Order to arrest suspects who attacked MTV head office

By Lakmal Sooriyagoda | Daily Mirror
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The Colombo Fort Magistrate today ordered the police to arrest all the suspects who were allegedly involved in the attack on the MBC/MTV head office at Braybrooke place, Colombo in March this year.

When the magisterial inquiry pertaining to the attack on the MBC/MTV head office was taken up for hearing today, the Slave Island Police informed Court that they were still investigating to locate the whereabouts of 14 suspects based on a name list provided by the Sirasa media network.

The Magistrate, Ms. Lanka Jayaratne, directed the police to record statements from the photographers and cameramen who recorded the episode in order to carry out future court proceedings.

The Magistrate further observed that the relevant video footages and photographs could be used as the evidence in the case. Meanwhile, the Magistrate issued arrest warrants on the 12th and 14th suspects who were not presented in Court today.

On 22 March a group of people had allegedly attacked the MBC/MTV office at Braybrooke place, Colombo and arrested 16 suspects who were later released on police bail by the Slave Island police.

© Daily Mirror

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Investigators perturbed over sudden halt into Ekneligoda disappearance

Photo courtesy : Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai

By Gayan Kumara Weerasinghe | Lakbima News
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Investigations into missing journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda have come to a sudden halt and suspects detained for questioning have also been released.

Police teams had been able to disclose many important details about Eknaligoda by checking phone lines of suspects who were detained and questioned. On this information, the police detained some suspects from Batticaloa and Polonnaruwa for questioning about the missing journalist, but police sources say that all the suspects have now been released.

Meanwhile, police were able to nab two main suspects; however investigators have not received any further direction to proceed with the case, sources said.

The investigation unit is also surprised that after all the details linked to the Ekneligoda incident were handed over to higher authorities, the investigation has been suddenly brought to a halt.

Meanwhile, last week Cabinet spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told journalists that Eknaligoda was not a journalist but that the government will investigate into his disappearance since he is a citizen of Sri Lanka.

© Lakbima News

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Sri Lanka: Government to impose media guidelines

Daily Mirror Online
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The government is to introduce media "guidelines" in accordance with media ethics to promote professionalism and the skills of journalists in Sri Lanka. However the government insists that the guidelines will not be a harsh regulatory mechanism.

Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, speaking at a seminar in Kandy today said that the government will set up a Media Development Authority in order to help media to enhance its professionalism and efficiency further, the government information department said.

Rambukwella said that the authority proposed has no harsh regulatory mechanism but guidelines in accordance with media ethic to promote professionalism and skills of journalists in this part of the world.

“What we intend is to give a professional recognition to journalists in line with other professional bodies in the country. Journalists are the unofficial agents of the masses They have the duty by the people,” the government information department quoted the Minister as saying.

“When the word ‘authority’ is used there is a general tendency the people interpret it as a regulatory body that would bring restrictions and licensing needs etc. But here it is for the well being of the augmentation of professionalism among journalism,” he said.

Director General of the government information department Professor Ariyarathna Athugala has been tasked the responsibility of making the initial draft on this new initiative, the government information department said.

© Daily Mirror Online

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Governance by delusion

By Tisaranee Gunasekara | Tisaranee Gunasekara
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DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.” — Ambrose Bierce (The Devil’s Dictionary)

The prime target of Minister Wimal Weerawansa’s delusive fast was neither the UN nor its Secretary General, but the Lankan public. Minister Weerawansa and his political handlers would have known that their attempt at blackmailing the UN Secretary General was bound to fail. And, as even the Sinhala nationalist defenders of Weerawansa’s actions admit, the fast was not really meant to end in, death. So why fast, if one knew that the UN was not going to knuckle down? And why call it a fast-unto-death, if there was no real intention of, fasting unto death?

Minister Weerawansa’s was a pseudo fast (unto death) and its real aim was to delude the Lankan people into forgetting, at least momentarily, their many substantive discontents and rally round the Rajapaksas in outrageous ire against the ‘evil machinations’ of the latest ‘arch-villain’, Ban Ki Moon.

