Political justice is not enough to rebuild Sri Lanka

* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

For Sri Lanka, gender equity will be fundamental to a stable, peaceful and equitable future

by Timothy Ryan-Wednesday, 28 September 2016

The civil war that raged for 26 years in Sri Lanka was always about more than political grievances. The politics were rooted in economic and social disenfranchisement of the Tamil minority by the Sinhala majority. A government policy adopted in the mid-1950s that declared Sinhala to be the country’s only official language may have been the spark that started the fire, but the impact over decades was a systemic marginalization in all sectors of politics and the economy that fueled Tamil grievances and a quest for a separate state.

With the end of the war in 2009, many commentators pointed out that the war was over but the conflict was not. While this has become a cliché, the reality is no less true, seven years on. Rebuilding Sri Lanka's economy, especially in the war-torn Northern and Eastern provinces, is paramount for the country not only to thrive politically but also economically. The language policy, long since rescinded, institutionalized both economic and political discrimination.

A healthy, more equitable economy is key to any society emerging from a war as bitter as Sri Lanka experienced, and is crucial to mitigating future conflict. A critical element to address discord is equal treatment under the law. Yet there is rising concern that, across a broad range of issues, this equality has yet to be realized. Women in any society are intrinsic to a vibrant economy and important stakeholders in post-conflict transitions. For Sri Lanka, gender equity will be fundamental to a stable, peaceful and equitable future.

A recent study by the Solidarity Center titled, "Workers in Post-Civil War Jaffna: A Snapshot of Working Conditions, Opportunities and Inequalities in Northern Sri Lanka," points out the challenge not only to providing opportunities to grow the economy but also to promoting the basic labor rights that are essential to a well-functioning industrial relations atmosphere and a sense of equitable development.

For instance, here are some telling findings: In Jaffna, 81 percent of workers across a range of professions have no written contract spelling out their working conditions, much less have an opportunity to engage in collective bargaining. Even more workers, 85 percent, were not aware there was a legally stipulated minimum wage, which in Jaffna is now 10,000 Sri Lanka rupees, or only about $69 a month.

Not surprisingly, widespread wage discrimination is disadvantaging women in the region.  Survey results demonstrate that the region’s female workforce experiences gender-specific consequences born of poor working conditions, weak enforcement of legal provisions and non-conformity with international labor standards.  Nisha Thellipalai, a volunteer at the Center for Human Rights and Development, a Sri Lankan nongovernmental organization, recounted one survey interviewee’s report that she “responded to a job advertisement which exclusively solicited female respondents. The tasks in the advertisement were not for traditionally gendered work, but the employer replied matter-of-factly that they would only hire women because women don’t have to be paid as much as men.”

The survey also found that 81 percent of workers work more than five days a week, in violation of national law, and the majority of people working extra hours were women.

Sri Lanka is one of the rare developing countries in the region that has had in place, by law, a pension and social safety net for workers. These two funds are called the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) and the Employee Trust Fund (ETF), and employers are statutorily obligated to contribute to both. The study in Jaffna revealed that for more than two-thirds of workers, their employers are simply not paying into the funds.

This set of conditions in Jaffna, and by extension the Northern Province, creates an incredibly precarious situation for workers who are hoping to earn a livelihood that can sustain them and support their future. It also points to the distinction between enforcement and equal treatment under the law for the north and other parts of the country. While implementation of the labor code is problematic countrywide, unions outside of the north and east have a tradition of challenging employers and the government in court to ensure the law is fairly applied and provides some measure of remedy. But despite having island-wide unions in the public sector—for the postal service, telecommunications and health sectors—workers in the north and east still seem to lose.  Union activists point to unequal distribution of funding for the public sector, effectively disadvantaging government services for the population.

The remedies are not difficult to identify, as outlined by the report.

First, trade unions, NGOs and international development partners can play a pivotal role in sensitizing the government and business community to their obligations under national and international labor standards, while also raising awareness among workers about their rights. Second, support for unions to conduct worker outreach, which had been severely curtailed during the war, will improve the effectiveness of dialogue among workers, employers and government.

Third, the Sri Lankan government should fully adopt and promulgate the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Decent Work Agenda to promote inclusive growth, poverty alleviation, shared prosperity and basic minimum standards of living. The Decent Work agenda is obligatory for ILO member countries such as Sri Lanka. And that is no accident: The ILO was founded, following World War I, “to pursue a vision based on the premise that universal, lasting peace can be established only if it is based on social justice." The agenda is all the more important because its elements are fundamental to lasting peace and stability in the country.

Finally, given the wage and hour disparities between male and female workers, trade unions, NGOs, and international partners should pay particular attention to raising rights awareness among women workers and support targeted outreach to women who can become leaders in gender equality and non-discrimination against all workers.

“After the survey I learned a lot that I did not know before,” said Sritharan Easwari, president of the Northern Women Society, who helped conduct the survey. “We all hear about injustice and exploitation at the workplace, but it is deeper than that. Myself and other women believe that these women’s issues in the workplace can be tackled effectively by forming a union. These problems can be solved if we work together.”

 Tim Ryan is Solidarity Center Asia director.

Office Of Missing Persons Sri Lanka: Deceptive & Futile

By Thambu Kanagasabai –September 30, 2016

Thambu Kanagasabai

The Office of the Missing Persons [OMP] expected to function shortly has been welcomed as a positive step from various quarters towards reconciliation after the war. However, a close scrutiny and analysis of the legislation governing it reveals the deception and futility underlying most of the provisions in The Act.

Sri Lanka ranks second in the list of countries after Iraq to record the largest number of disappearances with unofficial estimated numbers of about 90,000 since 1980s. Out of these disappearances, enforced or involuntary disappearances are reported to be around 65,000.

Enforced Disappearances always involve state officials and/or security forces. They happen when a person is illegally arrested and detained in undisclosed centres where torture and other ill-treatment including killing and disposal of the dead takes place. The arrest and detention is carried out violating all rules and procedures including court process.

The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, [WGEID c/oOHCHR] in its report on July 08, 2016 after staying in Sri Lanka from 09 – 18 November 2015, has plainly made the following damning statement: “Enforced disappearances have been used in a massive and systematic way in Sri Lanka for many decades to suppress political dissent, counter-terrorism activities or in internal conflicts and many enforced disappearances could be considered as war crimes or crimes against humanity if addressed in a court of law.” The UN working Group received 12,000 cases of enforced disappearance related to Janatha Vimukkti Perumuna [JVP] uprisings and during the armed conflict between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE} and the Sri Lankan government forces from 1980 to 2010.

