How can Sri Lanka celebrate Tea Industry ignoring the lands confiscated by the Kandyan peasantry?

The white man said Cecil Rhodes built Africa. However, Africans disagree and Africans are bringing down the statues of Cecil Rhodes. Ironically, in Sri Lanka the reign of the kalu suddas is such that we are celebrating the tea industry that came about by illegally confiscating lands belonging to the Kandyan peasantry! Those that are celebrating the tea industry conveniently forget the background on which the tea industry was established and it really is not anything to be at all proud about.

We were known as the granary of the East. We were a proud agricultural country. We didn’t need tea or coffee to survive earlier. We were a self-sustained nation and we grew our own food and we even exported to others. Then came the invaders. Murder, mayhem and conversions resulted in a history that not many whites would like us to remind them of and not many kalu suddas want that past to be brought up either. Thus, the quest to expunge or dilute that murky history. However, no celebration of tea can come about without looking back and bringing out the gruesome facts that surround the tea industry and how we became dependent on white crops bringing to ruin the fertile soil that was nature’s gift.

The history of Ceylon Tea actually began with coffee by the Dutch in 1740 in the low country but was unsuccessful. Coffee was also started by British James Taylor. By 1860, Sri Lanka, Brazil and Indonesia, were the three largest coffee-producing countries in the world. In 1869 the coffee industry became a victim of a fungus (Devastating Emily it was called)

Then came Sir Thomas Lipton who introduced tea in 7 key districts – Kandy, Nuwara Eliya Dambulla & Uva Province. Let it be known that Uva Wellassa meant a 1000 paddy fields! British Scorched Earth policy reduced it to one of famine.

These foreign crops also paved the way for a capitalist system that meant the requirement for land & labor. The Kandyan villagers refused to abandon their traditional subsistence were too proud to work under harsh British conditions. Thus an unlimited number of Tamils from South India was imported to work on these plantations. It eventually left a future headache at post-independence. British having brought labor from other countries for their own profit, left handing over the headache of giving citizenship to these foreign ‘coolies’! The peasants soon became outnumbered by these coolies!

The 1^st Kandyan War (1803/1804) was quelled by the locals. The 2^nd Kandyan War resulted in the deposition of the King as a result of the betrayal by the aristocracy. Uva rebellion in 1817 resulted following the British renegading on their promises. The British order issued - ‘Kill every man, woman and child including the babes suckling at their mother’s breast. Destroy all dwelling houses. Burn all crops. Cut down all fruit trees. Slaughter all cattle; take what meat is necessary to feed the troops and burn the rest. Destroy all reservoirs, canals and channels. Poison the wells. Lay waste utterly the countryside denying any relief whatsoever to the rebels.’ Major Callabine – 19^th regiment, raped women in the villages and left many children before leaving the country. All temples in Uva Wellassa were ransacked, palmleaves were destroyed. Irrigation works like ancient Horabora Wewa was breached.

The most alarming of all was the manner the schools were destroyed. There were no schools in Walapane, Uva, Wellassa upto 1886.

By the time the British quelled the rebellion only 30 houses were left in Uva-Wellassa. The genocidal crimes of the British have yet to be accounted for!

The next revolt took place in 1830. The Wastelands Ordinance resulted in the Kandyan peasantry losing their lands. Then came the 1848 Matale Rebellion. The occupiers began creating a new class of non-aristocrat ‘leaders’ and the aristocrats were made powerless. The unique identity of the Kandyan people was forcibly diluted.

The plan of the British occupiers was to create a group of sub-servient people prepared to carry out their capitalist production. The British mentality was sickening ‘The only way to get the Sinhala people to work on colonial plantations was to impoverish them. Every peasant who had 2 and a quarter acres of land, fruit trees and vegetables did not have a reason to work in plantations. Therefore, tanks have to be breached and villagers trying to repair them arrested.’

The British empire confiscated lands and sold these to capitalists resulting in large numbers of Sinhalese losing their traditionally owned and cultivated lands and not even getting compensation.

Crown Lands Encroachment Ordinance of 1840 and the Wastelands Ordinance of 1897. The British introduced many types of taxes (39 types) – grain tax (a land tax on cultivated and uncultivated paddy/rice lands imposed only on the peasantry) this led to large numbers of peasants abandoning their fields unable to pay the tax while defaulters had their lands sold leaving peasants without lands!

The Crown Lands Encroachment Ordinance meant that anyone who could not prove private land ownership had that land taken over by the British and given to British investors. The old Kandyan law which gave the seller of any land and his descendants the right to re-purchase the land at any time was abolished by proclamation in 1821. The Sinhalese were reduced to the status of gypsies. Even the animals were not spared –elephants the mode of transport used by both King and villager alike for cultivation, tanks, religious processions soon became the target of huntsmen. These violations have never been compensated.

The quislings or traitors emerged no different to the progeny of personages that have continued their treacherous DNA presently. From agreeing to kill cattle and sell beef to the British, to those that adopted their culture & religion in exchange for land and titles like Mudaliars were many.

The kingdom of Kandy has been known by many names:

· Kanda Uda Pasrata

· The Senkadagala Kingdom

· The Kanda Udarata

· The Mahanuwara Kingdom

· Sri Wardhanapura

· Sinhalé

· Thun Sinhalaya or Tri Sinhala

The Kandyan Peasantry Commission however covered only Central & Uva province only which was only ¼ of the total of Sri Lanka and roughly 4million populace. Kandyan Peasantry Report 1951 identified landlessness, roads, irrigation, soil erosion and land degradation, education, health facilities, housing as the main problem of the Kandyans.

600, 000 acres of land was forcibly taken by the British from the Kandyans (roughly 4million people). The Kandyan Peasantry Commission was closed down in January 2015.

While many are preparing to celebrate the tea industry, many are even unaware of the existing crisis. Leaving aside the harsh conditions and other issues, we rarely question how much of our tea estates are now in foreign hands and foreign management, how much of our tea is actually ‘pure’ or whether they are being purposely blended with less quality foreign tea and sold as ‘ceylon tea’, what other juggleries and irregularities are taking place are all nicely swept under the carpet in view of the trade deal and other diplomatic niceties that prevail!

Notwithstanding all this what needs to be reiterated is that no one can celebrate the tea industry omitting and discounting the denial of human rights & land rights of the Kandyan peasantry on whose lands the tea was forcibly grown. It is time all those whose lands were taken away had their grievances addressed first.

Shenali D Waduge

Prof.Laksiri Fernando jumps into the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist garbage bin again
Posted on July 17th, 2017

H. L. D. Mahindapala

There are clear indications in Prof. Laksiri Fernando’s response to my comment that he suffers from the common disease that affects some academics in the professoriate : they can’t hold two thoughts together and balance both in their pinheads to either think straight or arrive at a rational / logical conclusion. So, I’m afraid,, it has come to a point where I have to educate him on what he wrote.

Take, for instance, his claim that his concerns were with the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and not the Mahanayakes emerging as a state within the state. In saying this he indicates amply his inability to understands what he writes. He wrote unambiguously : “My concern has been about the evolving reactionary nationalist ideology. It is perhaps along this ideology, that the Asgiriya Mahanayake Theras are dragging the other prelates into politics. More worrying is the emergence of Mahanayake Theras as a state behind the state, dictating terms undemocratically.” This is the sum and substance of his complaint alleging that the Sangha is running the state. He sees the Mahanayakes as a formidable obstruction to constitutional changes.

The Mahanayakes have quite correctly stated that there is no need for constitutional changes at this stage. This has thrown him into a confusing spin because he is for constitutional changes to accommodate the Tamil separatist agenda which has been escalating incrementally, on “the little now and more later” tactics defined by S. J.V. Chelvanayakam, the father of Tamil separatism. He is highly agitated now that the Mahanayakes have decided to make their voices heard against Tamil separatism which is now resurfacing in the guise of constitutional changes. The issue of Bodu Bala Sena is purely incidental. He is “concerned” that the Sangha has become a “state within a state”, as he indicates in his headline as well. He puts the blame wholly on the politics of the Mahanayaka Theras who are opposed to the separatist politics of the Tamils of the North which has been the central issue bedevilling Sri Lankan politics in the post-independent era.

He uses the Bodu Bala Sena only as a peg to hang the most grave accusations that he can think of against the Mahanayakes. He says that the Mahanayakes are “reactionary”, “undemocratic” and “dictating terms to the state”. And he is concerned that the Mahanayakes instead of withdrawing into some cave for permanent meditation are now dragging the BBS and other prelates into the politics of “reactionary nationalist ideology”. Then, having levelled these charges against the Sangha, he accuses me of getting it wrong because I have challenged the real essence of his hidden agenda which is to denigrate the Maha Sangha and weaken their power /authority at all levels. His only defence is to backpedal saying that his concerns were not with the Mahanayakes but with the BBS. This disingenuous backpedalling makes it almost impossible to have a decent debate with him because he can’t either understand what he has written, or he is trying to dodge the issue which he can’t defend. His references to the BBS are mere red herrings. He concentrates his fire on the role of the Mahanayakes as seen in the quote above. He says that the Mahanayakes are responsible for “dragging the other prelates into politics”. If he is serious and means what he says about the Mahanayakes then why blame the BBS?

As I said earlier, he is now playing the role of an emeritus “Meetota-mullah” who has fallen into the garbage bin of anti-Sinhala-Buddhist politics. He has sent his critical faculties into retirement and is quite happy to spend his spare time recycling the threadbare anti-Sinhala-Buddhist clichés manufactured by racist G. G. Ponnambalam in the thirties. Like all the lumpen Marxists of various shades who led the post-independent generations into nowhere he is now chanting his tired old mantras, smirking smugly like a fat cat that has swallowed the canary. As a frustrated Trotskyite he must have waited in his days at Peradeniya, like Godot, for Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution that never came. This has been the miserable fate of these kalatipol political scientists like him. Their theories, their analyses, their paradigms, their solutions and predictions have fallen into sunyata – nothingness. Seeing the failure of the grandiose theories of Trotskyism the likes of Laksiri Fernando have now returned to bark in their anti-Sinhala-Buddhist kennels at the Sangha moon.

Of course, his Trotskyite leaders – Dr. N.M.Perera, Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, Leslie Gunawardena, Doric de Souza, Bernard Soysa etc., – were all good men who discovered as they matured that there were more profitable political plums to be picked from Mrs. Bandaranaike’s grass root basket than the theoretical fictions laid down in the Permanent Revolution of Trotsky. As a Trotskyite he must have believed in the theoretical fantasies of Trotsky who argued that it is possible to skip the evolutionary historical stage of going through capitalism to socialism, as stated by Marx, and leap straight from a peasant, semi-feudal, semi-capitalist Russian economy into a workers revolutionary paradise.

Having gone nowhere with his Trotskyite theories this one-time professor has now retired to play the old record which is stuck in the groove of bizarre psychobabble of “majority-minority complex”. It is pathetic to seem him retiring into this cliché. At the end of his academic career is this all what he has to offer as an explanation for the complex North-South conflict? After all his years in the professoriate is his crowning scientific finding to repeat what Leslie Gunawardena had told him about the “majority-minority complex” when he was a post-graduate going in search of theme to write his doctoral thesis? Doesn’t he have anything original to say to save his reputation as a political scientist, if he had any at all?

He even hints that I am a victim of this “majority-minority complex” because I am married to a Tamil. I proclaim unreservedly that I am proud to have married one of the gracious, tolerant and enlightened Tamils I have ever met. She has taught me the humane side of the violent Tamil culture that destroyed her people, including her loved ones.. If anything my marriage proves that I can’t be a racist. I’ve even adopted a Tamil boy as my son. I am more close to my Tamil relatives than to my Sinhala relatives. These facts must make Freud laugh through his backside if he reads the psychobabble of this kalatipol scientist who is now pretending to be a psychoanalyst, with extraordinary powers to read my mind. What is apparent, however, is that Freudians reading his bogus theories will find it difficult to classify him as a “psychoanalyst” as defined in the compound word. Instead, they will have to split the word into two and consider him as either a “psycho” or an “anal-yst”!

Leaving aside his psycho-waffle, it must be noted that there is a Ph.D awaiting any researcher who is daring enough to trace the tragic trajectory of Trotskyite politics, which ended up in divisive and opportunistic politics. Neither George Lerski nor Prof. V. Ranjith Amerasinghe has delved deep in their theses on Sri Lankan Trotskyism to reveal the tragi-comic narrative of Trotskyism that declined from a grand world revolution propounded in 1905 by Trotsky to its brutal variation that manifested in the birth and death of Marxist fascists in the JVP who ran amok in the seventies and the eighties.

The irony is that when the revolution expected by the founding fathers of Trotskyism came it took them by surprise. It, in fact, exploded in their faces when the fathers of Trotskyism were in the seats of power defending their ministerial portfolios in a bourgeois regime ruled by a feudal radalaya, according to their own analysis. The Marxist children in the JVP, however, must be recognised, as the product of the Marxist revolution nurtured and promoted by the Trotskyites in the thirties. Their worst nightmare came true in the seventies, eighties and nineties when the revolutionary children they fathered took the guns and came at them. Prof. Carlo Fonseka, another wonky Trotskyite, had to flee to Sweden to escape the wrath of the misguided Marxist kids who were demanding revolutionary justice. Unable to explain their political predicament – their political duty was to back the revolution — the Marxist intellectuals blamed the CIA who had nothing to do with it. They, however, never took responsibility for paving the path to political violence. Later when the North erupted in violence they were happy to blame Sinhala-Buddhism and the Sangha. So the lingering memories of failed Trotskyism forces its loyal henchaiyas, to respond predictably to Sinhala-Buddhism the way the Pavlovian dogs respond to the salivating bells.

Their intellectual hypocrisy is appalling. They were very selective in identifying the causes that led to the violent movements of the South and North. The first wave of political violence in the post-independent era came from the Marxists of the JVP. The left-wing theoreticians / academics attributed the violence in the Sinhala south to the systemic failures of the capitalists and neo-imperialists who crept in with globalisation. The Marxist theories legitimising political violence from the thirties came in handy for the Sinhala youth who had no one else to blame. The lumpen Marxist eventually produced the fascist cult of the JVP. But when it came to the Northern violence they changed their theories to blame Sinhala-Buddhists. The anti-Sinhala-Buddhist racism, preached by Ponnambalam also in the thirties, evolved gradually over the post-independent decades to produce the fascist cult of the LTTE. The Marxist fathers produced Rohana Wijeweera. And the Tamil racist fathers produced Velupillai Prabhakaran. Both were fascist terrorists whose primary concern was their political survival, oppressing and persecuting the people who looked up to them as their liberators. The misled youth of both communities were offered solutions by their political fathers that did not answer the challenges they were facing. Both communities were facing the identical economic malaise of the time : a stagnant economy that failed to provide the the youth with upward social mobility. The Southern youth fed on Marxism blamed the capitalist class. The Northern youth fed on anti-Sinhala-Buddhist racism took to Tamil racist violence.

It was clear even at the time that the common factors that propelled the youth to violence were the socio-economic frustrations that held them captive in a stagnant economy, together with the missteps of the governments of the day, exploited by the aggressive Tamil leadership to thrive on Tamil racism. The angry youth, finding no way out, fell for the extremist ideologies and took up arms in both regions. The confounded theoreticians, not knowing how to grasp the meaning of the swirling forces that were unmanageable, came up with two different explanations for the Southern and Northern violence, though both violent movements were steered by the youth misled by their political fathers. In the North they could not blame the economic factor because the only marketable political force was anti-Sinhala-Buddhist racism. Tamil racism dominated peninsular politics decisively in the post-Ponnambalam decades. All Tamils and their intellectual agents in the South became loyal disciples of Ponnambalam. Even Laksiri Fernando remains to this day as a brain-washed Ponnambalaya : he has nothing new to say except to regurgitate the racism of Ponnambalam who was the first to break the peaceful coexistence that prevailed in colonial and pre-colonial times with his anti-Sinhala-Buddhist provocative speech at Navalapitiya in 1939. And it is that racist narrative that ran down the 20th century and spilled over to the 21st.

The recurring theme in the voluminous texts of the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist propagandists who occupied chairs in academia has been “the betrayal of Buddhism.” These “hack-a-demics” unashamedly parroted the racist political line laid down by G. G. Ponnambalam – the malevolent figure who turned racism into a destructive political ideology. Some Tamil ideologues, however, hail him as father of “Tamil nationalism” which never existed even in his dreams. If he was a nationalist he would have asked for a separate state and not a percentage of power in the state. Even Chelvanayakam first asked for federalism before he he switched to Eelam. The unethical and unacceptable part of the Ponnambalayas in academia is that they never failed to pose as original thinkers producing, for instance, peer-reviewed theses for their doctored Ph.Ds when in reality they were merely recycling Ponnambalam’s rabid racism. Besides, they refused to recognise that all ideologies – religious, political, moral etc., – had betrayed the pristine principles on which they were supposed to operate. Their blinkered politics opens up opportunities for any sophomoronic university student to produce a thesis on “Jesus Betrayed”, “Mohammed Betrayed”, “Mao Betrayed”, or even “Bibbikan and Konda Kavun Betrayed”!

Universal human history has been bleeding perpetually with the betrayal of the noble principles of the founders. From Buddhism and Christianity to the UN Charter it is the same old story : each ideology has a record of failing to live up to the original principles. To pick on Buddhism alone is the cheapest academic trick in the book. From Tambiah to Seneviratne to Fernando they all scream that Buddhism has been betrayed. This is the most trite excuse for them to bash Buddhism. Why only Buddhism?

Most of those who attacked Sinhala-Buddhism were Marxists of one shade or the other and they never ever dared to explore the failure of their Marxist idols. For instance, Marx betrayed his own principles of liberating the working class when he seduced his female domestic and produced an illegitimate child whom he refused to recognise as his son. So why not raise the question of Marxism Betrayed? Let’s go further and examine the roles played by Indira Gandhi, Chandrika Kumaratunga and even Radhika Coomaraswamy, who was playing the part of Mother Theresa to children at the UN but never dared to even peep at the plight of the children abused by the Catholic Church, and ask why the ICES has failed to produce a volume on “Feminism Betrayed”.

There is enough evidence, I believe, to expose the hypocrisy of those who harp on Buddhism betrayed. So let’s leave Laksiri Fernando’s trite Trotskyism and psychobabble aside for the moment and get back to one more issue raised by him in his response. He wastes the better part of his response in focussing on his bogus “majority-minority complex”. Finally he comes to the three cases I took up to examine his accusation of the Sangha running a state within the state. I said that when the anti-conversion bill came up, sponsored by the JHU, President Bush, the die-hard Evangelist intervened, and stopped the bill from going through parliament. Colombo Telegraph, quoting Wikileaks, revealed that the then American Ambassador, Jeffrey Lunstead, intervened and wrote back to the State Department, saying that “the Bill is dead.” Which, of course, makes the American government a superior force to that of the Sangha who were opposed to illegal conversions. I now repeat that a not a peep came out of him when the American state imposed its will undemocratically. My argument was to confirm that the Sangha, which is a home grown member of the civil society, has a right to play its traditional role than a foreign government. Isn’t this example good enough to prove that the Americans are better at running the Sri Lankan state than the Sangha? And if the American state can poke its unwanted finger in vital domestic affairs why can’t the Sangha do the same?

He then comes back at me raising an irrelevant issue of a “time frame” and asking what happened when Mahinda Rajapakse became president. This happened in 2012 when MR was prime minister and it was he who said that the “bill is dead”, according to Wikileaks. In other words, even MR admitted that the Sinhala-Buddhist state has surrendered to the Evangelist state of Bush. So what has “a time frame” got to do with the illegal intervention of America in Sri Lankan affairs? In whatever time-frame it took place, the fact remains that the Sangha has less power than the Christian American state when push comes to shove. So how valid is Laksiri Fernando’s objections to the role of the Maha Sangha? If he wants to make a Sri Lanka a secular state is he prepared to abolish the Ministries for the protection of Christianity, Islam and Hinduism as well?

Clearly, Laksiri Fernando has no effective counter-punch. So he hides behind his fictitious “time-frame” which doesn’t change the fact that if the Americans can dictate policy to Sri Lanka the Maha Sangha should have the same right, irrespective of the policy preferences of Laksiri Fernando. All this makes me worried that he has lost his capacity to put up a rational fight to defend himself. The signs are that a visit to his head-shrinker is long overdue to save his cognitive powers before he writes his next rant against Sinhala-Buddhism.

24th July 2017

His Excellency Mr. Maithripala Sirisena

Executive President of SriLanka

Presidential Secretariat
Galle Face,

Colombo 1,

Sri Lanka

His Excellency the President of the DSR of SriLanka

VISION OF MOVING TOWARDS THE FUTURE USING STRATEGIC PLANNING AND TACTICALLY GAINING OBJECTIVES

The Importance of Perception in Politics

Perception is the whole kit and caboodle in politics. SriLankan politicians use their perceptive (deceitful) abilities to win the election and work for re-election during their tenure of office, like India. At least India is better in the development perspective, because they have advanced in Technology, however, retrograde on social standpoint. Well, could we assign the meaning of re-election task; as the MPs, direct their focus to collect whatever current assets required for their campaign for re-election, and/or maintain majority in the legislative assembly through indirect bribes and ploys. A typical example is the import of expensive cars for MPs. One UNP MP V. Maheswaran, god knows what this person does in governance. This person is a lazy opportunist politician who was approved a 30.5+ million Rupees car for import.

A top of the range Toyota Sahara can be purchased for Rs. 7 million on the duty-free permit and sold for Rs. 30 million. An MP is also entitled to a credit of up to US dollars 50,000 or Rs. 5.8 million from any bank to open a Letter of Credit if he or she wishes to import the vehicle. Ref:http://www.sundaytimes.lk/101226/News/nws_04.html

V. Maheswaran, is an opportunist; what does this person do apart from appearing in the media having conversation. It is known that GOSL approves and grants funds to each of the MP, and Ministers. This amount is supposed to be spent for their electorate of the MP/Minister(s). With due respect, does the government maintain a dossier of development work done by these MPs / Minister(s)? Does the Auditor General’s department carry out an audit to check? What is the obligation of the MPs/Ministers, apart from flying overseas like seagulls. Even on technical matters, they take a flight, debarring the person who is responsible for the area of work.

Another politician is Ananthi who was sworn in as Minister of Women Affairs, Rehabilitation, Social Service, Cooperative, Food Supply and Distribution, Industries and Enterprise Promotion, in the Northern Provincial Council. The words of responsibility itself will confuse this woman. However, much we say, she is the wife of a former terrorist, LTTE. Her family was among terrorist group. Her sister was in the EPRLF group.

In a short text, the NPC is manned by former terrorist group, and/or terrorist allies, and/or secessionist lovers of Tamil Eelam, with no contextual knowledge in economics and political framework. What is Ananthi’s contribution to her electorate since she was elected? Apart from flying to the UN.

Many Councilors are temporarily marching on a political platform until they get a confirmed political pension by being an MP/Councilor/Minister.

HE, these are facts not words of punitive acts.

Government Accountability

The framework that form government accountability mechanism. (i) Political accountability mechanisms, (ii) Legal accountability mechanisms, (iii) Administrative accountability mechanisms.

Third world accountability has gone down the drain where, activities are concealed and not transparent. At the floor level, citizens have no time to focus on the activities of governance, as they must work for their living. It is the media that propagate all activities of the government. If the activities and management are not transparent, then it could be that people in that country live in a world of darkness. The country should have an effective and efficient media network.

Accountability”, in general, is answerability, liability and an expectation of provision of description and explanation. In governance, the accountability of the governing body is to the public and legislative bodies, and not to overseas companies, organisations or para terrorist forums.

Below an excerpt from the US Department of State.

“Government accountability means that public officials – elected and un-elected – have an obligation to explain their decisions and actions to the citizens. Government accountability is achieved using a variety of mechanisms – political, legal and administrative – designed to prevent corruption and ensure that public officials remain answerable and accessible to the people they serve. In the absence of such mechanisms, corruption may thrive.”

It is regrettable that most of the MPs have no idea of Accountability due to lack of education, except some highly qualified personnel, who are only spending their time on unwanted separation, power and policing philosophy. They have an eager to meet people from the UN, USA, UK and foreign delegates. The outcome is nil and negative. This can be considered a megalomaniac, power-crazy, aspiration, of, not only the Tamil politicians however, among the GOSL members, from top to bottom.

Central Environmental Authority

Quote:

Prof. Dr. Lal Mervin Dharmasiri’ s message in the GOSL media: It is a great pleasure for me to forward Chairman’s message on behalf of the Central Environmental Authority on our future outlook. I am pleased that our mission is to ensure a clean and green environment by protecting and managing it through the service excellence inclusive of people, technology and our staff.

CEA has a Chairman, Director General, Deputy Minister, and staff. The site could be reached at: http://www.cea.lk/web/en. CEA has seven divisions, and with complement of staff.

The Central Environmental Authority (CEA) was established on 12th August 1981, under the provision of the National Environmental Act No 47 of 1980. The Ministry of Environment which was established in December 2001 has the overall responsibility in the affairs of the CEA with the objective of integrating environmental considerations into the development process of the country. The CEA was given wider regulatory powers under the National Environment (Amendment) Acts No: 56 of 1988 and No: 53 of 2000.

What importance has the Institution of Engineers-SriLanka given to the Engineering profession with respect to environmental protection?

NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ACT, No. 47 OF 1980 L.D.B. 4/81.

REGULATIONS made by the Minister under Section 32 read with Section 23A and 23 B of the National Environmental Act,

No. 47 of 1980.

PATALI CHAMPIKA RANAWAKA,

Minister of Environment and Natural Resources

2. No person shall, discharge, deposit or emit waste into the environment or carry on any prescribed activity determined by an Order made under Section 23A of the National Environmental Act, No. 47 of 1980 in circumstances which cause or are likely to cause pollution, or noise pollution, otherwise than –

(a) under the Authority of a license issued by the Central Environmental Authority (hereinafter referred to as “the Authority”) ; and (b) in accordance with the such standards and criteria specified in Schedule I hereto, in respect of the specified industries.

REGULATIONS

1. These Regulations may be cited as the National Environmental (Municipal Solid Waste) Regulations,

No. 1 of 2009.

2. (1) No person shall—

(a) dump municipal solid waste along sides of any national highway;

(b) dump solid waste at any place other than places designated for such purpose by the relevant local

authority or any person or body of persons authorized by them in that behalf.

(2) Any person contravening the provisions of this regulation shall be guilty of an offence punishable

under Section 31 of the Act.

The Commissioner of Motor Traffic may for the purpose of these regulations, authorize any vehicle emission testing centre to be an accredited vehicle emission testing centre for the purpose of testing and certifying the vehicular exhaust emission levels of any motor vehicle.