Juvenal in his Tenth Satire came up with the term ‘bread and circuses/games’ (panem et circenses) to describe the methods used by Roman emperors to divert public attention from the debasement and disappearance of political rights, consequent to the transition of Rome from a republic into an empire: “The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things – bread and games!” (Vanity of Human Wishes). Minister Weerawansa’s fasting drama was aimed at deluding the populace into forgetting their many cares, including the exorbitant prices of bread. What better poseur to implement this carefully choreographed show than Minister Weerawansa and what better theme, than patriotism, which, as Ambrose Bierce said, is the first resort of the scoundrel.

Minister Weerawansa’s antics indicate with what contempt he and his political masters hold the Lankan people. The thespian exercise which began with such melodramatic intensity (with Minister Weerawansa, in an absurd echo of Che Guevara’s ‘Message To The Tricontinental’, asking others to take his place, if he dies from his fast) ended less than two and a half days later, on a pledge given by President Rajapaksa not to betray the armed forces! In a bizarre post-script, multi-coloured posters appeared on Colombo walls thanking Minister Weerawansa for his patriotic feat. Cleary the Rajapaksas and their coterie believe that the southern public is easily dupable. Other pieces of absurdist theatre will follow, aimed at promoting the Rajapaksa message of combined triumphalism and fear: we have won a unique victory but an envious West is trying to destroy us, so forget all cares and concerns and rally round the patriotic Rajapaksas to save the motherland.

Deluding the public

The Tiger was a past-master at anesthetising the Tamil people into compliance by creating beguiling or frightening illusions. The Rajapaksas seem to be following suit. Minister Weerawansa’s farcical fast is indicative of the regime’s preferred method of dealing with thorny issues – creating illusions which are often the complete antithesis of the reality (the death-fast which was not a death-fast). Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in the economy.

The politicised Central Bank (which is beginning to resemble Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Plenty’) routinely celebrates stupendous economic successes, while the lower and the middle classes struggle to survive financially. There is always a moment and an opportunity to avoid the downfall, before the trickle becomes a tide and the public becomes anesthetized by familiarity to regard the abnormal as normal. One of the earliest warnings about the Rajapaksa brand of delusive politics came in 2006 from the then Auditor General. In a report, the Auditor General warned about a new tendency to inflate revenue figures and claimed that Sri Lanka lost Rs. 360 billion due to weaknesses and inadequacies in its revenue collection system and the carelessness of its Ministry of Finance. The Finance Ministry responded, not by taking remedial measures, but by contradicting the Auditor General and implying that his report was a tissue of lies. Since then, inflating revenue figures and deflating expenditure figures have become the regime’s tried and tested method of reducing budget deficits, on paper; supplementary estimates are introduced subsequently to bridge the gap.

Governance by delusion is necessary because a more reality based approach would interfere (perhaps terminally) with the Rajapaksa project. There is a pithy Sinhala proverb which can be translated, inelegantly, as ‘one does not pluck a honeycomb just to lick one’s fingers’ – meaning when a man attempts a difficult or dangerous task, he does so in anticipation of ample reward. The real goal of Velupillai Pirapaharan was not Tamil Eelam but Tiger Eelam; and his single-minded pursuit of Tiger Eelam undermined the Tamil cause terminally. The Rajapaksas defeated the LTTE not to create a unitary Sri Lanka but to create a unitary Sri Lanka under Rajapaksa rule.

The Rajapaksas’ plan was to defeat the Tigers militarily, without making any political concessions to the Tamils, thereby winning the gratitude of the Sinhalese and, as a mark of that gratitude, their freely given consent for long term Familial Rule. The President and his brothers are still popular in the South. But this happy state may not last, if the much awaited peace dividend does not materialise. And the peace dividend cannot materialise so long as the present budgetary bias of guns over butter remains.