File photo

Missing Persons include those who are arrested, or surrendered or summoned for inquiry and detained by the security forces during the war. These persons finally suffer disappearances mostly by killing and are generally untraceable. About 19,000 persons were reported to the Paranagama Commission as confirmed missing.

The Sri Lanka parliament passed the Office of the Mission Persons Act No. 14 of 2016, coming into effect from 26th August 2016, the government introducing the Bill in accordance with an undertaking given under the UNHRC resolution of October 01, 2015.

Due to international pressure and United Nations concerns over the hither to unresolved cases of enforced disappearances and missing persons, the Office of the Missing Persons Bill was passed in undue haste, ignoring the protests and concerns of affected parties who demanded prior consultation and consideration of their input as called for in the UNHRC Resolution in October 2015.

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‘Eluga Tamil’ and the constitutional litmus test

Friday, 30 September 2016

• Nationalists are mobilising in the North and the South against a constitution building process that will soon step out of the shadows

In an ironic twist, last Saturday marked an epoch in the lifespan of two nationalist movements in the island’s north and south.

In the capital Colombo, the Jathika Hela Urumaya used its 13th National Convention at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium to shed its saffron image, with Omalpe Sobitha Thero stepping down as party leader. When it first won seats in the 2004 parliamentary elections, the JHU was a party dominated by monks who rode a wave of sympathy in the wake of Soma Thero’s death in 2003. Rabidly nationalist in the first 10 years of its existence, the JHU began a process of political evolution in 2014, when it backed the common candidacy of Maithripala Sirisena against Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose presidency had afforded them ministerial positions and driven their ideology into the political mainstream.

Over the past year as it ruled in coalition with the UNP, a party it has consistently been at cross purposes with, the JHU has been in quiet transformation. The Sinhala nationalist party has softened its positions on the ethnic question and even accountability. In August, the party sent a senior representative to an event to commemorate victims of enforced disappearances, who hailed the recent passage of the Office of Missing Persons Act. Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe said that while the JHU believed that the past was best forgotten, the party understood that families of the missing from all ethnic communities would feel differently.

At its convention last Saturday (24), the JHU appointed Deputy Minister Karunaratne Paranavithana co-chairman of its party, to further bolster its progressive credentials.

With the exit of Theros Omalpe Sobitha and Athuraliye Rathana, the JHU is now within the decisive control of the party’s strongman and Presidential confidant Champika Ranawaka. For some time now, the suave and articulate JHU politician has been fashioning himself as a ‘pragmatist nationalist’, setting himself apart from the pro-Rajapaksa bandwagon and Sinhala chauvinist groups like the Bodu Bala Sena and Ravana Balaya. It has long been suspected that Minister Ranawaka harbours lofty political ambitions, and that this recent shift towards centrist politics is part of a larger strategy to make give him broader political appeal.

Less clear is whether the JHU General Secretary has truly shed his ultra-nationalist ideology as he embarks upon this political transformation, or whether those inclinations will remain dormant until he wields effective control over the state apparatus one day.

Champika and the constitution 

The timing of his reinvention is interesting, with political parties in hectic negotiations to hammer out a deal on the new constitution. A key facet of those negotiations is devolution, or power sharing proposals aimed at resolving an ethnic conflict that has spanned 60 years.

Minister Ranawaka is part of the 21-member steering committee that will ultimately present the new constitutional proposals to the Constitutional Assembly that was established by resolution of Parliament earlier this year. If he opposes the new arrangements being proposed, Ranawaka will no doubt use the lobbying power he enjoys with the most senior sections of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration to dilute a power sharing deal or overly enthusiastic proposals to abolish the presidency, which the JHU has historically never favoured. In this endeavour he will prove more effective than the Rajapaksa lobby which is fairly certain to oppose the new proposals tooth and nail.

Ranawaka will seek to influence the process as a powerful insider, by using his access to President Maithripala Sirisena. To make President Sirisena waver on the more problematic parts of the new constitutional proposals, would put the support of the SLFP for the new draft in question almost immediately. Without SLFP support, the draft constitutional proposals will not cross the two-thirds majority hurdle at the Constitutional Assembly in the first instance and will result in the dissolution of the Assembly and mark the end of the road in this attempt to finally set things right, 68 years after independence.

On the other hand, if the JHU in its fresh avatar backs the draft constitutional proposals, power sharing arrangements and all, its evolution would be complete and Ranawaka’s launching pad for the next phase of his political career, as the less severe nationalist alternative to the Rajapaksa coterie, will be ready.

Northern dimension

In the North the ongoing deliberations on a new constitution have also provoked a response. Last Saturday, the Tamil People’s Council (TPC) under the chairmanship of Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran held the Eluga Tamil (Rise Tamil) rally, which was aimed at raising awareness about ongoing militarisation, state-sponsored Sinhala ‘colonisation’ of the North, the need for an international investigation into wartime atrocities committed against the Tamil people, the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and a political solution based on a federal model.

The rally was backed heavily by the Tamil National People’s Front led by Gajen Ponnambalam, TNA constituent parties EPRLF led by Suresh Premachandran and PLOTE led by Dharmalingam Siddharthan, and also received tacit support in the run up to the event from Douglas Devananda’s EPDP. 

Mobilising for weeks, these parties managed to bring large crowds on to the streets of Jaffna, where organisers asked shops and businesses to shut down to allow people to participate in the demonstration. Thousands of Tamils marched through the streets of Jaffna to a park in Muttraveli for a public meeting. In what appeared to be a deliberate twist, the meeting reflected the mood and décor of the Pongu Tamil (Awaken Tamil) celebrations organised by the LTTE between 2001 and 2004.

Rallying point

For most of the organisers the Eluga Tamil rally last weekend was meant to be a rallying point for Tamils of the North, irrespective of political affiliation. The idea was to muster a large enough crowd to ensure Colombo and Tamil representatives negotiating on their behalf on issues including transitional justice and the constitution with the Government in the capital, sat up and took notice. The mass mobilisation worked and even by conservative estimates the rally drew a crowd of more than 8,000 people, a significant number in the electoral district of some 500,000 registered voters.

To draw crowds in Jaffna, the TPC and its allies had to ensure they did not take a hard line against the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), the largest party in the TNA. In the August 2015 parliamentary election, ITAK polled nearly 70% of the vote in the five districts of the North. According to Tamil political analysts, any indication that the rally was part of an attempt to split the TNA would have jeopardised the organisers’ chances of drawing public support for the rally. Rather the TPC and fellow organisers were tapping into the sections of the community that supported a pan-Tamil unity position to lobby Colombo on the issues concerning Northern Tamils. For this reason, many of the speakers who took the stage, including Chief Minister Wigneswaran, who remains a member of ITAK even though he opposes many of the party’s positions, steered clear of attacking the TNA leadership for not backing the rally and took pains to explain that the demonstration was not an attack on ITAK or the TNA leadership.