Your Excellency,

The legislative assembly/parliament enacts acts/ bills to regulate and control pollution, forms a corporation/an authority with adequate complement of staff, with an executive DG. However, what is the outcome? SriLanka gets accumulated with garbage, rubbish and release of GHGs (Green House Gas). With due respect Sir, under the democratic socialist republican constitution every citizen/voter has the right to ask the following questions:

i. What are the functions of the CEA staff?

ii. Has any of the staff go on inspection, or warm up office chairs?

iii. Has any of the staff visited dump yards to assess the condition, risks posed threat to the environment?

iv. What administrative and practical workable methods are used to control pollution (Not theoretical talk)?

v. Do CEA monitor garbage control?

vi. Do CEA have any methods to measure the extent and the quality of garbage dumped.

vii. How much is GOSL paying salaries and wages to CEA staff?

viii. Is the money paid to staff worth it?

ix. What is the annual budget for the salaries and wages?

x. Are vehicles tested for flue gases; i.e. Sox, NOx, CO2 etc and measured?

The disposed waste can produce emissions of several greenhouse gases (GHGs). GHGs have an impact on global warming. Significant amount of Methane gas is produced from the breakdown of the organic matter in landfills. Some countries install gas fired generators in landfills.

Kallundai, is a place in Jaffna. On a four-mile run, the dump yard is full of hospital waste, human waste (human excreta), garbage, domestic waste etc. It’s is a coastal area, which could have been converted into a tourist spot, however, Tamil politicians and executives are keen on power and personal monetary relay, which makes them to live among garbage tips. It’s disgusting trait for Jaffna. The previous NPC minister Mr. Ayngaranesan, who proliferated that he has environmental qualification may not have understood the danger NPC posted to nearby villages and people of Kallundai. Jaffna may be a threat to the environment releasing GHGs.

SL had its result of infecting people with H1N1 virus and dengue flue. SriLanka is unable to keep the cities free from mosquitos. Matara Council, in the 50s, implemented a program of eradicating viruses against elephantiasisby periodical spray of insecticide / pesticide.

The question is: Is this a typical failure of the Central Environmental Authority, Institution of Engineers (Ceylon) or GOSL?

Oil Contamination

Sir, you are aware of automobile garages, carrying out business in all villages and cities around SriLanka. Car owners service their car at least once a year. During a service, the used oil is replaced with new or reclaimed oil. The garages fall within a category called “microenterprises”.

Where do the mechanics store their old oil?

Do they throw them onto the ground or store them in a container?

If stored in containers, how do they dispose the old oil?

Are the garages registered with the Factories division?

Are these garage business units registered with the Tax Office?

Do they pay tax?

Has GOSL got a dossier of the business units?

Singapore Ministry of Manpower has classified car repair station as follows: Please visit http://www.mom.gov.sg/workplace-safety-and-health/factory-notification-and-registration/what-is-a-factory

Vehicle repair

Any premises where the construction, reconstruction or repair of locomotives, aircraft, vehicles or other plant used for transport purposes is carried on as ancillary to a transport undertaking or other industrial or commercial undertaking. This excludes premises used for housing locomotives, aircraft or vehicles where only cleaning, washing, running repairs or minor adjustments are carried out.

Sir, GOSL could address to make things right and automatic by bringing the garages under one administrative unit.

Option I

This could be under the AGA, liaising with the CEA for environmental checks. The Grama Niladhari division could prepare a dossier of all garages and submit to the AGA. The garage owners should make available a register of oil used, oil disposed safely and complying with the regulation, if any, and how they disposed the oil. Every microenterprise unit such as garage, shall hold a tax file number and pay the tax without failure. Well, it is a business unit and they should comply with the business regulation, law, and order.

Option II

Alternatively, If the garages are registered with the factories division of the DOL, the DOL have a dossier. The Inspector of Factories of that district, under the Department of Labor should carry out frequent inspection.

However, an authority should be responsible to collect the mode of old oil disposal annually. May be CEA, DOL, AGA?? GOSL should take disciplinary action against any business that violate the law.

Recently we are aware that cameras have been installed in some places. Law should be tightened, so that the police should be able to fine a person, if he disposes a banned item on the road or roadside.

What method is GOSL intend to take on flue gas emission from vehicles and factories?

Sir, Singapore is an example.

It is a polite request that as the executive president, you should visit places of risk and threat, and satisfy that the air is clean in the areas you visit and is risk free.

In 2014, during my visit to SL, we took a road called “Wasilla Road”, in Dehiwala. The roadside canal was full of garbage. The area was full of Maldivian residents. Some have stayed permanently. When GOSL is carefree to let Maldivians into the country, why are we blaming about Muslims. Muslims have different sects and have their own differences. “Wahabi”, “Shiites”, “Sonnies”. And they may be fighting each other. Why should the natives (Sinhale) who lived in SL for more than 2517 years suffer because of these internal quarrels? Has anyone got any answers? This has nothing to do with “Democracy”. Democracy is by the people, of the people, and for the people. Not for illegal migrants. Will Saudi Arabia allow illegal SriLankans to stay there? Build Buddhist shrines? If corrective action is not taken, ISIS will walk into the country and our children will face the consequences.

The recent complain: businesses on eating house and hotels are dominated by Muslims. It was reported that they cook meat inI toilets, cook and supply dog meat, house lizard, worms to customers. It’s a devastating act and the GOSL should close such business units.

Buddhism in SriLanka

Prince Vijaya’s reign in SriLanka is traditionally dated to 543–505 BCE. According to the chronicles such as the Deepavamsa, Buddhism was introduced to SL in the third century (3) BCE. This was after the 3^rd Buddhist council by Mahinda Bhikku, son of the Emperor Asoka, during the period of Davanampiya Tissa in Anuradhapura. The Northern inhabitants practiced Buddhism.

Kalinga Magha landed in Karainagar in 1215 AD with a large army of 24,000 Tamil and Malayali soldiers. He camped his soldiers in Karainagar and Vallipuram, and brought the Jaffna principality under his control. He ruled Jaffna till 1255. He is supposed to be from present-day Odisha and northern parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Ref Wikipedia.

Portuguese invaded SL in 1505 AD.

Dutch occupied SL in 1656 AD

British occupied in 1796 AD

Question of debating on whether Buddhism is the national religion or not is incomprehensible. It has been the national religion since 3^rd century BCE. Most Buddhists changed their religion to Catholism after the entry of the Portuguese in SL. The reason may be by force or to get benefits from Portuguese. Such Catholics have no right to debate on Buddhism being the state religion. In the Tamil sector, majority of Tamils converted to Catholism during Portuguese period out of fear or for benefits. On Dutch and British entry, most Tamils converted to Protestants and Church of England. It is not an objection to people practicing any religion, however, Tamils who converted themselves to Christianity, they should ask this question: When did Christianity come into SL. What religion did your ancestors practice prior to the 16^th century? Tamils should be more careful when they object to Buddhist Shrines construction in the N&E. Tamils commenced practicing Hinduism only after the 13^th century AD. Buddha was born into a Hindu family. Buddha put forward his own philosophy to the people which became Buddhism. Therefore, Buddhism and Hinduism are married together, which the Tamil people should understand.

In Hindu temples pooja is conducted in Sanskrit

In Buddhist temples pooja is conducted in Pali

In Churches prayers were conducted in Latin.

A person commencing practicing Hinduism after 1600 years of Buddhism in SL (including the North) has no right to object to Buddhist temples constructed or Buddhism being practiced.

A person commencing practicing Catholism after 1800 years of Buddhism has no right to talk about Buddhism.

The photo bellows depicts what we Tamil do in foreign countries:

We break coconuts and block the road in UK. That’s democracy. However, No one should build Vihare in Jaffna. That’s also democracy in Tamil’s dictionary. Because everything the world has is different in the world of Tamils.

None has the right to object to following the constitution. It’s violation of Law and Order.

Office of Missing Persons OMP

Your excellency, Can Sambanthar or Mavai give an account of the following:

How many Tamils are drowned in the Indian/Atlantic/Pacific Ocean.

How many Tamils are surviving in Europe/ Latin Americas/ Pacific nations etc. under different names.

What is the proof that refugees did not give false names?

How are the partners and family getting adequate funds from overseas?

Does GOSL carry out checks on Money Transfer transactions to find out who is receiving funds and from where do they get the funds? Does GOSL reconcile these transactions? Does GOSL have an organization to check these transactions?

What answer can Sambanthar give with regards to the thousands and thousands of people who were murdered by the LTTE.

OMP- Has this organization being formed to inject money into the widows and orphans group OR siphon out for reelection campaign? Who will be monitoring and checking on the activities of the OMP?

Constitution

49% of the Tamils dwell outside the North & East. North being a dry land, Tamils have no hope of doing any business or work. As soon as they get a degree or qualification, they opt to jump to the South for greener pasture. Even the budgetary allocation allotted to the NPC, the NPC did not expend for any projects or development. NPC has no ambition of developing the North. What benefits does it give the republic by enacting another constitution? It’s only a waste of time. The politicians have wasted their time in talking about reconciliation and constitutional proposals. While the terrorist in SL and overseas are engaged in regrouping and fund raising. Are they being instigated to fight for separation? Tamils in SL cannot uphold their view that they are not one pure race, but a mixture of various races from India, Cambodia, and Indonesia.

Sir, I quote from an article by Chula Goonasekera, “A proposal for the new constitution”

“Currently the most important foundation Sri Lanka needs is unity and trust amongst her people. To promote this, we need national acceptance of equal opportunity, human rights and diversity through legislation. Therefore, the proposed new constitution for Sri Lanka should protect and uphold human rights, accept diversity and promote true democracy. It is also prudent that students be protected from exploitation until the age of 21. This is specially to safeguard education in secondary schools and universities.

Parliament is not a place for hooligans but a house of honour for constructive argument, sound debate and agreement on the welfare of the Sri Lankan people

This is because students have become the bait and front line of various groups, exploiting their ignorance, honesty, vulnerability and poverty through a variety of sinister and cheap means including forced physical and mental activities designed to destroy our traditional national practices and family values.”

Comments: Whatever shortfall there is in the current constitution, it should be rectified and remedied via an amendment by act of parliament AND not by writing a new constitution for power sharing and creating divisional power play. Tamil power, Muslim Power and Sinhalese power which is ridiculous. The main theme should be to develop national acceptance of equal opportunity, human rights and diversity, accept diversity and promote true democracy. This can only be practiced through an amendment, law and order.

Do you have a section for caste politics, and if so, has there been anyone convicted of caste oppression?

I quote a paragraph from the submission by the Tamil Civil Society Forum: “We define the National Question in Sri Lanka as the problem relating to the hierarchical nature of the Sri Lankan state at the helm of which is the Sinhala Buddhist nation. In this hierarchical state structure the other constituent nations and peoples of Sri Lanka are regarded as subservient peoples and nations to the dominant (Sinhala Buddhist) nation. The dominant nation has used the state, its constitutional and legal apparatus to preserve its dominant status. This we contend is the best explanation of the post-colonial constitution making efforts in the country and of constitutional praxis in post-colonial Ceylon/Sri Lanka. A solution to the National Question, will only come about through a radical and fundamental re-envisioning of the state on the basis of equality amongst the constituent nations and peoples of Sri Lanka. We firmly believe that a thin liberal conception of constitutionalism will not help resolve the problem. The National Question cannot be solved merely by guaranteeing individual rights, good governance and the rule of law. The National Question is about the right to self-determination of the different nations that constitute Sri Lanka including the Tamil Nation”.

TCSF express their views of hierarchical nature as the helm of the Sinhala Buddhist nation. It’s my view that this is total wrong and unacceptable. What’s the definition of hierarchical nature? “A hierarchical corporate culture is an organizational model based on clearly defined corporate levels and structures. Hierarchy is a type of organizational structure in which items are ranked according to levels of importance”.

It’s not based on Buddhist theory or Sinhala theory. Let’s take the NPC for example. It’s a hierarchical nature. One of the former armed group leader was fighting for a ministerial position in the NPC for his brother, and ultimately, he got what he wanted. It’s a vertical structural arrangement by which the NPC operates. A government cannot function on a lateral structure. All government operates on a vertical administrative structure.

The term “constituent nations”. What is TCSFtrying to tell the GOSL by the term “Constituent Nations”. It is of the view that TCSF is pulling the people back to the separation theory. There aren’t any constituentnations. There is only one nation, which is SriLanka.

Definition of “Nation”. A large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a state or territory. There wasn’t any Tamil territory defined as in the North. Its inhabited by Muslims, Sinhalese, Malabar, Telugus, Karnataka, Cambodians, Indonesians, Aryans, Brahmins, Nagas, Wanniyas, Burgers, etc. Jaffna man is not from a common descent or do they have a common historical background. The caste differences are a proof of the different descent. Even the culture of the Jaffna people differs from village to village. Even the Tamil language spoken in the early 40s were different in Jaffna. The term Waligamam itself is “Weligama”. Araly is “ARALIYA”. With time, the language of Tamil copied from Tamil Nadu formed its shape of Tamil. Even “Arumuganavalar” got his Tamil language education from Tamil Nadu. Therefore, to define a common descent and common historical background is twisting history.

Sir, a constitution is not the priority now. May be legislations to achieve peace, reconciliation and harmony etc is required. The priority is to reconcile the economy, control expenditure, promote sole trading, create sole trading businesses, promote self-technical business, provide assistance to sole traders, register all microenterprises with the GOSL, educate people on economy, integration, stop generating funds for re-election, stop bribery and corruption, promote and achieve the “SRILANKAN” concept.

GOSL should have a vision and mission for safety, terrorism threat, education, job creation and stop SriLankans leaving SL. Promote SriLankans to return and build SL.

As at now our people can talk theory, but its impracticable theories. Let our politicians not talk about wasteful theories on constitution, but focus on building SriLanka and NOT constituent nations as there are no constituent nations in SL.

Thank you, Sir,

Yours Obediently

කන්දර් පලනි බාලනාදන්

Kanthar Palany Balanathan

What does UN Under-Secretary-General Feltman
have to do with our Constitution?

by Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka

Jeffrey Feltman, the UN UnderSecretary-General for Political Affairs, heads the Department of Political Affairs at the United Nations in New York. The main role of the department according to its website is to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. It is also tasked with detecting potential crises and deploying mediators to the frontlines of conflicts. It contributes to UN efforts to promote peace and prevent conflict by coordinating UN electoral assistance. It also provides expertise on preventive diplomacy which is used for "peaceful resolution of tensions" and to "discourage the use of violence at critical moments".

Now which of these duties was the Under Secretary General here in Sri Lanka to perform, and why? There is no situation of crisis or any warring parties between whom he has to intervene.According to the media, he is here not for any of the above but to assess the progress on our constitution making process. Why would a UN Secretary–General on Political Affairs look into our Constitution-making process?

The Constitution making process is solely and exclusively the responsibility of the legislature of the sovereign nation of Sri Lanka. It is to the legislators elected to Parliament by popular vote that we, the citizens, have given the responsibility of carrying out that duty on behalf of the sovereign people of Sri Lanka. And they should take as long as they feel is necessary to debate the issue and get it right.

How is it the responsibility of a UN official to monitor its progress? Sri Lanka is engaged in the most democratic of processes, of debate and discussion on its Constitution which embodies the sovereignty of this island. The UN institutions have absolutely no role to play in that process. The very notion impinges on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

According to The Island, "Feltman’s focus was certainly on the Constitution-making process now taking place in accordance with the Geneva resolution 30/1." What has the Geneva Resolution got to do with an Undersecretary General who operates from New York? Has the Human Rights Council invited him to follow up? Unlikely, since the Council’s follow up is usually undertaken by the staff of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and not at such a senior level as an Under Secretary General.

Resolution 30/1, in the relevant Operative Paragraph 16 says "Welcomes the commitment of the Government of Sri Lanka to a political settlement by taking the necessary Constitutional measures…" It doesn’t use the words "Requests" or "Urges" or similar wording, nor does it stipulate a time frame because it is outside the scope of the UN to do so. "Welcomes" shows that the Council approves, not dictates, and recognizes that it is the process that Sri Lanka has to carry out according to its own laws. Therefore it is unclear as to the exact role that Under Secretary General Feltman is expected to play vis-à-vis our Constitution making process or its progress or the final decision of the constitutional assembly.

Did the UN Under-Secretary General think of it himself or did our government invite this UN official to evaluate our progress? And if so, on what basis did the either the UN USG or the Government do so, considering that the UN charter specifically prohibits interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.

Or is it the case that the new Government is under the wrong impression that there is an entity which sits above the member states of the UN, a "supra national body", made up of UN officials such as the Secretary General and his staff,the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the officials at the Hague and the ICC, civil society and international law experts, making up a World Government to which all the member states of the UN have ceded their sovereignty?

Or could it be that this Government has lost its authority and credibility, and thinks that parading various UN officials regularly in Colombo will impress the people of Sri Lanka and scare them into compliance with their particular Constitucional, ‘reconciliation’ and ‘reform’ agenda? Is it somehow regarded as useful pressure on those who oppose the Government’s view, or dissenting views within the Government itself, of how things should proceed?

This visit comes close on the heels of the visit of the UN Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson, QC. English-language daily newspaper reports that the view of "the Ministry" was that member states recommended standing invitations to all Special Rapporteurs at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Recommendations are not edicts. In 2008, France recommended that Sri Lanka should ratify the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Code. Sri Lanka rejected that recommendation. States undertake those recommendations at the UPR that they agree with and reject others. That is the procedure of the UPR process.

Minister Mangala Samaraweera, however, accepted the recommendations on standing invitations. In December 2015 he accepted standing invitations to ALL Special Procedures mandate holders, which the USA and several other countries have not.

Countries have a right and a duty to safeguard their own security and to make considered decisions as to the access they grant to officials. Access to certain places should have been negotiated by the SL Permanent Mission in Geneva on instruction from the Ministry, which should have consulted widely with all stakeholders, most crucially the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Justice (and not only that of Law and Order) before being finalized.

The Special Procedure Mandate Holders in their annual meeting decided that they should have free access to all parts of a country during their country visits and included it in their Terms of Reference. However, this is not a UN resolution and it is the responsibility of states to weigh in the balance its own security and other considerations before granting free access. In Geneva, Sri Lanka has negotiated the level of access for Special Rapporteurs before. They may wish for more, but they are not responsible for the peace and security of a country and therefore are not the ultimate arbiters of what it takes and what should be avoided to achieve these goals.

The UN has a valuable role to play in many areas and we expect our government to play an active role in it and to contribute to its improvement. However, the Government should not wave a grossly exaggerated notion of the UN as a big-stick to force an ongoing democratic process of enormous significance to our country--that of considering the replacement or amendment of a Constitution-- into a direction that it prefers. It has to do its own hard work of convincing the legislature and the courts of its position or abide by the view of the House as dictated by our Constitution.

Has the Church Inquisition come to Sri Lanka in the form of the Missing Persons Office to execute Buddhist soldiers?

The Medieval Inquisition in 1184 became the first of many Inquisitions (Spanish, Portuguese & Roman followed). What is relevant to this argument is that ALL executions were against non-Catholics & based on heresay, nothing more than finger pointing and allegations with absolutely no evidence or facts presented or even investigated. Fast forward to the UNHRC Resolutions against Sri Lanka the similarities cannot be ignored. These same Western countries are continuing their finger pointing & unsubstantiated allegations which are now directed against our soldiers who defeated the LTTE terrorists.

The Catholic church broke away from the Orthodox church (Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church) around 1054 as they wanted to have a Pope which the Orthodox Church doesn’t have! The death estimates from the 4 Inquisitions run into millions with some claiming over 50mililon people being tortured and put to death simply because they were not part of the Roman Catholic faith.

The 4 Inquisitions were directed against ALL non-Christians. The Inquisitions have now turned to present day Tribunals all of which are determined by the same Western Christian nations. All of which are based on heresay, all of which have no supporting evidence and all of which the conclusions are predetermined! False denunciations were frequent and often based on personal jealousies as well. No different to the scenarios presently.

Though the Vatican’s Congregation of the Inquisition was formally abolished in 1908 it was only renamed as Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The set up looks no different to the UNHRC.

Inquisitions meant torture regulated by the Church with guidelines. The Tribunals had 2 inquisitors. One in charge of presenting the accusation, interrogating the witnesses using physical and mental torture. There were Consultants too advising the type of questions to ask while 3 secretaries recorded the testimonies. There were also lay collaborators (the present day anonymous ‘witnesses’). The Inquisition was totally financed from confiscating goods of those they were sentencing (the seizure of Gaddafi’s wealth comes to mind)!

The similarities of the Inquisition and the present day UNHRC Resolutions & War Crimes Tribunal comes in the manner that both entities simply accepted the DENUNCIATION which resulted in DETENTION lasting even two years before the case was taken. A detention meant the persons property was confiscated and the money was used to pay for the expenses of his trial & until such time they were kept in isolation! No cares for the family living off the property! Months often years passed before the accused was informed why he had been imprisoned! (this sounds a replica of the accusations now being hurled against our armed forces)

The Trial allows defendant a testimony but only after torture methods have been adopted! Torture was applied without distinction of sex or age and included children & the old. Victims were hung from the ceiling by the wrists with weights tied to the ankles sometimes resulting in dislocations. Some of the punishments included burning at the stake, public execution. Other victims had cloth stuck to the mouth forced to ingest water spilled from a jar. Fast forward to the waterboarding and other CIA torture techniques now in use. Is this any different to the present day torture techniques being used in Guantanamo Bay & Abu Ghraib prisons of which ‘waterboarding’ is one. Inquisitors also used waterboarding as a torture technique!

Rarely were defendants found NOT GUILTY and acquitted. So we know what to expect from these war crimes tribunals. Rare exception was Milosevic who was acquitted after his death!

Here’s the best part the defendant could be RECONCILED with the Catholic Church and evade severe punishment. In other words, the soldiers would be required to pin blame on those the Tribunal are really targeting which would pave the way for their release.

Often cases were judged in absentia. Between 1540 to 1700 according to the National Historical Archive of Spain 44,674 judgements.

The present efforts to directly attack the nerve centres of Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist followers is nothing that cannot be ignored. The Inquisitions ordered any text or beliefs that ran contrary to the Church to be destroyed and sealed.

The Inquisition was meant to enforce only the Church view violently upon anyone who were not in agreement to it. The UN is today being used by these same countries to carry out that same objective.

Please note a study has recently declared that the UN is heavily influenced by the Church/Christianity. ‘The majority of NGOs operating and who are registered with the UN are Western-funded Christian NGOs.

The Inquisition institutionalized persecution. The Tribunals that the UN is today approving are all against countries that the Christian bloc of Nations deem their enemy. The unanswered question still remains why when the world is preaching Equality conveniently ignoring that the Roman Catholic faith has been given status of a State and accepted as a UN member! This means diplomatically the Vatican can exert tremendous influence on behalf of the Roman Catholic faith which is not enjoyed by other religions older than Catholicism.

At the same time, we cannot ignore the role played by the Church, the Church fathers/nuns in assisting LTTE terrorism over 3 decades. One of the recently deproscribed LTTE fronts is headed by a Catholic Father who compares terrorist Leader Prabakaran to Jesus! None of these Church-LTTE links have been investigated for providing material support to a terrorist movement. Just a few days back a EU court ruled to remove LTTE from EU’s terror list fully aware that LTTE cadres are involved in sporadic cases of extremism.

Nevertheless, the crux of the argument is that the Tribunals of the Church were all based on heresay, with no evidence, evidence was not even sought and non-Christians were tortured, killed or had to bow down to the dictates of the accusers. We find ourselves in the 21^st century and the same justice system is being dished out through the UN by the same Western countries that clearly say ‘either you are with us or you face extermination’ isn’t this what happened to Saddam, Gaddafi, Milosevic and the countless regime change that the West indulges in? The core of the issue is also the efforts to distance people from the dharmic faiths and the promotion of One Religon (Catholicism) through the UN and the promotion of Shared Values that are well funded to annihilate compassionate values and cultures of the Dharmic philosophies like Buddhism. Alienating people from their heritage roots is the gameplan in place.

The present Missing Persons Office takes the form of the Inquisition in its composition and the conclusion is already determined and the Office is merely to officially legalize the lies. Should we simply close our eyes and accept the illegalities?

Shenali D Waduge

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vatican/esp_vatican29.htm

Clean hands doctrine: US/UK & EU have no moral grounds to preach to any country

Can a thief call another a thief? Can a murderer accuse another of being a murderer? Can those that commit horrendous crimes upon nations & people systematically and serially, accuse others of committing crimes when their own crimes are never taken up for trials because they are the judge, the witnesses, the jury & the prosecutors. The US/UK & EU nations are on a witch hunt against all other nations committing them of murder and crimes but what have these countries done about the crimes they have committed and these are far more horrendous than the one’s they accuse others of. Not only that, the crimes of the US/UK & EU cover the vast expanse of the world and cover 500 years of colonial rule, post-colonial rule and present neocolonial crimes. How can these nations with blood-soaked hands soiled from the plunder and murder of nations and their inhabitants speak of ‘accountability’ and ‘righteous rule’? Have these Western nations any moral standing to point fingers and preach to others?

The clean hands doctrine is based on the idea of basic fairness – if a plaintiff asks the court for an injunction to stop the defendant from dumping his trash in the plaintiff’s backyard, the defendant may argue that the plaintiff has also dumped her trash in the defendant’s backyard, and so the plaintiff has “unclean hands” and should not receive the injunction she wants.

Similarly, we see the West countries & their sponsored bandwagon of human rights organizations promoting themselves as the peace doves & human rights angels completely whitewashing their sins of the past and present while going gun-ho against all other nations and accusing them of crimes many of which the West are indirectly involved in and spurring!

The U.S. Military killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians with Napalm from 1944 – 1945. The bombing raid on Tokyo to burn 100,000 people to death, injure a million more, and leave a million without homes in the single deadliest air raid of World War II. How can we forget Hiroshima & Nagasaki. TWICE US dropped atomic bombs inspite of realizing the outcome from the first.

The U.S. Military Dumped 20 Million Gallons of Chemicals including the very toxic Agent Orange, on the forests and farmlands of Vietnam and neighboring countries on Vietnam from 1962 – 1971. 400,000 people were killed or maimed, 500,000 babies have been born with birth defects, and 2 million have suffered from cancer or other illnesses. In 2012, the Red Cross estimated that one million people in Vietnam have disabilities or health problems related to Agent Orange.

The CIA Helped Saddam Hussein Massacre Iranians and Kurds with Chemical Weapons including sarin, nerve gas, and mustard gas in 1988

U.S invaded Iraq under the pretext of the presence of weapons of mass destruction, similarly US has been manufacturing lies to invade & occupy nations. U.S. Military littered Iraq with toxic Depleted Uranium in 2003. This resulted in more than half of babies born in Fallujah from 2007 - 2010 were born with birth defects. According to Christopher Busby, the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, "These are weapons which have absolutely destroyed the genetic integrity of the population of Iraq."

When in 2004, journalists embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq began reportingthe use of white phosphorus in Fallujah against Iraqi insurgents, the US military first lied then admitting to using the volatile chemical as an incendiary weapon.