Occupation is an expensive business; every anti-democratic or Sinhala supremacist measure breeds resentment among the subjugated Tamils, creating an increasing need for men in arms to maintain stability. According to media reports, the Navy is seeking permission to set up a camp in a neglected cashew plantation in Vaharai; two Hindu Kovils in Trinco and one in Batticaloa have been taken over by the Army upon being been categorised (by the UDA?) as unauthorised structures; two magistrates hearing cases against pro-Rajapaksa Tamil politicians have been transferred, willy-nilly; the government is to build houses for soldiers in the North while the task of building houses for displaced Tamils have been delegated to the Indians; Wellawatte police has begun registering Tamil residents again.

The Rajapaksa policy of ruling the North through compulsion (‘consent without consent’) would turn high defence allocations into a budgetary staple. This in turn will create a politico-military complex (led by the Defence Secretary) with a vested interest in maintaining the budgetary bias of guns over butter at whatever cost.

Unfortunately for the regime, the lopsided nature of the budget impacts negatively on the South via the non-appearance of the peace dividend. The Ruling Family’s solution to this dilemma is to appeal to the darker side of the collective Sinhala psyche by inculcating fear and hatred, jingoism and xenophobia. A research conducted by the York University in the UK has found that anxiety and uncertainty can make people more prone to political radicalism or religious extremism, according to the July issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The South is being fed on a daily fare of Tiger resurgence and international conspiracies in order to justify the Rajapaksa politics of extremism and intolerance.

According to this xenophobic narrative, the West is jealous of us and is out to get us because we have succeeded where they are failing. The UN Secretary General is playing their game. The white barbarians are at the gate, so we must take all measures necessary to protect politically what we have won militarily. Thus every other issue must be de-prioritised, from the gradual replacement of democratic governance with Familial Rule and the possible consequences of the loss of the GSP+ facility to the anti-popular nature of the budget and the worsening dengue epidemic (132 deaths and 19,960 reported cases so far; most of the victims are children).

A combination of phantom enemies and phantom achievements can serve multiple purposes, from winning the consent of the Sinhalese to long term Familial Rule to excusing the crimes and misdeeds, the ineptness and incapacities of the regime. The economic and political cost of this delusive and demented politics will have to be borne by the masses, especially the Sinhalese in whose name it is being practised. That too is apposite. The Tamils had to pay the full price for allowing the LTTE to hijack their cause and speak in their name. Someday it will be our turn.

The UPFA-UNP Powwow

In October 2006, the ruling SLFP and the opposition UNP signed a Memorandum of Understanding to implement a Common National Agenda. The MoU, singed at an auspicious hour amidst much fanfare, was to last for two years. ‘This agreement today is to achieve peace and a political solution’, Wickremesinghe declared; ‘We have placed the country first’ President Rajapaksa announced.

The MoU’s Common National Agenda consisted of four issues: finding a political solution to the North-Eastern conflict, reforming the electoral system, ensuring Good Governance and achieving Social Development. An air of peace and goodwill permeated the South. The West was thrilled and optimists everywhere declared the beginning of a new era.

In reality the political marriage between the SLFP and the UNP turned out to be not so much a marriage as the briefest of flings. Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe both had partisan and personal political reasons for signing a truce with each other. The inner-party feud between President Rajapaksa and Mangala Samaraweera was gathering momentum while a group of UNPers, including Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya, were feeling restive about the less than happy state of their party.

The real purpose of the MoU between the SLFP and UNP was to pave the way for the defeat of these potential inner-party challenges to the absolutist leaderships of Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe. The MoU ended in acrimony in February 2007, with 18 UNP parliamentarians defecting to the government. By that time both Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe had stabilised themselves by ensuring that the respective inner-party rebellions were stillborn.

News about a new pow-wow between Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe is trickling out. According to media reports, the two parties may work together to produce a new consensual constitution. If the past practices of both leaders are any indication, this détente too is likely to be an illusion perpetrated by President Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Wickremesinghe to hoodwink the public. Wickremesinghe needs to hang on to party leadership, at whatever the cost; therefore it would be in his interest to ensure that the government does not back any of the contenders to his job.

The Rajapaksas need to present a moderate façade to the world even as they pursue their brand of extremist politics. They also need to present a fait accompli in the form of a readymade two-thirds majority to silence the handful of grumblers in the UPFA (to call them dissenters would be to overstate the case); preventing the opposition parties from launching a united public campaign against the removal of presidential term limits would be another aim.