Political observers explained this softer approach with the argument that keeping the TNA together was an important value in Tamil politics and none of the parties on the Eluga Tamil dais wanted to be responsible for promoting a split in the alliance.

Standing under an umbrella as he delivered his speech at the rally last Saturday, the Chief Minister said their differences with the TNA were “minimal”, explaining that their disagreements were mostly about timing.

A question of timing

For some time now, Wigneswaran has argued that the constitutional process to deliver a political settlement could not come before accountability had been effectively addressed. The assertion laid bare a sharp division within the TNA, with party leader R. Sampanthan promising the Tamil people on the campaign trail in August 2015 that they hoped for a negotiated settlement on Tamil rights and political autonomy before the end of 2016.

The Chief Minister has changed tack somewhat, now arguing that it was impossible to hold meaningful negotiations on the constitution until the North was completely demilitarised and the Prevention of Terrorism Act repealed. Much of the subtext of the Eluga Tamil speeches laid emphasis on the constitution-making process. Speakers at the rally called the process secretive and warned that the Tamils would not know what proposals were being negotiated until the last moment.

The message emerging from the rally and its specific timing speaks to a section of the Tamil polity led by and backing the Chief Minister getting increasingly jittery as lawmakers in Colombo get closer to reaching consensus on draft constitutional proposals that will offer a political solution to longstanding Tamil grievances. The provocative nature of the slogans used to promote the demonstration – specifically the decision to lead with claims of Sinhala colonisation and the erection of Buddha statues – created the impression that Eluga Tamil’s true aim was to disrupt a delicate process of reconciliation and constitution-making by rousing nationalist sentiment in the South.

While most of the process of negotiation on the draft constitution has taken place in the shadows, it is now widely expected that the Steering Committee led by the Prime Minister will present its Interim Report to the Constitutional Assembly by November this year. While draft constitutional proposals could be appended to the Interim Report by this Committee as set out in the resolution passed by Parliament in March this year, it is more likely that the report will set out the broad framework of the new constitution, including the contours of the devolution proposals.

Once the broad contours of the power sharing arrangements are laid out, the TNA will go back to the people in the North and East to explain that as Sampanthan promised in 2015, the process is now in motion.

Political relevance

Naturally, this would put the Chief Minister-led TPC in a bind as it struggles to discredit the TNA for its ‘disconnect’ with the issues of people on the ground in the Tamil dominated regions.  In the year since the TNA swept the parliamentary polls in the north, the charge by the party’s political opponents, and increasingly its own Chief Minister, is that the Tamil party’s Colombo-based lawmakers had lost touch with the growing resentment and frustration of the Northern people.

This argument would be turned on its head should the TNA campaign in favour of the new constitutional proposals and return a ‘yes’ vote with a fairly large majority in the North and the East. And the underlying reality in the aftermath of the Eluga Tamil rally is that the alliance will begin to disintegrate at the very inception of an electoral or referendum process. The TPC remains an unelected body with no popular mandate. The TNPF led by Ponnambalam failed to win a single seat in the 2015 parliamentary election, polling slightly lower than even the wildly unpopular UPFA in the North. EPRLF is led by Premachandran, who was also defeated in the August 2015 election. That leaves PLOTE and Siddharthan, who will almost certainly back the TNA in any electoral contest, not only because his electoral fortunes lie with the Tamil alliance but also because he is a believer in the process Sampanthan has put in motion, as the only chance at a political settlement for the next 20-30 years.

Under the circumstances, it is extremely unlikely that even the TPC will oppose the new constitutional proposals outright at a referendum, where it is almost certain to be roundly defeated. To lead a ‘no campaign’ on the constitutional referendum would be to pit itself directly against the TNA and the electoral powerhouse in the North that is ITAK, and in this the Chief Minister for all his heroics as the true saviour of the Tamil people will be vulnerable without a party machinery to back his position.

Nevertheless, the Eluga Tamil demonstration caused consternation in moderate Tamil circles, where it was seen as a culmination of extreme Tamil nationalism that has been sweeping across the North over the past few years. Gajen Ponnambalam’s hardline TNPF, which has been attempting to capture the political space in the North since the end of the war, the Tamil Civil Society Forum, which claims to be apolitical but pushes an extreme nationalist agenda and constituent members of the TNA like the EPRLF that want the party to adopt tougher positions, have found a home with the Tamil People’s Council led by the Chief Minister. The protection of Chief Minister Wigneswaran, who won a thumping mandate from the Tamil people in 2013, offers these politicians, who have failed badly at recent elections, a space to create a political forum for themselves, says Political Economist and researcher Ahilan Kadirgamar.

Together, none of the parties backing the Chief Minister were able to win a single seat in Parliament, Kadirgamar says, indicating that they do not have much support from the people. “Their electoral base is very thin – comprising mostly of the professional classes within Jaffna and the Jaffna-based media. As a result, they are projected in a much bigger way than they really are. This is largely as a result of their control of the local media which is generally supportive of them,” Kadirgamar said.

Together these forces constitute a type of middle class base for the TPC that the Tamil Diaspora relates to, he explained.

Support for the rally was also largely concentrated in the peninsula other observers said, with very little interest in Eluga Tamil in the Wanni and the Eastern Province.

Leverage in negotiations?

Chief Minister Wigneswaran and his fellow travellers may believe that mass demonstrations to raise awareness and hype about the mostly legitimate concerns of Northern Tamils will give Tamil political representatives leverage in their negotiations on devolution and accountability with Colombo. But reactions to the demonstration in the South have been predictably severe.

Almost one week after the rally, Wigneswaran’s statements continue to dominate the headlines, with nearly every political party in the South strongly opposing his positions and condemning the Chief Minister for trying to create ethnic tension. Far from strengthening the TNA’s bargaining position then, Eluga Tamil has pushed even progressive sections of the Government that are sincere about delivering a political solution into a corner, forcing them to take positions against demilitarisation and federalism; greatly diminishing the chances of hammering out a meaningful power sharing arrangement that will address minority grievances especially in the North and East.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister’s antics have unleashed a wave of nationalist hysteria in the North that will need to find an outlet.

