Process of granting solution to the ethnic problem of Sri Lanka reversed to 2005

Sri Lanka government is to have another round of talks with the major Tamil constituent Tamil National Alliance (TNA) today in Colombo, unconfirmed sources say.

This discussion was scheduled following the last dialogue held on June 23 in the Presidential Secretariat.

Today's discussion is believed an extension of the dialogue on the talks on the implementation of the 13th amendment to the constitution.

Reports say the TNA has proposed amendments to the concurrent list of the 13th amendment under which the central government and the Provincial Councils share equal powers in certain matters.

However, an earlier report said that TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran had told the government was expected to respond to their proposals regarding power sharing within a week.

Earlier reports said that the next round of talks were scheduled for July 9.

Despite the talks with the TNA, the President told the main opposition United National Party’s co-deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya on Friday that the UPFA government’s official position was that the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee would determine whether the 13th Amendment should be part of a settlement for Tamil grievances.

President Rajapaksa’s remarks came when he met Jayasuriya when the two leaders attended the Higher Ordination Ceremony of the Sri Lanka Amarapura Nikaya (including all its 22 sectors) at the Kandana, Walpola Sri Wimalaratanarama Vidya Nivasa Pirivena, as reported by the Sunday Times.

The newspaper reported, "President Rajapaksa is learnt to have told Mr. Jayasuriya that he had already conveyed to India the UPFA government’s position that a settlement of whatever Tamil grievances would be determined by a Parliamentary Select Committee represented by all political parties. He had told Mr. Jayasuriya the three member Indian delegation that visited Sri Lanka had been informed of this position. The delegation comprised National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar."

Government appears to go back to 2005 in which year the Rajapaksa regime summoned an All Party Conference (APC) to seek the so called consent of all parties for a solution. The All Party Representative Committee (APRC) that was appointed by the APC first rejected a set of proposals submitted by an expert panel appointed by it and then went on discussing more than 100 times. Nobody knows what happened to the report submitted by the APRC to the President. The Marxist opportunist Lanka Sama Samaja Party leader Thissa Vitharana, Minister who chaired APRC that wasted public money and time remains tight-lipped.

The proposed Parliamentary Select Committee will be another move of the old tactic of taking time for which India appears granting consent to the move as it did since 2005. But what will be the outcome of this move? Who will benefit eventually?

First and foremost Tamil moderates will be a set of failures once again and militancy will be proved once again the only way the Tamils have.

All efforts of building a Lankan nation through negotiated settlement with minorities will be tarnished. Minorities will continue their struggle for ceding.

With the deepened alienation of the Tamils from Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan state, the government will further estrange with the international community.

The legitimacy of the Tamil struggle will boost and the Sinhala polity as a whole and the government leaders as a unit will face severe pressure at the international front.

The repercussions will create a situation that will make drastic changes in the polity and the perpetrators will have to reap whatever they are sowing now.


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Sri Lanka trishaw drivers protest nano cabs

A group of trishaw drivers held a protest demonstration yesterday at the Hyde Park, Colombo against the Tata Nano taxi cab service.

The self-employed trishaw owners sought the government to intervene to safeguard their livelihood. They say their livelihood is under threat due to this taxi cab service.

Their protest was focused to the taxi cab service launched by Nano cabs Company, of which a major shareholder is reportedly a Colombo district MP of the ruling United People's Freedom alliance.

Reportedly, the company has received a tax concession to import 200 Nano cars at two third the normal market price in Sri Lanka.

The cheapest Nano car costs Rs. 925,000 in Sri Lanka, three timesmore than double the price in India due to heavy taxes.

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Another petition against not holding election for Colombo Municipal Council

Pakyasothi Saravanamuttu, a leading civil society figure in Sri Lanka filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court yesterday citing his civil and political rights were violated due to non holding of the election for the Colombo Municipal Council.

The petitioner has cited Election Commissioner, Colombo District Deputy Election Commissioner,Municipal Administration and the Attorney General as respondents.

Executive Director of Centre for Policy Alternatives Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu filed a fundamental rights petition on May 10 also in the Supreme Court seeking the holding of election for the Colombo Municipal Council immediately.

The election for the Colombo Municipal Council was postponed repeatedly under emergency regulations and finally it was placed under a competent authority that is neither an elected member nor a public official, cited the petitioner.

