WikiLeaks: GSL Report On LTTE’s Buying Weapons Of Mass Destruction (Red Mercury) Has Been Assessed To Be A Scam – US

April 28, 2012By Colombo Telegraph –

Red Mercury

“However, it should be noted that there have been illicit trafficking cases where documentation citing Red Mercury has accompanied authentic nuclear material. So although the Sri Lankan report has been assessed to be a scam, all reports of nuclear smuggling should be thoroughly investigated in order to rule out the existence of any material that could be a threat. Embassy should ask Sri Lanka to continue to share similar reports in the future.” a US State Department cable says.

The Colombo Telegraph found the related US diplomatic cable from the Secretary of State section of the WikiLeaks database. The cable was classified as “SECRET” signed on August 15, 2006.

The US State Department wrote “Ref reported on a document the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister passed to the U.S. Charge reporting that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had made an attempt (in 2002) to procure “Red Mercury,” a chemical claimed to be used to manufacture weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The document also identifies a U.S. chemical company in California as the possible manufacturer of this chemical. The Foreign Minister said his government is extremely concerned by the report and asked that the United States provide “technical assistance” in dealing with the report.”

“Red Mercury is a well-known scam material, frequently purported to be important in the manufacture of nuclear weapons but having no applications in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, conventional explosives, or any weapons system despite the claims about its alleged properties. It has been utilized by con- artists throughout the world in scams targeting terrorist organizations and rogue states desiring WMD capabilities. Although numerous reports from U.S. and Russian experts have stated that the existence of Red Mercury is a hoax, contradictory comments from other Russian scientists and various inflammatory television shows and books have helped perpetuate the myth, and Red Mercury continues to be sought by ignorant entities seeking to acquire WMD.” the US State Department further wrote.

Under the paragraph 2, the State Department wrote “ In response to request in paragraph 3 of Ref, Embassy Colombo may advise Sri Lanka that Washington has no credible information that “Red Mercury” is a WMD threat and is unable to identify or locate the U.S. chemical company specified in the Sri Lankan report. Given these factors, we deem the sources cited in the document not to be credible and believe that there is nothing to be concerned about in regard to this report.”

Related stories; Disappearance Of Ekneligoda And The Chemical Weapons Saga

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Read the cable below for further details;

Political, economic and social suicide  

Buddhism gone berserk

| by Pearl Thevanayagam

(April 30, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Dambulla Mosque fire-bomb attack on April 22 is a political, economic and social suicide attempt which will have very serious repercussions just as the country is urged by the international community to mend fences and progress towards reconciliation. When all hell was breaking loose the Muslim, Malay and Burgher communities steered clear of the ethnic conflict except to act as mediators be it in the media, judiciary, police or commissions of inquiry and kept the fragile and fractured isle together barring the odd skirmishes resulting from trade conflicts and suspicions - perceived or otherwise - of acting as moles for both the government and Tamil militants during the war.

The Muslim community have always had considerable influence over the island's economic status since the 1500s when they arrived here from the Middle East to trade in spices and several hundred years later from India bringing in textiles and other exotic goods.

These communities remained calm and carried on with their duties while the warring Tamils and Sinhalese were gouging each others' eyes out in the pretext of nationalism and their respective ethnic identities. It now seems the Muslim community will not be silent forever in the wake of unprovoked attack on their Holy Mosque and are garnering support from fellow Muslims all over the world.The 35 year old ethnic strife has left some metastases in the body parts of the island where pockets of elements touting false national and religious pride are threatening to tear up this island emerging from the wounds of war.

The sacrilege instigated and carried out by the Sinhalese mobs including Buddhist monks on a place of worship should not be taken lightly and fobbed off just another mob attack. This was a calculated crime resulting from religious intolerance and instigated by Sinhala extremist politicians as can be gleaned from media reports. The Muslim community have always had considerable influence over the island's economic status since the 1500s when they arrived here from the Middle East to trade in spices and several hundred years later from India bringing in textiles and other exotic goods. Many chose to set up home here and have remained peaceful and showed a lot of bonhomie in their adopted motherland. The community also produced some excellent scholars and professionals.

Some key politicians are threatening to withdraw support for the government as a result of this unfortunate incident. If the LTTE almost succeeded in seceding a portion of the island for the ethnic Tamils who were deprived of their inalienable rights then it is now the turn of the Muslim population to fight to carry on their religious convictions and their rights as dutiful citizens to practice their faith without hindrance. Islam is a tolerant religion no matter how adversely the West misinterprets. The West did not intervene in the Middle East until it found an opportune time when oil was discovered in the 1930s. The oil-rich lands of the Bedouins became several kingdoms and they began to supply the developed nations with the much needed oil which in turn dictates the strength of their economic indicators. The West's approach to the Middle-East crisis since the '70's has never been totally altruistic. It pitted governments against opposition parties, nations against nations.

