Getting away with murder in Colombo

Eric Ellis
June 23, 2011

An unnamed woman by Tamil Tiger war graves. Photo: Matt Wade

WHEN governments kill the people they are mandated to protect and help prosper, what is the world's tipping point for outrage? How horrific must despotism be to compel the ''international community'' to pursue and prosecute national leaders whose regimes commit war crimes?
In the Bosnian war of the 1990s, it was incontestable; Srebrenica, the largest mass murder in Europe since the Holocaust, a massacre directly witnessed by the very international peacekeepers deployed to stop it. Two Serb leaders, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are on trial in The Hague, the evidence against them overwhelming.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/getting-away-with-murder-in-colombo-20110622-1gfan.html#ixzz1Q2Ia7Bwk
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One retired Chief Justice turns to monkhood while another returns to advise a kleptocracy

LANKA Independent

 By Uvindu Kurukulasuriya | Published on June 21, 2011

If you hear that a former Chief Justice has became a Buddhist monk, your first thought may perhaps turn to the former Chief Justive of Sri Lanka Sarath Nanda Silva. Chief Justice Silva while a sitting judge thought nothing of preaching Buddhism on national television. Not only that he openly claimed Sri Lanka to be a Sinhala Buddhist country. Chief Justice Sarath N Silva was also a friend of President Mahinda Rajapakse. Many years ago, Silva’s young son was even among Mahinda Rajapakse’s wedding entourage as a page boy.

Former Chief Justice Asoka De Silva receives his appointment letter as Senior Legal Advisor to the President from President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees. Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga is also in the picture. Photo by Nalin Hewapathirana

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Sri Lanka regime rejects press freedom bill

– Tue Jun 21 

Members of the Sri Lankan media participate in a silent protest outside a court in Kaduwela, a suburb … 
 

– Tue Jun 21, 1:47 pm ET

COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka's ruling party used its parliamentary majority Tuesday to defeat an opposition-initiated bill to grant greater media freedom, a parliamentary official said.
President Mahinda Rajapakse's United People's Freedom Alliance, which enjoys a two-thirds majority in the 225-member assembly, shot down the Freedom of Information Bill presented by an opposition lawmaker, an official said.
"The combined opposition voted for the bill, but the government overwhelmingly voted against it," the official said citing Tuesday's proceedings in the legislature.
There was no immediate comment from the government which maintains a state of emergency which gives sweeping powers to police and security forces to detain suspects for long periods.
The opposition had presented the bill after accusing the government of trying to stifle media freedom in a country where 17 journalists and media employees have been killed in the past decade.
There is no formal censorship in Sri Lanka, but rights groups say many privately-run media institutions are self-censoring for fear of intimidation from the authorities.
Opposition parties accuse the government of maintaining emergency laws, even two years after security forces crushed Tamil Tiger separatists in May 2009, to suppress political opponents.