Later, he withdrew the petition due to faults in it to file a new one.


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Sri Lankan leaders indirectly admit charges leveled against them

“When the American forces entered the room that Bin Laden was in they first shot his wife. Then they shot bin Laden. At this point both of them were unarmed. But none of us, or the international community is questioning this,” said Sri Lanka Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa at a meeting held in Nugegoda on June 17, as quoted by News First.

“But the Channel 4 video, we don't know if it is accurate or not, shows LTTE terrorists being arrested by the army. They are being questioned. But later they show the body. They make it out to be a big thing. But they don't show who this terrorist is,” pointed out the Defence Secretary.

“This terrorist is the terrorist who brutally murdered our Buddhist priests in the Eastern Province in cold blood. This is the person who killed 600 unarmed police officers after tying their hands. This is the person who killed the innocent women and their children in in villages in cold blood. None of this is mentioned about these people in the documentary,” said the Defence Secretary.

This statement raises several questions. Does the senior government official know the identity of the said dead man whose body was shown in the Channel 4 film?

Does the Defense Secretary attempt to justify the killing, stating that the dead man is a terrorist?

If so, the official seems to play into the hands of his enemies who seek a war crimes probe against him. The charges against Sri Lanka government leaders are related to extra judicial killings allegedly committed during war. This kind of statements or arguments amount to admitting the charges.

Do the Sri Lankan leaders think that this is the way to face the situation in which they are really in trouble?


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Link to Killing Fields of Sri Lanka

Watch Channel 4 video Killing Fields of Sri Lanka

Jon Snow presents a forensic investigation into the final weeks of the quarter-century-long civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the secessionist rebels, the Tamil Tigers.

With disturbing and distressing descriptions and film of executions, atrocities and the shelling of civilians the programme features devastating new video evidence of war crimes - some of the most horrific footage Channel 4 has ever broadcast.

Captured on mobile phones, both by Tamils under attack and government soldiers as war trophies, the disturbing footage shows: the extra-judicial executions of prisoners; the aftermath of targeted shelling of civilian camps; and dead female Tamil fighters who appear to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.

The film is made and broadcast as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon faces growing criticism for refusing to launch an investigation into 'credible allegations' that Sri Lankan forces committed war crimes during the closing weeks of the bloody conflict with the Tamil Tigers.

In April 2011, Ban Ki-moon published a report by a UN-appointed panel of experts, which concluded that as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war between the Tamil Tigers and government forces.

It called for the creation of an international mechanism to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law committed by government forces and the Tamil Tigers during that time.

This film provides powerful evidence that will lend new urgency to the panel's call for an international inquiry to be mounted, including harrowing interviews with eye-witnesses, new photographic stills, official Sri Lankan army video footage, and satellite imagery.

Also examined in the film are some of the horrific atrocities carried out by the Tamil Tigers, who used civilians as human shields.

Channel 4 News has consistently reported on the bloody denouement of Sri Lanka's civil war. Sri Lanka's Killing Fields presents a further damning account of the actions of Sri Lankan forces, in a war that the government still insists was conducted with a policy of Zero Civilian Casualties.

The film raises serious questions about the consequences if the UN fails to act, not only with respect to Sri Lanka but also to future violations of international law.

You can follow the programme on Twitter using #KillingFields

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields will be shown to MPs and parliamentary officials at a special showing in the House of Commons next week.

If you wish to contact your MP directly on this or any other matter you can go to Theyworkforyou.com (you can click on the link at the left hand side of this page) to find out who your representative is and how to contact them.


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“There is no arsenic in our rice” - Minister of Agriculture; “ That is certainly true” - Agribusiness Corporations

Research conducted recently by a group of scientists of universities in Sri Lanka has shown that there is arsenic poison in rice produced in the country and that around 20,000 farmers in Rajarata have become ill and have died due to arsenic poison that is in the rice produced in the country. The research has revealed that this was due to the arsenic poison mixed in the agrochemicals used in Rajarata.

Agribusiness corporations have become very upset by this revelation and have published a full page advertisement with 20 such corporations coming together . It denies this and has the caption that “ scientific truth that protects agriculture will ever prevail”. In the mean time the Hon Minister of Agriculture issues a statement saying that “There is no arsenic in t he rice produced in the country”. He says that “28 varieties of agrochemicals were tested and there was arsenic present only in two of those”.

