Sri Lanka's biggest drug dealer is a minister, says former Foreign Minister

(September 11, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka's former Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, a dissident of the ruling party, says that that the Police Narcotics Bureau has informed him that the country’s biggest drug dealer is a minister.

He pointed out that racketeers are spending millions of rupees of black money in their polls campaigns in recent Provincial Council polls aiming to obtain ruling party ticket in the upcoming general election.  


He said the Parliament of Sri Lanka would soon become a center for the racketeers to launder black monies. Samaraweera pointed out that some close associates of President Mahinda Rajapakse that are contesting to the Southern Provincial Council election are spending massive amounts of money and one person even uses a helicopter. He also said that President Rajapakse's nephew Shashindra Rajapakse that contested for the Uva Provincial Council election spent a colossal amount of money well over Rs. 75 million (over US $ 650,000) for his campaign.


Samaraweera was the campaign manager of current President Mahinda Rajapakse at the 2005 Presidential. He was a senior cabinet Minister since 1994 sans a brief period from 2001 to 2004. He defected from the ruling regime in 2007 and appeared with the opposition since then. 

Ninety-one suspects die in police custody in Sri Lanka under current President Mahinda Rajapakse

(September 10, 2009 - Lanka Polity) The number of suspects died while they are in police custody is increasing rapidly after present President Mahinda Rajapakse assumed duty including the portfolio of Minister of Defense, a report submitted by the government in the parliament said.

Government Chief Whip Dinesh Gunawardhana in response to a question asked by Marxist nationalist People's Liberation Front (JVP) said that 91 suspects died in police custody since November 2005 to 16 August during the tenure of the present Minister of Defense.

The number increased drastically as 11 persons died in 2006, 20 in 2007, 26 in 2008 and 32 in 2009 so far.

A considerable number of suspects were killed recently by police citing that they were killed as they attempted to attack police and to escape whilst they had accompanied police to recover hidden weapons. Human rights organizations claim that this kind of police action amounts to extra-judicial killings.

Probe on Sri Lankan journalists in suspicion of ploy to kill the President

(September 08, 2009 - Lanka Polity)  Sri Lanka state has begun an investigation on a newspaper company in relation to a ploy to assassinate the President or any other VIP including his brothers following three journalists of the newspaper were arrested near a mansion being constructed by the brother-in-law of the President Mahinda Rajapakse, reliable sources say.

The mansion is constructed in a picturesque area in Deniyaya in the Southern Province and three journalists have been in investigative reporting on if the public property is being misused in the construction, newspaper sources say. Police arrested the three journalists and brought them to Colombo for further investigation detaining them under emergency regulations.

The newspaper named 'Lanka' has close links with the Marxist nationalist People's Liberation Front (JVP) and the party that is supporting to the government to crush the Tamil nationalist rebellion has vowed to reconsider the support to pass the emergency regulations following this arrest.

Criminal Investigation Department questioned the editor of the newspaper Chandana Sirimalwaththa on Sunday and they visited the office of the newspaper to interrogate the entire editorial on Monday.

Sri Lanka Army assisting Phlippines to demolish Abu Sayyaf

(September 08, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka Army Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe has made a presentation to the senior officials of the state and the Army of Philippines on the strategy Sri Lanka Army followed to demolish the Tamil rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) that ran a bloody separatist campaign for more than three decades in northern and eastern parts of the Indian Ocean island.

A Sinhala nationalist newspaper in Sri Lanka reported that Philippines has asked for the assistance of Sri Lanka Army to tackle the problem of Abu Sayyaf terrorism and the Army is willingly providing it.

The Abu Sayyaf Group, also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya is one of several militant Islamist separatist groups based in and around the southern islands of the Philippines, in Bangsamoro (Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao) where for almost 30 years various Muslim groups have been engaged in an insurgency for a state, independent of the predominantly Catholic Philippines.

Losing touch with old friends

Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

A report for the European Union into Sri Lanka’s fitness for preferential tariff treatment is unfavorable

RARELY has a government soiled its reputation as dramatically as Sri Lanka’s. In recent months President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime has won a war and lost the love of many allies.

Its alleged wartime and other abuses make a grim catalogue: thousands of Tamil civilians allegedly killed by army shelling during the rebels’ last stand; scores of Tamils disappeared; nearly 300,000 Tamil war-displaced callously interned; murder and intimidation of journalists—including J.S. Tissainayagam, sentenced to 20 years hard labour on August 31st for criticising the army’s tactics (see article).

There is not much high-minded western countries—to whom Sri Lanka once looked for aid money—can do about this. Mr Rajapaksa has found alternative friends, in China, Libya, Pakistan—and others, who recently scotched a European effort to launch a war-crimes investigation into Sri Lanka. But the Europeans do have one wrench on Mr Rajapaksa’s government: a trade concession known as “GSP Plus”. This boon, which has helped make exports to the EU the country’s biggest source of foreign exchange, worth $3.3 billion last year, is up for review. Judging by an EU-commissioned report on Sri Lanka’s compliance with its terms, which include stipulations on human rights, it can kiss the concession goodbye.

The confidential 130-page report, which has been obtained by The Economist, concludes that Sri Lanka has failed to honour important human-rights commitments, and is ineligible for GSP Plus. Widespread police torture, abductions of journalists, politicised courts and uninvestigated disappearances have all played a part in creating a state of “complete or virtually complete impunity in Sri Lanka”. The internment of the Tamil displaced, which the government claims is necessary to weed out the last Tamil Tiger rebels and to protect them from munitions left in their fields, is “a novel form of unacknowledged detention”.