Beteen 2003-2006 at the Abu Ghraib prison (a US Army detention centre) 3,800 Iraqi detainees were kept. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's report on the tortures suffered were horrific. The tortures covered included videoing naked female/male detainees, arranging them in sexually explicit positions, keeping them naked for days, forcing males to wear female underwear, electric torture, filming forced sex with detainees. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-prison-abuse-scandal-fast-facts/index.html

In 2002 Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp opened & close to 800 prisoners have been detained and tortured using “enhanced techniques”like waterboarding. The youngest prisoner was just 14 years and kept for 7 years suffering tortures. Most do not even face trial or are even charged with a crime. They are simply kept and tortured.

James A Lucas writing to GlobalResearch makes a startling statement – US has killed more than 20million people in 37 victim nations since World War 2.

According to William Blum US has carried out 32 bombing campaigns on 24 different countries between 1945 and 1999. Thereafter, from 2001 Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia & Syria have been bombed and continues to be bombed too.

William Blum has also compiled a list of 55 countries the US has overthrown/carried out regime change or set up puppet governments in.

However, Lindsey A. O'Rourke says US has tried to change national governments 72 times - 66 covert operations and six overt ones (Sri Lanka is not included yet) She says that during the Cold War 26 of the United States’ covert operations successfully brought a U.S.-backed government to power while the remaining 40 failed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/23/the-cia-says-russia-hacked-the-u-s-election-here-are-6-things-to-learn-from-cold-war-attempts-to-change-regimes/?utm_term=.fb24879ffdd1

She also cites 16 cases of US meddling in foreign elections of which 75% of the time, the US was able to install its puppet government to power.

According to military historian and former U.S. Army Col. Andrew Bacevich US has bombed, invaded or occupied 14 Muslim countries since 1980. Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-), Pakistan (2004-) and now Syria.

Afghanistan, Iraq & Libya are now in a state of chaos!

Nicolas J.S. Davies has prepared a list of 35 countries that US has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists

That’s just a miniature account of the crimes committed by the US. How about NATO? Pretending to be ‘peace keepers’ NATO has been responsible for close to 6000 deaths in Yugoslavia, over 35,000 deaths in Afghanistan, close to 1million deaths in Iraq, more than 20,000 deaths in Libya, NATO’s actions violates its own charter that says to resolve disputes amicably and that its mandate is limited to territory of its member states - Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia were not members of NATO.

US & NATO are said to have used cluster bombs and white phosphorus.

The irony is that these very countries committing the most horrific crimes presently were the same countries that committed colonial crimes – invading territories, declaring them Christian and forcing indigenous to convert or face death, denationalizing people, ruining their ancient cultures, traditions and systems and forcing them to adopt western systems and creating generations of brown sahibs who would worship western imperialism.

The advent of neocolonial rule has been no better for all of the countries that were once invaded and occupied by the West which continues to fleece them and keep them in debt and rule over them using regime change & puppet governments.

As we have seen in the case of South America, Africa & Asia neocolonial rule has been no better than the colonial rule that ruined the lives of millions of people, carving artificial territories and declaring them ‘countries’ and then planting troubles which all of these countries are struggling to resolve as the West continues to interfere in the internal affairs of these nations using its puppet the UN and lackey UN officials.

In reading the above crimes it would make anyone laugh at the manner these Western nations are on a crusade on human rights completely ignoring their own crimes which are far greater and far more horrendous than those which they accuse. None of these Western crimes will ever see any international legal trials for all of the international systems are in their control, monitoring and sentence.

What a mockery of justice!

Shenali D Waduge

1815 & 2015 a spine-chilling comparison: Betrayal by Sri Lanka’s Quislings

None of the 3 colonial powers invaded our island. But our island did fall because of the betrayal of our own people. It happened in 1815 and it is happening again exactly two hundred years later. In fact, the similarities and events as they are being rolled out are shocking.

D’Oyly was the mastermind behind the Kandyan Convention and had in his pocket Dissave Ehelepola and Dissave Molligoda. The modern day D’Oyly’s are many and constitute personages that have been interfering in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka from the West, India & the UN. D’Oyly resembles the many western/Indian envoys seen cutting deals with present day politicians/political parties showering them with promises and perks to get their allegiance to their agendas. Then you get characters like Ehelepola who had second thoughts after seeing the draft which can be likened to Udaya Gammanpila leaving Rajapakse camp and then returning!

The European colonials had successfully created groups of brown sahibs who would at every turn betray their own, thinking it a privilege to serve the white men! A good look at the detrimental agreements that have been signed since independence helps to understand how far leaders can be bought over to betray the nation & the people. Bestowing of name titles created the first group of traitors and thereafter colonials began paying for telling tales and secretly carrying messages to the minorities. Notice how many a known crook are today bestowed with international rewards and titles!

The colonial invaders were quick to realize that Buddhism and the people’s affinity to Buddhism was its key obstruction and they devised ways and means to destroy people’s affinity to it and dilute the power Buddhism yielded over people at all levels - religious, socially, culturally and even politically. Some of the harsh and destructive methods adopted during colonial rule have been replaced with more subtle and camouflaged approaches – denying use of elephants for Perahera claiming it to be based on animal rights (while not stopping animal sacrifice), denying playing of pirith in temples, closure of Temple Tills (while not adopting same policy for other religions), incidentally in 1956 Buddharakitha thero bankrolled the SWRD campaign using the temple funds. Thus, we can now understand why the temple tills are now being sealed!

Moreover, from ancient times it has been the Sinhalese & the Buddhist clergy that have not only protected the nation but guided the rulers. These two pillars form the foundation of the strength of the ruler. During colonial rule practice of Buddhism was forbidden, the Buddhist priests were murdered or had to go into hiding. Today Buddhist monks are being arrested & treated like criminals (while not taking action against Church fathers who have been linked to terrorism), denying state funds to pirivena education, attempting to turn pro-Buddhist national schools into multicultural schools, rewriting history and removing history from school textbooks while forcing Buddhist daham pasal to adopt a shared values programs removing students from knowing the essence of Buddhism (are all methods to incrementally disassociate State from protecting and fostering Buddhism as presently bound by the Constitution), encouraging pervasions of Buddhist teachings so as to divert Buddhists into the wrong path of practice! Similarly, those that defended the nation were what we call the present day army, these men were hounded and killed for going against foreign rule it is no different to the manner the West is hounding the Sri Lankan Army for defeating the LTTE which was a Trojan horse of the West and used to politically influence governments in power. Today the military is being framed for war crimes while intelligence officers are being locked up under bogus charges sans evidence!

The deposed King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe had a steadfast loyal following and these groups rebelled from time to time against the British. This is like the following of the former President who are watching in shock as the country falls apart knowing too well how regime changed states have ended up vassal states with no sovereignty. It is also true that the follies of the King and the former President also played a key role in distancing the people from both rulers and led to them falling prey to foreign conspired smear propagandas that deposed both ultimately.

It was in 1823 the British began selling Crown Land at two shillings an acre to British entrepreneurs and now under new business nomenclatures state lands and national assets are being siphoned off or privatized, all falling into foreign hands that will reap the profits while eternally burdening the general public with increased taxes that people cannot refuse to pay. Immediately after coming to power, the present government lifted the restrictions for foreigners to purchase property/ condominiums and now many of the high rise apartments are being bought by foreigners many of whom are Maldivians, Arabs, Indians & Chinese! The ILO is also now looking at how labor laws can be changed to suit transnational corporations all hoping to tap cheap labor, foreign labor (through ETCA) and make profits & drain the profits out of Sri Lanka without state interference or legal actions!

The present ‘ethnic’ crisis came about after flooding the country with Indian slave labor and creating a group of privileged ethnic Tamils who have been used discretely to challenge the majority.

All that’s left to see is the rebellions that took place in 1818, 1822 to repeat and a genocide of the majority to take place under orders of the quislings. As we now revisit the past we wonder whether some of the insurrections in the 1970s and 1980s were also part of the endeavor to wipe out talented individuals and aspiring leaders and thereafter using terrorism to again wipe out another batch of future leaders who went to defend the nation by sacrificing their lives. Little by little as the patriotic few are being targeted, hounded and eliminated what will be left are the quislings, the sepoys and their treacherous following unless we all wake up and see the similarities and learn lessons from the past and NOT allow the treacherous history to repeat.

At every turn the treacheries that took place in 1815 are now being repeated with worse venom two hundred years later. The DNA of the quislings are running through all those now calling the shots and turning our island into a neocolonial state where the sweat and blood sacrifices of those who fought to defend the nation have become compromised to result in the same treachery committed by the chieftains that handed over the nation to the British in 1815.

Shenali D Waduge

The Third Deadly Event of the First Independence Day

Part II – continued from……..

H. L. D. Mahindapala

It is by looking back that one can detect how coming events had cast their shadows across the political landscape in Sri Lanka on the first Independence Day.
In the previous article I showed how the two major events that was staged on the Galle Face end of the city on the first Independence Day – 1. the joint rally of the Marxists at Galle Face Green and 2. the official Independence Day celebrations at Temple Trees”, the residence of the first Prime Minister of Ceylon (as it was known then) — foreshadowed the class war” that raged in the south. The Marxist leaders dominated southern politics with their doctrines of revolutionary politics which, among other things, legitimised violence. They promised that the revolution that was coming round the corner would eliminate poverty and usher in the worker’s paradise. With this promise they launched wave after wave of strikes that took them nowhere. Neither the revolution nor the paradise ever materialised. But they created the ideological environment for the rise of the next generation of Marxists, the fascist JVPers, who resorted to brutal violence in a futile bid to overthrow the capitalist class and replace it with their regime which would have been, if it materialised, another Pol Potist regime. The misguided, angry, frustrated youth, stagnating in pools of unemployment without any upward social mobility, went berserk armed with mainly ideological weapons of destruction. Mercifully, their military adventures were short lived. The force that presided over history saved the nation from the barbarism of the Sinhala Pol Potists.
The Tamils of the North were not that fortunate. Jaffna Tamils have been the victims of their own perverse history, starting from Sankili to Prabhakaran. Their misery in the 20-21st century can be traced back to the third event that took place on Independence Day. This mysterious event was never recorded at the time, or even noticed by anyone. This third event turned out to be the most intriguing and sinister. It was the obscure beginning of a movement that grew into menacing proportions over time. It moved stealthily in down-town suburbs of Colombo. It was flying in a car, moving in and out of Bambalapitiya, Wellawatte and Cinnamon Gardens localities. It was so insignificant that no one took any notice of the car or the symbol fluttering on its bonnet. It was only a token protest at the time but, as the subsequent events proved, it contained all the potential to breakout into the most powerful force in the post-independent era. In fact, it developed into the dominant force of the 20th century, pushing the Marxist class war into the margins of history. The car was flying a flag which was not known to the vast majority in the south. Inside the car was Murugeysen Tiruchelvam, who was the then Deputy Solicitor-General, the father of Neelan Tiruchelvam. He was flying the Nandi (Bull) flag, heralding the Tamil separatist movement. (See, Senator Tiruchelvam’s Legacy– p 22, edited by Ram Balasubramanian, Vijitha Yapa Publications., 2007). This was the third event that cast its ominous shadow darkening the remaining days of the 20th century.
The Nandi flag flown by Tiruchelvam on the bonnet of car was the initial symbol of Tamils which represented their hopes of regaining their lost kingdom. Velupillai Prabhakaran, rejecting the symbols of his political fathers, abandoned the Nandi symbol and redesigned it with his Tiger flag, imitating the MGM lion. Squatting in the streets of Chennai he dictated his design to a street artist who was paid a few rupees. With his limited imagination Prabhakaran replaced the MGM lion with his snarling tiger, putting his head out of a ring of 33 bullets crossed by two guns with fixed bayonets. It is the most devilish flag of any known civilised community with no redeeming features in it at all to express the humane side of Tamil society. Barbarism is written all over the flag.
But what he did not know was that he was predicting his own future in his design. The ring of 33 bullets predicted his own fate : Prabhakaran lasted exactly 33 years. And the Nandi flag of Tiruchelvam too foretold its own future : the movement it unleashed ended in Nandikadal. This ill-fated Tamil movement to establish an Eelam also corresponds to the prediction of Supathidda-muni, a remarkable visitor to the court of Yalpanam”. King Pararajasegaram, respectfully asks the Muni about the future of the Jaffna kingdom. The reply is ominous. He foretold that after the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English return to their countries handing over the government of the whole of Langka”, the Tamils would lose their sovereignty forever. The sovereignty will never again come back to your descendants,” prophesied the Muni. (pp. 27 – 29 – Yalpana Vaipava Malai, or the History of the Kingdom of Jaffna, translated by C. Britto, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1999).
Obviously, Tiruchelvam would not have envisaged this turn of events when he was roaming the suburbs of Colombo flying the Nandi flag in his car on Independence Day. Nor was he aware that he was unleashing forces that were going to spin out of the control of the Tamil leadership. It was the hidden force of this obscure, unrecorded and insignificant event that burst out from its confines in Jaffna and, in the following decades, overtook all other competing political movements and dominated national politics. The car in which M. Tiruchelvam flew this Nandi flag rolled down, in due course, from the North like a juggernaut destroying everything in its wake.
This unsung flag-flying exercise happened to be the seminal symbol of the most divisive and explosive event that challenged the nation, its identity, sovereignty and territorial integrity. In hindsight it stands out as the leading symbol of the events that were to unfold in its wake with disastrous consequences, mostly to the Jaffna Tamils. Not surprisingly, the first victims of the Northern violence were the fathers who gave birth to it. There are some parallels in the violence that erupted in the north and the south. At its peak the violence of the south and the north reached unmanageable proportions threatening the elected democratic state. In the south the youth took up arms on class warfare” based on economics. In the north the Tamil youth were drawn into a racist war, targeting the Sinhala-south. The racist war declared by the Tamil leadership at Vadukoddai in 1976 eventually, overtook the Marxist revolutionary” movements and emerged as the most brutal of violent movement that plagued the post-independent era. Quite appropriately, in keeping with its ruthlessness, the rather placid image of the sedentary Nandi was replaced by the snarling face of a brutal Tiger. The new symbol of the Tiger helped to maintain the rage. But in the end both flags sank in Nandikadal lagoon. Tiruchelvam’s Nandi Flag going down in Nandikadal is another event that predicted the coming events on Independence Day. Coming events certainly had a way of casting their grim shadows into the future.
The ideological forces that propelled southern and northern youth into rebellion point the finger to the political fathers who indoctrinated and directed their children into two divergent paths of violence. The Marxist leaders demonised the capitalist class and the Sinhala youth took up arms to overthrow the ruling elite armed with the kaduwa” — the English language. The Marxist produced children to wage a class warfare and had to face them unexpectedly when they were in the seats of power. Beware of what you wish in the twenties you might get them in the forties, they say.
The Tamil leadership, taking on a similar leadership role, spun an ideology of identity politics, filled invariably with hate, targeting the Sinhalese – all which were encapsulated in the Batakotte (Vadukoddai) Resolution of 1976. They demonised the Sinhala-Buddhists – the only ideology on which they survived and thrived in peninsular politics. They produced Tamil children to wage a racist war. Marxists promised a workers’ paradise. The Tamil leadership promised Eelam. The Marxists were hoping to ride on the backs of the helpless workers into a paradise of sahodarayas” who would do all the work and, at the end of the day share all the riches produced by their labour. The ageing Tamil leaders were hoping to ride on the backs of the Tamil youth into the elusive Eelam that was on the other side of Nandikadal which they never crossed. In the end both leaderships discovered, rather late, that they had sowed the seeds of their own destruction. The Muslim and the Indian leaderships were wise. They retained the leadership of their communities in their hands by not resorting to violence. They remained within the non-violent framework which helped them to save their leaderships and their communities. Handing over guns to the youth can backfire and first kill the fathers who promoted violence.
Tiruchelvam’s decision to fly the Tamil flag on Independence Day clearly was an act of defiance protesting against the Sinhala government”. But the timing gives the lie to the Tamil claim that it was the anti-Tamil acts of the Sinhala governments” that provoked them to pursue extremist politics. When Tiruchelvam drove out of his car from his residence at Wellawatt-am” – a suburb populated mainly by the Tamils of Jaffna – nothing had changed from the days of the British Empire which provided the Tamils a privileged position in the public service, the only growth industry at the time. His act of raising the flag of Tamils on Independence Day was a determined declaration of anti-Sinhala hate politics which was not instigated by the rise of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, or his Sinhala Only Bill of 1956, or even the Citizenship Bill passed by the D. S. Senanayake. None of these political acts had surfaced when he drove out on Independence Day challenging, as it were, the might of the Sinhala state”. It did not augur well for communal harmony. He was flying the flag for divisive politics. There was no valid reason for this anti-Sinhala act because D. S. Senanayake had laid the foundations for multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-party government of rainbow colours with guarantees for the minorities (Section 29 of the Soulbury Constitution) on a sound democratic base of the Westminster model. Besides, G. G. Ponnambalam, the acknowledged leader of the Tamils at the time, was included in the first Cabinet.
So what earthly reason was there for Tiruchelvam to fly a divisive communal flag when the constructive and conducive elements were factored in to build a rainbow nation? It was, by far, the best of times for the Tamils and, for that matter all communities. Everything was in its place, as the British left with no change at all to the privileges, powers and perks of the minorities. So why did Tiruchelvam come out flying his Nandi Flag unless it was to signal the anti-Sinhala hate politics of the Tamils. It must be emphasised again that it was done without any provocation from the Sinhala governments”. And shortly after that, within less than two years, S. J.V. Chelvanayakam came out to declare his federal/separate state on December 18, 1949 at the government Clerical Service Union Hall in Maradana. The infant state was taking its first steps when the Tamils launched their racist offensive on bogus accusations of discrimination, denial of Tamil rights that were supposed to end in the extinction of Tamils etc.
If Tiruchelvam launched the first Tamil offensive on the very first day of independence with a symbolic act then S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, the father of Tamil separatism, took it to the extreme end of the political spectrum by launching Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (The Federal Freedom Party of the Tamil-speaking People of Ceylon) in 1949. In his presidential speech he picks on four main issues which should be examined in hindsight to test the validity of his accusations. (See full text of his speech in Michael Roberts’ Tamil Person and State, Pictorial, Viitha Yapa).
First, he says : The government is indulging in a series of discriminatory legislative and administrative acts too numerous to recapitulate …..Over two years of internal self-government have reduced the Tamil-speaking people to an inferior status in their own country.” Having said that he picks on four issues: 1. de-citizenize half the Tamil people of Ceylon.” 2. the Lion Flag, saying that it is identified with Singhalese sovereignty. He adds that it is symbolic of its attitude towards the Tamil-speaking people. The Government ignores their existence as a part of the body politics”. 3. Government colonisation. We have only the beginning of it in Gal Oya,” he says. 4. the language policy. The government intends to administer seven provinces in Sinhala without making provisions for the use of Tamil in all the nine provinces, he complained.
Let’s take his accusations one by one. Re.1 : De-citizenising half the Tamils. The primary task of all ex-colonies was to redress the historical imbalances caused by the colonial masters. The restoration of the historical rights denied by the colonial masters had to be restored. Defining the citizens of a nation was one such duty of the state. Ex-colonies, burdened with the influx of imported labour by the colonial masters, engaged in defining their citizens and the new government enacted the citizenship acts which gave citizenship to those Indians workers who could prove that their fathers were born in Ceylon. G. G. Ponnambalam, the acknowledged leader of the Tamils voted for the bill. So did all other community leaders, including the Muslims. Predictably, the Indian Congress representing the Indian estate workers voted against it. So it was not an act of the Sinhala government against the Tamils. It can’t be an act of the Sinhala government if the Tamil leader, Ponnambalam, and other minority leaders voted for it. But Chelvanayakam blamed it as an act of discrimination against the Tamils by the Sinhala government. Furthermore, later, under the Srima-Shastri Agreement, India agreed to repatriate the Indian estate workers who do not qualify and accept them as Indian citizens. Even this was condemned by Chelvanayakam. He was more concerned about the Tamils losing their electoral clout than the Indian workers losing their citizenship. Eventually, the Sinhala governments” revoked the earlier decision and gave citizenship to the bulk of the Indian workers who remained in Sri Lanka. The problem was resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. But the Tamil lobby continues to blame the Sinhala governments of de-citizenizing” the Indian estate workers
Re 2 : The Lion Flag is symbolic of its (state’s) attitude towards the Tamil-speaking people”. Chelvanayakam was objecting to the Lion as symbol of majoritarian supremacy. He did not object to Tiruchelvam running around with the bull in his flag. But it was highly objectionable for the Sinhalese to have their lion in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious flag. It is this kind of perverse logic that exacerbated inter-ethnic relations. In any case, the overall design of the national flag was signed and endorsed by all community leaders, including G. G. Ponnambalam. The orange strip is for the Tamil and the green is for the Muslims. The Sinhala attitude towards the Tamil-speaking people” was evinced in the distinguish place given to the minorities in the flag. For instance, there are 193 flags flying at the UN. The only flag that has given the Tamils a place is the Sri Lankan flag. Not even India, which has the largest concentration of Tamils, has given a pride of place for the Tamils in their national flag. So how valid is Chelvanayakam’s anti-Sinhala complaint?
Re.3 : Government colonisation. The Tamil colonisation of the hill country by the Indian workers, evicting the Sinhala peasants, and the colonisation of the suburbs of Colombo (example : Wellawatta-am”) with government servants from Jaffna were the outcome of state-sponsored jobs created and handed over to recruits of the Indian and Jaffna Tamil communities by the British government. In the hill country the Sinhalese villages were forcibly taken over under the fake Waste Land Act. Overnight the Sinhala villagers became homeless people evicted from their traditional homeland. Chelvanayakam did not object to that. He objects to only Sinhalese settlers going back to their traditional homeland from ancient times in the east and the north. Besides, Gal Oya is now in the hands of the Muslims more than the Sinhalese. Clearly, Chelvanayakam was scare-mongering to push the Sinhalese out and replace them with Tamils. His objective was to increase and consolidate his electoral clout to beat the Sinhalese.
Re.4: The language policy. The claim of Chelvanayakam that the Tamil language will disappear and Tamils will be reduced to slaves under Sinhala Only legislation have proved to be absolute bunkum. Tamil language has been given a place in the state as never before. Better than even in India. Take also the case of the Tamil diaspora. They live in various parts of the world. In which of those country has Tamil language a place as in Sri Lanka. Which currency declares its value in Tamil? Which stamp of other countries prints its identity in Tamil? Which international airline announces in Tamil? And yet the Tamils go round demonising the Sinhala state as the enemy of Tamils which had suppressed and denied the Tamils their linguistic rights. From its inception Radio Ceylon, the state run broadcasting institution, (the BBC of Sri Lanka) has been a centre for the promotion of Tamil culture.
Chelvanayakam and his team had never stopped talking of discrimination. How far is this true? Consider, for instance, a fundamental issue affecting all communities. Children of all communities are given free education, irrespective of race, religion or caste, from kindergarten to university. Not even Tamil Nadu, the only homeland of Tamils, give free education to the Tamils. I googled fees for a university degree in Chennai. I was shocked. It’s 1 crore for MB,BS. And the Tamils have the gumption to accuse the Sinhala state” of discrimination for giving them free education.
It is the doctors who got free education from the Sri Lankan medical faculties who financed the Tiger war, crying discrimination. Tamil humbuggery knows no limit. They are scared to acknowledge the realities because they know that the truth will demolish their claim to be victims of the Sinhala state. Besides, their only means of hiding their brutal persecution, murder, and discrimination against their own people over the ages is by pointing a finger at the Sinhala state.
Chelvanayakam complained that the Tamils have been reduced to an inferior status at a time when Sir Kandiah Vaidyanathan was the first Prime Minister’s first Permanent Secretary, the highest position in the public service. Also the first Sri Lankan Army Commander of Independent Sri Lanka was Maj-General Anton Mutucumaru. The second Navy Commander was Rajan Kadiragamar. There were at least four Tamil IGPs. Head of the Treasury was Raju Coomaraswamy, the father of the present head of the Central Bank. The list is unending. Yet the Tamils were made to believe that they are the victims of Sinhala discrimination. Yes, there was discrimination. That is only field in which all Sri Lankans are treated equally without exception. When the UNP wins all the Sinhala SLFPers, are beaten, houses burnt, transferred, demoted, or sacked. And vice versa. Now if that happened to Tamils it would be broadcast as discrimination.
It is time that the Tamils faced reality and worked for reconciliation first by apologising to their own people – not the Sinhalese — for the crimes committed against them for centuries. I am sure that if all the crimes committed by the Sinhalese are piled up next to the crimes committed by the Tamil against the Tamils the Sinhala crimes would stand at the level of an ant hill compared to the Himalayan heights of Tamil crimes. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the words of S. Chandrahasan, son of Chelvanayakam and V. Anandasangaree, one of the last of the Chelvanayakam generation, who have said that Prabhakaran had killed more Tamils than all the others put together. What more evidence is needed to prove that the Tamils have been better off under the Sinhala governments than under centuries of fascist Vellala rule or the Pol Potist regime of Prabhakaran?
End of story – a tragic story indeed in which the Tamil crimes against the Tamils, particularly against the Tamil children, make Jaffna the grim black hole of Sri Lankan history.

Attempts to subvert Constitutional provision of Buddhism in Sri Lanka & questioning role of Ministry of National Integration

Several factors need to be taken into account to comprehend the gravity of the situation. Firstly, it is now glaringly clear that the present government is in power following a regime change. It is also clear that those holding various posts & handling portfolios are controversial characters many of whom are yet to be investigated for links to terrorist LTTE. Many of the present changes being rolled out have been promises made to these uninvestigated entities & questions its detrimental effects to the Nation. To top it all there is growing resentment among the masses against the Government & its coalition partners by all the communities. It is also now very clear that the promised good governance has been a total sham and what is now also obvious is that all of these entities are united in a bid to usurp the foremost place of Buddhism and transfer powers from the majority to the minorities through new constitutional & administrative changes. It is in this larger scheme of things that the new Ministry of National Integration has been created to carry out that historical unfulfilled objective of destroying Buddhism and removing the nationalism among those that defend the nation.

We cannot ignore the fact international laws, terminologies, nomenclatures are all created and promoted by the post-colonial White Christian Nations that invaded, murdered and plundered non-Christian lands and left creating brown sahibs, drawing new boundaries and creating new ‘countries’ that they christened with new names and gave ‘independence’ to. The West does not have a history to show off and the history it has is one it is ashamed to showcase and thus the attempts to white-wash the past and re-write history projecting the ‘good’ they have done omitting the murders & plunder.

We cannot also forget that trade of slaves and importing of slave labor to all corners of the world created a non-indigenous group of people who claim equal rights with those that had evolved. Sri Lanka is a case in point.

Moreover, we have countries that have been virtually ‘created’ by denying the original inhabitants their land rights – US, Canada, Australia while elsewhere territories have been cobbled together to make countries like India, some countries in Africa, Saudi Arabia, while even a religion has been made into a State – the Vatican.