A pseudo-détente would enable Ranil Wickremesinghe to beat back potential contenders and confuse and confound the few UPFA grumblers. This powwow too will end in a stillborn inner party rebellion in the UNP and a new wave of defections to the government. Ranil Wickremesinghe will be able to hang on to the leadership of an ever diminishing party while the Rajapaksas will be able to clear the sole constitutional impediment to dynastic rule. The deluded public will not reap any benefits, but that is the usual fate of all dupes.

© The Sunday Leader

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Sri Lanka: Deadly dengue spreads ; Hospitals run out of beds

By Yohan Perera, J. Jayasinghe, Lasantha Perera and Jeewaka Jayaruk | Daily Mirror
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As the number of Dengue patients swelled around the country several hospitals were reported to be over crowded with patients.

Director of Kalubowila Hospital Dr. Anil Jasinghe said managing the problem was becoming difficult as the number of cases increases. Dr. Jasinghe told Daily Mirror that more than 80 cases have been admitted to the hospital daily during the past two weeks. “Naturally managing the hospital had become difficult with the limited facilities,” he said.

He explained that each ward has an average number of beds and providing facilities for patients is difficult no matter dengue cases increased or not,” he said.

Health authorities in the Ratnapura District said the number of cases had risen to 463 in the month of June while there had been a total of 1500 cases so far during the year. Seven deaths have been reported throughout the year so far. Number of cases had increased every month according to the authorities. Accordingly there had been 141 reported cases in January, while there had been 267 by June this year.

The number of cases reported from Kandy district has been 800 with two deaths. The Chief Medical Officer of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) Dr. Pradeep Kariyawasam who was commenting the situation in the Colombo city said residents have not got the messages and the instructions given by the health authority as only 600 out of the inspected 10,000 households have kept their households free from mosquitoes. This has been found out during a dengue campaign carried out by the council during the week end. The campaign was coupled with inspection of households and other establishments in the city. In another development it had been found out that consuming papaya leaves together with bee honey will increase the platelet count of the dengue patients. Dr. S. M. N. Ameen of Welipitiya Aruvedic hospital had claimed that he had cured 20 patients.

© Daily Mirror

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Sri Lanka: Cleaning up human detritus to gratify tourists and investors?

By Kumar David | Lakbima News
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“Members of the vanquished Tamil Tiger terrorist organization, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are posing as beggars in the cities throughout the country to gather information. The government intelligence services have identified that these beggars having been trained and deployed by the LTTE”.

Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne (Report in ColomboPage website, 11 June 2010)

The cat is out of the bag! I do not know if some agency of the state actually smashed the heads of a dozen homeless beggars and hawkers as they slept in Colombo’s gutters and pavements, or whether a state agency set up criminal operatives do it, but the country’s prime minister is finding explanations and making excuses. This de facto endorsement amounts to encouragement and Jayaratne is in effect saying: “These are terrorists, these are Tamil Tigers gathering information for dastardly deeds; it is acceptable that patriotic citizens are taking the law into their hands and ridding the nation of these vermin”.

OK reader, am I being unfair? Isn’t this the import and implication of this statement? Then the important question is this; even if an agency of the state was not directly or indirectly involved, why does the prime minister hit upon excuses for such brutality?

The first point, in fairness to the PM, to get out of the way, is whether it is true, or even remotely likely, that these miserable creatures are indeed Tigers in Skunks clothing. These homeless cripples and street crust have long been a familiar sight to people living in the vicinity, there are communities of beggars, they know each other, they have names (Manoj, Gamini), and they have been around supplicating for alms for years. The police know them all. If these creatures are Tigers, you my dear reader, are a monkey’s uncle. Clearly, we are plumbing the nadir of prime ministerial delusion!