During the last 20 years there were around 20,000 farmers in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts who were killed by this mystery Kidney disease ( axiology /origin – CKDu ) which baffled the doctors. Last week a group of scientists comprising of chemists, phamocologists, botanists, medical doctors, forensic doctors of the universities of Kelaniya and Rajarata fond the following facts. In this research done for six months they found that the disease was connected with the agrochemicals that the farmers were using. This was linked with arsenic poison. The farmers had this suspicion for quite a long time and now it has been proved with evidence conclusively. However, the perpetrators have not yet accepted this . These scientists have investigated 8 varieties of agrochemicals The hard water in this region converts the arsenic in agrochemicals into Calcium arsenate ( Ca3( AsO4 )2 , which is a highly poisonous chemical. This dissolves in water. Due to the hardness of water in Rajarata this becomes even more dangerous. “We are 100 sure that there are dangerous quantities of arsenic in the agrochemicals imported into the country. We have to continue our reaserch a little more to show that this is linked to the CKDu disease in Rajarata” says the head of the research team Prof. Nalin De Silva.

We invited the importing agrochemical companies to look at the research that we were doing. Three of them came and they have not challenged our researches. In testing these agrochemicals it was proved that they contained between 100 to 3,000 micrograms per kg. This is a dangerous lethal quantity of poison that can kill a human person. Importing of agrochemicals that contain arsenic is against the Sri Lankan law.

It takes time for symptoms of arsenic poisoning to appear. So patients find it too late for treatment Arsenic poisoning can cause heart attacks, diabetes, weakening of body immunity etc. frequent attacks of viral diseases occur. It is also causes cancer. It can cause deformed babies too. In Padaviya out of a population of about 10,000 over 500 people suffer this disease. In this area 40% of the people who die are due to this disease says the doctor in charge of Padaviya hospital.

The important question is this. All agrochemicals are poisonous. They are poisonous to animals, poisonous to plans, poisonous to microbes in the soil, poisonous to insects. T here is no doubt that they are poisonous to the human body in diverse ways. It is impossible to completely get rid of pests with chemical pesticides. It only leads to breeding of more resistant pests and creating pest epidemics of larger scale.

So, what is “the scientific truth that protects agriculture that will prevail”. Agriculture is something given by nature free of charge. Sunlight given free of charge, CO 2 gas also given free, and water given free is absorbed by the leaves of trees. The required minerals are transformed by the microbes and earthworms of the soil. This all happens free. What we do by using agrochemicals is the killing of this free process given by nature. We kill nature, kill animals, plants and finally humans. This is an unscientific falsehood that destroys agriculture and nature. Therefore what we need to do is to give up this entire destructive process of chemical farming.

Mr. Olivier De Schutter, the special Rapporteur on the right to food of the United Nations submitted a report to the Human Rights Council of the UN on 17 December 2010 titled “Agro ecology and right to food” (Report no. A/ HRC/ 16/ 49 ) where he says that the way to solve the hunger crisis of the world is by adopting agro ecology. He says that states must pay serious attention to reorienting their agriculture systems towards a mode of production that are highly productive, highly sustainable, and contribute to the progressive realization of human right to food and that this can be done by adopting agro ecological methods. What we need to do today is to save the scientific truth of agriculture from the agribusiness TNCs that propagate the unscientific farming with poison for increasing their profits.

Sarath Fernando

MONLAR ( Movement for Land and Agriculture Reform ), 1151/58A, 4th Lane Kotte Road, Rajagiriya e-mail : monlar@sltnet.lk and sarathfdo@sltnet.lk




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Second programme of leadership and positive attitude training for Sri Lanka university students starts today

The second programme of leadership and positive attitude training programme of the new university students of Sri Lanka is to commence today.

The programme handled by the military is to be held in 29 centers island wide.

10,032 students have been called for the programme. Registration of the participants started at the respective centers yesterday.

9848 students participated in the first programme that was held in 28 centers. Two new centers have been added to the list of centers. They are the Kothalawala Defense Academy and the Medawachchiya Punewa Navy camp. The training programme will not be held this time at the Elpitiya Police Training School.


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