All these newly created states have opted to hide their real roots and distort the true history of the land. Thus the programs being laid out like ‘multiculturalism’, ‘multi-faith’ ‘shared values’, one-religion, one-government are all to bring what the West did illegally to a legal level and deny countries which have proud histories and heritage their right to preserve it. The West wants to usurp these rights and then dictate what is ‘historical’ and what is ‘heritage’ on their terms and conditions.

Moreover, the colonials came with gun in one hand and the Bible in the other. The gun was used to plunder and the Bible was used to convert. Missionaries of colonial era are today replaced by NGOs funded by the same Christian countries with continued objective of amassing and increasing flocks. Competition has been added with Islam and Indian imperialism adopting the same objectives.

It is in this context that we address this topic. These violations of historical truth as interpreted by the West cannot be allowed to continue and must be scientifically challenged and proven false. West is using these new Ministries like ‘National Integration’ to legitimize their illegal programs to distort and re-write countries that have proud histories to bring them on par with countries that don’t and as part of a bigger agenda to neutralize people who are proud of their history and would do anything to defend it.

No archaeological evidence can prove of Tamils evolving in the North to claim homeland status while no one seems to question how one ethnic group (Tamils) can claim homelands in two different countries (India & Sri Lanka) as at no point in time has Sri Lanka been part of India while the name India was coined only after 1947 and previously there was no India but scores of independent territories and princely kingdoms. There is no Sri Lankan identity either for the name Sri Lanka was coined only in 1972 and has a history of just 45 years. A national identity cannot forget our proud past before 1505!

Moreover, if Sinhalese are also claiming that they were living in the North and can back their claims with historical and archaeological evidence, no international entity can take sides. What also needs to be clearly reiterated is that the North was under the reign of the Kandyan Kingdom as revealed from colonial writings of Father De Querozy and Baldeus as well as numerous other historians.

Moreover, Tamils cannot use the periods of illegitimate South Indian invader rulers to claim they ran a separate Tamil kingdom. Invader rule does not constitute any legitimacy whatsoever for self-determination or homeland demands.

The other aspect is that Sri Lanka suffered a Terrorist Problem not an Ethnic Problem.No one should have to reconcile with terrorists while there are no issues between the majority or minorities except what extremist politicians on all sides of the political framework promote for their own political careers. Everyone seems to have confused and confounded matters mistakenly believing it to be ethnic.

LTTE terrorism was the common enemy of all the citizens including Tamils. In fact more Tamils have died from LTTE fire as confirmed by none other than S. Chandrahasan, son of Chelvanayakamwhile LTTE has ruined the lives of many Tamils by kidnapping children and turning them into child soldiers. What also cannot be forgotten is that these LTTE cadres were all from low-caste, poor families. In terms of the battered slogan of ‘discrimination’ so far no one been able to produce even 5 examples of constitutionally and legally denied rights to minorities that are constitutionally and legally allocated to only the majority Sinhalese populace.

Following the well-orchestrated regime change government posts/portfolios have gone into the hands of people who have agreed to be party to a sinister program being subtly rolled out. The statements by former US Secretary John Kerry, articles published post-Jan 2015 elections clearly reveals West/Indian involvement.

What has also been exposed is the manner LTTE terrorism has been used as an international leverage by Western countries and India over the Sri Lankan Government. It is also noteworthy that many of the organizations that funded and provided material support to the LTTE operate from the very countries that have banned LTTE and numerous foreign politicians and even UN officials have been openly courting these entities. To prove these beyond doubt calls for investigating these foreign MPs, UN officials and even the proscribed LTTE fronts have fallen on deaf ears though even the US continues to say LTTE international networks remain active even in 2015.

While the regime-changed government has gone overboard to please those that assisted them to power by allowing LTTE fled cadres to return, giving open-amnesties to hardcore cadres in prison, recruiting them into the military there has been a shocking rise in the discovery of arms, ammunition and even sporadic attacks and altercations have increased so much that even the IGP has had to suddenly travel to the North to assess the situation and declare that LTTE resurgence can be anticipated!

Can and should drastic changes and a new constitution take place in such a background of uncertainty and chaos and by people who should be first investigated!?

The shooting of a policemen while attempting to assassinate the Jaffna high court judge, the many attacks by a group called AWA immediately brings to mind the manner India-helped militancy first began in the 1980s also under UNP rule with the situation been allowed to worsen to hide the governments administrative inefficiencies and corruption. Are we seeing the same scenario?

In the meanwhile, what cannot be ignored is the nature of the demands that are being forwarded with precision by the coalition partners which are identical and tally with the demands that have been made by extremist Tamil leaders following the ideology of the Vaddukoddai Resolution and the LTTE. Moreover, the most interesting aspect is the ITAK amendment to its constitution in 2008 that declares that ITAK aims and objectives correspond to the objectives of the Vaddukoddai separatist Resolution of 1976.

The co-sponsoring of the UNHRC Resolution by the yahapalana government & its determination to draft a new constitution cannot ignore the assurances by the present finance minister and the key drafter of the constitution in 2013 to the Tamil Diaspora known as the Singapore Principles. The manner that the Northern Chief Minister claims genocide and colonization of Sinhalese is in keeping with these objectives while the illegalities of the UNHRC Resolutions through an illegally set up personal mechanism started by the former UN Security General needs to be investigated to realize the sinister objectives at play and the players involved.

The Sinhalese have fallen shy to put their version to the global stage. It is the Sinhalese who have been wronged and victimized by colonial rule and Indian invasions.No group has been more discriminated than the Sinhalese. Where is the reverse discrimination for all that they were denied since 1505 to date! Why are their rights and what they enjoyed not been restored! This will not happen because it does not fit into the objectives of those that use minorities as a trump card!

The population statistics clearly reveal that Sinhalese were the clear majority and Buddhism was the foundation of the civilization that developed. Let us not forget the other institutional religions came 1000 years after Buddhism! Even the South Indian invaders that ruled followed the tenets of Buddhism. The British who were virtually handed the island too realized that unless they agreed to give due prominence to Buddhism they would not be able to sign the Kandyan Convention in 1815.

That the white race speaks with a forked tongue was evident by the manner they broke the promises made and it is this historical objective now being ironed out using the Ministry of National Integration which is being led by local lascoreens and sepoys ever ready to do the bidding of the foreign masters for tuppence or rewards and the West is ever ready to dish out international awards for betrayal. They did this in the past bestowing titles to traitors and they are doing so now.

The Ministry of National Integration is thus tasked to incrementally dilute the place of Buddhism and bring Buddhism on par with religions that arrived far later and by migration and aftermath of colonial rule.

This is a national crime & a cultural genocide for no one has the right to take away what has existed and the foundation that has weathered for centuries.Moreover, constitutionally too this is a violation for the State is bound to give foremost place to Buddhism and protect it.

Giving the foremost place to Buddhism and protecting it by the State is nothing any non-Buddhists can object to so long as the people of non-Buddhist faith have freedom and right to practice their faith. Count the number of churches, mosques and kovils and the numbers that have appeared in the last 30 years and it is clearly disproportionate to the population statistics but brings to zero the argument that there is religious discrimination. The right to practice one’s religion does not equate to and give freedom for the institutional religions to carry out their agendas – increase flocks or promote cults!

Moreover, these foreign-based religions are all well-funded and their places of worship are regular recipients of funding. This is not the case with Buddhism which is why the State is bound to protect and preserve that heritage with the meagre allocations made available which does not come close to what the foreign-based religions send. However, part & parcel of the installation of the present government by those who are out to dilute the place of Buddhism has resulted in arrests of Buddhist monks, removal of funds for pirivena education, attempts to dilute Buddhist cultural events, reduce the powers of the Buddha Sasana Ministry, place inefficient officials in the Archaeological department who will not alert regarding incursions and destructions of Buddhist sites taking place, closure of temple tills are just a handful of shocking and very sad acts being committed by this Government obviously on orders or following assurances by those that helped them to come into power.

What needs to be essentially argued is that there cannot be demands without reciprocity. Will Muslim-majority nations that fund Muslim activities in Sri Lanka give to Buddhists what Muslims demand in their countries? Will Christian-majority nations do the same? If the Roman Catholic faith has been given a State and diplomatic rights why are other religions not given the same rights! Does UK inspite of its multicultural background place Christianity on par with the faiths of other religions, the political jargon says so but in practice Christianity and God gets prominence at all State levels. Is this not the same in Norway, Germany, France too! US, Canada & Australia cannot comment because these countries have stolen histories with blood soaked hands of indigenous people’s murders and are developed by inviting immigrants to build their nations, so they are bound to acknowledge the people who helped build their nation.

However, Sri Lanka has a solid history, our great Sinhala Kings built man-made irrigation systems, dagobas, temples which still stand stupendously and bring pride at what our people have achieved. We have defended our nation against foreign invaders and no time have our island been totally conquered. Sadly, it was traitors that handed over the nation then and now.

Temples were a cornerstone in building the nationalism to defend the nation. It is that spine that the Ministry of Integration attempts to now break. The temples were the schools in ancient times, that was taken away by Olcott who created Buddhist schools and now the post-Olcott period is trying to take away both the Temples of learning and the Daham Pasal by deciding on what the Daham Pasal should teach and not teach. This is a violation of the Constitution and a conspiracy against Buddhism which the Buddhists must rise against and file fundamental rights applications immediately.

A good look at the composition of the Ministry of National Integration and the Secular Sri Lanka team/initiatives it is clear that these portfolios have been dished out to lascoreens ready to do what the colonials failed to do and the situation is further compounded with the new entrants of Indian imperialism and Islamic incursions added to worsen the plight of the Buddhists.

Ideally these are times that the Buddhist organizations and the patriotic academics should not wait in slumber and must unite & come to the rescue by legally and institutionally challenging these illegalities through FR petitions and protests.

Until & unless separatists & jihadists are investigated and removed from portfolios the Majority should not agree to any changes especially a New Constitution.
The rising unpopularity of the Govt further justifies that this Govt has no right to make any changes as they have lost the confidence of the People.

The enemies are not at the door – the enemies have already entered and are now doing the damage!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yufLZiss7bg voice of Srimath Anagarika Dharmapalathuma

Shenali D Waduge

http://dailynews.lk/2017/08/02/local/123938/%E2%80%98daham-pasal%E2%80%99-school-teachers%E2%80%99-meeting-trincomalee

‪Secular Ethics shall Replace Religion in Public Schools in Sri Lanka

http://www.secularsrilanka.com/secular-ethics-in-public-schools-in-sri-lanka

Task of the Ministry of National “Dis”Integration to destroy Buddhism in Sri Lanka

A country has every right to protect its history & heritage. A country has every right to react to the sinister plans taking place to create an artificial history by removing a history that is over 2600 years old. A country has every right to protect the many plots and plans now being put in place to create a pseudo national identity in keeping with those that fund initiatives whereby the main goal is to remove the sacred place held by Buddhism and the role Buddhism has placed in shaping the nation’s identity and the culture and values of people. How right is it and who has the right to decide what gets removed and doesn’t and what new identity and history everyone has to accept. Can Governments and their cronies through Ministries be given rights to experiment with history and plug in their notions and ideologies & do they expect everyone to accept these?

For people to realize what is taking place they need to be aware of the strategies and methodologies used in the past and compare them with what is taking place in the present. It only then that people will realize the dangers and what is at stake.

Presently a wave of actions is taking place which cannot be ignored. Sealing of temple tills, attempts to remove elephants from Buddhist cultural events like the perahera, while azan’s are allowed temple pirith is banned, only Buddhist monks are arrested while Church priests who had openly sided with LTTE terrorists get away, state funds to pirivenas are stopped, controversial Buddhist monks are tapped to bring disrepute to Buddhism/Buddhists, Govt is silent over attacks, destruction and theft of Buddhist artefacts, state funds to the preservation of Buddhist archaeological sites are being reduced, actions are not taken against officials who are being bought over to compromise Buddhist heritage sites, incursions on Buddhist heritage sites are ignored, history is being removed from school syllabus, Buddhist daham pasal teachers are being forced to teach merits of other religions during Buddhist classes, academics are being rewarded to re-write false history and projecting a step-motherly version to the place held by Buddhism, bizarre notion of shared values is being rolled out trying to confuse young minds and distance Buddhist children from their religion and cultural background….all these and more are taking place with a long term plan and are in keeping with a historical objective.

When European Christian colonial rulers arrived their objective was to take over countries by force, plunder their resources/wealth, declare these new territories as Christian and forcibly convert the natives and increase their flock. The missionaries became the brainwashers and intelligence gatherers just like the CIA & NGOs of present times.

Part and parcel of that methodology was to win over natives, give them honorary titles and place them above the rest and get them to do the dirty work on behalf of the European colonials. Notice how titles are continuing to be bestowed upon people who still work on behalf of Western agenda! The methods have changed and become more sophisticated but the objective remains the same. It is our duty to realize what these goals are and counter them.

The natives were clueless to handle the European Christian explorers. If natives had no inkling of the methods used for subjugating them are we to play ignorant and ignore the same strategies being applied packaged differently?

Formerly missionaries approached the chief humbly and asked a small piece of land to set up their station. The station soon became a ‘trader’ resulting in an ‘agreement’ on the guise of ‘friend and protector’ of the chief but it meant the ‘foreigner’ had rights to take land, interfere in the lives of the people and with time split them and generate animosity among them. This became the famous ‘divide & rule’. Soon the ‘friend & protector’ wants to become bigger than the Chief and decides to take lands, use natives, abuse natives and even murder natives that didn’t tow the line. If explorers worked in conjunction with the Christian/Catholic missionaries – isn’t what the Western governments & their faith-based NGO agencies doing the same presently?

To understand the psyche of the Western European rulers and their mission which has not changed one has to study the speech delivered by King Leopold II to the Missionaries sent to Congo in 1883. The colonial and neocolonial agendas are the same in substance.

Some excerpts from this speech

“The main goal of your mission in the Congo is not to teach the Negro the knowledge of God,….. you will interpret the gospel in a way to protect and serve the interest of Belgium”

“Your knowledge of the scriptures will help us to use special text that recommended the fidels to love poverty such as….“Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom…… You will do all that you can to cause the Negro to fear being rich in order that they may go to heaven.

“From time to time…… keep them in fear that you will use violence”

“You will take them away from anything or act that procures them with the courage to confront us.”

“Your action will be essentially on the younger people that might not rebel….. the child should learn to obey what the missionary teaches him because he is the father of his soul. We must force them into submission and obedience.”

“Teach the Gospel to the Negroes in an African style, in order that they are kept submissive to the White colonist. They would not rebel against the injustice done to them by the colonist.”

“Avoid, by all means, the Blacks becoming rich.”

“Make pay tithes each Sunday for church. Utilize this money, that is intended for the poor, for our own business investments.”

“Institute a system of confession which will make you good detectives in order to denounce/put down every Black which has a spirit of rebellion against the system.”

“Teach the Negroes that their statues, idols, are works of the devil, confiscate them and fill our museums with them. Teach the Negro to forget about their heroes in order to worship and give praise to ours.”

“Don’t give a seat to a Negro when they come to see you, at the most just give him a cigarette.”

“Don’t invite him to break bread with you, even if he gave you a chicken every time you went to see him.”

“My dear compatriots; if you apply to the letter all this, the interest of Belgium in the Congo will be protected for many centuries. I thank you. “

King Leopold II

(Translated from French by Prince Asiel Center for International Studies, USA)

http://www.afrikaglobalnetwork.com/htm/leopold.htm

The text is certainly shocking. But it is very much consistent with orders given by all other colonial rulers/administrators and post-colonial former colonies cannot forget these orders because they are continuing in the vision and mission of the neocolonial agencies now operating world over.

This is what Dr. Philip, Superintendent of the London Missionary Society wrote in The Preface to his “Researches in South Africa” in 19^th century.

"'While our missionaries are everywhere scattering the seeds of civilization . . . they are extending British interests, British influences and the British Empire. . . . Wherever the missionary places his standard among a savage tribe, their prejudices against the colonial government give way; their dependence upon the colony is increased by the creation of artificial wants”.

European explorers like Vasco da Gama, David Livingston, Cecil Rhodes and the many Christian missionaries were ONLY following the religious texts.

Bible New Testament St Mark 16 Verse 5 “Go ye to the entire world, baptizing all men in the name of Jesus Christ”.

A chaplain attached to the British East India Company is quoted by Norman Hetherington as saying

“We’ve annihilated the political importance of the natives, stripped them off their power, laid them prostrate without giving them anything in return”.

The envoys deployed in Third World nations follow the same objectives. The British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka is now projecting a ‘shared history’ – the gameplan is obviously to distort history and whitewash the blood soaked hands of colonial rulers from the history books wherein the younger generation would not be aware of the crimes committed by European rulers.

Histories of former colonies cannot be re-written by colonial rulers that have yet to account for their crimes & sins. Their acolytes who are rewarded by titles and tasked to re-write the history on behalf of these former colonial rulers cannot be allowed as well.

The pattern of how the Western rulers ruled directly and through their subservient local traitors is a replica of what is today taking place in front of our very eyes. To understand the gravity of this, people must know and comprehend the damage that Europeans & even Islamic invaders committed to the natives of Asia, Africa and other parts of the world where lands and territories were forcibly taken and people were subjugated.

No modern nomenclature or slogans like ‘let us forgive and forget’ can wipe out that horrendous and murderous past and the only way people can prepare and counter the same objectives under more sophisticated onslaughts is to be aware of the patterns & players involved.

Shenali D Waduge

Imperatives under Article 83 for a new constitution

By Neville Ladduwahetty

MP Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne P.C. during the course of an interview had stated: "We must go for a referendum if we are to introduce a new Constitution. For example, if we want to change even a comma in Article 83 of the Constitution, we must go for a referendum"(Ceylon Today, August 11, 2017). Article 83 requires 2/3 approval of Parliament and approval by the People at a referendum in order to abolish the executive presidential system and introduce a NEW Constitution. The two "official" reasons offered as justification for abolishing the Executive Presidential system are: (1)The belief that the Executive Presidential system concentrates too much power in a single individual, and (2),that it was an election pledge to the People. Instead of abolishing the Executive Presidential system in its entirety,the 19th Amendment in its original form provided the Government an opportunity to seriously derogate the powers of the President if the Government was prepared to subject the Bill to a referendum. The fact that the Government was reluctant to face a referendum at that time, but is now prepared to go for a referendum as stated by Dr. Wickramaratne, must mean that the scope is wider than the two "official" reasons offered above, for public consumption.

It is therefore clear that since the Government is now prepared to conform to the full provisions of Article 83, the opportunity would be exploited to the fullest, and to radically transform the structure of the Sri Lankan State. One radical transformation would be to dismantle the role of the Executive powers of the President in the Provincial Councils through his representative the Governor, and devolve Executive power to Provincial Councils; a fact that was clearly evident from the Sub-Committee Reports. Therefore, in the immediate background of alarming disclosures connected with the Bond Scam,the People are entitled to know the real and honest reasons for a NEW Constitution, in the knowledge of the huge credibility deficit that exists with regard to election pledges.

Before embarking on the task of preparing the draft of a NEW Constitution,two fundamental questions need to be raised relating to the need for a 2/3 majority by Parliament.

1.Does the Government have a mandate from the People to repeal the existing Constitution and replace it with a NEW Constitution?

2. Would not the needed 2/3 approval by Parliament come at the cost of violating the Franchise and hence the Sovereignty ofa section of the People?

TWO THIRD APPROVAL of PARLIAMENT

The current assumption is that if the present Parliament approves provisions in a NEW Constitution with a 2/3 majority,one requirement of Article 83 would be fulfilled. The question arises: How legitimate would such anassumption be considering the present formation of the Parliament in which the UNP has 105 members, the UPFA has 95 members, the TNA has 16 members, the JVP has 6 member with a few individual members making up the total to 225 members. Consequently, no political party has a clear majority. Under the circumstances, the present formation of the Government is that of a Minority Government.

It is therefore abundantly clear that the People of Sri Lanka did NOT give a mandate to any political party to institute any changes that would drastically alter the political structure of the State. Therefore, leaving aside the unethical aspect, would it be constitutionally legitimate for political parties or sections of political parties to form coalitions and attempt to amend or introduce a NEW Constitution? When answering this question a fact that should be borne in mind is that some members of Parliament who would be part of the 2/3 majority that would be voting for a NEW Constitution, could very well be members who were rejected by the People at the 2015 General Election.

A 2/3 majority under such circumstances would amount to going far beyond the boundaries authorized by the People. The question that needs to be asked is under what provision of Sri Lanka’s Constitution, or of what provision of any International Law could a Government made up of a coalition where no political party of the said coalition has a majority to form a Government, be permitted to repeal and replace a Constitution without a clear and unequivocal mandate from the People in the form of an outright majority to implement such a radical transformation?

Article 83 has two components: One is the need for 2/3 approval of Parliament and the other is approval by the People at a referendum. Both components need to be legitimate, each on its own merit. The need for both components to be independently legitimate is reflected by the fact that only those very few Articles in the Constitution that entrench the core values of the State have to comply with both components.

On the other hand, if minority parties in Parliament get together and forge a 2/3 majority, the ONLY safeguard is the decision by the People at a referendum. This single safeguard was certainly what was intended in Article 83. Therefore, the need for the 2/3 approval should at least be the product of a Majority Government with the support of other parties for the approval to be legitimate. Since this is not the case with the present formation in Parliament, it does not have the legitimacy to clobber together the 2/3 majority needed by Article 83.

According to Dr. Wickramaratne, "Today, the people clamour to have the executive presidency abolished" (Ibid). That is obviously his own interpretation. If in fact the issue of abolishing the Executive Presidency was a major concern of the People they would have given a positive mandate to the party that made such a pledge. The fact that no political party was given such a mandate means that what the Government is planning to do is not lawful, because it does NOT have the mandate to undertake such a radical and transformative task as changing the structure of the State without it being sanctioned by the People.

VIOLATION of FRANCHISE

The two major political parties that contested the August 2015 election were the UNP and the UPFA. Neither secured an outright majority. Consequently, the type of Government Sri Lanka currently has is a coalition made up of the entirety of the UNP and a minority of the UPFA, while the majority of the UPFA consisting of 52 members out of a total of 95 are NOT part of the coalition. Such an arrangement would undoubtedly compromise the Franchise and hence of the Sovereignty of the voters who voted for the 52 members of the UPFA that are NOT part of the coalition. This is what makes the formation of the present Government unlawful and a direct affront to the fundamental principles of representative Democracy.

Other countries too have experienced minority Governments. For instance, in U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Government is a minority Government because it failed to secure sufficient seats in Parliament to form a Government. This outcome has caused it to look for a coalition partner to form a Government, or in the least, a partner who would support them in Parliament. Similarly, countries such as Canada and Australia too have experienced minority Governments. And when faced with such a predicament they look for a coalition partner to form a Government.

In all these instances where the formation of coalition Governments were inevitable, the entirety of each party in the coalition committed itself to the formation of a legitimate Government, without violating the Franchise expressed by the People who voted for the parties in the coalition.

The difference between the coalition formations in these countries and the coalition formation in Sri Lanka is that ONLY a minority of the partner UPFA is part of the coalition Government, while the majority of the UPFA remains outside without an official status. Consequently, the majority of those that voted for the UPFA remains unequal before the law. This is in violation of a Fundamental Right; a right that has gone unchallenged since this Government came into power.

CONCLUSION

The present formation of the Government is unique in the history of representative Democracy. It is unique not because all the political parties in the present Parliament are minority parties, since similar minority formations exist and have existed in other countries as well. However, when coalition Governments are formed with minority parties, the entirety of each party forming the coalition are legitimate partners of the Government in order to preserve the sanctity of the Franchise of the People who voted for each partner of the coalition. What is unique about Sri Lanka’s coalition is that it is made up of the entirety of the UNP and a minority of the other member of the coalition (the UPFA), while the majority of the UPFA remains outside the coalition and the Government.

This unique formationof the coalition makes a 2/3 majority invalid for two reasons. Firstly, a coalition formation made up of minority parties does not have a legitimate mandate to repeal an existing Constitution and replace it with a NEW Constitution and secondly, the Franchise and hence the Sovereignty of the majority of the UPFA that is not with the Government and therefore excluded from the coalitionis compromised, thereby violating the Fundamental Right of Equality before the Law.

On the other hand, it would be legitimate for a coalition Government made up of minority parties to pass laws that require ONLY SIMPLE MAJORITIES provided ALL members that constitute the coalition are recognized as members of the Government so formed. In view of the uniqueness of the coalition in Sri Lanka even such a concession would not be legitimate. However, under no circumstances would it be legitimate for a coalition Government of minority parties to amend or revise any provisions in the Constitution that would require special majorities such as a 2/3 majority.

Despite the stated claim that the NEW Constitution is meant to abolish the Executive Presidential system on the grounds that it was a pledge made to the People, the real reason is to dilute the Executive powers of the President through the Governors in the Provinces and transfer Executive powers to the Provincial Councils. The result would be to devolve Executive and Legislative powers to the Provinces; powers that are typically characteristic of Federal Arrangements. All of this is to be achieved by conforming to provisions of Article 83 of the Constitution that require a 2/3 approval of Parliament and approval by the People at a referendum.

The flaw in the strategy is that the 2/3 approval of Parliament has no legitimacy for the two reasons cited above. For a 2/3 majority to have any legitimacy, at least one party in the coalition should have a minimum of 50%+members in Parliament if the sanctity of Article 83, which isthe ONLY Article that entrenches the core values of the Sri Lankan Nation and State is to be honoured. Since such a condition does NOT exist the present Parliament does not have the mandate and therefore lacks the legitimacy to repeal the existing Constitution and replace it with a NEW Constitution.