Something very similar happened in Vaddukodai in May 1976. When moderate Tamil leaders led by S.V.J. Chelvanayakam and Appapillai Amirthalingam adopted the Vaddukoddai Resolution at the first Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) national convention, calling for the constitution of the separate sovereign state of ‘Tamil Eelam’, a Tamil youth insurgency was already on the rise. The resolution was also intended to be a clarion call to young Tamils. Youthful passions, already stirred by liberation struggles for statehood in other parts of the world in that era, found impetus in the Vaddukoddai resolution which called on the Tamil youth in particular to “come forward to throw themselves fully in the sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not till the goal of a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam is reached”. The resolution led to the launch of the Tamil militant struggle; a struggle that now had the blessings of the elder statesmen of the Tamil polity.

At the time, TULF leaders may have believed the militant youth insurgency in the North could be effectively used as leverage for negotiations on greater self-rule for the Tamil dominated provinces with Colombo. What transpired of course was a markedly different story. The militancy intensified. Prabhakaran’s LTTE would violently wipe out or subsume all other militant groups to become the main Tamil guerrilla group fighting Government forces. As the organisation grew increasingly brutal, Tamil political moderates became their first targets for assassination. One by one, the LTTE wiped out the Tamil political leadership, nearly all of them erudite cultured statesmen whose brilliantly articulated arguments for Tamil political rights were silenced by a far more brutal negotiator, one who perceived the moderates to be conceding too much.

After Vaddukoddai, the ‘boys’ Tamil political leaders had nurtured and inspired by their fiery rhetoric and impassioned appeals would silence the community’s moderates for three decades. Only once the LTTE was finished could the renaissance begin for moderate Tamil leadership. Sampanthan, who has watched the Tamil struggle come full circle, has decided to trust that moderate positions will win the day. He knows, perhaps better than anyone else alive today, what devastation the inflaming of passions in the North by movements like Eluga Tamil can bring.

Strange parallels

For independent researchers like Ahilan Kadirgamar, these parallels seem clear. Until last Saturday, the extreme nationalism taking shape in the North had been limited to rhetoric and resolutions in the Northern Provincial Council. Kadirgamar says the move to bring people on to the streets the way the Eluga Tamil demonstration did, allows the right wing political movement to take on a different dynamic.

In the Northern Province, where unemployment rates are high and alcoholism rampant, young people are constantly seeking an alternative political movement to engage with. Kadirgamar says the inability to offer an alternative socio-political vision to engage the youth is an abysmal failure on the part of the TNA and ITAK or the Federal Party.

“When you take 8,000 people on to the streets, it gives a message to the youth. This is worrying because this group has no strategy or game plan going forward but it is mobilising street protests. By failing to give proper direction to the youth you are unleashing something you can’t control,” Kadirgamar told Daily FT.

In addition to fuelling extreme Tamil nationalism, Kadirgamar says movements like Eluga Tamil led by the TPC also create anti-Muslim and anti-Sinhala feeling among the population and takes away from the possibility of rebuilding relations between the communities.

And quite clearly when such sentiments and movements take root in the North it strengthens Sinhala chauvinists in the island’s south.

Today, the Bodu Bala Sena will rally in Vavuniya, where a significant Sinhalese population is resident, to oppose positions taken by Wigneswaran last Saturday, particularly those that target the Sinhalese minority living in the Northern Province. Bodu Bala Sena rallies, recent history has demonstrated, have a tendency to go badly awry. Some political observers predicted the development soon after the Eluga Tamil rally last weekend.

“Sinhalese nationalists and Tamil nationalists are friends. They are objective allies. They need each other,” says Kadirgamar.

Researchers like Kadirgamar blame the TNA/ITAK and the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe led Colombo establishment for failing to use the political space that has opened up since the fall of the Rajapaksa regime. Rather than create a discourse and debate about reconciliation and a political solution in the North, the issues are limited to a group of experts negotiating in Colombo, the Political Economist told Daily FT.

The entire focus in Colombo is the prevention of a Rajapaksa resurgence, says Kadirgamar. Even Government members admit that fears that extreme Sinhalese nationalists led by Rajapaksa will scuttle the process to bring about peace between the communities and a political solution to end decades of ethnic strife, has driven the constitution-making and reconciliation processes into the shadows.

Kadirgamar says this is an ineffective strategy.

“It’s leaving the space wide open for extremists to capture and tap into resentment and frustration,” he said.

Over the next few months, Sri Lanka will step into a crucial phase of its constitution building process. For the better part of six months that process has flown under the radar but barring any complications details of the negotiations will be made clear within the next two to four months.

The TNA is confident it will win support for the proposals it has played a major role in negotiating in a referendum. If the national coalition of the SLFP and the UNP hold, it should be able to carry the south.

Nationalist mobilisation in the north and the south is a reaction to these developments. A settlement on the national question will threaten the political survival of both groups, so nationalist movements on both sides of the ethnic divide will launch a virtually suicidal fight to the death to scuttle the enactment of a new constitution.

The most sustainable solution moderates in the north and the south can offer to counter this devastating brand of politics taking shape in post-war Sri Lanka is a constitution that upholds the rights of minorities and marginalised groups, effectively decentralises political power and delivers equality and social justice for all.

Is something wrong with Sri Lanka’s ‘disciplinary’ entities?



2016-09-30

We refer to the article titled “Colombo International Financial City - Can Sri Lanka prevent money laundering?” authored by Mr. Amrit Muttukumaru which appeared on the September 15, 2016 issue of the .   

Mr. Muttukumaru, whose unflagging efforts to expose various instances of large-scale corruption are greatly admired by us, inter alia, stated in his article: “It is baffling why even those purportedly fighting corruption such as the Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance and its President Dr. A.C. Visvalingam, steer clear of naming, shaming and demanding accountability from the Partners concerned with PwC and Ernst & Young, faulted for grave professional misconduct by the Supreme Court, the Parliament’s watchdog COPE, the Attorney General and CA Ethics Committee itself in the scandalous SLIC privatization”.

The resolution of this apparent mystery is to be found right there in what he has written! If the four “disciplinary” entities referred to by him, with the vast powers that they possess under the law and their own rules of engagement do not take any action, we have to concede the obvious, namely that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Sri Lankan State and many of its principal institutions. It stands to reason that the proper functioning of these entities would have to be achieved first, if instances of corruption and other ills are to be pursued effectively by the public.   

We are convinced that we shall not be able to make a significant impact, unless as a basic step, we get ourselves a Constitution that incorporates a logically-derived electoral system to enable the people to screen potential election candidates right at the outset, so as to forestall political parties from nominating an unconscionable number of ill-educated, grossly crooked and foul-mouthed characters to seek public office. There is no sign that any such provision will be built in.


