By Nira Wickremasingha | The Wall Street Journal
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For a country proud to have maintained civilian democratic rule through the depths of the war, Mr. Rajapaksa's moves are disheartening to say the least. In passing the 18th amendment to the constitution earlier this month, the parliament dominated by his Sri Lanka Freedom Party removed the constitutional two-term limit that had capped presidents at a maximum of 12 years in office. They also abolished the 17th amendment enacted in 2001, which had created a Constitutional Council and independent commissions that the president had to consult when appointing people to high-level government posts. That amendment had been a key check on Sri Lanka's otherwise very powerful executive.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sri Lanka: Rajapaksa makes a move
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sri Lanka bans BBC from covering civil war hearings
BBC News
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For three days, civilians will have the chance to give evidence on life under the Tamil Tigers or LTTE.
The government says the Commission on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation is working to prevent a repeat of the conflict.
A senior defence ministry official said he could not allow the BBC to attend the sittings, due to start on Saturday.
An important part of the commission's work is to meet ordinary Tamil civilians who were displaced by the war and suffered severe trauma, injury or the loss of close family members.
This weekend the panel will travel to Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu - a former Tamil Tiger heartland in the north of the country.
The panel will travel to the lagoon which was the scene of some of the last fighting and across which many people fled from the guerrilla-controlled zone.
Many of the hearings on this trip will be held in public but the defence ministry has rejected an application by BBC News to witness the panel's activities on this leg of their mission.
The military liaison officer declined to give any reasons.
In August, the BBC attended panel hearings in an unrestricted part of the north but was not allowed to attend its meetings in camps with refugees and suspected former rebels.
Sri Lankan government officials regularly accuse journalists, both foreign and domestic, of bias against the administration.
On Monday, a newspaper editor told the commission that he believed such perceptions were made worse by the systematic restrictions on reporters wishing to travel in the north.
© BBC News
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sri Lanka jails ex-army chief Fonseka
By Amal Jayasinghe | Agence France-Presse
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The military court, whose decision must now be ratified by President Mahinda Rajapakse, found that Fonseka favoured an arms company run by his son-in-law, said the official, who asked not to be named.
He was charged on four counts of corrupt purchases for the military.
The conviction came after Fonseka last month was stripped of his rank and pension after another court found him guilty of dabbling in politics while in uniform.
There was no immediate comment from Fonseka's Democratic National Alliance (DNA) party which has maintained that the prosecution of the former four-star general is part of a political vendetta.
State radio said Fonseka could appeal to a civilian court against his three-year jail term.
Fonseka, 59, who led the military to victory over Tamil Tiger rebels in May last year, fell out with the government and unsuccessfully tried to unseat Rajapakse in January polls.
"The chairman of the court read out its decision and it must now be ratified by the president," the official said, adding that the closed-door court would make no formal announcement.
Rajapakse is expected to ratify the decision - seen as a formality - when he returns from the UN General Assembly session this month.
Fonseka's lawyers had refused to make final submissions in the former army chief's defence after accusing the court of serious irregularities.
Fonseka was arrested two weeks after his defeat in the presidential elections and has remained in military custody since. He won a seat in parliamentary elections in April, however, allowing him to attend parliament.
He has said the government is seeking revenge for his decision to stand against the president and to keep him from speaking in parliament.
"They are going to put me in jail and I am prepared for that," Fonseka told reporters in parliament after being escorted by the military from his room in Colombo's naval headquarters to parliament in August.
The first court martial also ordered the withdrawal of the medals he had earned during his 40-year military career and stripped him of his rank and pension.
The general quit the military in November to become an opposition politician, but has since been embroiled in numerous court cases, which he says are being orchestrated by the government.
He faces civilian charges of employing army deserters, as well as revealing state secrets - offences that carry a 20-year jail term.
The 37-year ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka ended in May last year when government forces wiped out the Tamil Tiger separatist group which had fought since 1972 for a Tamil homeland.
The victory boosted the popularity of Rajapakse among the ethnic Sinhalese majority, but the military campaign has since been dogged by war crime allegations which have strained Colombo's relations with former Western allies.
Fonseka angered the government by saying he would willingly testify before any international war crimes tribunal. Rajapakse has vowed to prevent any such probe.
The United Nations estimates that at least 7000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the final months of fighting between government troops and the Tamil Tigers.
© AFP
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sri Lanka lowers blast toll to 25
IANS | Sify News
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The explosives, which were being dispatched for a road construction project, detonated on a truck at the Karadiyanaru police station, 260 km east of Colombo, military spokesman Major General Udaya Medawala said.
'Our initial reports said that at least 60 were killed, but the latest accounts say 25 - consisting of 16 policemen and nine civilians - were killed,' he said.
He said more than 50 people were injured.
Witness accounts said that the damage was extensive, with bodies strewn over a distance of 200 to 300 metres and some still buried under debris.
The explosion occurred when officials of the road construction project came to collect the dynamite from the police station, where the stocks were stored for safety purposes.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Ravi Wijegunawardena said the explosion was accidental and investigations were under way into what caused the detonation.
However, police chief Mahinda Balasuriya, accompanied by a team of officials from the Criminal Investigations Department, were flown into the area to carry out investigations.
A police officer at the scene said the blast levelled the buildings in the police compound.
'We do not know how the explosion went off, but it seemed that it was triggered in one of the trucks, immediately setting off the explosions in the other containers as well,' the officer said.
A civilian who escaped the blast said that there were others who were at the police station to deal with routine matters at the time of the blast.
'I called over at the police station to collect a police report and was told I had to wait for another hour. I went out of the compound to have a cup of tea when the blast went off. I escaped, but some others who came with me were not so lucky,' Thangavelu Ravindran said.
He said that bodies were still under the walls of the buildings and the police and villagers were trying to get them out.
Forty-seven people injured in the blast were admitted to two hospitals in the eastern district of Batticaloa while four others were transferred to Colombo for treatment.
The country's Eastern Province has been calm since government troops recaptured the area from Tamil separatist rebels in 2008. Government troops then went on to defeat the rebels in their northern stronghold.
Major reconstruction projects in Eastern Province, including roads, have got under way after the return of peace to the area.
© Sify.com
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