YAHAPALANA AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

KAMALIKA PIERIS

USA emerged as a super power after World War II, with the Marshal Plan which created NATO in 1949 and the Korea war of 1950. [1] American power is based on alliances not colonies. [2] US has some 60 treaty allies. [3]It tops the list in number of embassies, consulates and missions as well. [4] ‘Economist’ estimates that of the world’s 150 largest countries, nearly 100 lean toward the US while 21 lean against it. [5]

However, things are not looking good for USA at the moment. There is a leadership problem. Donald Trump is a disappointment, but according to CNN, USA does not want Hillary Clinton back either. The US economy is also in difficulties.[6] TIME says US system of market capitalism is to blame. USA made a magnificent advance from agriculture and manufacturing to finance. This was considered USA’s highest achievement. But now finance is not supporting business. The best stocks are owned by the wealthiest 10% and the money is concentrated there. Once a company goes public, in order to keep its stock price high, it stops innovating [7] and does not support job creation, concluded TIME. [8] Manufacturing jobs are disappearing because of robots and automation.[9]

TIME did a series of interviews with the American public, who said that the future for America is bleak, no chance of a good job and rising in life.[10] The country is going downhill, the rich and powerful have it good, but not the rest, they said.[11] There is rising inequality, stagnant incomes, shrinking middle class and stalled upward mobility.[12]The racial situation is also not improving. Ferguson city, Missouri has been charged with racial discrimination. Police routinely pull over African-American motorists on suspicion, and arrest them for no reason.[13

USA is not a global superpower anymore said TIME.[17] The US does not carry as much weight in the world economy as it used to.[18]Earlier it was the US which was the single largest contributor to world growth, not now.[19] The Chinese economy has overtaken it. [20] The US share of the world economy will fall, and its ability to wield influence and organize action will become less, said analysts.[21]

According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, USA spends more on defense than the next several nations combined, with annual outlays of more than USD 600 billion, three times more than China and seven times more than Russia,.[22] But US defense spending has declined by USD 78 billion from 2011.[23] As a result, U.S. Army is ranked “weak” according to the Heritage Foundation’s 2017 Index of U.S. Military Power.[24] American preeminence in military, economic and soft power terms will not look like it once did, said analysts. [25] US Air force consists of ‘old models’, in stark contrast to the aggressive programs of competitor states. Its delivery platforms such as the B-2 Spirit bomber are good, said the report. US Navy maintains a moderate global presence, but has little ability to meet wartime demands. [26]

However, undaunted, USA still continues to meddle in other countries. USA played a key role in promoting the South Sudan secessionist movement, using American evangelical groups.[27] In Russia, USA said it did not ‘interfere’, it only ‘funded pro-democracy organizations’.[28] There were backroom deals with ‘neutral’ countries. [29]

Today there is a huge anti American sentiment sweeping the developing world mainly because of its activity in the Middle East. [33] US was the hidden force in every war that took place in the world during the recent times, said critics.[34]Wikileaks memos of American diplomats showed that the US was a ‘hypocritical super power’ which, spied on the UN and the countries which were its allies. US turned a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in ‘client states’. [35] As a result, USA is losing allies. Philippines is veering away from the USA, its long time ally. The President of the Philippines recently visited Russia.[36]

Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, said in 2017 that America’s role as the steadying force in international relations was now under threat. [37] Since 1945, America has been the balancer in international relations. We are now facing a situation in which there is uncertainty about America’s ability to carry out this role. [38] But USA supporters said that the United States will not disappear from Asia altogether. The United States can still play a significant role by supporting other alliances. U.S. can still do very interesting things in Asia. We don’t know yet what those will be, but the US is not dead and gone, they said.[39]

Stunned by the unexpected annihilation of the LTTE in Sri Lanka, the US Senate Committee on Foreign relations sent 2 Senators to Sri Lanka in November 2009, to evaluate the situation and make recommendations. [40]Rajapakse is a threat to US, they reported, he is drifting towards China.[41] However, US was advised to adopt a ‘less confrontational approach’ to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is too important a country to be isolated from the west, it said. [42]

The report stressed the strategic importance of Sri Lanka to the US, particularly in its geopolitical location. [43]Sri Lanka is located at the nexus of crucial maritime trading routes in the Indian Ocean connecting Europe and Middle East to China and the rest of Asia.[44] China and Japan’s energy resource from the Persian Gulf transits Sri Lanka and the island has the potential to control or impede the free flow these resources to China and Japan. Half the world’s container traffic passes through Sri Lanka and the island has the potential to block this as well. The US has a competing interest with India and China in securing this maritime route, the report said. [45]

Sri Lanka became ‘a top geopolitical priority’ for US policy makers and military planners [46]Sri Lanka is the key piece, in a larger geopolitical dynamic described as the Great game’, they said. [47] White House and Pentagon are trying urgently to figure out how ‘not to lose Sri Lanka ‘. And also how we can use Sri Lanka to further US national security interest in the Indian Ocean, said Stanton.’[48]

A leading Washington based think tank, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said in 2010 that the US cannot afford to disengage with Sri Lanka. It needs to follow a subtle and a sophisticated approach to rethink the partnership, recognising that the political game has changed in Sri Lanka. It is time to recognise that the formulas which were used in the past were now dead.[49] ‘If we have this same stability for the next five years in Sri Lanka , then it will be difficult to achieve control , but a weaker Sri Lanka is easier to dominate’ said analysts in 2014. [50]

Inside Sri Lanka, former ambassador, K Godage noted in 2010 that USA has now realized that with China coming in, it is best not to antagonize Sri Lanka. We have acquired a new importance. We could not be ignored or antagonized. [51]Our close relation with Iran and Russia in addition to China and our defense related agreements have also contributed to a change in America’s Sri Lanka policy, he concluded. [52]

Rajapaksa’s tilt to China gravely undermined the US position, so Rajapaksa had to go.[53] This time regime change had better succeed. [54] Therefore US and India worked closely to engineer the regime change. US President Barak Obama had publicly referred to the Indian role in Sri Lanka. [55] Once regime change was achieved, the Yahapalana government needed to be propped up. USAID gave US 3.4 million to Yahapalana for its 100 days administration. [56] This came from the US Complex Crises Fund (CCF),[57] which had allocated USD 585 million for ‘democracy projects’ in Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Burma.[58]

With Rajapaksa out of the way, America bounced in very confidently, ready to openly show its power over Sri Lanka. US Secretary of State, John Kerry, was the first to visit, in May 2015.Then came US Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, in August 2016. [59] Nisha Biswal, Assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, had visited Sri Lanka six times by July 2016. [60] Samantha Power.US ambassador to the UN, Thomas Shannon, US under secretary and Tom Malinowski ,US assistant Secretary for democracy and Human rights also visited. Sri Lanka . [61] There is a photograph of Mangala Samaraweera, then Foreign Minister with Biswal and Malinowski on either side, each holding one of his hands.[62]

Within months of Yahapalana coming in, the application form for a fixed deposit in a particular state bank added a new question. It asked ‘are you a US person and are you politically exposed person.’[63] A ‘Politically Exposed Person’ , it explained, includes an individual in Sri Lanka or abroad who is or have been entrusted with prominent public function such as a Head of State, or Government senior politicians, senior government , judicial or military officials, senior executive of state owned corporations, and important political party officials, but excluding middle ranking or more junior officials in the foregoing categories.[64]

Yahapalana government is a ‘fully pro-Washington regime’ said Tamara Kunanayagam in 2016.[65] Tissa Vitarana said that Ranil Wickremesinghe was going to make Sri Lanka a puppet of the USA like the Philippines. [66] This made US change its strategy. In July 2017, it was announced that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, would meet with two officials from the White House, who would represent President Donald Trump, since Wickremesinghe happened to be in New York. Wickremesinghe will also attend the UN Ocean Conference in New York.[67]These two activities were presented as incidental. The Prime Minister was in New York primarily, we are told, for a medical checkup. He had been earlier checked up and fully cleared in Singapore. [68] He was declared fit by the New York medical panel too. [69] Usually when Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister goes on a visit abroad, there is much publicity, including television and photos. This time there was none.

US has not hesitated to intervene in politically sensitive matters. US plans to provide USD one million for two projects. The first project is for the media. US want to strengthen the independent media in the area of investigative journalism. It will include journalists in Sinhala, Tamil and English and journalists from all parts of the country, not just Colombo. The second project is for facilitating reconciliation in the country. For this, they will identify leaders, including youth and women for reconciliation. And would support action in ‘pilot communities’.[70] Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that this was a Trojan horse. It could be a project to help US long term objectives in Sri Lanka. [71]

Trimble Navigation Ltd, a US company, has forwarded a proposal for ‘Title/Tenure Regularisation and Cadastral Registry Modernisation’ in Sri Lanka. A high level committee headed by Prime Minister’s senior advisor R. Paskeralingam had recommended this proposal and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) had approved it. [72] The Minister for Lands told the Surveyors Association that the government has decided to implement the proposal and the Association must support the project. Trimble would work with the Ministry of Lands to identify 2.5 million state-owned lands and help to give permanent titles to the persons currently occupying these lands. Bim Saviya programme launched during the previous Rajapaksa regime has become a white elephant. [73] Only 405,000 title deeds were issued from 2005 [74].

The surveyors observed that the main functions of the Sri Lanka Survey Department, as well as its Land Information System (LIS) and Aerial Survey Operations would be vested in Trimble for 15 years. [75] Survey Department staff and resources will also go to Trimble. 400 public surveyors and 200 additional private surveyors with crews will serve under Trimble, conducting pre-survey, survey and data collection. [76] If Trimble is given the management of Sri Lanka Survey Department, then Trimble will take control of Sri Lanka’s electronic land register and details of lands. This will be a threat to country’s national security, said the surveyors.[77].

National Labor Advisory Committee (NLAC) was told in July 2017, that the Government has decided to appoint a Working Group on Labor Law Reforms. The initiative had come from Ministry of Development Strategies and International Trade in collaboration with USAID. Trade unions strongly objected to this. Neither the Ministry of Development Strategies and International Trade nor USAID has any right to intervene in reforming labour laws in Sri Lanka, they said.[78] Labor reform came under the Labour Department and the Ministry of Labor. [79] There is a well tested tripartite mechanism including trade unions and employer representation for this purpose. [80] What was the actual intention behind this urge to reform labour laws of the country, the trade unions asked. [81]

In January 2016, it was announced that a 3 year economic plan for Sri Lanka would be drawn up by the American economist Haussmann. George Soros will fund it. He will set up an office here as well since [82] he was also looking for investment in Sri Lanka. [83] Soros presence will boost foreign investment, said Yahapalana, enthusiastically.[84] Soros is a financial speculator who has made his money by manipulating currency markets. He is the last person we need here said critics. [85]

Sri Lanka was selected as a beneficiary of U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC),in December 2016. [86] MCC is a five-year grant program, to reduce poverty and promote economic opportunity.[87] The goal is to develop a high-quality, evidence-based and sustainable compact aimed at addressing economic challenges in a way that drives growth and reduces poverty. [88]

MCC holds partner countries accountable through rigorous oversight, monitoring and evaluation. [89] Therefore a unit called Sri Lanka Compact Development Team was set up in the Prime Minister’s office to work with MCC. [90]This team was to consult with a wide group of stakeholders to collect input, including potential beneficiaries, civil society, the private sector, other donors and relevant government entities.[91] Sri Lanka will need to be re-selected by MCC’s Board in December for the project to continue and a team visited Colombo to look at progress in July 2017.[92]

US quickly gained access to Sri Lanka ‘s military sector. In February 2016 Admiral H.B. Harris, head of the US Pacific Command told the US Senate Armed Services Committee ,[93] we have an opportunity to expand US interest in Sri Lanka. [94] Given Sri Lanka strategic location it is in America’s interest to increase military collaboration and cooperation. [95] US will expand military leadership discussions, increase naval engagement and focus on defense institution building. [96]

A contingent of 33 US Army Cadets, from US Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (AROTC) came to Sri Lanka in June 2017, on a familiarization tour. They were given an initial training in weapon handling, field practices, physical training, by the Sri Lanka Army. The Cadets visited the Sri Lanka Military Academy , Security Force Headquarters, Sri Lanka Light Infantry Headquarters, Regimental Headquarters of the Sri Lanka Engineers and the Army School of Artillery at Minneriya.[97]

The U.S. Department of State’s Export Control and Related Border Security (EXBS) Program trained 18 Customs and Coast Guard Officials from Sri Lanka, Maldives, India, and Bangladesh in seaport interdiction in 2017. The training was conducted in Colombo. Participants learned cutting-edge inspection and detection techniques for all types of contraband and gained new skills to manage security for inbound and outbound cargo operations, assess cargo targeting and risk management, and handle hazardous cargo and materials. The training also highlighted port security awareness related to cargo containing potential Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and improvised explosive devices and materials.[98]

US navy ship USS Blue Ridge, the flagship of the US 7^th fleet, [99]arrived in Colombo in March 2016 on a goodwill visit. President Sirisena visited the ship and was received with a US navy military guard.[100] In March 2017, the US Pacific Fleet’s transport ship USNS Fall River visited Hambantota on a Pacific Partnership goodwill mission. It held joint exercises with the navies of Sri Lanka, Japan and Australia. [101]

Officers of the US 7th Fleet and Sri Lanka Navy met for the second time at the Naval Headquarters in May 2017 for discussions. Such dialogues were important for furthering mutual cooperation between the two navies. [102] US Captain Brian Anderson ‘expressed his contentment over a range of matters including bilateral cooperation, training and ports of call made over the past years’.[103]

US is working towards establishing a base in Trincomalee for its Seventh fleet, reported Island in September 2015. It was making Sri Lanka’s military vacate strategically important locations.[104] US has not hidden its interest in getting Trincomalee and hopes to partner with Sri Lanka to encircle China, agreed others.[105]Plans are afoot to set up a US base in Trincomalee harbor, said Tissa Vitarana in February 2016.[106] Yahapalana government was planning to hand over Trincomalee port to US and very soon US 7^th fleet will be in our waters, he warned.[107] A bilateral agreement in this regard has been signed secretly between Sri Lanka and America. [108] The growing military ties to the US are a threat to Sri Lanka concluded Vitarana. [109] If military cooperation of this nature continued, Sri Lanka would become a puppet country like the Philippines. [110]

US has tried to placate the Sri Lanka public by several good works. In 2016 it was reported that US plans to provide aid to University of Sri Jayewardenepura to document the historical buildings within the Galle fort.[111]Cheryl Edison, American innovation expert, came in 2017 to work with, inter alia, Sri Lanka’s IT entrepreneurs, Information and Communications Technology Agency (ICTA) representatives [112]and Sri Lanka Association of Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM) . She held free virtual classes and individual counseling for participants in ICTA’s Tech Startup Support Program. Edison led seminars for business and engineering students at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and University of Jaffna at Kilinochchi. She helped inspire Jaffna’s aspiring entrepreneurs, said a member of the Yarl IT Hub community. [113]

The US government offered humanitarian assistance worth USD 2.3 million to help victims of flooding and landslides. [114]The aid will be used to provide safe drinking water, hygiene kits, emergency shelter materials, home repair kits, and critical health care services to stave off diseases. [115] Disaster experts from USAID/OFDA and the Civil-Military Support Element (CMSE) attached to the U.S Embassy are also helping. The U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets and the U.S. Embassy’s Pacific Command Augmentation Team are cleaning and repairing flood damage at schools in the Kalutara district. Families of the U.S. Embassy community have also provided personal donations to Sri Lanka Unites, a youth-led organization, said a US media release.[116] However, it is now reported that Sri Lanka will receive only US$ 3.38 million for its USAID programmes in 2018, a drop of 92% percent from 2016. [117] (CONCLUDED)

Do countries have right to protect their majority demography against growing Muslim fertility?

All majority populace in any country take pride in their history, heritage, culture, values and desire to preserve that national identity. Japanese would not want anyone other than Japanese to be the majority in Japan, same with Chinese, Germans, British, French want to maintain their white Christian/Catholic status, even Hindu India. The rising Muslim population is a global concern and countries are realizing the need to address this. The traditional identity, culture, values are all at the risk of being replaced. It is not so much the fault with general Muslims but the extremist factions that are their leaders who pose the problem. The Sinhalese are also sharing the same concern in particular to preserve its Buddhist status realizing how Buddhism that spread across the world without the sword or forced conversions is now targeted to be annihilated. Myanmar has directly addressed these existential threats.

Many countries are discovering that the moment Muslim populace passes a certain percentage the bargaining increases as do the demands and assimilation becomes difficult. Muslims themselves, become victims to various forms of extremes all of which they are not in control over. They are helpless and become victims of both Muslim extremists as well as the rest of the non-Muslim community who are angered by these unfair demands.

It is not so much the rise in Muslim populace that is the concern but the rise in radicalism and extremism creating ghetto areas and self-isolation making assimilation difficult. The emergence of parallel societies is not healthy to a nation. This creates parallel cultures not assimilating with the dominant culture and then creates rifts as population increases.

With the rise of Muslim populace, their bargaining power also increases and they influence political decision making. Extremist Muslim leaders emerge using the Muslim bloc vote to make unfair demands that secure their political careers.

The demands for mosques, madrassas, playing of azan, new dress claiming to be religious, ghetto areas, special labeling for foods has turned into a lucrative business venture with certificates being issued for a fee to exporters/importers to majority Muslim countries, Shariah/Islamic banking systems forced upon countries even where Muslims are less than 9% of the total populace – these are just a handful of examples that have contributed to apprehensions across the globe especially in the West where white populations are declining and Muslim populations are rising with the guestimates that one day eventually Islam would prevail over them. It is that same concern that people of the East also have taken cognizance of.

Global Muslim populace is 1.8billion or 24% of the world’s populace. Coincidentally, where Islam originated – Middle East-North Africa region has only 20% Muslims while 62% Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region with Indonesia having the world’s largest Muslim populace.

Like Christianity, it was as a result of Islamic invasions & through the sword that non-Muslim territories became Islamized and communities of Muslims were created by forcibly converting those natives. A trail of the Islamic invasions will portray this reality. As will a trail of how Christianity spread.

The disproportionate birth rate is the cause for the alarm by non-Muslims with justification. In comparison to the 7 other major religious groups Muslim women have an average of 2.9children as against 2.2children of non-Muslims. While world population is projected to grow at 32% the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 70% - from 1.8b in 2015 to nearly 3b in 2060 according to Pew Research.

India’s Muslims are growing faster than the country’s majority Hindu population and is projected to rise from 14.9% (2015) to 19.4% by 2060 (333million people).

It is projected that 10% of Europe will be Muslim by 2050.

In the US, the Muslim populace is 3.35 million or 1% of the US population. Pew Research estimates that Muslims will become 2.1% of the U.S. population by the year 2050

There are 1,053,945 Muslims in Canada or 3.2% of the populace. 11 Muslims have got elected during the Federal elections in 2015. Hate crimes against Muslims are rising too http://globalnews.ca/news/3523535/hate-crimes-canada-muslim/The expanding influence of Wahhabi/Salafism in Canada is contributing to a wave of extremism & influencing Muslims through the mosques. http://mackenzieinstitute.com/rise-islamic-extremism-canada/ And these are the fears that other countries are now waking up to.

Islam is the second largest religion in the United Kingdom – 3m Muslims in England & Wales – 5.4% of the total population. In 2011, 2.71 million Muslims lived in England and Wales, compared with 1.55 million in 2001. There were also 77,000 Muslims in Scotland and 3,800 in Northern Ireland.

Germany has 4.8 million Muslims in Germany (5.8% of the country’s population) There are 4.7 million Muslims in France (7.5%).

Russia has 14 million Muslims (10%) In Russia, Moscow had only 1 mosque in the 1980s now there are 4 mosques. Russia’s Muslim populace has increased b 40% since 1989 to about 25million.

As of 2010, the European Union was home to about 13 million Muslim immigrants. Total Muslims in Europe is said to number 52million.

While Muslims are increasing in non-Majority Muslim countries the non-Muslims in Muslim-majority countries are decreasing or disappearing!

Iraq had 1.4m Christians at the time of Saddam Hussein’s reign. It is now less than 800,000. In Pakistan religious minorities have dropped from 23% in 1947 to 3-4% in 2012 (Farahnaz Ispahani)

In the 1920s Christians are said to have been 30% of Syria’s population. It has dropped to 22% of Syria’s 22m populace now.

Lebanese Christian population has shrunken from 78% to only 34% over the last century.

"Christianity is under an existential threat," Anna Eshoo, a Democrat member of the US House of Representatives from California, and an advocate of Mideast Christians

http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.668174

While it is politically correct for Europeans to claim Muslims clash with fundamental precepts of Western secular beliefs Europeans claim it is politically incorrect for Asians to claim that Muslims clash with non-Muslim beliefs in their countries! Why this hypocrisy & double standards?

Examples of Muslim population increase in Sri Lanka

Gampaha

Muslim population in 1981 was 37,826

Muslim population in 2012 was 97,621

Kalutara

Muslim population in 1981 was 33,659

Muslim population in 2012 was 113,320

Kandy

Muslim population in 1981 was 98,436

Muslim population in 2012 was 191,570

Colombo

Muslim population in 1981 was 139,743

Muslim population in 2012 was 249,609

Batticoloa

Muslim population in 1981 was 78,829

Muslim population in 2012 was 133,854

Ampara

Muslim population in 1981 was 161,568

Muslim population in 2012 was 281,702

Kurunegala

Muslim population in 1981 was 60,791

Muslim population in 2012 was 115,302

Puttalam

Muslim population in 1981 was 49,000

Muslim population in 2012 was 147,546

Trincomalee

Muslim population in 1981 was 75,039

Muslim population in 2012 was 158,771

Meeting these existential threats directly has been Myanmar which brought Race and Religion Protection Laws in 2014.

1. Monogamy Law

Criminal offence to have more than one spouse or to live with an unmarried partner who is not a spouse. The law is applicable to all living in Myanmar (Myanmar citizens who live outside as well as foreigners who marry Myanmar citizens while living in Myanmar)

2. Religious Conversion Law

Myanmar citizens who wish to change his/her religion must obtain approval from Registration Board for Religious Conversion. There is also laws for forced conversion as well as for converting with intent to harm a religion.

3. Interfaith Marriage Law

The Myanmar Buddhist Women’s Special Marriage Law regulates marriages of Buddhist women to non-Buddhist men.

4. Population Control Law

The laws provides the governments of divisions and states ‘to request a presidential order limiting reproductive rates if it is determined that population growth, accelerating birth rates, or rising infant or maternal mortality rates are negatively impacting regional development’ or that an ‘imbalance between population and resources, low socio-economic indicators and regional food insufficiency because of internal migration’ exists.

India too recently banned polygamy.

Roman Catholicism is the state religion and protected by State laws in Costa Rica, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Italy, the Vatican City. Andorra, Argentina, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Panama, Paraquay, Peru & Poland.

Eastern Orthodoxy is state religion in Greece, Georgia & Bulgaria. England, Scotland & Wales are Anglican, Protestant, while Lutheran church is state religion in Norway, Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, Finland, Sweden. The Hungarian constitution describes Hungary as ‘part of Christian Europe’ and acknowledges the ‘role of Christianity in preserving nationhood’. Samoa’s constitution makes Christianity the state religion while Zambia’s constitution declares it a “Christian nation’. No one seems to be objecting to these countries very clearly demarcating Christian faith as state religion while giving others religious freedom! However, these countries all take measures to ensure Christian faith remains protected whatever freedoms are given to others.

In Muslim majority countries the state place for Islam is non-negotiable and often non-Islamic faiths have hardly any freedom.

In Singapore 75% of population are Chinese. Article 152 of the Singapore Constitution says

“(2) The Government shall exercise its functions in such manner as to recognise the special position of the Malays, who are the indigenous people of Singapore, and accordingly it shall be the responsibility of the Government to protect, safeguard, support, foster and promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and the Malay language.”

Lee Kuan Yew himself has hinted at the need to maintain this ‘racial balance’

“By race, the fertility rate is 1.91 for Malays, 1.19 for Indians and 1.14 for Chinese. If we continue this way without the new immigrants and PRs and their children doing national service, the composition of our SAF (Singapore armed forces) will change. So please remember that”.

Singapore has also introduced the Ethnic Integration Policy that by law decides the ethnic percentage living in a neighborhood. This is to ensure no ethnic ghetto areas arise.

Malaysia follows the Bhoomiputra policy (sons of the land) Special position is given to the Malays in its constitution (Article 153) Article 160 defines a Malay as being one who "professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay customs and is the child of at least one parent who was born within the Federation of Malaysia before independence of Malaya on 31 August 1957, or the issue (off-spring) of such a person."

All Bumiputra, regardless of their financial standing, are entitled 7 percent discount on houses or property, including luxurious units; whilst a low-income non-Bumiputra receives no such financial assistance. Companies listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (Bursa Saham Kuala Lumpur) must have 30% bumiputra ownership of equity to satisfy listing requirements. Malaysia requires citizens to carry a national identification card called MyKad. Smart Cards identify citizens as Muslims or Non-Muslims

If fundamental rights for all must be equal then the laws applicable must be equal too. There cannot be special laws for a community especially if that law becomes detrimental for demography. In Sri Lanka polygamy is legal for only Muslims, that will definitely pose population problems in the future. Polygamy should thus be banned for all. Similarly, the proposed Anti-Conversion bill must also be passed.

Countries have realized the dangers & have taken measures to protect their heritage. There is no reason Sri Lanka shouldn’t either no matter the objections that come. While both Islam and Christianity have spread from its origins using the sword & forced conversions, presently replacing the sword has been the power of bloc nations, diplomatic pressures and the monopoly they hold via international trade & across various international forums. Nevertheless, we cannot forget that there is a 2600 history to preserve and it is our duty to do so for those that cry foul belong to faiths that have been targeting to change the demography and religious landscape of Sri Lanka.

Shenali D Waduge

“So You want our Vote” – First Agree to these Demands of Sinhala Buddhist voters

There are over 15million registered voters. Over 70% are Sinhala Buddhists. However, schemes and strategies have ensured the Sinhala Buddhist voters were split while other strategies have been used to prevent Sinhala politicians from voicing the concerns of the majority populace. Every country has a majority-minority populace – minorities cannot rule the majority. Checks and balances come in ensuring equality before the law. If laws are equal, then no citizen can complain of violations to their fundamental rights. Group demands are not fundamental rights. However, it has become fashionable to flog the ‘minorities are denied rights/discriminated’ card overlooking all that they actually enjoy over and above what the majority are in reality denied or neglected. Therefore, it is time for the Sinhala Buddhist voter, irrespective of the political party they are aligned to, to clearly make demands of the politicians who come to plead their vote. Do not fall for the silly reduction of bread, fuel, gas slogans. Insist on Sinhala Buddhist voters committing to some solid demands as part of their election manifesto and publicly commit to implementing them once in power.

Our Demands if you want Our Vote

1. Publicly state that Sri Lanka is a predominantly Sinhala Buddhist country that will uphold that civilizational status constitutionally & legally but provide all rights for minorities.

2. Secure the foremost status of Buddhism& foster it in Sri Lanka & internationally, while securing the right to freedom of religious practice for all other religions so long as these religions do not attempt to undermine the status of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. The Buddha Sasana Ministry must carry our regular research and reports covering distortions by media/NGOs/others on Buddhists/Buddhism/Sri Lanka’s history/School curriculum etc

3. Uphold unitary status of Sri Lanka– no division or separation of the island under any nomenclature.

4. Denounce initiatives that seek to destabilize Sri Lanka

a. Repeal of the 13^th amendment– the provincial council system is a proven failure.

b. No new constitution drafted by foreigners/NGOs & paid local agents

c. Protecting Armed Forces from any foreign war crimes tribunals – any malpractices will be dealt in local military tribunals

d. No land to be sold to foreigners & owned by foreigners & any transnational corporate endeavor must have minimum 60% control vested in the State with provision to nullify agreement if the other party has violated clauses.

e. Legal experts to deal with & respond to all violations and illegalities by the UN/UNHRC related to the Resolutions against Sri Lanka

f. Assurance that no foreign interference would be allowed in Judiciary, Public Sector, Education, Heritage sites, National assets, Strategic national areas to be protected.