From the few hints that have been given, it was feared that the proposed new Constitution would contain a “supreme” Parliament and a Prime Minister, who would exercise as much or even more power so that Parliamentarians can formulate or amend laws to give themselves more and more rewards from the public purse, even though far too many of them attend to Parliamentary business only when their own personal commitments permit.    It also appears that ultimate judicial power will be retained by Parliament and flow from there to a Judiciary that would thus effectively become subservient to the Legislature. There will be no definitive provision to maximize the separation of powers between the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary, which in our view, is a compulsory requirement if we are to eliminate the cancer of corruption that has taken such a strong hold in this country - from the lowest employee to the highest echelons of every institution.   


Without encroaching any further on the space available in your columns, we should like to take this opportunity of reassuring Mr. Muttukumaru that as far back as June 2008, we earnestly called upon the Organization of Professional Associations and the general body of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) to apply pressure on the Executive Council and the Ethics Committee of the ICASL to investigate the conduct of the ICASL’s senior members and clear the good name of this important professional body. (www.cimogg-srilanka.org) But neither institution has to our knowledge, done anything concrete in this regard.    - See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/116620/Is-something-wrong-with-Sri-Lanka-s-disciplinary-entities-#sthash.4fRAbzGf.dpuf

Dr A.C. Visvalingam    

President, Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance (CIMOGG)  

  [acvisva@gmail.com]   

The Appalling Decline In National Unity, Good Governance & Sustainable Development Process In ‘Democratic Socialist’ Sri Lanka

By S. Narapalasingam –September 29, 2016

Dr. S. Narapalasingam

The national elections held last year focussed mainly on the deteriorated governing system and did not raise subjective matters aggravating the protracted ethnic issue, which has caused enormous losses to the people and the nation since independence. Unfortunately, some opposed to the National Unity government seem keen on treading along the old nationally divisive path, fuelling the ethnic issue for their own political benefit. They also seem to be keen on ousting the National Unity government committed to national unity and good governance for regaining the lost power. The nationally damaging ways to gain power seem to exist with the power hungry politicians, despite the costly damage done in the past.

The underlying fact is, the ‘divide and rule’ scheme which became a handy way to gain the votes of the Sinhala masses crucial for winning countrywide elections laid the grounds for the colossal damage done to all communities since independence. A different system that safeguards the unity and the fundamental rights of all communities and citizens is essential, if the post-war country is to progress steadfastly for the benefit of all citizens in the 9 provinces.

Past nationally damaging developments even after the protracted internal war ended in 2009 influenced the formation of the present National Unity Government with the two main political parties (UNP and SLFP) as equal partners committed to national unity, real democracy, rule of law, good governance and sustainable development of the entire nation. These noble and overdue aims are discernible from the pronouncements of the current leaders of the two main political parties, which for the first time have joined as equal partners in the noble task of building a promising united Sri Lanka, the shared homeland of the diverse ethnic communities living in different parts of the island since ancient time.

Both the Sinhalese and Tamils have their ancestral roots in India and the Sinhala language not used elsewhere is also a derivative of combined ancient Indian languages. It is irrelevant, who settled first in the island for a political system to function democratically without any racial discrimination safeguarding national unity and promoting social and economic development in the entire country. If Sri Lanka is really a Buddhist country, Buddhist philosophy should also influence the governing ways. Unfortunately, what happened in the past, despite giving prominence to Buddhism in the island’s constitution is totally different.

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Health ministry listen to heart and lung transplant observers

Sep 29, 2016

Ministry of health have agreed to the demands sought by the society of Heart and Lung transplant employees at Colombo,Karapitiya and Kandy hospitals for engaged in strikes  by  abruptly stopping urgent heart and lung operations that had been scheduled.

Currently the minister of health Dr Rajitha Senaratne is on an overseas tour. After his return arrangements have been made to have talks with the related employees in order to grant their demands.This has been revealed by the officials of the ministry of health.
 
In this connection the director general of health services had addressed a letter to the related authorities of the heart and lung transplant employees society.Before the demands are given he had insisted on an agreement that the strike would be called off.
 
The members of the society of heart and lung transplant society in the Colombo.Karapitiya and Kandy hospitals have requested many demands including salary anomalies anticipating which the heart and lung  transplant observers have struck work.

ARMY GOES BACK ON ITS WORD IN COURT ON LTTE SURRENDEES LIST

( In front of Mullaitivu Magistrate’s Court; Ceylon News photo)

29/09/2016

Sri Lanka Army has contradicted its own admission in a Court with regard to the list of names of Tamil Tiger rebels, who had surrendered to the army during the final few days of the war in May 2009 and gone missing since then.

Major General Chanayaka Gunawardena, the General Officer Commanding of the Army’s 58th Division continued to give evidence on Thursday, when the writ of habeas corpus filed by Northern Provincial Councillor Ananthy Sathisaran, the wife former LTTE political commissar Sinnathurai Sasitharan, and four others was taken up for hearing by the Mullaitivu Magistrate’s Court.

Maj.Gen Gunawardena, who during the hearing on February 17, 2016, admitted in the same Court that the army was in possession of a list of people who surrendered in the final three days of the war, has denied existence of any such list on Thursday.

Lawyer K.S Ratnavel, who represents the interest of the victims said that Maj.Gen Gunawardena had in fact submitted a document which was later found to be the list of persons who had been rehabilitated and integrated into the society and that document had been prepared by Commissioner General of Rehabilitation.

“Today he was confronted with that and he flatly denied there is any contemporaneous document. This contradicts his earlier statement to the Court,” Lawyer Ratnavel said.

“So, at the moment, the army has gone back on its word that they will submit the record which has the named and details of those surrendered,” he said, adding that the Court now has to furnish a report about the inquiry and submit it to the Vavuniya High Court.

Next date of hearing for this case is November 22 and both parties will make written submissions.

Altogether 12 cases were referred to the Mullaitivu Magistrate Court, of which five have now been concluded. The inquiry into the seven set of cases is expected to begin in due course.

Several hundreds of LTTE cadres, and several thousands of Tamil civilians, handed themselves to the army’s 58 Division during the final days of the war. But the fate of many those surrendered remain unknown even seven years after the end of the war.

by Chanakaya Gunaratne /Ceylon News

Getting beyond the rhetoric on education and skills sector reform 

Friday, 30 September 2016

Annually, the World Economic Forum ranks countries in the Global Competitiveness Index — a decent gauge of which nations are best positioned to squeeze efficiency out of their businesses and to attract companies and investment from overseas. But if you look beyond the index and examine what countries are actually doing to earn their rankings, the bigger take-away is that the quality of workforce skills is inextricably linked to economic development.