Seeking rational explanations

A somewhat less inane explanation being trotted around is that this is all the work of criminal gangs. Well indeed, the actual killers may well be criminals if they are well paid. A drunken criminal or a drug addict on the high, may, once, go berserk and smash someone’s skull, but a systematic, serial, campaign! If it’s a criminal gang(s) at work, then money is being funnelled from an official or special interest group.

Then there is the theory of the serial killer, a kind of Jakolis the Ripper, a psychopath on the loose. Make no mistake about it, one of these days the cops may produce some nutcase, beat him to a pulp and have him confess to being Prabaharan’s granddaddy, or a cannibal. Sorry Mr IGP, but when over the years you and your force have cultivated a reputation that stinks like a beggar’s rags, who will believe you anymore?

This leaves us seeking a more rational explanation. Let us recall the context. Not long ago criminals and drug peddlers were dying in droves as they duelled to death, guns and grenades materialising in their hands by magical means whilst in tight custody, compelling virginal policemen to reluctantly mow down assailants in self-defence! Aesop’s Fables you will say; police in cahoots with the state I will say. The beggar killings seem to fall into the same pattern; clean up the city. Getting tighter control of society in disregard for the law was the crusade last time, but what is the motive this time? Well, making Colombo congenial for foreign tourists and investors is not all that far fetched a thought!

True there is as yet no smoking-gun evidence linking these murders to business interests or the state, and even if such evidence existed, our investigators will never reveal it. These thoughts are speculative, so I put the issue to a strongly pro-UPFA, DLF central committee member, who works with the party’s Hawkers Association. The e-mail reply, and I quote verbatim from a mainly Sinhalese speaking comrade, was interesting: “Dear Kumar, urban development under the Defence Ministry. Human dust sweep out for clean the city form unknown way, like early stage of capitalist development in Brazil”. Hence I maintain that my line of reasoning in the previous paragraph is more plausible than the Tigers in Skunks clothing or Jakolis the Ripper fairytales.

The new economic policy of the government

Whoever is cleaning the streets of Colombo of its human detritus aside, that the Rajapakse government has struck out on a bold new economic direction is undeniable. The Budget Speech was a kind of a con and not a con; let me explain the paradox. It is not a con in that at the insistence of the IMF the government laid out a clear new fiscal and investor policy direction. This has been widely commented on; I need to summarise only in a sentence or two. Prices of mass consumption commodities and services will be raised, VAT or other instruments strengthened, education, health and welfare cut. The armed forces will be kept at full strength to put down plebeian (this time Sinhalese) opposition. Business will be given tax breaks and incentives, and the economy will be led by the private sector. You may think this redirection is good or bad, that’s a debate for another day, but I really don’t think anyone (except my UPFA-Left comrades squirming in the face of working class and plebeian rage) can doubt that the thrust of economic policy has somersaulted.

The con in the Budget Speech is that it conceals from the people the concrete revenue raising and expenditure reducing measures through which these changes will be levered. They will be introduced surreptitiously, step by step here and there, usually through gazette notifications. The people will be conned into it. Secondly, the Budget Speech is untruthful in pretending that the budget deficit will be brought down to 8% of GDP in 2010 and the debt to GDP ratio will decline to 80%. I have explained (LAKBIMAnEWS 27 June and Sunday Island 11 July) that the deficit will turn out to be well above 10% of GDP in 2010 fiscal year, and the debt to GDP ratio will be over 90% at the end of 2010.

Whether the new development strategy “works” in the sense of whether this type of capitalist development thrives depends on three factors; eliminating rampant corruption, subduing the Rajapakse dynastic obsession (otherwise this confrontation will spill over into class war), and on who wins the initial struggles that will break out in the short-term. Perhaps cleaning out human-dust is a trial run for this showdown, now distracted by the Weerawansa-Rajapakse fasting-watering-clowning show for gallery audiences outside the UN office.

In the first instance, the JVP is the entity best positioned to lead working class and urban and rural mass resistance to belt-tightening. However, by associating itself with the slaughter of Tamil militants and by celebrating the reinforcement of the armed forces of the bourgeois state, the JVP may have dug its own grave - Who cares! But it may also have dug the grave of the working class and the Sinhalese plebeian masses. It is a provocative topic that I must leave for reasons of space, but I will return to it many times as the drama unfolds.