5. Uphold principle of ‘One law applicable to all’ – no two laws to be allowed (civil or criminal). No sub-laws per different religions to be entertained as such did not exist pre-colonial or even post-colonial

6. Agree to declare Sinhala the ONLY Official Language in Sri Lanka, Tamil the Secondary Language and English the Link Language. Mandatory for all citizens to speak & write basic Sinhalese. State to facilitate teaching of Simple Sinhala to non-Sinhalese (local & foreign)

7. Declare that every citizen of Sri Lanka has equal land rights & ownership in any part of Sri Lanka and no personal laws can deny or obstruct the right of a citizen to purchase land & live wherever he/she so pleases. Politicians wanting the Sinhala Buddhist vote must publicly declare that there is no Tamil land or Muslim land in Sri Lanka. Every person is entitled to live & purchase land in any part of Sri Lanka.

8. Prevent ethno-religious ghettos by following an ethnic ratio representation at all levels of Government – Legislature, Executive, Judiciary, Public service etc to maintain the majority demographic ratio. Allocation of housing/land based on same ethnic ratio formula (70-30 representation)

9. Declare special regulations for dual citizens/citizens marrying foreigners to ensure land ownership does not fall into hands of foreigners. Land in Sri Lanka must belong ONLY to citizens.

10. Secure the majority Sinhala Buddhist demography by implementing measures as being adopted by other countries – banning polygamy, one national law for all applicable to all equally.

11. Declare Buddhist heritage sites as National Heritage Sites giving State protection & funds for preservation. There is no joint-heritage as no other religion has evidence to claim to have existed prior to 2600 Buddhist history.

12. Agree to take action against extremists/extremism– moratorium on construction on new places of religious worship via foreign funds, introduce anti-conversion bill, implement 6^th amendment of Sri Lanka’s constitution against anyone indulging in acts of terror or assisting terror

13. Agree to bring constitutional provisions forbidding political parties (elected for only a term of office) to barter heritage sites, space and historically sacred areas for petty political/commercial gain.

14. Assure action against illegal immigrants& ensure they are returned to their place of origin. If necessary DNA tests must be done to confirm South Indian illegal immigrants are not living in Sri Lanka enjoying rights of Sri Lankan citizens

15. Remove provision for ethnic-based political parties from contesting elections. Communal politics cannot be allowed. There cannot be reconciliation where there are communal parties creating ethno-religious tensions

16. Assure that no food/beverages will be labelled in Sri Lanka to the religious preference of one minority ethno-religious community where it has become a business enterprise for this group to collect parallel taxes for the certification!

17. Assure to give National History is given a prominent place in State Education with a panel of patriotic educators/historians proud of heritage tasked to write the syllabus relevant to public, private, semi-government & international schools. International Schools to be brought under the purview of the Ministry of Education and not function as a private business as presently happening.

18. Assure that the Sri Lanka Foreign Service & Public Service are briefed on Sri Lanka’s pre-colonial/post-colonial history and the staff know the real patriots/heroes of Sri Lanka not pseudo heroes created by foreign invaders.

19. Agree to promote a compassionate Sri Lanka– right livelihood to sustainable development, principle of Ahimsa needed in a society that is today valueless and in much need of compassion for all living beings including animals. The State is bound to uplift the lives of people and bring them towards a humane and compassionate lifestyle.

20. Propose to initiate state programs that would bring communities together to look after animals, nurture sustainable development, grow more trees/flora & fauna, make Sri Lanka eco-friendly, have State structures to ensure factories and businesses adhere to proper environment protection guidelines,

There are some factors that Sinhala politicians need to take serious stock of. While as politicians, they are leaders of all citizens, they must also ensure that they protect the rights of the Sinhalese who is the only ethnic/racial group found in Sri Lanka. This is nothing anyone can object to as the 50 majority Muslim nations automatically stand on behalf of the Muslims in Sri Lanka, while India jumps to the rescue of the Tamils in Sri Lanka while the West/Vatican influence the Christian/Catholic voters.

It is also important that the Sinhala politicians realize that modern imperialism uses the UN & foreign diplomacy to tie countries to various initiatives to denationalize people and remove their sense of patriotism/nationalism to defend their land of birth. The slogans of multiculturalism is applicable to countries that were created and developed by immigrants who were enticed to come and work/live on foreign shores. The multi-faith initiatives are really to distance people from valuing philosophies like Buddhism that faith-based religions find difficult to counter & destroy as these teaching are scientifically proven and not based on myths. Shared values are simply programs that seek to again distance and totally confuse children from following Buddhism the base with which a child develops the core of his/her thinking. For all this the Wahhabis use $87billion and faith-based religions use $170billion to promote only their faiths.

The Sinhala politicians have taken the majority for a ride since independence. We should refuse to be fooled again. Put aside political parties and realize that the Sinhalese race/ethnic group is found only in Sri Lanka and needs to be preserved. It is the duty of the politicians who come on our vote to protect and preserve our history and heritage.

No one should feel offended or complain about Sinhalese wanting to protect & preserve their history & heritage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgbZpbOc-SA - Me Ape Swarna Bhoomiyai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuQGuO8oJTU - Rathna Deepa Janmabhoomi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp-z6xrHHDw - Me Sinhala Apage Ratai

Shenali D Waduge

Open Letter to UN Rapporteur on Minority Issues: Rights are for Individuals not Minority Ethnic Communities Only

Shenali D Waduge

We challenge the UN Rapporteur Izsak Ndiaye to give a list of rights that legally & constitutionally are denied to the minorities in Sri Lanka which are legally & constitutionally given only to the Sinhalese majority. Name any instance where a law or judgement has been changed simply because the offender was from a minority? Officials cannot land in Sri Lanka make glaring accusations without evidence. We demand that your office make public what are the rights the minorities are legally and constitutionally denied which Sinhala majority only enjoys.

We would like to know how relations between communities can be fostered when priority status is given only to minorities when rights have to be equal by all in front of the law. If someone has committed murder he should be punished as per law irrespective of whether he belongs to the majority or minority. If the Rapporteur is proposing independent commission for minority issues – the same must be implemented for majority issues, because they too have issues that everyone has conveniently ignored. Those elected to Parliament are representatives of the citizens of the country. It is only those who are elected coming from ethno/religious political parties represent only their group. This is what should be stopped. The rest of what was covered during the 10 days was nothing but gobbledygook parroting what every envoy arriving to Sri Lanka are asked to say.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/UN-Rapporteur-recommends-independent-commission-for-minority-issues-117797.html

No UN official or foreign envoy can get away with statements and proposals without basis and evidence to substantiate them. Name a country that has entertained demands to change their national anthem, national flag etc without answering the basic question – what is it that the minorities are denied. Name a country that has given status to the minorities in their countrys national flag as Sri Lanka has done (orange denotes Tamils/Green denotes Muslims) These two strips were not in the original version of the flag. Not even India where Tamils are a minority but with 72million Tamils do not have one Tamil word in the Indian anthem. What country has violated its constitution to sing the national anthem in Tamil. Was there any point in changing the national anthem when these Tamil parties are seeking separatism? We have even welcomed Maldivians who numbers have risen to 300,000 just because Maldivians is said to be drowning. Reciprocation by Maldives is that Sinhalese are not even allowed to take a Buddha statue to Maldives!

The Sinhalese evolved in Sri Lanka. There is no country that has Sinhalese, the Sinhalese language or the Sinhalese traditions/cultures. Tamils find their origins to Tamil Nadu. Muslims arrived from Middle East. Christians& Catholics came following forced conversions of Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus

There are 76million Tamils globally. There are 1.3billion Muslims globally. There are 2.2billion Christians globally. There are only 14.8million Sinhalese. Sinhalese built the nation evident from archaeological, hydraulic and historical data.

In India a populace of 1.3billion Tamils in Tamil Nadu though numbering 72million are a minority. Tamil is not used in the National Anthem. Tamils are not denoted in the Indian National Flag. Sri Lanka’s Tamils number less than 2million while Muslims are less than 1.8million.

No country has given to the Sinhala Buddhist minority in their countries as the minorities are currently enjoying in Sri Lanka. Everywhere that the Abrahamic religions are in the minority the strategy is to use UN and demand secular rights and minority rights so that they can bring dharmic religions on par and thereafter use the wealth of their religious institutions to take over these nations. Pongal was hijacked by Christians in 2004 in Singapore, Christian have even created photos of Jesus meditating like Buddha, Christian missionaries are accused of hijacking yoga, Bharatanatyam, Churches are accused of building Hindu-type ‘ashrams’ and referring to the Fathers are ‘swamiji’s all with long term intent to show that there is no difference in Christianity& Dharmic faiths with long term plan to eliminate these dharmic faiths. When dharmic faiths react these are immediately shot down as hate speech or acts by racists, religious intolerants, fascists etc

Has the Rapporteur taken a tour of Sri Lanka. If so she should have seen the increasing religious structures by Christian/Evangelical, Islamic and Hindus all over the island while the Northern Chief Minister and some Islamic groups in the East are vandalizing Buddhist structures/statues (it’s a war crime to destroy historical artefacts)

We hope the Rapporteur has a list of all minority leaders holding cabinet level positions in Government. Is she also aware that the PM’s financial advisor is a Tamil. The Governments Central Bank Governor is also a Tamil. The Constitutional Council has a Tamil – sister of the Governor. The Bar Association President is Tamil. The Chief Justice is a Tamil. The CEO of The Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka is a Tamil. Name countries that allow minorities such strategic positions?

Now let us ask the UN Rapporteur what she has found out to claim minorities do not have rights.

§ Are Tamil pregnant mothers denied entry to State hospitals to deliver their baby because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamil patients denied State doctors and nurse care because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils denied admission to State schools because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils given less marks because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils denied State scholarships because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils denied employment in State sector because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils not allowed to travel in public buses because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils given separate seats in public places because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils made to stand in separate queues because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils denied right of freedom to travel throughout the country? NO

§ Are Tamils denied right of residence because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils denied right to worship because they are Tamil? NO

§ Are Tamils denied burial/crematorium rights because they are Tamil? NO

§ Will public or private entities refuse or deny to serve a Tamil because they are Tamil? NO

§ Will parcels, letters and postcards not be accepted or delivered because people are Tamil? NO

§ Are there separate areas for Tamils? NO (but Tamils & Muslims are creating minority ghetto areas – has the UN Rapporteur visited areas of Wellawatte, Mattakkuliya, Amparai, Kalmunai, Mawanella, Puttalam)

§ Have Tamils being terminated from service because they were Tamil? NO  

Nevertheless, there is also the need to look at the reciprocity.

§ While Tamils can live, buy property, indulge in business, educate their children throughout Sri Lanka even in the South of Sri Lanka where most Tamils now live and have lived, do Tamils and in particular Tamil politicians want Sinhalese to live in the North? NO. How fair is this behaviour from those demanding equal rights?

§ While Tamils buy property, build houses/flats etc are people aware that the majority of them sell or rent/lease only to Tamils? NO. How fair is this behaviour from those demanding equal rights?

§ While Tamils own businesses and the wholesale market is virtually run by the minorities in Sri Lanka as are most coated companies why are Sinhalese not allowed to run businesses in the North and everyone together shouts ‘colonization’. People seem to have forgotten that Sinhalese were living in the North evidence of which can be proved by the architectural/archaeological remains as well as the fact that all bakeries in the North were run by the Sinhalese. Today, in the commercial capital of Colombo the Sinhalese are a minority and the Tamils and Muslims make up the majority. This gives the minorities access to all the leaders with ease and thus able to get their ways through any other means! Go through areas of Kotahena, Wellawatte, Dehiwela to see and people will be surprised to see how the Maldivians have taken over entire parts of Dehiwela/Mt Lavinia too!

§ How many job adverts purposely omit Sinhalese by declaring that Tamil is a must (these are all NGO/INGO jobs/projects) discriminating Sinhalese from applying and getting the job.

We challenge the UN Rapporteur to give examples of countries where the majority is 7 out of 10 but has given 1% equal language status as Sri Lanka has? One language unites all – two languages doesn’t. Every country only the language of the majority is the official national language.

Do the Tamils living in Germany, France, Japan, demand that these countries introduce Tamil as a minority language? Are they not singing the national anthem in the language of these countries? One language and English unites people. Is the UN Rapporteur aware that even in the Madras High Court the language of the Court is not Tamil but Hindi!

Nobody can land in our country and accuse the majority without evidence and expect to hand over all powers to the minorities claiming it is a path towards reconciliation and to foster better relations. We need to first have those making the allegations put into the public domain the evidence of what the majority is being accused of.

In terms of listening to the TNA – we like to remind the UN Rapporteur that the EU Election Observer Head John Cushnahan in 2004 in his report confirmed that LTTE and TNA were one and the same. Recently the Canadian Federal Court upheld the investigation by the Canadian Immigration Bureau that LTTE and TNA were one and the same. When LTTE remains banned can we have an explanation as to why TNA demands which is basically LTTE demands should be given?

Either the Rapporteur has not done her homework or the UN is trying to hide the facts but these are the rights that the minorities in Sri Lanka enjoy, some of these are not even given in Western countries.

Tamils enjoy

§ Pongal national holiday in January

§ Mahasivarathri Day a public holiday in March

§ Deepavali Festival Day a public holiday in October

§ Tamils have held cabinet portfolios in government

§ There have been Tamil IGPs, Tamil Foreign Minister, Central Bank Governor, 3 Tamil Chief Justice, Judges, Ambassadors

Stamps issued for Tamils

§ Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam 1977

§ Ponnambalam Ramanathan, lawyer, educator (1975)

§ Ananda Coomaraswamy (1971)

§ G G Ponnambalam in 1986 (founder of the first Tamil political party the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, pushed for 50-50 representation for Tamils & Sinhalese which were rejected by the British as a mockery of democracy given that Tamils were less than the Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka at the time of request)

§ Vipulananda Adigal

§ Jaffna Central College 1996

§ Swami Vivekananda, Indian Hindu monk (2013)

§ S Thondaman, Politician

§ Jeyraj Fernandopulle, assassinated by LTTE

§ Birth Centenary of Dr. Pandithamani Kanapathipillai (Tamil scholar) 1999

§ 2nd World Hindu Conference 2003

What Muslims/Islam enjoy

§ Id-Ul-Fitr (Ramazan Festival Day a public holiday in July

§ Id-Ul-Alha (Hadji Festival Day) a public holiday in September

§ Holy Prophet’s Birthday – Milad-un-Nabi a public holiday in December

§ Muslims have held cabinet level posts including Justice Minister.

Stamps issued for Muslims

§ M.A, Azeez (Sri Lanka’s first Muslim civil servant) 1986

§ Centenary of Zahira College 1993

§ Abdul Cafoor in 1993

§ 120th Birth Anniv of Abdul Cader (lawyer) in 1995

§ Translation of The Koran into Sinhala 1985

§ 95th Birth Anniversary of Dr. Badiudin Mahmud (Islamic politician) 1999

§ All Ceylon Young Men’s Muslim Association conference 2000

§ A C S Hameed, former Minister 2002

What Christians/Catholics enjoy

The spread of Christianity/Catholicism began after the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505 and as a result of forcibly converting Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus to create a new group of Sinhala Christians/Catholics and Tamil Christians/Catholics loyal to the Church before loyalty to their native country (the enlightened have realized that country comes first)

§ Good Friday a public holiday in March

§ Christmas day a public holiday in December

Stamp issued for Christians/Catholics

§ Every year Christmas

§ 150th Anniv of Talawila Church

§ Papal Visit and Beatification of Father Joseph Vaz 1995 (the person responsible for mass forced conversions of Tamils & Sinhalese and killing those that refused)

§ Anthony’s Shrine – Kochchikade 2010

§ Anniversary of St. Patricks College, Jaffna 2000

§ 300th Anniv of De La Salle Brothers (Religious Order of the Brothers of the Christian Schools) 1981

§ Reverend Father Tissa Balasuriya, Roman Catholic priest and theologian (2013)

§ Pope John Paul II, leader of Catholic Church from 16 October 1978 – 2 April 2005 (1995)

§ Joseph Vaz, Indian Catholic missionary, Apostle of Sri Lanka” (1992)

§ 300th Anniv of Arrival of Father Joseph Vaz in Kandy 1987

§ Centenary of St. Lawrence School 2001

§ Diocese of Kurunegala, Golden Jubilee

§ Centenary of St. Servatius’ College, Matara 1997

§ Centenary of the Freemansons Hall Colombo 2002

§ Holy Cross College, Kalutara, Centenary 2002

§ Uddupiddy American Mission College 2002

§ Kopay Christian College 150th Anniversary 2002

§ Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya – Centenary 2003

Isn’t it legally accepted that one cannot demand what one is not prepared to give?

Name a single Christian/Islamic country that has reciprocated by issuing a stamp in honor of the world’s greatest visionary/philosopher Buddha or any country other than Russia and Austria that has given official religious status to Buddhism?

Can anyone name a country that allows minorities to declare areas as belonging to them when they have no historical or indigenous roots to showcase except well-palmed propaganda? In the North Tamil politicians cry no Sinhalese while in the East the Muslims are putting up Arabic towns with Arabic names/culture which even the Muslims cannot read.

Name any country that allows laws like Thesavalamai to exist where purchase of land is denied to others and is an affront to equal justice. There should be ONLY one LAW for ALL – that is equality. It applies to Minorities and Majority alike. The UN has no business to be creating Minority Laws and Majority Law. The fundamental truth is that there should be only ONE LAW for ALL.

Let us move on to showcasing the divides among the minorities. Is the UN Rapporteur aware that of the caste divide among the Tamils so much so that the high castes do not donate blood because they do not want their blood to get mixed with low caste Tamils? It was the soldiers donating blood to the hospitals in the North. It was the soldiers who were building homes for the IDPs. It was the soldiers building toilets for the IDPs. Some of these soldiers did not even have proper homes or even toilets. Does the Rapporteur also know that high caste Tamils will not allow low caste Tamils to even enter their homes!

If minorities are discriminated

§ Can you think of any sizeable population where industry and property are dominated by the minority communities as in Sri Lanka?

§ Colombo the commercial hub of Sri Lanka is populated by Tamils and Muslims leaving Sinhalese in the minority

§ The largest supermarket chain – Cargills is owned by the Page Family who are Jaffna Tamil Christians

§ The largest brewery – Carsons (brands Lion, Three Coins Beer) is owned by the Selvanathan family who are Tamils

§ The largest media network – MTV, Sirasa are owned by the Maharaja family who are Tamil

§ The largest hardware manufacturer – Slon, Kevilton are also owned by the Maharaja family who are Tamil

§ The largest construction conglomerate – St Anthony’s (Anton, Tokyo Cement) are owned by another Tamil family the Gnanam’s.

§ Tamils and Tamil speaking Muslims dominate gem/jewellery industry as well

§ Tamils and Tamil speaking Muslims dominate the wholesale trade too.

§ Tamils and Tamil speaking Muslims dominate the property ownership in Colombo as well

§ The rich list of minorities include the Captains, Kundanmals, Pestongees, Mahendrans and now Patels and Singhs are entering too.

§ Go around Colombo on a Friday noon time to gauge the number of Muslim owned shops which would all be closed including the supermarkets owned by them.

§ When the LTTE prevailed the Hindus never celebrated or demanded to celebrate Vel… now virtually every month there is a kovil procession blocking the traffic systems across Colombo.

§ Has no one wondered how minorities can thrive if the majority did not buy from them when 7 out of 10 are Sinhalese? How can minority owned businesses succeed if the majority do not buy from them? If there was discrimination shouldn’t you now ask how minorities have come to dominate important areas of business and property throughout the country?

§ By this same logic why is no one asking why Tamils can buy property in South and live and why they should say Sinhalese cannot do the same in the North, when the constitution affords right of residence anywhere and right of movement.

There are many other examples to showcase the rights and privileges enjoyed by all the minorities in Sri Lanka but no one has stopped to ask what the majority grievances are – an independent commission on issues faced by the majority is the need of the hour not the reverse.

The UN Rapporteur and her office are kindly requested to not throw this into the dustbin but to answer the questions raised. Obtain the facts for yourselves. See the truth with an open mind. The links given below bring out plenty of other examples that will showcase that a lot of falsehoods are creating more problems than solutions.

Shenali D Waduge

· http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/10/15/examples-of-discrimination-by-sinhalese-against-tamils/

· http://www.onlanka.com/news/what-are-the-grievances-exclusive-to-sri-lankas-tamils.html

· http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/09/18/when-sinhalese-gave-equal-rights-to-tamils-in-1957-the-high-caste-tamils-objected/

· http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2012/01/eelaam-homeland-struggle-was-to-hide.html

· http://archives.dailynews.lk/2013/01/24/fea01.asp

Freedom of religion in Sri Lanka

By Rohana R. Wasala

The United States State Department’s 2016 International Religious Freedom Report on Sri Lanka is replete with distortions of the factual situation in the country regarding religious freedom. This is my personal view as an ordinary Sri Lankan for what it is worth. Genuine reconciliation through religious harmony among other things cannot be created by suppressing the truth. I am writing in the hope that the truth about religious freedom in my country will ultimately emerge.

Those who want to add a religious dimension to the alleged ethnic problem that they falsely claim to afflict Sri Lanka will be thrilled by this report, which appears to have been compiled by a person or a group of persons who are entirely out of touch with reality and who have relied on biased information freely supplied to them by interested parties inimical to Sri Lanka. This is not different from the way Sri Lanka is being persecuted over unsubstantiated war crimes and human rights violation allegations through the agency of the UN, which has become a mere cat’s paw for the powers that be. Exploiting an imaginary ethnic conflict, they are shoving down our throats the unwanted medicine of ‘reconciliation,’ which is big business for NGO mercenaries. With this Report, the US is taking another aggressive step towards disturbing the religious peace that traditionally exists in our country mainly due to the tolerant accommodating attitude of the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community. Most ordinary Sri Lankans wonder whether the Americans are only trying to create disharmony between the majority and minority communities for their own purposes.

The Report sees the "foremost place" accorded to Buddhism in the current constitution as incompatible with the "… freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice" enshrined in the same constitution. Being West-centric and absolutely ignorant of our great history and our most humane Buddhist cultural values, the author of the document seems unable to understand the really beneficial implications of such constitutional recognition of Buddhism for the people of this country. It is due to the accommodating and protective Buddhist religious background that minorities have been able practice their different religions in peace for centuries. Usually, a person like the author/s of the Report cannot be expected to know that Buddhism does not advocate the establishment of any form of theocratic government unlike totalitarian monotheistic religions they are probably familiar with.

Strictly speaking, Sri Lanka, which gives prominence to Buddhism while guaranteeing equal rights to the minority faiths, is no less secular than the US, UK, and Norway, which explicitly put Christianity on a pedestal. The latter three are prominent examples of countries deemed secular despite having a virtual/implicit state religion. Buddhism is none. The truth is that, of the four major religions professed in the island – Buddhism, Catholicism/Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam – the first best guarantees peaceful religious coexistence in a multi-religious environment. Before the European intrusion in 1505, and even after, Buddhists did not create any problem to Hindus, Muslims or to Christians unless they were compelled to react to aggression from any of them. During four and a half centuries of European domination, Christianity was privileged over the already existing religions of Buddhism , Hinduism and Islam. Particularly Buddhists, and Hindus to a lesser extent, were actively discriminated against because of their religion.

The Report points out that in terms of religious demography Buddhists are 69%, Hindus 15%, Christians 8%, and Muslims 8% of the Lankan population; the US estimated the total population of the country to be 22.2 million (July 2016). Something that is not mentioned in the Report, but what is still significant, is the fact that these percentages do not strictly correspond to the overall ethnic proportions, because Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam include individuals from all races, while adherents of the Hindu religion are exclusively from the Tamil race. Buddhists are mainly Sinhalese. Though Buddhism is a non-theistic religion unlike the polytheistic Hinduism, Buddhists and Hindus in Sri Lanka have enjoyed implicit interreligious harmony for centuries. The phenomenon of considerable numbers of Buddhists and Hindus taking part in religious activities in each other’s shrines and in each other’s religious festivals and processions is very familiar and normal. It is ridiculous to talk about reconciling those who are already living in peace. They hardly ever attack places of worship even in times of trouble created by politics. But the compiler of this Report is extremely biased against Buddhist monks and their lay followers for alleged intolerance and militancy.

If the officials of the State Department used its resources to impartially inquire into whether there is any irrefutable evidence to substantiate the plethora of allegations against groups of Buddhist monks and their lay followers (young and old) who are said to be engaged in activities that threaten religious coexistence, they could have easily found out the truth. The truth is that Buddhist monks epitomize tolerance and non-violence. If they are forced to assume apparently militant attitudes that seem to contradict this image, we expect our foreign well-wishers, who think it alright to interfere in our internal affairs, to extend to them enough respect and recognition to listen to what they are actually trying to say, and what their grievances are. But these powers don’t, because they are really not concerned with communal harmony, human rights, etc which ordinary Sri Lankans have always observed without being able to talk learnedly about those concepts. However, it is regrettable that a few activist monks shoot themselves in the foot through their unrestrained speech and conduct, which their critics seize upon to indiscriminately insult them all and to drown out their cogent plea for justice.

The Report is proof of unfounded anti-Sinhalese Buddhist bias. By dismissing the monks as a bunch of tribalistic troublemakers, these nosy-parkers are doing a great injustice to the Buddhist monk activists, and a greater injustice to us ordinary Sri Lankans of all communities who love our motherland for her own sake, not for the sake of what she gives us. The so-called militant monks have for many years now been raising their voices, in vain though, against three main issues that the majority community are confronted with: one is that the anti-Buddhist activities of foreign-funded fundamentalist Christian and Islamist sects (which go unreported in the mainstream media in the name of ‘reconciliation’) that conduct aggressive unethical proselytizing campaigns among impoverished sections of the Buddhist population (while Buddhism itself is not a proselytizing religion); another is the fact that, under the false pretext of creating space for settling war displaced Muslims, a government minister (of Muslim ethnicity) has been engaged, for years now continuing from the days of the previous Rajapaksa government, in destroying large swathes of virgin forests in the forest reserve areas of Wilpattu; a third issue is the deliberate vandalizing of Buddhist archaeological sites and other marks of the Sinhalese Buddhist cultural heritage in the north and east, and the encroachment of lands belonging to ancient Buddhist monasteries and shrines, which need to be protected as the common inheritance of all Sri Lankans. Successive governments have played shy of tackling these issues through the application of lawful measures in terms of the current constitution. Why? Because politicians seem to believe that resorting to such deceptions as the spurious foreign imposed ‘reconciliation’ project, and the globally discredited policy of ‘political correctness’, will cost them least electorally.

At one point the Report implicitly confers its stamp of genuineness on a baseless complaint made by the so-called civil society groups and politicians in the north and east: "Civil society groups and politicians in the north and east stated the construction of Buddhist shrines by Buddhist groups or the military in parts of the Northern and Eastern provinces became contentious symbols of perceived Buddhist Sinhalese religious and cultural imperialism." The true background to this issue has completely been ignored. Many Sinhalese Buddhists who were earlier living in these areas were forced to leave due to ethnic cleansing by separatist terrorists. Their places of worship were either destroyed or encroached upon. These displaced Sinhalese also have to be resettled in their previous places of residence. Vandalizing of ancient Buddhist archaeological sites in these provinces, some of them over two thousand years old, is a critical issue that has been unnecessarily politicized. It is absurd to talk about non-existent "Buddhist Sinhalese religious and cultural imperialism".