To a great extent, Sri Lanka has yet to reach its full potential in the new knowledge-service based economy. To do that, we must continue to recognise the importance of building upon existing industries that offer potential for future economic growth. Tourism, technology related services for example, holds tremendous promise, but the lack of skills in those sectors would be an impediment to the growth of the industry. But if we are to succeed as an emerging economy, Sri Lanka must achieve a balance between a manufacturing-based economy and one driven by knowledge, services, ideas, information and technology. The importance of this pivotal change cannot be overstated.

As compared to other countries, our current level of competitiveness is relatively low. But the opportunities before us are limited only by our imagination and our willingness to transform our imagination into reality. The task at hand therefore for our policy makers are very challenging. Whether for reasons of economic growth, competitiveness, inclusiveness or return on tax-payer investment, there is little rational argument over the need for significant changes in Sri Lanka educational outcomes. To bring about the required changes to the economy, would however require policy makers who see the future rather than those who live in the past and have failed miserably before. What we need is a set of people who have the skills and behaviours needed to get things done.

Limited improvement 

It is irrefutable that the country has made limited improvement on most educational outcomes over the last several decades, especially when considered in the context of the increased investment over the same period. In fact, the total cost of producing each successful university graduate has increased substantially over time however, the quality of most of our graduates have declined significantly. Therefore, education not only needs new ideas and inventions that shatter the performance expectations of today’s status quo.

To make a meaningful impact, these new solutions must also “scale up”, that is, grow large enough, to support hundreds of students and teachers or large portions of specific under-served populations. True educational innovations would be those products, processes, strategies and interventions that improve significantly upon the status quo and reach scale. Yet, we traditionally have lacked the discipline, infrastructure, and incentives to systematically identify breakthroughs, vet them and support their broad adoption. To achieve our objectives, larger funding streams will need to drive the identification, evaluation, and adoption of effective educational innovations.

Transforming our economy

Much of the burden of transforming our economy will fall squarely upon the shoulders of our policy makers. The transformation to take root will require our schools, colleges and universities to provide expertise, experience and leadership in these four key areas:

1. Workforce development, arming graduates with the knowledge necessary for today’s service driven economy

2. Strategic partnerships between higher education and industry that will lead to private sector expansion

3. Generation and transfer of ideas and technologies from research to commercial applications

4. Building communities and enhancing quality of skills to attract and retain business and industry

Our schools, colleges, universities and the work places have the talent, creativity but lacks the expertise necessary to make a profound difference in some of the critical areas. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the government and the private sector to make sure they create the opportunities they need to realise their full potential.

Urgency

Sri Lanka is fortunate to have leaders both in the Government and private sector who recognise the importance of investing in education. But Sri Lanka isn’t the only state in the region to realise that investment in higher education holds the key to economic growth. The knowledge-based workforce development would require an innovative strategy that approaches the issues of incumbent workers, higher education as an integrated system. In keeping with their integrated approach, we need to promote market-based skills from the earliest stages. The priorities, therefore should be;

1. Immediately validate the skills requirements of industry and jointly deliver the identified skills needed to support the thrust areas of the economy.

2. Invest more on higher education programs that will lead to more graduates with degrees in technology, engineering, sciences and hospitality programs.

3. Increase the number of students prepared to enter science, services and technology fields, as well as the number of teachers who are proficient in the delivery.

Capital 

Increasing the amount of pre-seed, seed and institutional venture capital available to emerging businesses, particularly those in the education, technology and bioscience sectors needs to be introduced. We also need to develop programs and incentives to increase the depth of management expertise and attract and retain top management talent from oversees to strengthen our nation’s capability.

Conclusion

Today, Sri Lanka finds itself in a new economic climate with a new set of rules and a critical need for well-guided investment in higher education. We now compete in a global economy that is driven by knowledge, information, ideas and technology. The new Government realises the value of capitalising on our existing strengths. However, as we look to the future, we must explore opportunities and ideas to become more competitive. More than ever before, building HR capacity holds the key to our long-term economic success, a key weakness in our current disjointed education system and the complex bureaucratic structure and procedures.

(The writer is a HR Thought Leader.)

The escape valve called Karma “Sexual Violence & Impunity” in (Sinhala Buddhist) Sri Lanka

Some Thoughts on “The Search for Justice: The Sri Lanka Papers”

2016-09-30

It is a frightening picture that is drawn on a full canvas by the probing essays in “The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers”, edited by reputed academic thinkers Kumari Jayawardene and Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena containing contributions by several well known Sri Lankan activists and academics.   

The volume forms part of a regional series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, published by Zubaan, New Delhi, 2015.   
The editors have used poetry and special narratives translated from Tamil to give more depth and direction to the core message underscored in the volume. Chapter writers Chulani Kodikara and Sarala Emanuel, Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena and KirstyAnantharajah, (the late) Priya Thangarajah, Farzana Haniffa, Rohini Mohan and Sivamohan Sumathy have contributed deeply insightful essays that provoke a dialogue on a less spoken-of-subject in Sri Lanka. Their focus spans the Tamil North to the Sinhala South, looking at violence against women as a horrifically common norm in the country. As emphasized in the overview to the volume by Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena and Jeannine Guthrie, impunity in regard to sexual violence in Sri Lanka is not a mere by-product of war. Its ominous reach is far more, reaching into the very depths of society and culture.   

I should note here, Sivamohan Sumathy’s contribution beyond her own essay with translations of important material and Chulani Kodikara’s interview with Prashanti Mahindaratne who, in 1996 led the investigations on the Krishanthi Kumaraswamy gang rape and murder with thoughtful insights on prosecuting the rape and murder of women within a savage war.  

 
The major focus in this collection of essays is on sexual violence and the issue of impunity in the context of (the now concluded) war.   
The book brings into discussion more serious issues that venture beyond the brutality of war crimes. Thus, the essays look at the mind sets and capacities of the law enforcement agencies, investigators and the judiciary as a whole. What is there in actual fact in these contributions is far more than what is usually discussed. The whole certainly underlines a more cruel reality than the illusions that society generally prefers to live with.   
This book is particularly apt given that crimes and violence against women are now on the increase across the region.   

As noted by Indian compilers and activists Urvashi Butalia, Laxmi Murthy and Navsharan Singh in writing the “Introduction” to why this regional series was contemplated in the first place, mass (sexual) violence is a particularly terrible facet of this regional upsurge.   

