Trade Organization (WTO). There was no comprehensive and systematic consultative framework to share information and use expertise among key actors in reviewing the commodity situation. Efforts of all interested stakeholders should, therefore be put together and focus on breaking the cycle of poverty in which commodity producers are locked. Therefore UNCTAD adopted a decision to establish an international task force on commodities. Compared to the enormous work done by UNCTAD in the 1960s to 1980s when initiatives to attain fair prices for commodities and maintain commodity agreements, the agenda for the international task force was mild and limited. However the decision to setup the task force was a major step forward given the absence of a venue or mechanism in the international system to discuss the problem, let alone address it.  But like several other international initiatives to promote the economic and commercial development of the Third World and reduce poverty, the task force has been largely ignored by the developed countries and the international community.  The “inequal exchange,” described at the Bandung Conference in 1955 continues today with developing countries having to sell their commodities at low prices to the World Market whilest having to import manufactured goods at high prices with declining terms of trade.

Live coverage of nomination day by Sri Lanka public media bias and partisan to Rajapakse , election monitors say

(December 18, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Amidst Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse's blatant illegal misuse of public property in his run to elect for the second term, one of the major election monitoring movement has written to the Election Commissioner regarding the bias and partisan live telecast of the nomination day by the public television channels. The television channel did not give equal importance to all candidates and gave an unethical prominence to the President Mahinda Rajapakse.


The content of the letter is as follows:
 
In Relation to the Live Telecast of Nomination Day for the 2010 Presidential Election
 
The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) would like to strongly protest against the biased and partisan nature of the Nomination Day Live Telecast for the 2010 Presidential Election shown today the 17th of December 2010.
 
The access and rights to telecast this important national occasion had only been granted to the State owned Rupavahini Channel. They have used this honorable occasion in a very biased and partisan manner currently.
 
Although every Presidential Candidate should get an equal amount of importance during the Live Telecast of the Presidential Nomination Event only ONE candidate was given importance. Not displaying the names of some candidates and their picture next to their name while displaying the name and picture of select candidates was a glaring obvious example of this biased and partisan conduct.
 
Furthermore, during the live telecast television presenters repeatedly mentioned the campaign slogan of one particular candidate. This biased and partisan reporting goes beyond the accepted norms and ethics of unbiased media reporting.
 
CaFFE observes that the situation was made into a totally partisan scenario and this situation arose because the rights to the live telecast were given to only one television channel. It is essential that Election Department take responsible charge of the situation and ensures that no single candidate gets an irregularly high amount of media time in the future Presidential Election period.
 
The situation has arisen again in which the requirement for a Competent Authority for State Media has once again been created by the partisan approach adopted the National State Television Channel of Sri Lanka when telecasting the nationally important nomination day. CaFFE would like to request you to look into this matter urgently.
 

Why do Sri Lankan presidential candidates go back to history to launch their campaigns?

(December 17, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Today the nominations are closed for the January 25 presidential of Sri Lanka. Both the government and the major opposition will have their inaugural rallies tomorrow.

President Mahinda Rajapakse's first propaganda rally is held in Anuradhapura while major opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka will climb the hill to address his inaugural rally held in Kandy.

The two venues chosen by these two candidates to launch their campaigns officially has connotations linked to the past.

Anuradhapura is an ancient capital of a kingdom that ended at the beginning of the second millennium around 1000 AD. Later the colonial archaeologists and the historians unearthed the glorious city in late 19th century until what times it was covered by thick jungle.However, as Sinhala nationalism was formed in the modern times with its primary focus to the Sinhala dominance in the post-colonial state, Anuradhapura was chosen as the ideal capital of the Sinhala polity.

Kandy is the capital of the last Sinhala kingdom that fell to the English colonials in 1815 basically due to internal mutiny.

Both cities are equally significant for the Buddhists. Buddhism is the majority religion of the island. Sri Maha Bodhiya, a tree believed to hail from the ancient tree that provided shade to Lord Buddha to attain enlightenment is in Anuradhapura.

The sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha, a symbol of kingship is in Kandy.

Another significance is that the Tamil nationalist rebels have attacked both these cities and killed people.

What do you think about the historical ramifications of selection of these two cities by the two major candidates for the launch of their campaigns instead of Colombo, the natural nerve center of politics.

Cleaners 'worth more to society' than bankers - study

By Martin Shankleman, Employment correspondent, BBC News

Hospital cleaners play a vital role, the study found

Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests.
The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid.
It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy.
They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to "create stress".
The study says they are responsible for campaigns which create dissatisfaction and misery, and encourage over-consumption.

Waste workers promote recycling, researchers note

And tax accountants damage the country by devising schemes to cut the amount of money available to the government, the research suggests.
By contrast, child minders and waste recyclers are also doing jobs that create net wealth to the country.
The Foundation has used a new form of job evaluation to calculate the total contribution various jobs make to society, including for the first time the impact on communities and environment.
Eilis Lawlor, spokeswoman for the New Economics Foundation, said: "Pay levels often don't reflect the true value that is being created. As a society, we need a pay structure which rewards those jobs that create most societal benefit rather than those that generate profits at the expense of society and the environment".

Tax accountants are said to destroy £47 in value for every £1 generated

She said the aim of the research was not to target individuals in highly paid jobs, or suggest people in low paid jobs should earn more.
"The point we are making is more fundamental - that there should be a relationship between what we are paid and the value our work generates for society. We've found a way to calculate that," she said.
A total of six different jobs were analysed to assess their overall value. These are the study's main findings:

• The elite banker

"Rather than being wealth creators bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse
Paid between £500,000 and £80m a year, leading bankers destroy £7 of value for every pound they generate".

• Childcare workers

"Both for families and society as a whole, looking after children could not be more important. As well as providing a valuable service for families, they release earnings potential by allowing parents to continue working. For every pound they are paid they generate up to £9.50 worth of benefits to society."

• Hospital cleaners

"Play a vital role in the workings of healthcare facilities. They not only clean hospitals and maintain hygiene standards but also contribute to wider health outcomes. For every pound paid, over £10 in social value is created."

• Advertising executives

The industry "encourages high spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12m top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate".

• Tax accountants

"Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate."

• Waste recycling workers

"Do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced. There is also a value in reusing goods. For every pound of value spent on wages, £12 of value is generated for society."
The research also makes a variety of policy recommendations to align pay more closely with the value of work.
These include establishing a high pay commission, building social and environmental value into prices, and introducing more progressive taxation.