© Lakbima News

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"Tamil terrorist" claims exaggerated: former UN spokesman

Presenter: Liam Cochrane | Radio Australia
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The former spokesman for the United Nations in Colombo has accused the Sri Lankan government of branding Tamil asylum seekers as terrorists, fearing they might become witnesses in a war crimes tribunal if they are granted asylum in Australia.

The UN has established a panel to investigate whether a war crimes tribunal is appropriate in regards to the last months of Sri Lanka's civil war, which, ended early last year. Since then 1,129 Sri Lankan asylum seekers have arrived in Australia, with about 30 per cent being granted asylum, 7 per cent being refused and sent back and the rest of the cases still pending. The Australian media this week published comments by a Sri Lankan security analyst, who said up to half of all Tamil asylum seekers had links to the Tamil Tigers, and that the Tamil Tigers had links to Al Qaeda. Former UN spokesman Gordon Weiss, says those claims are false and risk inflaming the debate over immigration in Australia.

Liam Cochrane speaks to Gordon Weiss, former spokesman for the United Nations in Sri Lanka. Listen to the full interview

© Radio Australia

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Fasting unto death while on saline

By Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema | The Sunday Leader
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NFF Leader and Minister Wimal Weerawansa’s failed attempt to politically re-engineer his image as a firebrand politician through a fast unto death outside the UN Office in Colombo has had many adverse repercussions on the country as well as on domestic politics.

The comedy of errors staged by Weerawansa from July 6 to 9 was nothing short of entertaining, where for the first time, Sri Lankans were able to witness an individual on a fast unto death while being on a saline drip.

A closer look at the whole fast unto death saga reveals the political game behind Weerawansa’s exercise carried out for three days outside the UN Office in Colombo.

Weerawansa, who claimed that he would not budge an inch until Ban Ki-Moon withdrew the panel of experts on Sri Lanka, immediately sipped a glass of water offered to him by President Mahinda Rajapaksa and ended his ‘fast’ without even uttering a reason for his decision to call it off.
After Weerawansa ended his fast unto death on Saturday (10) at 4.30 p.m., until the following day, Sunday (11) none of the NFF spokespersons gave a reason to the media as to why the fast was ended.

On Sunday, NFF spokesperson Jayantha Samaraweera said that the fast was called off after the President had agreed to several conditions, which included the appointment of a committee to inquire into the allegations to be taken up by the UN panel of experts and for the Sri Lankan government not to cooperate with the UN panel.

It therefore seems, that Weerawansa’s fast unto death was in fact aimed against the President more than the UN Secretary General.

Realising the disaster in the making, the NFF then resorted to claim that the life of their leader was at risk due to his continuous fast for three days. They claimed that doctors have said Weerawansa’s kidneys were badly affected due to the non-consumption of water.

A medical expert when questioned by The Sunday Leader said that a saline drip is generally administered to provide sustenance to a person who does not consume food or water.

He explained that the normal saline that contains water and sodium chloride along with 5% of dextrose (a form of glucose) and when administered to any individual, that person does not need to consume food or water, as the substances required for physical sustenance are provided medically.
When asked about the case of Weerawansa’s ‘fast unto death’ while on a saline drip, the doctor said there was no need for him to consume either food or water as he was on the saline drip.

“A person could wait close to seven days without consuming water and an even further period without food,” he said.

He added that not eating food for two days would not have a severe impact on a person’s kidneys, especially when a saline drip has been administered to the person.

According to the doctor, in order to determine for certain if there indeed was a problem in the kidneys’ filtering system, a serum electrolyte and a serum creatinin test could have been performed on Weerawansa. Meanwhile, doubts have also been raised about Dr. Sisira Siribaddhana’s involvement in the fast unto death, especially given the fact that he is one of Weerawansa’s close confidants.

A former supporter of the JVP, Dr. Siribaddhana had also changed his loyalties with Weerawansa’s defection from the JVP.

It is Dr. Siribaddhana, who initially claimed that Weerawansa’s kidneys were affected due to the non-consumption of water.