While questioning the impotence of societies in other South Asian countries in facing up to sexual violence and impunity, they pose a very pertinent question for us Sri Lankans particularly in the context of war related violence.”Why”, they ask, “has the end of 25 years of violent conflict in Sri Lanka in May 2009 not resulted in an open and frank discussion about sexual violence as a weapon of war?”   
Though this is no excuse for us in Sri Lanka to ignore the issue of “sexual violence as a weapon of war” and impunity, I doubt if such discussions have even begun in other societies where mass destruction has occurred (and is occurring) due to raging armed conflicts. The answer(s) to the question “why”, I believe, can only be searched for in the domain of the dominant “social culture”. For it is the dominant culture over long decades that fashions and decides social attitudes, perceptions and social values which leads to such brutalities.   

In Sri Lanka the dominant culture, (the political “South” argues) is the “Sinhala Buddhist” culture. For racist political reasons, Sinhala Buddhist ideology has been turned into a “supremacist” social ideology that was war driven over the past decades.   
The State, that no longer dry and ideologically dead apparatus, was also turned into a dominant Sinhala State. Thus the Sinhala Buddhist culture is taken as “The Sri Lankan Culture” within which the State lives and acts.   
This Sinhala Buddhist culture is very much alive even in elite urban life in a heavily competitive Consumer Society that pre-determines life in the Sinhala South.   
Screaming consumerism in a free and open economy has provided a new commercialised platform for Buddhist rituals in an urban society with a sophisticated and novel “ashram” cult, meditation classes, yoga sessions and even TV Channels conducting sponsored sermons all through the week.   

All of this further uneasily cements Sinhala Buddhist attitudes, perceptions and social values that once were part of mere ordinary life without political dynamics at play.   
The question one may now ask is, “what has that got to do with the issue of sexual violence and impunity that this volume of collected essays examines from different perspectives”? The essayists have all authoritatively examined sordid patterns of sexual violence and impunity.   

But the link nevertheless is as to how the Sinhala Buddhist culture nurtures all that has been highlighted as “violence” and “impunity” in this collection of essays. A “supremacist culture” in daily life has thus created the social basis for collective sexual violence and impunity.   

Sexual violence in Sinhala Buddhist life goes as accepted and natural, day in day out. It happens everywhere, it is seen everywhere and is simply ignored every time while we go about our daily life. Most cruelty, most brutality around us, are not taken and perceived as “violence” against the “other”, always the “weaker” and the suppressed. Most often, that violence is justified and interpreted within Buddhist perceptions and interpretations.   
This may seem very trivial in relation to sexual violence in this society, but how do you react to a beggar woman carrying an infant in a traffic junction under a scorching sun in the afternoon or to starving pups and kittens thrown away on roadsides?   

How do you react to innocent birds crowded into cages and sold in pet shops? The Sinhala Buddhist mindset has answers to such cruelty and violence around them. It is “Karma”; the good and the bad brought over from previous birth that has to be lived through this birth. Or the other answer again is that those who resort to such cruelty will have to pay for all those “sins” in their next birth. So, you go about your daily life with perhaps only a sigh.   

Over a year ago I read the semi fictional novel “Amma” (Mother) written by popular Sinhala tuition master and politician Upul Shantha Sannasgala. Probably exaggerated, he describes at length his mother’s tortured agonising life. He relates how she was mercilessly beaten by their father who came home drunk on most nights.   
He narrates how pots and pans were thrown on the ground by their drunken father leading to hungry and scary nights. Their mother he says, was not allowed to go to the temple, even on a full moon poya day. She lived through that life uncomplainingly and she gave birth to 09 children from this wedlock to the man who treated her so. How does she reconcile her life with all that violence? She, like most Sinhala Buddhist wives, takes it as her “fate”.   
So, does the community around her. “Domestic violence” is justified thus to this day in this Sinhala Buddhist society, left to be discussed only in middle class urban circles.   
So, it is with children who are termed “duds” in the classroom by school teachers. They cannot be salvaged for it is their “fate”. In the Sinhala South, every tragedy, every violent crime, all cruelty can be explained in terms of “past karma” or in terms of future “karma” that the perpetrator will have to bear with.   

In short, crime, violence, cruelty and natural or manmade tragedies are what the victims have brought for them from their previous birth or what the perpetrators will carry to their next birth.   
And life in this birth can go on, regardless.   
What happens to a society that interprets all crimes and tragedies, all violence and cruelty within a supremacist social ideology and allows governance and State structures to fall in line with that dominant theme? We live with such as ugly reality. It is from that society that the military, the armed forces and the police are recruited. It is from that society that policy and law makers are groomed. It is from such a society that public opinion is sought on any issue and the people’s representatives are elected. And worst, it is the same Sinhala supremacist society that campaigned for war, which now decides how the fallout from that savage war should be investigated.   
This volume provides a very serious opening to a discourse on sexual violence and impunity in Sri Lanka, perhaps for the first time. But what I missed is a discussion on this “dominant social culture” aspect in our ‘Sinhala society.’   

What I also missed out in this collection of essays is the way out, alternate approaches in how such growing violence against women, young girls and children can be effectively challenged, arrested and society made safe for all.   
A society cannot be waiting for a Godot with answers. A society has to work towards a final answer, while attending to immediate issues as well. For permanent long term answers I believe the beginning is within our education system that needs complete demolition and rebuilding anew.   

At least, where the minimum is concerned, what if we start demanding for Police stations exclusively staffed with women officers, one in every district?   
This is different to merely having ‘women’s units’ in dominantly male Police stations that have not proved to be of much use. Dedicated Police stations staffed with women officers, trained in investigations and prosecution, could perhaps answer some of the issues and provide a degree of safety and create confidence in victims.   
The good thing in this collection of essays is that it provokes such a dialogue for alternate solutions.   

Hemantha Warnakulasuriya who could not rescue kudu Dumiya starts mudslinging using kudu TV channel..!

-Rs 12 million collected from Wele Sudha and kudu Wasantha

(Lanka-e-News -29.Sep.2016, 6.50PM) Hemantha Warnakulasuriya well and widely known more as a hideous monstrous liar and less as a lawyer , and considered by the legal fraternity as a ‘shit bucket’ is now engaged in a shitty and stinking campaign  to rescue Duminda Silva the notorious ‘kudu capitan’ ( heroin baron) who was recently sentenced to death duly by court in the murder of Bharatha Lakshman . When all the conspiracies and diabolic efforts so far  failed , this shit bucket carrier (SBC) cum lawyer, the  black coated monstrous  shark as of late is blabbering and trying to bluff everyone via the media .