Some opportunistic minority politicians conveniently exploit these deceptions usually exploited by politicians of the two main national parties. When minority politicians talk exclusively about the welfare of their own people as if it is separate from the welfare of the majority community and as if the latter enjoy rights and privileges that are denied to other communities on grounds of ethnicity, they are not condemned as communalistic. But when members of the majority community open their mouths, after decades of forbearance, to speak up about injustices and anomalies that are inflicted on them because of their ethnicity, they are unjustly attacked on all sides as tribalistic and racist. Dr Wijedasa Rajapaksa, who was recently removed from the post of cabinet Minister of Justice and Buddhasasana (as punishment for opposing the yahapalana government’s policy of ignoring the advice of the Maha Sangha not to bring in at this moment a new constitution that it has not got a popular mandate for, instead of attending to the more pressing problems that are immediately affecting the general public, and its policy of selling off all the valuable economic assets of the country), is the only important government member who is displaying enough courage to admit in public that it is actually the majority community that is at the receiving end of injustices. He is being excoriated by his colleagues in the government and by foreign- funded NGOs and their local employees for his forthright stand.

The heated exchange between Dr Wijedasa Rajapaksa (then Minister of Justice and Buddhasasana) and UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson (who was in Sri Lanka on a visit from July 10 to 14, 2017) was due to this lone Sri Lankan government minister with a backbone refusing to kowtow to the latter, who is not even a member of the salaried UN staff.

The Report mentions certain police arrests of ‘leaders of militant Buddhist and Islamic Organizations’ on successive days in November (15 & 16, 2016). It says nothing about the background to those arrests. Buddhist activists were reacting to an act of vandalism (apparently, the destruction by some Muslims of a Buddha statue installed by the road in a certain place in Colombo) and some incendiary speeches by the leader of an extremist Islamic organization advocating the introduction of sharia to Sri Lanka (both these incidents can be seen in You Tube videos, from which I derived this information, but I now cannot recall the links). Had timely police action been taken to arrest the person who allegedly initiated the problem, it could have been nipped in the bud. Our perception is that wherever alleged attacks on Christians and Muslims and their places of worship by Buddhist monks and supporters are reported, unbiased investigation would reveal that these Christians and Muslims have connections with fundamentalist sects and that they only have a tenuous relationship with the traditional mainstream faithful of those religions; that they somehow irritate Buddhist sensitivities by their proselytizing zeal and by trying to erect new prayer-centres in predominantly Buddhist areas that are likely to disturb the normal peaceful religious co-existence that prevails; and that both groups of these fundamentalists adopt what has now become one of global religious extremists’ common strategies, the ruse of playing the victim card. The biased global (Western) media invariably invert the situation, turning the aggressor into the victim in all conflict situations. Buddhists are the real victims, and when they react to their experience of victimization (this happens elsewhere too including Myanmar and Thailand). Even issues between fundamentalists and mainstream Christians and Muslims in areas where Christians and Muslims are concentrated in large numbers (for example, Ja-Ela in the Western province, Christians, and Mutur in the Eastern province, Muslims) are also falsely attributed to Buddhists and Buddhist organizations (something that Ven Dr Medagama Dhammananda, Secretary of the Asgiriya Chapter, explained in a speech recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy7M1RN7Evc / August 20,2017)

The Report alleges that the government ‘had not prosecuted Buddhist monks involved in attacks against Muslims and Christians in 2014’ (by the time it was written). The document mentions a number of nationalist organizations only to implicitly condemn them as mindless hate-mongers. Something that is not revealed is that all these Buddhist organizations include (at least a few) members from among Christians, Muslims, and Hindus showing their solidarity with their Sinhalese Buddhist compatriots as common Sri Lankans. Not all nationalists are exclusively Sinhalese Buddhist.

The Report translates the name of one organization literally: Sinha-Le, Lion’s Blood. Actually, ‘Sinhale’ is the historic name of the island and the word means the ‘Land of the Sinhalese’; this is the original name from which the European/English form ‘Ceylon’ is derived. ‘Sinha-Le’ is actually a play on the word Sinhale. Sinhale, the homeland of the Sinhalese, has always been home to an inclusive society where people speaking other languages than Sinhalese, following other religions than Buddhism, and giving expression to other cultures than Sinhalese Buddhist, coexisted peacefully and integrated easily with the majority Sinhalese. The enthusiastic youngsters who formed the organization so named have done so out of their nationalist ardour by splitting the word into two parts: Sinha, Lion, and Le, blood; the latter word ‘le’ is the common Sinhala word for blood. Here it means the Sinhalese race, the Sinhalese bloodline. Every race is concerned about perpetuating their gene pool. Love of one’s own race is ultimately a natural biological fact. The over two millennia old island civilization that the Sinhalese built up is firmly founded on Theravada Buddhism. The race and the religion (the Sinhalese and the Buddhasasana) are organically connected. If the Sinhalese civilization is a tree, the Sinhalese are the wood and Buddhism the bark, which are interdependent (as a Tamil patriot of Sri Lanka put it).

The general perception of these young activists is that unless one makes a genuine effort to understand their very rational and reasonable point of view, one will be too ready to condemn them as retrogrades. What they are demanding is an end to the very real emerging threats to the survival of the historical Sinhalese Buddhist cultural base of our country that protected for centuries all minority faiths and let them flourish within its broad cosmopolitan, tolerant, and peaceful ambience redolent of the Sinhalese Buddhist culture. The genuine issues raised by the monks remain to be investigated and appropriately remedied before today’s threatened slide towards unprecedented religious disharmony can be averted, thereby helping reconciliation.

Vision, Mission, and Strategic Initiative Plans for the

North & East by Tamil Diaspora Organisations

By Kanthar Balanathan, Australia

Sprinkled and Speckled Tamils

History reveals that Tamils of various dimension have migrated out of Tamil Nadu and SriLanka, several centuries ago. Recent, legal and illegal migration over a 40-year bandwidth has been on a theoretical accusation/allegation podium of war and human rights violation, which is not the real truth. Some thoughts are that Prabakaran’s (LTTE) theory of sending several of his favorite members of LTTE cadre, overseas was to campaign and receive international support for his terrorist act(s). It’s a fact because several known people have been working on LTTE campaign for international political support.

The scattering of Tamils was not due to discrimination or oppression or any other human rights violation, it’s because of our (imbecilic Tamil) greediness for wealth. Since the day Portuguese, Dutch, French and the British invaded India, Tamils raised their hands to work overseas. This is not only from SriLanka, however, the majority of Tamils left Tamil Nadu (TN) several centuries ago to; E.g. Seychelles, Mauritius, Reunion island, Fiji Island, South Africa etc.

Population in Reunion island is 8.5 lakh. One-third of the population is Tamil race of Indian origin. The strangeness of Mauritius and Reunion island and other islands is that none of the Tamils here has demanded separation, or more power or complained about discrimination & oppression. All people live united, however, with their social status disturbed as a result of integration. The question is: why did they move to the further away islands. Can they speak Tamil today? Do they practice Tamil culture today? Do they know their history and heritage? In Mauritius people had a ceremony in favor of Tamil Eelam. What type of ludicrous & ridiculous act is this? Please see links below.

Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh1eVBUgE54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ftNS2aBw1s

Historical reports refer that since French occupied Tamil Nadu, Tamils were taken as slave labor to work on the sugar plantation. The YouTube on Mauritius; one can see that speakers are talking in French and/or Pigeon French. The song sung is the Federal Party anthem from Jaffna. How did this song end up in Mauritius? Can we infer that this is the work of the West to instigate people in the islands to motivate the local and agitate for Tamil Eelam? The truth is that only a few Tamils from Jaffna went to Mauritius during the time of the British. Again, the question is; why are these Tamils not demanding for separation in their domiciled islands or Tamil Nadu separation, or speaking about any discrimination or oppression, but ONLY inflicting wounds on SriLanka. Tamils in Mauritius, one can see that they are giving a speech in French to the audience, who are Tamils by race. It’s worth our Tamil Diaspora orgs to sit down and think and digest of what is happening to Tamils who were taken slaves to work in sugar plantations. If these Tamils were so patriotic of a Tamil Nation, then they should not have left TN. Are they prepared to return to TN in India?

Are these moves by SriLankan Tamil Diaspora Organisations/Associations/Congress, under the direction of the TNA who are being driven by the west to conquer SL for regional power?

Do we think that the vipers from the Indian Ocean are going to come and develop SriLanka/India, and be patriotic to SL/India? Do the Orgs think that they will integrate with the SL Tamils or even the Indian Tamils in TN?

Therefore, the question of dispersed Tamils is nothing but, utter garbage hogwash and compost. It is only a storm in a tea cup. If TD ORGS are switched on with intelligence, high perception, and perseverance, then they should sit down, think, analyze and make a decision not to provoke SriLankan administration, but integrate with SriLanka as one country, one nation, one people and rid of all differences. SriLanka is one country for 267 centuries anyway.

TGTE is a make-believe org formed by an immoderate Attorney who has nothing else to do. If he was a competent attorney, he should be showing his colors in the USA on legal matters, not missing persons and fictitious Tamil Eelam. Some people who have no education, but want to be in the forefront of the TD have joined him to march on the made-up, false platform. What a waste of time and money. The funds wasted by the TGTE could have been invested in the North to build a reservoir, and develop in training the young ones. Every Tamil want to suck the funds from the SriLankan coffer. Recently TGTE group staged a protest in front of the PMs house in the UK. Can TGTE organize one in front of the White House? Why not? It’s because Rudrakumaran may think that if such staging occurs his image may be blemished. He may be a coward to save his image in the USA, however, he thinks it’s okay in other countries.

Every TD who is old and joined their children live on dole (பிச்சை சம்பளம்-Begging salary) overseas, plus they get their pension from SriLanka. They may have not paid one cent tax to their domiciled country. If they do not get the one-month pension from SL, then they shout, cry and blame SL on human rights violation and discrimination. What a hypocrisy by us champions Tamils. Our TD orgs should think and address about these declarations & culpability seriously.

What do the TD ORGS do? Take up some topic to blame SL and get onto the road, wasting their time and the economy of their domiciled country.

Tamil Diaspora – Unawareness, and Ignorance on Priorities

What we could read and see is that the TD are wasting their time and money in engaging on wasteful unreal, unproductive acts and propaganda. First of all, there is no necessity for the TD to promote and campaign for a country called “TamilEelam”, talk about the right to self-determination, two nation theories etc in the 21^st century. Internal problems should be solved internally. We have come out of the country looking for greener pasture.

For example, GG Ponnambalam staged a 50-50% demand in the 50s. 50% for the Sinhalese and the rest of the three races. The uncertainty is; How did GGP plan to divide the rest 50% among the Muslims Tamils and Burgers. He may have come with a formula based on proportion and talked about democracy. GGP failed in his formula fundamentally flashing that he is an educated, arrogant fool. What has Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam got to explain about this formula of his grandfather? Since independence, the Tamil Politicians knew that the only way to keep their political seat in parliament is to engage themselves in fighting for Tamil Eelam. This is where our Tamil imprudent, laughable politicians wasted their time and energy all these 69 years. Fundamentally, the Tamil fools did not give importance to developing the North and East, however, wasted their time in fighting with GOSL all these 69 years. Not to mention since Megha moved into Jaffna in the 13^th century, no megalomaniac did think of developing the North, because they were able to survive with the help of TN. The rest of the Kings in the South and Vanni thought of Water reservoir and constructed, but our hoodwinks never, ever thought of water and reservoir.

Former PM DS Senanayake should be crowned as the statesman for having initiated the structural transformation. DSS and Srimavo should be crowned the best leaders of SL.

Sewerage wheeling and dealing

Most of Jaffna, sewerage is collected in buckets and moved physically by Telangana and Orissa migrants who were brought by the British. It’s a crime that these men are been forced to carry shit buckets and dump sewage into the sea or underground. They are the lowest paid workers in SriLanka. Some parts of Jaffna and the South have septic tank system. One has to think: If engine oil can seep into wells in Chunnakam, is it possible that the effluent from the septic tank will be filtered by the soil 100% as they move. Some Council regulation specifies that a minimum of 25 feet should be maintained between the edge of the tank and the wall. Is that adequate?

There are no water filtration plants in the North. No sewerage treatment works in the North. People just draw water from the wells and drink.

A question: Have we been drinking effluent contaminated water all these years. Why have we not thought of sewerage treatment plant(s)? We boast of Professor Thurairajah etc as leading Civil Engineers. However, have they no motivation and innovation of helping the politicians of such practices. Credit goes to Engineers D.L.O Mendis and Thiru Arumugam for having done some research on water reservoir in Jaffna. Even then our politicians have not got the intelligence to act on their recommendation, but waste their damn time and money on Tamil Eelam and power for their totalitarian attitude.

It is fair enough to blame the SriLankan government also for this lack and shortfall on environmental management.

Tamil Diaspora could initiate a program to construct a couple of sewerage treatment works. Let someone kick up a study and submit a proposal with a plan. We are aware that our TD have no time to go there and work because they have to work in their domiciled countries if not, they cannot survive. However, TD could motivate with a plan and justify a system and submit to GOSL and NPC Council. If not, one has to assume that Tamils culture is deep rooted with the bucket system and consume effluent polluted water. What if nobody wants to wheel this shit? What has our attorney Rudrakumaran and Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam got to comment about this? Maybe they do not understand technical issues. They may understand only illogical, unfounded, and nonsensical issues. (Ref: TD should have read about public toilets overflowing in Jaffna)

The priorities should be (i) Sewerage Treatment work(s), (ii) Water reservoir, filtration plants, and distribution system, which will automatically generate feeder industries and small business.

Migration of Youth from SriLanka-North & East.

With love to the motherland, the TD has no idea of what is happening to the population in the N&E. While sitting in their domiciled countries, drinking whiskey and eating chicken, our lack in perception is quite short to understand that people are moving away from SL, colonize foreign countries, but still shout for Tamil Eelam. For whom are they fighting for more power? For a few Sambanthar(s) and Mavai Senathirajah(s)? Every Tamil youth who gets out of the University wants to go South or get out of the country. No one is patriotic to work and develop the N&E. Tamils lack in motivation, innovation and creativity skills.

Can the TD ORGS do something to stop people from getting out of SL? Can they formulate a formula, strategy, a tactical plan to stop people from getting out of SL? Rudrakumaran, instead of shouting for TE, and secession, would he be intelligent enough to prepare a tactical plan to stop youth from getting out of SL? Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, instead of going to Australia and Canada, begging for election donations, can he prepare and campaign to stop the youths from getting out? Same goes to Sambanthar and Mavai Senathirajah.

We know that our Tamil politicians are traveling on a phony political platform, fooling the population, and the Tamil populace is not intelligent enough to understand the fraudulent, charlatan, political activities of the TNA and other Tamil parties.

TD ORGS and the TGTE are fundamentally bogus, like counterfeits, fooling the Tamil Diaspora to collect funds in the name of Tamils in SL. Every college in the North has an old boys’ association and wants to organize dance, music etc, for their pleasure and amusement in the name of the wounded and invalids in SL. However, how much of assistance are they giving to the sufferers? It is only individuals who are able to send some assistance to individuals in SL to be distributed to the sufferers.

Disruption by TD and Tamil Politicians

Since independence, our Tamils and Tamil politicians have been engaged in throwing some form of problems to GOSL, to retard on development and progress. If they find one issue has no claim then they start on another one. The current issue they have started on is “missing persons”. What is their objective? Do they want money for the missing persons?

What has all the Tamil politician got to comment about “Mathaya”, and 220 of his associates, Rajaratnam, 40 of TELO’ s cadre, the ministers, and politicians and the civilians? Where are they? Who will account for their lives? There were thousands of civilians and politicians went missing due to LTTE’s brutal killing.

It’s time for the Tamil politicians and TD ORGS to sit down and think, make a decision not to provoke the people in SL, to rise against missing persons. We know that there are several Tamil refugees hiding even in Ukraine, South America, etc, changed their name and live as somebody else. The truth is hidden.

Even an illiterate Tamil woman thinks that she knows politics, demography, human geography and comment on: “we have not been given anything”. “We need more power”. What a stupid comment like a frog in the well. One must listen to Canadian Tamil Radio from 12 midnight in Australia. It’s a laughing matter when we listen women come out and talk nonsense about power and Tamil Eelam. These women have no education, live on the dole, and throw idiotic comments against SL. It’s a joke in Scarborough and Toronto and jokers live in Toronto. God knows when they will be attacked by Canadian Patriots. It will happen soon. Tamil fools in Toronto are converting Toronto, a Sinnakadai/Periyakadai, and Koddadi in Jaffna.

1. I throw a challenge to Rudrakumaran: Go in front of the White House and stage a protest march.

2. A challenge to Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam: Get onto a platform and give a speech to abolish the caste system from the minds of the Tamil Elites. Be united and unite in SL to live as Sri Lankans. Promise them that you will develop the North, if not throw you out of politics.

NPC has been in turmoil for some time for the ministerial position. Have they been elected for their own benefits or to serve the people? You guys have been visiting foreign countries. Don’t you see the system there? CV Vigneswaran is a comedian, farts sporadically when his stomach is full. Suresh Premachandran is another joke; gets up from sleep and makes erratic comments. GGP is another one who travels to Australia to fool the Diaspora.

People: DO you know a section of the SL Constitution, section 157A. Ref: https://www.parliament.lk/files/pdf/constitution.pdf

[157A. (1) No person shall, directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka. (2) No political party or other association or organization shall have as one of its aims or objects the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka. (3) Any person who acts in contravention of the provisions of paragraph (1) shall, on conviction by the Court of Appeal, after trial on indictment and according to such procedure as may be prescribed by law, – (a) be subject to civic disability for such period not exceeding seven years as may be determined by such Court; (b) forfeit his movable and immovable property other than such property as is determined by an order of such Court as being necessary for the sustenance of such person and his family; (c) not be entitled to civic rights for such period not exceeding seven years as may be determined by such Court; and Prohibition against violation of territorial integrity of Sri Lanka International Treaties and Agreements 127 -Inserted by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution Sec.3 The Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka 153 (d) if he is a Member of Parliament or a person in such service or holding such office as is referred to in paragraph (1) of Article 165, cease to be such Member or to be in such service or to hold such office.]

It is to be reminded that any TD member or TD, or any Tamil, Sinhalese, crusade for what has been specified above could be arrested when they visit SL.

Let us keep our lips closed and work for the betterment of SriLanka as One country, one nation, and united. Let the TD ORGS prepare plans to develop the N&E.

Sil Redi verdict an indictment to Sri Lanka’s 1.4m Government Servants

While one wrong does not make another wrong right, only those who have not & does not sin can cast the first stone. That leaves not many with a moral right to hold any stone! Those taking files certainly have soiled hands which have not been investigated to determine their own guilt. In legal parlance the unclean hands doctrine is also applicable. Nonetheless, the verdict has certainly shaken the 1.4million Public Sector. Today, everyone claims to be champions against corruption but how many of them are guilty themselves! The Public Sector, Government servants and in particular the civil servants need to now seriously address their role and future resolve. Yet, is there greater agendas behind the indictment given that by its own appeasing actions pressure is on the present government to prune the public sector while privatizing state assets leaving Sri Lanka with no hold over state resources in time to come.

It is without a doubt that the spine of the public servants and civil servants was broken during the reign of the UNP regime – judiciary was influenced and those that did not consent had their houses stoned, the culture of worshipping the politicians came into being turning the much respected public service into an appeasing bunch of secretaries and those that appeased more got the plum jobs.

Abuse of state property – media, vehicles, officials, offices for elections is nothing new and political influencing surged following 1978 where rigging/ballot box stuffing became a new feature alongside intimidation of candidates and even voters and not to mention the birth of the mafia and underworld gangs. All these evolved during the reign of the UNP and unpalatable as it is to accept it became the new norm of governance followed by all other parties as well. Every political party has been indulging in the very allegations that they charge others of. This resulted in a gradual decline of the state apparatus where previously astute officials like N Q Dias, M D R S S Gunawardena were found no more and in their place a bunch of ‘yes’ men evolved. The prestige of the public sector and civil servants had been degraded by the politicians and they need to get their respect back by earning that respect through a new policy of actions which all secretaries and public sector must now mutually consent to.

While it is agreed that no political party should abuse state property or influence state officials the fact that every political party in power does so, goes without question. In 2016 Anura Kumara Disanayake accused Kabir Hashim and Harin Fernando of renovating their official residence for a cost of Rs.600 lakhs each, plenty more renovated houses have been re-renovated because the spouse of the Minister did not like the colour of the walls or furniture! Luxury vehicles have been dished out to MPs do these not qualify as misappropriation of funds when the country is cash-strapped and debt ridden? However, Wimal Weerawanse ends up in jail for misuse of 40 state vehicles. When both UNP and SLFP rallies and conventions have seen state buses plying party supporters to their venues. While Nalaka Godahewa was also arrested and put into prison for financial fraud when the first bond scam took place in 2015 and before the COPE report was released Parliament was dissolved to prevent it from being tabled and that file is now missing! So where is the unbiased justice? We having Ministers raping forests, felling trees, creating ethno-ghettos, bringing narcotics into the country while the Minister associated with the Bond Scam who was forced to resign has landed himself a cabinet appointment & is presently functioning from Temple Trees doing rural development. So where does the buck stop? Is the norm and principle that only Opposition Members and their Secretaries are to be filed charges and sent to prison? That insider trading and bond scam has resulted in various ministers being dished out new homes, funding of wedding for ministers daughter, buying of electronic media and print outlets and many more irregularities all of which if put to investigation would end up taking years to complete with a heavy burden of expense on the State (tax payer).

A government that complained about cronyism and nepotism is today committing worse offences. The scale of irregularities and illegalities are too long to list but the manner that by gazette notifications bodies had been brought under the PM and the high handed manner governance is taking place should leave any to wonder what is this good governance the government is actually preaching. The Australian government is even investigating bribe scandals involving the highest in office. We have recently heard of the spouse of a cabinet minister signing 30 letters of appointment while the fact that Sri Lanka has become 95 in the corruption index where previously Sri Lanka was placed 83 in 2015 goes to show the present government is corrupt and that indirectly means that secretaries of ministries would also be held accountable for violations of state property and illegalities where they have placed their signature. This is extremely poignant for all public servants to take note of as the spoon of justice is often served unfairly.

A minister pleaded guilty recently to 2 charges of corruption but was only fined Rs.2000. Another former deputy minister pleaded guilty for 3 acts of corruption and he too was fined Rs.3000. Mr. Weeratunga has got 3 years rigorous imprisonment and has to pay Rs.52million not for taking any money but for his signature! While the foreigner that indulged in insider-trading leading to 2 bond scams remains a free man still enjoying state privileges!

The verdict will mean state sector will now be mortally scared and petrified to sign any order by politicians knowing their own fate! Can a state run in this manner where public servants will now be working in fear?

On the logic of clean hands – whose hands are unsoiled to be casting the first stone? Politicians are not the only culprits of corruption. The bribe giver and bribe taker are both guilty. How many companies influence politicians for their benefit? How many lobbying groups also use a variety of similar influences? How many of those bragging about corruption don’t even pay their taxes? How many others undervalue their shipments to avoid paying taxes? The scale of the bribe does not matter – a bribe is a bribe. How many others are guilty of even giving a small handout just to get ahead of the queue, to pass a file in the municipality, to ‘donate’ to get one’s child to a school. Is there a country that no corruption exists?

However, we do need self-regulation and regulatory authorities that are tasked to be independent and by independence it does not mean that they should be from NGOs or funded by foreign governments for most of these representatives earning dollars and pounds are paid to disturb and destabilize the country. None of them have shown themselves to be squeaky clean either. Public sector, private sector, media and even NGOs are all guilty of some malpractice or the other. Can they be then pointing fingers?

Retributive justice would mean going back in time to unearth all the dirty garbage. If relevant to the state apparatus it would mean who signed papers that gave arms to the LTTE, how many others have benefitted by LTTE money, who signed approvals for treacherous agreements and MOUs that placed a terrorist group on par with a national army thereby giving legitimacy to a non-state actor. Who signed approval papers that enabled LTTE to get sophisticated telecommunication equipment and even vehicles for which the GOSL had paid Customs duty, surcharge, and excise duty, PAL, VAT & BTT? Will all these secretaries end up in prison too?

How much can a country spend on eliminating corruption. Do we have the resources and money to spend and more importantly let’s not forget that the government now in power is a result of a regime change! Today, more statements on the internal affairs of Sri Lanka are being issued by the US envoy than from the country’s leaders. It is in this context that the speech delivered by Ms. Tamara Kunanayagam is poignant and food for thought for all. http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2017/09/07/constitution-making-process-an-american-project-tamara/and this must be read in context with this article http://srilankaexpress.org/usaid-invasion-civil-societyUSAID invasion of civil society in Sri Lanka. Preaching democracy and promoting anticorruption looks to be part of a bigger gameplan meant to obviously get rid off and replace with stooges into every important governance position and turn Sri Lanka into another South Korea or Philippines.

However, no external entity can interfere or take over governance if the People are united and the People are able to read the writings on the wall.

As a starter the startled Public Sector must now determine its own future by refusing to succumb to any illegal instructions of any politician. The next problem arises in the reality that the politicians end up appointing their own family or friends into positions where through them the illegalities take place and mechanisms must be in place to report at least tabulate these irregularities. However, with the recent indictment it is very clear that while politicians will scratch their own backs for survival they will not come to the aid of any public servant who has been held accountable for follies committed by politicians.

It is a tragic reality that all public sector and secretaries in particular need to come to terms with. However, it cannot be ONLY two public officials who should take the fall as other secretaries still living have committed far greater treasonous sins using their signature and these need to be pursued and punished if unbiased justice is the name of the game.

Shenali D Waduge

Myanmar’s Just War with Bengali Terrorists no different to Sri Lanka’s against Tamil Terrorists

We cannot ignore global geopolitics and corporate warfare together with neocolonial aspirations in trying to come to terms with the situation unfolding in Myanmar. The stage is now being set to transfer the geopolitical focus to Asia and Myanmar has been placed centre stage. If groups of people are receiving armed training doesn’t a country have a right to defend itself? These armed groups are neither freedom fighter’s but terrorists for eventually they will even target their own just as the LTTE did in Sri Lanka.

Let’s look at some of the similarities that Sri Lanka & Myanmar share

Both are two of the last remaining Theravada Buddhist countries. Militancy in Sri Lanka was first launched clandestinely from South India trained with the knowledge of the Indian Government. In the case of Myanmar it is well documented that the Rohingya’s have at least 5 armed groups. While all Tamils did not side with LTTE Terrorists in Sri Lanka, it is without a doubt that all Rohingyas are not supporting these Bengali Terrorists. However, both did not have a choice and became victims in the hands of the militants and the governments tasked to defend their country against militancy.