Several opposition politicians who called Weerawansa’s actions a bluff said that Weerawansa had single-handedly managed to stop any possible protests that could have been organised against the panel of experts on Sri Lanka appointed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

A senior politician from Weerawansa’s former party, the JVP, said that while a fast unto death is a protest campaign resorted to as a final option, Weerawansa’s fool hardy action of carrying out such a campaign at the outset of the protest against the expert panel has ruined any possibility of carrying out a future protest against the issue.

“A fast unto death is the last protest campaign to be launched under any circumstance, but Weerawansa resorted to it in the first protest itself. No, there is nothing that can be done. No protest, march or rally could match it now,” he said. According to him, the only other option would be to get about 10 individuals to commence a fast unto death – if any one is to consider the matter seriously.

© The Sunday Leader

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Horror tales behind Australia's refugee influx

Agence France-Presse | Hindustan Times
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Cowering in the dark bowels of a leaky fishing boat, surrounded by grown men vomiting and catatonic with fear, Sri Lankan refugee Tharumalingam Punniyamoorthy was too weak to cry. He shudders as he recalls the "hell" of his voyage, when he became one of thousands of poor Asian asylum-seekers fleeing to Australia -- unwittingly setting off a public backlash which will dominate next month's elections. Punniyamoorthy, 30, now locked in an immigration centre, said he spent 18 days with 42 other Tamil men in the hold of a 36-foot (11 metres) trawler normally used for dried fish, with no fresh water and just a pinch of rice to eat every few days.

They had been promised a short journey to Australia by people-smuggling agents, and had little more than the clothes on their backs as their ramshackle craft struggled across the vast Indian Ocean from Sri Lanka last September.

Diarrhoea and chicken pox were rife. One man had gone into deep shock, wetting himself constantly, his eyes rolled back into his head and rocking back and forth. Punniyamoorthy said most believed he would soon be dead.

"We would take turns tapping him, opening his eyes, making sure he was still alive," he told the news agency from Sydney's Villawood detention centre.

"I remember suddenly thinking I'm going to die in the middle of the ocean. I had no strength even to cry."

A friend, who wished to be known only as J, said he was coughing up blood and passing in and out of consciousness as extreme hunger and weakness reduced passengers to eating their own vomit.

"People were praying in their own languages, their only hope that they would survive, but everyone was ready to die," he said.

Nobody died on that particular voyage, but others on equally perilous journeys were not so fortunate.

Another Villawood inmate, N, is all too familiar with the fatal dangers of the journey: after 25 days at sea his ship sank in the middle of the Indian Ocean last November, killing 12 on board.

He was among the 27 who were rescued by a nearby British ship, and arrived in Australia with nothing but his underpants.

"Only one body was recovered," he said, adding that he would never undertake the voyage again. "It was a fight between life and death."

The men, who like other ethnic Tamils were fleeing Sri Lanka's bloody civil conflict, said they were driven only by desperation and had no idea of the horrors of the journey, or that they would be locked up on arrival.

These tales, and thousands like them, often go unheard by Australian voters, whose concern over the dozens of asylum boats arriving each year has returned as a major election issue.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has sought to soothe conservative voters by promising to detain refugees abroad, with East Timor as her preferred destination.

The opposition meanwhile has promised to reinstate the "Pacific Solution" of conservative former leader John Howard, which left refugees including women and children languishing for years in foreign camps and was criticised by the UN.

Afghan refugee Chaman Shah Nasiri is a veteran of the "Pacific Solution", which kept hundreds of his fellow countrymen and women, and children, detained on remote, barren Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.

The ethnic Hazara fled war-torn Afghanistan in 2001, the same year that Howard won elections promising to crack down on people-smuggling after the SIEV-X disaster, when an overloaded boat capsized drowning 353 refugees.

"It was horrible," he told the news agency of his three years in the Nauru camp, after a perilous sea journey from Indonesia with 222 other Hazaras.

"Even if you give me a million dollars I wouldn't do it (again) because I know how hard it is."