A final decision on GSP Plus is not due until October. The government, which barred the report’s authors from visiting Sri Lanka, called the study “outrageous” but seems resigned to losing the trade preference: a senior official in the trade ministry, S. Ranugge, admitted: “GSP Plus is very unlikely.”

Perhaps this does not bother Mr Rajapaksa: defying the West is part of his appeal. Anyway, his minions recently secured a $2.6 billion loan from the IMF. But as an indicator of where one of Asia’s oldest democracies may be headed, it should worry Sri Lankans, and all who wish their country well

Sri Lanka specially mentioned in press release issued by Reporters Without Borders to mark the 26th International Day of the Disappeared

 (August 29, 2009 - Lanka Polity) In a press release issued to mark the 26th International Day of the Disappeared on 30 August, Reporters Without Borders has provided a grim reminder that nothing has been heard, sometimes for years, of scores of journalists, who have been kidnapped, arrested or simply kept “appointments” that turned out to be traps in many countries including Sri Lanka.


Mexico, where eight journalists have disappeared since the year 2000, has been identified as the country most affected by this plague while Sri Lanka is mentioned next to that country.


Press release says "In January 2009, The International Press Freedom Mission to Sri Lanka condemned the “culture of impunity and indifference” surrounding the disappearances of journalists in the country. Soldiers arrested Subramaniam Ramachandran, correspondent for Tamil dailies Thinakural and Valampuri, close to a military camp, Kalikai Junction, in the north of Jaffna, in the north of the country on 15 February 2007. His family has heard nothing of him since then. He had been reporting on the illegal trade in sand, implicating a businessman and members of the military. The Jaffna office of the Human Rights Commission handled the case and it was referred to the military authorities, including the commander in chief for the Jaffna region. But as lawyer Mudiyapu Remedias explained, in this type of case “everyone is afraid of challenging the army, which denied any involvement”.


"Vadivel Nimalarajah, a sub-editor on the popular Tamil daily in Jaffna, Uthayan, which is highly critical of the government, has not been heard of since 17 November 2007 when, colleagues believe, he was abducted while cycling home after working overnight at the paper."


“Whether carried out by agents of the state or local criminals bent on settling scores, the many disappearances of journalists highlights the fact that the enemies of press freedom have no hesitation in using the most cowardly and despicable methods to gag journalists. We restate our support for the families of the disappeared and we share the pain they suffer in the waiting and uncertainty about their fate”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said.


“We urge the relevant authorities to systematically take these disappearances seriously and to open the badly-needed investigations to find these missing journalists and punish those responsible. It is moreover incredible that cases of ‘enforced disappearance’ implicating agents of the state or those acting with its support can still be going on around the world. We urge countries that have signed the International Convention for the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance to ratify the law as quickly as possible so that it can be put into force”, it added.

International Bar Association condemns death threats to Sri Lankan lawyer cum human rights activist

(August 28, 2009 Lanka Polity) The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) has condemned the death threat made to one of Sri Lanka’s leading human rights activists Mr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, the Executive Director of the Colombo-based think tank Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA).Concerned by this serious threat to Mr Saravanamuttu’s personal safety,the IBAHRI has today written to the Sri Lanka authorities urging them to protect his fundamental rights and physical security, and to conduct a full investigation into the anonymous death threat received by Mr Saravanamuttu at his home on 20 August 2009.

The IBAHRI says it understands that the threat comes under a belief that Mr. Saravanamuttu divulged information to the EU Commissioner for External Relations which could cause the European Union to suspend the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Plus; preferential trading benefits to Sri Lanka due to expire in October. The death threat apparently stated ‘come October and Sri Lanka is denied GSP Plus you WILL be killed…’

However, the IBAHRI notes from a 21 August news release on the CPA’s website that it has ‘consistently argued that the GSP Plus benefits MUST be renewed, and that Sri Lanka should use the opportunity to also strengthen its human rights protection framework by complying with international law.’

The IBAHRI May 2009 report 'Justice in Retreat: A report on the independence of the legal profession and the rule of law in Sri
Lanka' concluded that there was a pattern of intimidation routinely expressed against members of civil society, including journalists, academics and NGO workers who are perceived to be critical of the Government or its policies, particularly with respect to the conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

‘The IBAHRI fact-finding delegation to Sri Lanka in March found that the lack of prompt and effective investigations into threats and attacks against members of civil society has fostered a sense of impunity surrounding these incidents and has created a chilling effect on freedom of expression in Sri Lanka,’ said Alex Wilks, IBAHRI Programme Lawyer and member of the delegation. *‘It is a matter of great concern that members of civil society continue to receive such threats, despite the end of the conflict. Mr Saravanamuttu and the CPA have a right to lobby and campaign on rule of law issues without fearing for their lives.’

‘The rights to freedom of expression and security of the person are well-established in international law and are of fundamental importance to a free civil society,’ stated Justice Richard Goldstone, Co-Chair of the IBAHRI. ‘We call on the Sri Lankan authorities to show that such insidious threats against free speech cannot be tolerated by ensuring there is a swift investigation and that steps are taken to protect Mr Saravanamuttu and other members of the CPA.’

The death threat made to Mr Saravanamuttu follows a number of reports of similar threats made to leading members of civil society. Such threats to prominent human rights activists endanger the fragile freedom of expression in Sri Lanka.