Sri Lanka’s conflict generated a powerful diaspora lobby group who became tasked to fund and flame the conflict as it served their advantage in becoming economic refugees. Both fled in boats seeking better pastures overseas. It is more than possible that many a terrorist would have masqueraded as ‘refugees’ and accompanied the real victims to foreign shores where from these countries they would generate the propaganda necessary to keep the conflict ongoing as it would generate income and begin turning the wheels of how geopolitical maneuvering takes places in arm-twisting elected governments. This is where media/NGOs/ internet/humanitarian organizations enter the scene where a long and lucrative livelihood for them is certain so long as the conflict lasts. Many LTTE diaspora groups are registered as foreign charities/NGOs and humanitarian organizations fleecing foreign governments by making use of tax havens and other welfare freebies.

It is these entities now rushing to produce reports, documentaries, false flag situations, fake news and lies to assist those that are funding them to achieve their corporate/geopolitical objectives. The power of funding and what they can produce was clear in the lies that helped justify the illegal invasions & R2P actions against Yugoslavia carving a separate & independent state (Kosovo), South Sudan, lies that has destabilized Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya & luckily the Syrian people backed their leader making the Syrian exercise placed in a list of surprising failures! Having virtually left Middle East and Africa in flames these same entities using the proxy jihadist partners are now moving to Asia where the political pivot policy was made clear.

When Bengali terrorists are being funded by Al Qaeda and ISIS both of which are now proven creations of the West and their intelligence it is baffling that just because they are using Islam as the slogan and Muslims as their soldiers, that the Muslim world are unable to realize these hard facts and denounce them.

However, it is nothing to be surprised as most Tamils have been silent against LTTE terror even after being militarily defeated and not many are coming forward to even nullify the lies that the LTTE diaspora are cooking up on a regular basis to sustain their existence and continue their livelihood based on their supposed ‘grievance’. It is more than possible that these Bengali Terrorists will be used to carry out a very long drawn out conflict in Myanmar till those pulling the strings are satisfied that they can force India, Myanmar, China to succumb to their machinations. These are serious factors that the governments of India, Myanmar & China need to take stock of. Asia must not be allowed to become another Middle East or Africa or even South America. Already the drugs smuggling, plethora of illegal activities, human smuggling etc have achieved hub status in Asia. Both LTTE and these jihadist terror groups are famous for narcotic smuggling partnering with foreign intelligence agencies.

We saw how hundreds of NGOs virtually opening shop next door to LTTE offices when LTTE ran their defacto state – while all of them wrote handsome reports on child soldiers, the suffering of the Tamils etc none of them did tuppence to stop a single child from being kidnapped from their families and turned into child soldiers. The lady now seated in Sri Lanka’s Constitutional Council stands guilty herself for contributing zero to stop child soldier recruitment and she was named to be part of a fact-finding mission to Myanmar!

This is where Myanmar will also need to take stock of the UN and how UN and its puppet envoys are being used to politically present the need for foreign intervention. Sri Lanka’s case has been easier for we have an appeasing government placed in power after a well-funded regime change who are more than willing to hand over every piece of the administration & national asset to foreign powers! However, they are well aware that Myanmar and its people have more pluck and will refuse to bend down to the whims and fancies even though many accuse Aung San Su Ki of being a Western proxy. Note how the UN is taking out all their jargon – genocide, ethnic cleansing which should immediately warn us what the real gameplan is.

While it is without doubt that the Rohingyas must be suffering as a result of being guineapigs in a bigger game, it is virtually the same scenario that befell the Tamils caught between LTTE and Government troops. Was life better with the LTTE was often a question posed when LTTE was militarily defeated and when despite making USD300m annual profits the LTTE had not even made a single road or building for the people they claimed to be fighting to look after except build lavish bunkers for themselves and homes for their families. Similarly, we cannot ignore the fact that whoever is funding the Bengali militants and using the Rohingyas are doing so to carve out an area which had been historically a place that sought separation just like the Eelam ploy in Sri Lanka. It is baffling how Tamils who originate from Tamil Nadu where the first quest for self-determination started is arguing for a homeland in Sri Lanka’s North and East well while even the ethnicity of Rohingyas in question given that the name itself never existed until the 1950s.

Let us not forget that the British are accountable for the unfolding tragedy in both Sri Lanka and Myanmar through their divide and rule policies. Bangladesh eventually received independence but it is highly unlikely that India which turned down the independence of Khalistan nor supported the self-determination of Tamils in Tamil Nadu would help the Bengali Terrorists in Myanmar though India did use the LTTE militancy to wrest economic and political control over Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka’s leaders failed to adopt a strategy to deal with this reality. The leaders of Asia for petty political brownies against their own neighbors cannot and repeat cannot ignore that the enemy all of Asia is now dealing with will destroy all of these countries if the leaders of these countries do not unite to take the bull by the horns.

Those clamoring to present solutions will doubtless present the notion that taking a line and dividing an area is the solution. Do they need to be getting handsome salary packages to come up with a solution like that! They often completely ignore that in Sri Lanka more Tamils are living peacefully with the Sinhalese outside of the terrain being sought as ‘separate’ while in Myanmar too there are plenty of Muslims living peacefully with the people of Myanmar throughout the country. So what really is the mischief makers upto using Sri Lanka’s North/East and Myanmar’s Rakhine province? This is where the truth gets well hidden behind a plethora of propaganda and lies. This is where intelligence observers and readers and often the victims themselves need to realistically take stock of the situation.

While it is unfortunate that the Rohingyas are being used as bait, it is really no different to how the Vanni Tamils were used and not many Tamils in either Colombo or overseas nor even the Tamil leaders did anything to demand that the LTTE terrorists release their people and stop recruiting children to turn into child soldiers. This was so because the Tamils that the terrorists picked were from poor and low caste homes. Their welfare didn’t matter to Tamils living elsewhere who were beneficiaries of the conflict by using that to apply as refugees on the discrimination ticket and many who are now living overseas. Is this the same scenario for Muslim Rohingyas as Muslims themselves are divided the world over though both lobby as an united front to achieve their demands?

When the scrooge of terror enters the scene and when it is coupled with geopolitics and corporate objectives it is very hard for truth to prevail or for the victims to have any say. Even today, 8 years after LTTE defeat the Tamil people are now victims of Tamil political leadership continuing the separatist game. Rohingyas will no doubt face a similar future. Even if the solution is for them to return to Bangladesh where they originally came from it is unlikely that option would be promoted because these Rohingyas are needed for the Bengali terrorists to justify their existence and penetrate and win over territory while in the background the West and UN will play their part – we saw Western nations lining up to offer ‘aid’ to Rohingyas and we know exactly where that led in Libya, Syria and all other countries which after delivering ‘democracy’ they are now worse off than when under the rule of their supposed ‘dictators’.

We certainly do not wish for Myanmar to become the newest victim of the geopolitical, corporate, neo-imperial agenda using Bengali terrorists as masquerade.

Shenali D Waduge

Forty empty years of Ranil’s politics (Sri Lanka's present Prime Minister)

H. L. D. Mahindapala

In a drama never seen in the Westminster tradition, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had brazenly escorted his closest partner in cut-throat politics, Ravi Karunanayake, to the front benches of the House on the day the latter was forced to announce his resignation because of his involvement in the biggest financial scandal in the 70-year history of the Sri Lankan Parliament. Normally, the ruling elite would for the sake of self-preservation take prudent and cautious steps to dissociate itself from an accused party facing multi-million dollar scandals. This is an obvious necessity because any association with the accused party casts doubts on the credibility, integrity, viability and, most of all, the morality of the entire government. The government, therefore, keeps a healthy distance to make at least a pretense of having nothing to do with the accused party who is left to twist in the wind from the nearest hanging tree by the self-proclaimed moral majority.

A prime minister may, out of personal loyalty extend his backing privately but never in public. The moral backlash would be suicidal to any leader in the Westminster model if he decides to embrace publicly those who are tainted with corruption. But kicking all moral considerations and public opinion aside the Prime Minister, in a bizarre turn of events, escorted Ravi Karunanayake to his ministerial seat. Why did he go out of his way to assist his Assistant Leader? What message does this act convey to the public? Doesn’t this leave the unambiguous impression that the Prime Minister is hand in glove with the accused? Or is the PM openly saying that there is no need for Karunanayake to worry now as he will be brought back to the front bench after the heat cools down later? Either way, it indicates that Wickremesinghe is, directly or indirectly, linked to the dealings that led to the resignation of Karunanayake.

The Prime Minister is a veteran parliamentarian, and a lawyer to boot, who should know, after all his years of experience in the Westminster system, that escorting corruption to one of the highest seats in Parliament reflects the lowest perversion of a kakocracy and not the highest values of a democracy. His act of enthroning corruption distorts and devalues the moral power of the fundamental principles of parliamentary practices and procedures needed for good governance. Most of all, it is a reprehensible act that questions his integrity. Isn’t his failure to maintain the basic principles the primary cause for the dysfunctional state of Yahapalanaya today? On which side of political morality can he be when he escorts corruption and enthrones it in a ministerial seat in Parliament, eh?

As they say, fish begins to rot from the head and there is no doubt in the public mind that the major issues that are dragging the Yahapalanaya regime into incremental loss of public confidence have originated from the desk of Wickremesinghe. From day one of the Yahapalanaya regime the President put the responsibilities of initiating, implementing, policing (FCID) and the monitoring of major state affairs on Wickremesinghe’s shoulders. It was a huge responsibility going beyond the role of holding a seat in the Prime Minister’s office. His role was to be the moral arbiter steering the state into a new moral order. In short, the responsibilities were showered on him with the expectation of processing policies and programs through clean channels to achieve the highest moral standards promised in the Yahapalanaya manifesto. .

The promised venna-suck (pronunciation : when-a-suck, meaning change/difference) in the Yahapalanaya regime was to achieve a squeaky clean administration. In fact, Yahapalanaya was born out of the need for a higher morality and its fundamental task was to act within unimpeachable parameters of political conduct. Clearly, the mandate given to Ranil (Mr. Clean”) Wickremesinghe on January 8, 2015, was to give moral leadership. The most appealing promise given to the electorate was to lift the nation from the depths of the moral morass into which it has fallen. Not only that, it promised to place the state on the Himalayan heights of purity.

The political capital they earned on January 8, 2015 was mainly to implement this promise. The crisis that is facing the government today is because Wickremesinghe, the CEO of the Yahapalanaya regime, has failed in his duty to give moral leadership. His failure is totally unacceptable. For instance, on January 9, 2015 he was sworn in as Prime Minister. And the rot began in February 2015 – less than a month after he became Prime Minister — with Wickremesinghe importing the head of the Central Bank (CB) from Singapore, Arjuna Mahendran. Apart from being Wickremesinghe’s willing lackey, Mahendran is a highly overrated spinner of bogus theories that impressed the new fixer of the Yahapalanaya regime.

Mahendran walked into the Central Bank making it known to all and sundry that Wickremesinghe was his Uncle”. Every other statement that fell from his big mouth began with the declaration : As Uncle Wickremesinghe told me….” etc. In other words, he was out to impress the officers of the CB that he was not a mere bureaucratic functionary of the state. He wanted to make sure that his words came from the highest source of the land. And with that kind of Uncle-Nephew” relationship anyone going against his word would be challenging the words of his Uncle”. In fact, he is on record saying that it was Uncle Wickremesinghe” who authorized the bond auction. All this goes to prove W. Dahanayake’s famous description of the UNP as the Uncle-Nephew Party”. Mahendran took it one step further and made the Central Bank also into an Uncle-Nephew” enterprise.

This appointment has been the primary cause of the current crisis faced by the nation. It signifies Wickremesinghe’s inability to make the correct choices on any critical issue. It confirms that all his solutions, whether in politics or economics, have ended in disasters. It indicates that hasn’t a clue of either the nature of the crisis facing the nation or its solution. Each time he comes up with a kokatath-thailaya (cure all) it has ended in dragging the nation and himself into worse situations. His standard solution is to pass the buck by appointing committees – endless committees that ended like his career in absolutely nothing. His choice of Arjuna Mahendran marked the beginning of the end of Wickremesinghe.

He has not explained why he imported Mahendran when there were competent and experienced bankers at home who had worked their way up to the top. But for reasons best known to Wickremesinghe he handpicked the Singaporean. Lo and behold, that appointment begat the Singaporean’s son-in-law, Arjun Aloysius. Who begat the bond scam. Which begat the Presidential commission. Which begat Ravi Karunanayake. Which begat his resignation. All of which begat the crisis we are in. Which makes Wickremesinghe the father of the political crisis facing Yahapalanaya regime and, more importantly, the moral crisis arising from his abject failure to honour his promises.

The stinking moral crisis that is flying off the fan is not what he promised. This is the anti-thesis of the venna-suck (difference) he promised to the people. The venna-suckers who rush to defend the PM will, no doubt, cite the failures of Mahinda Rajapakse, his immediate predecessor. This is their last resort to defend and polish the tainted image of a leader who promised the ideal state free from corruption. Pointing the finger at his predecessor’s past sins is a cheap trick to deflect attention away from the current corrupt hole into which he has fallen. It is not a valid defense, not after promising a venna-suck. In any case, two wrongs do not add up to one right.

The venna-suckers should know by now that their leaders stridently promised not to repeat the missteps of their predecessor when they dangled the Yahapalanaya as the alternative to Mahinda Rajapakse. The change / difference can come only from a new moral order. That is what Wickremesinghe has to deliver if he is to save his neck. In the next election people will be asked to vote not on Mahinda Rajapakse’s mistakes but on Ranil Wickremesinghe’s promises. He promised to do better than his predecessors by ruling from the highest moral plane. Who can save him if he fails to deliver his promises?

The sum and substance of the manifesto of the Yahapalanaya was to run the state on incorruptible principles. Today he stands as the lily that festered smelling far worse than Meetotamulla. The disillusioned people feel that they have been taken for a ride by Wickremesinghe whose own rotten record has risen, in leaps and bounds, way above that of his predecessor. Today he stands out as the irredeemable venna-sucker who had betrayed the principles he promised to keep.

The people have already given their verdict on Mahinda Rajapakase in the last election. It is Wickremesinghe who is in the dock now. People will be asked to vote on Wickremesinghe’s record and not on Mahinda Rajapakse’s performance. But Wickremesinghe is lurching from crisis to crisis unable to get a grip on the accelerating speed with which he is going down the slippery slope. When his moral worth hits rock bottom, sooner or later, will it be difficult to guess the verdict of people at the next election?

It is against this background that he fronted up, with pomp and bravado, at the gallery of pictures designed to celebrate his four decades in politics. Truth to tell, the missing pictures in the gallery would have been more dramatic and revealing than his self-adulatory poses hung on the wall. (More of this later.)

I must confess that I haven’t seen the exhibition but, without doing so, I can confirm that the whole show must be as interesting as the used tissues floating in Wickremesinghe’s toilet before they are flushed out. What is there in his career to make him look like a worthy leader of a nation, really? A leader is defined by the achievements he has scored in facing the challenges of the time and not by the number of times he became the prime minister. Any objective survey of his career will conclude that he has failed the big tests that confronted him and the nation:

Test 1: The nation was desperately in need of moral purity and economic salvation. He was hailed as Mr. Clean” with a special gift for managing the economy and producing results. That fiction was nailed when the bond scandal – the biggest financial racket in the nation’s history – exposed him as a person of interest in the fraud. With the bond scandal his moral status has nose-dived like a plane without fuel. Besides, his role in the bond scandal stands out as another example where he has exhibited his extraordinary capacity to create crises more than solving them.

Test 2 : The overwhelming challenge faced by the nation in the post-independent era was the North-South conflict. Leader after leader got stuck in the longest running war of Asia. Wickremesinghe’s smart idea to solve it was the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) he signed with Velupillai Prabhakaran. It was an abject appeasement which gave the upper hand to Prabhakaran. But in his blind arrogance Wickremesinghe believed that he had surpassed the record of Dutugemunu. Believing in his own fiction that he had solved the problem he removed the check-points and the barriers guarding the city. Prabhakaran knew better. He knew that Wickremesinghe was only a cardboard hero of the pin-heads in the UNP and not the people. He ran rings round Wickremesinghe and shot his CFA to indecipherable bits and pieces. Wickremesinghe has never recovered from the stigma attached to this political failure in which thousands died because of his stupidity. If the bond scandal ruined his reputation as Mr. Clean” and as a competent economic manager then the CFA proved that he was also a political idiot who believed that he could save the nation by selling a part of it to a fascist dictator. As stated earlier, his solutions exacerbated the status quo and made the consequences of his cock-eyed acts unbearable to the nation.

Test 3: Throughout his political career he put his faith in the West believing that they would come to his rescue the day he needs them. That day came on January 8, 2015 when he got back to Temple Trees” with the help of CIA, RAW, minorities and 50-odd NGOs. But to his dismay he discovered that the West was not going to risk their necks for him the way he had risked his neck for them. Let down by the friends he cultivated in the West, he had no alternative but to do a quick volte face and turn towards the East. That put an end to his reputation as a maestro on international relations.

Test 4 : He has overawed his UNPers by posing as a master political strategist who can outwit his rivals. But throughout his 40-year political career he has never been able to take the party to the peak of power. He could never rise above the No.2 position. He is a leader who had conceded publicly that non-UNPers are fit to lead the nation better than he could. In fact, in playing second fiddle to Gen. Sarath Fonseka and Maithripala Sirisena he has confirmed incontrovertibly that the people have no faith in him. He knows that he does not have the capacity to be No.1. With all the political heritage and assets of the Grand Old Party of the nation behind him why has he surrendered the leadership of the nation to non-UNPers? Why is it that the people had refused repeatedly to place any trust in him? He leads the UNP only to install SLFPers and outsiders in power. After 40 years in politics isn’t his greatest achievement in installing Maithripala Sirisena as President? What else is there to his glory?

In conceding the presidency to non-UNPers successively he has conceded openly that he is not fit to the lead the nation, or even his party. Maithripala Sirisena won because they UNPers voted en bloc for him. Even the UNPers flocked to vote for the non-UNP candidates because they never trusted Wickremesinghe’s commitment to save the nation from its internal and external enemies. The humiliating factor in all this is that he has never been ashamed of playing second fiddle as long as he got a share of power below No.1. He has been quite content to play the role of No.2. In the last election he was hoping to grab the presidential powers through constitutional manipulation. He was hoping that President Sirisena would devolve all the presidential powers to him and retire into a ceremonial role. But that strategy too failed. So what is the big achievement in Wickremesinghe’s political career?

If, as shown above, he has failed to manage the economy, failed to stem corruption in his regime, surrendered to Velupillai Prabhakaran, come a cropper in his foreign policy, dragged the nation down to the lowest moral depths and never won the ultimate prize in leadership throughout his 40 years in politics where can one find the glory in his career? There isn’t a single issue on which he can go down in history as the man who made a lasting contribution to the economic prosperity, domestic security, territorial integrity and national unity and harmony. The last saving grace would have been his image of Mr. Clean”. But after Wickremesinghe’s involvement in the bond scam that image has come crashing down like the mountain of muck at Meetotamulla.

It is obvious that the pictures hung at the gallery to glorify his past do not tell the full story. Those missing pictures would have traced his political trajectory far more dramatically and truthfully than the formal pictures hung on the wall. The missing pictures would have attracted more crowds than the ones exhibited on the walls. For instance, the pictures of Gonawila Sunil, one of his close chuckgolayas, coming out of jail before completing his term for raping a teenage girl would have had an electric impact on the visitors. So would the pictures of Gonawila Sunil receiving a JP-ship, with the blessings of his master.

These pictures are significant because they reveal that Wickremesinghe’s moral standards run on parallel lines with that of his underworld king-pin, Gonawila Sunil : one rapes teenagers and the other rapes the nation. His political path had run in a straight line from Gonawila Sunil to Karunanayake without wavering in between. Of course, there has been a slight deviation and that was to import his most costly albatross from Singapore. But that is not the main issue. The issue that should be raised is simply this : what has he achieved in the intervening years, between Gonawila Sunil and Ravi Karunanayake, for him to crow and celebrate?

Let us begin by evaluating his claim that he has been the prime minister four times. Technically he is correct. But this claim fails to recognize that he was sacked from that post twice, first by his own party headed by Gamini Dissanayake and the second time when he was sitting blissfully at White House not knowing that his other partner in cut-throat politics Chandrika Kumaratunga (CBK) had stealthily cut all four legs of the chair in which he was sitting.

The details reveal that there is not much glory in the number of times he became prime minister. First, he became PM, after the assassination of President Premadasa because Sirisena Cooray who was offered the premiership by President D. B. Wijetunga refused to take it and nominated Wickremesinghe to the post. Wickremesinghe was not the first choice. He became the accidental PM with the blessings of Sirisena Cooray. Second time he failed to last long because he was sacked on charges of selling the nation to Prabhakaran by CBK. Third time too he became PM with the power of another Sirisena. It was also questionable because President Sirisena appointed him with a stroke of his pen when D. M. Jayaratne was still sitting in the chair as the legally appointed PM. Wickremesinghe was not the people’s choice.

Fourth time, the people again refused to make him the prime minister in his own right. He fell short of the majority he needed to be PM in a house of 225. He managed to become the PM because the President decided to give him the job. If he couldn’t become the PM with 50-odd NGOs, CIA, RAW, minorities what are his chances next time round when he would have eroded the feel good factor that gave him the bare minimum to creep in through the back door to the PM’s seat the last time?

When CBK sacked him the timing was perfect : she couldn’t have picked a more dramatic moment to humiliate her opponent. In her vindictive ways she tried to fix him by appointing a commission to investigate the Batalanda torture chambers. The she delivered the coup de grace: stabbed him in the back when he was in the White House knowing that the public would not rise to bring him back. She has also described him and his politics very aptly. Putting down his inability to articulate a clear political vision she said: Ranil-gay kattay pittu”. Also hitting him at the place where it hits most she said: Ranil katha-karan-nay katin noway.”

Now consider the other telling statistic which is bound to go down in the Guinness book of records. It is stunning. According to all known counts he has lost 29 elections in 40 years. Can anyone find another loser like Ranil Wickremesinghe? Of course, after forty years of experience he must be feeling now the hot winds of change breathing down his neck again. In his bones, he must be fully aware that the next psephological statistic will rise to thirty, whenever the next election is held.

If he couldn’t rise to power on his own steam with the consent of the people 29 times, if he always had to piggy-back on outside parties to perform short and temporary stints at Temple Trees”, if he was thrown out of Temple Trees” by his own party headed by Gamini Dissanayake, if his gamble for peace with Prabhakaran – the most critical political mission of our time — led to utter failure, if the ground was cut under his feet by his then rival CBK when he was engaged in a charivari with Bush at the White House, inflicting the worst humiliation for a leader of a nation, if after 40 years he has failed to be Numero Uno, and if his economic management have shifted from Perpetual Treasury to perpetual treachery, if his future is as black as the back of well used clay pot in Gonawila Sunil’s kitchen, and, finally, if his climactic act capping forty years of parliamentary politics is to escort Ravi Karunanayake to his ministerial seat what is there for him to celebrate, really?

The exhibition of pictures hung to highlight Wickremesinghe’s political career was meant to be an advertisement for his achievements. I am told that it is also meant to be a preliminary launch of his campaign to win the next presidential race. So far I have not seen media reports of the people flocking to see the amazing glories of forty years of nothingness. There were more people rolling up in bus loads to pay homage to Mahinda Rajapakse when he lost power than those lining up to view the glories of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Up until this moment of writing I’ve seen only Ravi Karunanayake standing behind him, perhaps as quid pro quo for escorting him to the well of the House on his day of reckoning.

If he wanted to draw a crowd he should have exhibited pictures of him burning the CBK- Neelan agreement in Parliament and then rushing to sign an agreement with Velupillai Prabhakaran giving El-lam to him. A picture of his banging pots and pans at street corners to bring down the cost of living would have brought at least some cynical smiles. Or to see him riding in bullock carts to protest against the government would have been hilarious. A replay of him offering TVs and jeans to farmers too would have been a sight to watch. His pathetic performance of spitting on the heroic soldiers wending their way to victory is something that our soldiers will never forget. Nor will they forget him dodging February 4 celebration of Independence Day because there was no glory to him in watching Mahinda Rajapakse taking the salute. And his doing a U- turn from the west to the east is also a memorable feat.

The fundamental flaw in RWs character has been his inability to read the signs of his time. Time and again he has failed to decipher what’s happening under his very nose. Our village boys knew the lie of the land better than him. As everyone knows, when they were advancing victoriously, capturing Thoppigala, he ridiculed them as some futile rock climbers. But they knew better. So how can he lead the nation when he fails grasp the meaning of events under his own feet? He, in short, does not know whether he is in Pamankada or Alimankada, to quote his buddy Ravi Karunanayake.

He has now come to the end of his political career. He has nowhere to go from here. The next election will be definitely his last election. It will decide his fate forever. Right now he thinks he can survive by perverting parliamentary practices and procedures. His aim is to use parliament as his rubber stamp. He has appointed a Leader of the Opposition, R. Sambanthan, who is like his government: neither of them commands a majority in the House to stand on their own two feet. The SLFPers and other catchers” will have to back him all the way for him to maintain his majority. Whether the marriage of convenience between the two temporary partners – UNP –SLFP – will remain intact is yet to be seen. Certainly their honeymoon is over. How long the friction and the bickering that is bedeviling the misalliance can hold them together is going to be a perpetual tricky point.

It is the corruption in which he wallows that stinks to high heaven. He has even corrupted the Parliament. To begin with he survives in Parliament with the backing of the MPs who were rejected by the people. Then for his survival he forced a dissolution of Parliament to make the COPE report on the Bond scandal null and void. The manipulated and indecent dissolution of parliament to cover-up his Bond scandal confirms his utter contempt for the best of parliamentary traditions. In his usual delusional way he fancies that his short-term poli-tricks can sustain him in power for at least the balance of his term. But he forgets that his previous three short-terms as premier failed to keep him going for the full term because his cheap poli-tricks boomeranged on him. Knowing his past failures, this time he began his fourth term by passing a law to last at least four-and-a-half years. However, there is no guarantee that shifting loyalties in a Parliament notorious for cross-overs can sustain him in power for his anticipated full term.

He is also at logger heads with the President who still has the power to pull the rug under his feet, if he decides to undercut him. Besides, Wickremesinghe right now is walking on pappadums which are crumbling each time he takes a step in whichever direction he turns. His options are not only limited but dwindling. He has not much room to flex his muscles the way he wants as at the time he was sworn in as PM.. In short, he is on the brink of extinction and his future hangs on the mercy of the President. The judgment of the people will, of course, will not be so merciful.

He is desperately hanging on to power because he fears that the guillotine (FCID) he introduced to behead his opponents will chop his neck off after the next election. One things is quite certain : he is one politician who will not need a grave digger. Why should he? After all, he has been his own grave digger for so long that any cost of hiring a grave digger will be a total waste of money because he has been hard at work in digging his own hole for forty years

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