Chaman said the detainees were kept in complete isolation behind razor wire, without access to the outside world. Without legal or humanitarian assistance, his pleas for a refugee visa were rejected three times before he became so desperate he resorted to hunger strikes.

"When you are outside Australia anything could happen... You are out of sight, no one would want to find out what would happen," he explained.

"Sitting inside those camps, in limbo where there is no hope, you can't go back, you can't go forward. It tortures you mentally every single day."

"At the end of the day you came to save your family (by sending remittances or bringing them over to join you), but you want to kill yourself," Chaman adds. "It's something not many people would understand."

Sri Lankan Gowri Gowreeswaran, 29, spent months trying to register as a refugee in Malaysia, often shadowed by immigration police, before he paid 1.8 million rupees -- about 16,000 US dollars -- for passage on a crowded boat.

There were 193 people inside the 70-foot craft, and they were told it would take just 18 hours to get to Australia. The voyage lasted 18 nauseating days, in a boat which first lost engine power and then sprung a leak.

"We had no idea whatsoever that Australia had these kinds of systems when we embarked on the boat," he said of his six months locked up on Christmas Island, 2,600 kilometres (1,600 miles) off Australia's west coast.

"We didn't come as thieves or criminals, the only reason is to save our lives."
Behind the fences of Villawood, Punniyamoorthy and his friends long for just one thing: freedom. They have mixed feelings about whether, in hindsight, their ordeal was worth the risk.

"Without a real chance of death I wouldn't recommend anyone to undertake this," said N, a shadow crossing his face as he remembers his fateful ocean voyage. "It's too much."

© Hindustan Times

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Sri Lanka National Catholic Centre demands withdrawal of offending history text books

By Dilanthi Jayamanne | The Island
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The Roman Catholic clergy is reacting in spontaneous protest against the Education Department’s history text books.

National Director for Social Communication, National Catholic Centre for Social Communication, Fr. Benedict Joseph warned of possible religious friction if History text books printed and provided by the Education Department continued to be taught in schools. He urged the President and the Minister of Education to take steps to immediately withdraw these texts which distort and show contempt to the Catholics and their doctrine.

If there are certain references made to religions it should be clarified with the religious leaders of that religion. And those responsible for formulating such important texts should not put forward their viewpoint.

"This is not the way to go about rebuilding and rejuvenating a nation which has suffered from thirty years of war. It is not formula which should be used to make Sri Lanka the ‘miracle of Asia,’ he cautioned. This will only create a rift among religions. Teaching children to regard the Catholic Church and its religious leaders in contempt would only lead to religious discord he warned.

Archdiocesan Director of Education and General Manager of Catholic Schools (WP), Rev. Fr. Ranjith Madurawala said that history had been introduced as one of the main subjects in recent years. The aim of teaching history to school children should be to prepare them for their future while learning from the past. By formulating a subject text with designs to create a religious rift one sees that there is a malicious idea behind the entire endeavour.

The Episcopal Vicar Colombo Southern Region, Rev. Fr. Cyril Gamini Fernando said that religion was not the only fact which formed a history. History is also made of culture, politics and art.

He urged all responsible parties to take immediate steps to withdraw these texts which would only create disharmony and hatred in young minds.

© The Island

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CID on repeat visits to newspaper office

By Leon Berenger | The Sunday Times
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Officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) yesterday visited the “Lanka” newspaper office, at Delkanda, Nugegoda, for the second consecutive day, following a visit on Friday evening. A newspaper spokesperson said the police questioned the editor, Chandana Sirimalwatte, for nearly two hours before leaving at around 9.00 pm.

The police asked to see the newspaper’s business registration and, among other things, demanded personal details of staff, including permanent addresses, contact telephone numbers, previous employment data, and parents’ addresses.

The police said they would call again on Monday, to question the staff individually. They also wanted to confirm the identities of contributors writing under pen names.

Earlier this year, editor Chandana Sirimalwatte was repeatedly questioned by the police over articles published in the “Lanka”. He was also briefly detained at the CID Headquarters, Colombo.

© The Sunday Times

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