Judges who sentenced  kudu Duminda and his criminal gang to death also came under threat in much the same way as the mudslinging threats of Warnakulasuriya  while Shiran Gunaratne who gave a dissenting judgment (unimaginably horrendous judgment)  exonerating  this whole criminal gang of all the charges  and acquitted them  is a senior judge. 

It has been alleged by this shit bucket lawyer Hemantha that by revealing  Shiran Gunaratne’s  phone number to the public by Lanka  e news , the independence of the judiciary has been undermined . It is only now we know that a phone number is a private ‘asset’  that has to be hidden between the  legs, and something akin to Hemantha’s moth eaten  private parts. 

According to this idiotic SBC lawyer , Lanka e news and Raavaya which criticized the decision of judge Gunaratne that all the suspects were not even liable to charges of possession of an illegal  weapon belonging to the LTTE , are a mafia jeopardizing  the independence of the judiciary. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly , Hemantha the SBC  lawyer who is only specialized in the techniques of carrying the ‘shit bucket’ the name by which he is popularly known among the legal fraternity  is  not aware that anyone has a Democratic  right to criticize the decision of a court after it is delivered. It is clear Hemantha has missed his vocation : Truly instead of being a lawyer he should have been a court jester in which case he could have taken full advantage of his ‘faceless’ character  and hideous face .

This is a monstrous scoundrel  who thinks his mother taught him  only vices including corruption , wickedness , illicit earnings, and money making even selling his  soul and professional ethics , so that he  could make a success in life only through vice and vilest acts in society. He has been  taught only the value of filthy lucre  and not virtues such as humane traits  , truth  and justice.  Therefore serving as a two penny half penny lawyer is what he  prefers to an honorable legal practice  . Being a lawyer sans proper education values, he has proved he can never ever practice the  legal profession duly , respectfully and honorably .

Being steeped in all the vilest and corrupt activities  he  cannot even lead  a happy married life . Children born to him are also unfortunate. Telling all the lies about them, they too were married  to uneducated spouses obsessed solely and wholly with filthy lucre.  This is an SBC  lawyer who thinks other children too in  the country like his own are uneducated or ‘mongrels’ 

Before answering the stupid hideous monster  , let us give a brief description of this scoundrel by the name of Hemantha Warnakulasuriya based on the latest reports.

There are two most notorious heroin magnates in Sri Lanka so far. Wele Sudha is one , and the other is Vasantha Mendis the ‘King’ of heroin business in the South. Both of them are currently in jail. 

Hemantha the SBC lawyer who is deceiving and duping the entire country by appearing and blabbering about the independence of the judiciary via  the programs of the TV network belonging to the brother of kudu Dumiya alias Duminda has collected Rs 6.9 million from Wele Sudha and another sum of Rs. 5 million from Vasantha Mendis. We state this taking full responsibility . These payments cannot be fees for the cases because it has now come to light these payments were made  prior to those involvements.  In that event why did Hemantha the scoundrel collect such colossal sums from these drug dealers , and for what reason ? This must be revealed to the public by the kudu TV channel itself which hosted his programs .

Of course, if not  we shall expose his putrid antecedence…

A complaint has been received by the CID pertaining to a colossal fraud committed by this SBC lawyer Hemantha when he was the Sri Lanka (SL) ambassador in Italy. The amount involved is a staggering 97000 Euros or Rs. 16 million approximately ! This is a fraud committed by Hemantha in collusion with Krishnaratne , who was an officer in the embassy in Italy . These monies were collected by ‘selling’ the name of the forces  of the motherland.

While the CID is investigating the colossal frauds , and the cash deals put through with heroin peddlers by him , Hemantha is like  a cat on hot bricks . He has started to sling mud at the CID by making false accusations that the CID tapped the phone calls of the judges.  

This is the very SBC scoundrel who kept his ears , eyes and stinking mouth shut during the period when the despotic  Rajapakse crooks and criminals were  not only tapping phone calls and hacking e mails , but even took villainous measures to dismiss a chief justice most un -ceremonially and unlawfully after a grade nine qualified fraudster and nincompoop was made to hear the case against her. Now, when the CID is probing into his own monumental frauds and rackets, Hemantha the culprit   is seeking to camouflage the facts and dupe the public  by making false counter allegations against the CID.

When Hemantha met the  Bar association lawyers on Sunday , he revealed  to them as though he had made a great discovery that the CID has tapped the phone calls and accessed the emails of  another crooked villainous judge Shiran Gunaratne  . The other lawyers present have explained to  this SBC buffoon ,  if that was true , it is the judges or their association should complain  , and not lawyers. They have also snubbed him by saying , it is a Bar  association meeting that is in progress  .Therefore  not to speak on  issues relating to the judges , and also  not to involve the Bar association in those. Then this SBC lawyer sought the only place that would tolerate his nonsense is the TV channel of the brother of kudu Duminda ; and now  this mudslinging is being pursued by the moribund discarded joint opposition alias ‘joint self destruction’ 

It is well known that SBC Hemantha is the unofficial lawyer for the joint opposition . It is therefore unfathomable  why on earth the president appointed this hideous bandicoot  as a Director of the SLT regulatory Commission even after knowing his putrid antecedence.

It is significant to note if the CID has been tapping the phone calls of the judges , surely the SLT regulatory commission cannot be unaware.  In the circumstances , Hemantha being its Director , he himself must provide answers to the so called  mudslinging !

Meanwhile the Bar Association has decided that a probe be conducted to determine whether the mobile phone No. 0773534298  and desk phone No. 0112320801 of Shiran Gunaratne  had been truly trapped .  That investigation will clearly reveal the discussions held among Shiran Gunaratne , Mohan Peiris, Sarath N Silva , Reno De Silva , and Mohan Seneviratne who wrote the final judgment for Shiran Gunaratne in the Baratha Lakshman murder , as well as the  SBC lawyer Hemantha who put through the illicit deals prior to Duminda’s court verdict.  In addition , the colossal filthy lucre that was exchanged  through  ‘under the counter’ negotiations to lure Shiran Gunaratne to give a most despicable dissenting judgment exonerating all the  accused of all the charges , and acquitting them , will also come to light.

It is a pity Hemantha the SBC buffoon whose gaze is fixed solely and wholly on filthy lucre however earned , has no time to realize  that people in glass houses  should not throw stones at others .

Connected reports :

Decision of ‘Tinkering Baas’ that Duminda is not guilty was written by another judge.! Conspiracy hatched in Gota’s house
-Full details exposed including names and phone Nos.

A laudatory judgment after half a century : Duminda sentenced to death..! Facts hitherto unknown and dissenting Tinkering Baas
By Wimal Dheerasekera

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by     (2016-09-29 13:33:26)