Deeds or no deeds it is no excuse to desecrate a place of worship.

The writer is Asia Pacific Journalism Fellow at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, California and a print journalist for 22 years. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)

Jury still out on international war crimes system

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor looks down as he waits for the start of a hearing to receive a verdict in a court room of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Leidschendam, near The Hague, April 26, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Peter Dejong/Pool

By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent

WASHINGTON | Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:00am EDT

(Reuters) - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor's war crimes conviction may be seen in some quarters as a victory for global justice, but a backlash against costly, lengthy international tribunals is also underway.

Found guilty of aiding and abetting a host of crimes including murder, rape and torture as well as arming brutal Sierra Leonean rebels, Taylor became the first head of state to be convicted by an international tribunal since the Nuremberg Trials after World War Two. He will be sentenced on May 30.

Full Article

Karuna floats Eelam balloon again

G.C. SHEKHAR

Monday , April 30 , 2012 Alagiri (top) and Stalin Chennai, April 29: DMK chief M. Karunanidhi has revived his pet theme — establishing a separate Eelam (homeland) for the Tamils of Sri Lanka. His critics, however, see the move as yet another desperate bid to remain in the political limelight and also as a tactic to divert attention from the succession war between his sons Stalin and Alagiri. On Monday, Karunanidhi will chair a meeting of the Tamil Eelam Supporters’ Organisation (TESO), an outfit he had founded in the 1980s but which had remained dormant since he dumped the Eelam demand for political expediency after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991. At the last two public meetings he addressed this month, the former Tamil Nadu chief minister demanded a UN-sponsored referendum among Lankan Tamils to establish an Eelam on the lines of South Sudan, which voted last year to split from the north. What has intrigued observers is the timing of Karunanidhi’s new-found love for the Eelam cause. The LTTE has been defeated, Tamil parties in Sri Lanka are keener to wrest more provincial powers under the Lankan Constitution and fringe groups in Tamil Nadu are more fervent about prosecuting Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa for war crimes. “Eelam remains the long-term goal for parties like us…. But for Karunanidhi, Eelam becomes visible only when he is in the Opposition. The way he remained Delhi’s willing and silent ally while the Lankan army decimated Tamils in 2009 exposes the hollowness behind his present interest in Eelam,” said Mallai Sathya of the MDMK, whose leader Vaiko has been a vociferous votary of Eelam. Between 2006 and 2011, when pro-LTTE parties demanded more effective intervention by India, Karunanidhi, then in power in the state, had declared that the Centre’s line — backing the Lanka crackdown on the Tamil Tigers — was the DMK’s as well. Karunanidhi, whose party shares power at the Centre, even urged pro-LTTE voices to tone down the anti-Sinhala rhetoric lest it fanned anger against Tamils in Sri Lanka. “When Jayalalithaa, during the 2009 Lok Sabha campaign, raised the pitch on Sri Lanka’s war against Tamils and promised to send the Indian Army to save them, the same Karunanidhi had accused her of politicising the issue…. Karunanidhi’s sudden interest in Eelam is nothing but a ruse to divert attention from the sibling war in his own family,” said Seeman, the founder of the group Naam Thamizhar Iyakkam. Congress leaders view his sudden love for Eelam as a possible exit plan out of the UPA. “He probably feels that rather than fight the 2014 (Lok Sabha) elections with a discredited Congress, he might align with other parties like the Left, Vaiko and Vijayakanth,” an MP said. However, the Lankan Tamil issue has never had an impact on elections in the state.

India's intervention sought in empowerment of minority Tamils

April 29, 2012

File picture

New Delhi: Congress MPs, who were part of the delegation that visited Sri Lanka recently, have demanded India's intervention in ensuring political empowerment of minority Tamils by implementing the historic 13th Amendment, holding talks with various political parties there.

Four Congress MPs from Tamil Nadu also asked India to demand urgent steps from Sri Lanka to implement recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) with a "clear time-bound programme".

Rajya Sabha member EM Sudarshana Natchiappan, Lok Sabha members M Krishnasamy, NSV Chithan and Manicka Tagore made these demands in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after they returned last week.

"The political empowerment through implementation of 13th Amendment of the Constitution of Sri Lanka made on Rajiv Gandhi's effort, by holding talks with TNA and other Tamil political parties are in urgency to create the confidence of the Tamils to return to motherland," they said in the letter. The 13th Amendment of the Sri Lankan Constitution envisages devolution of powers to Tamil-dominated northern and eastern provinces.

The MPs also said that Sri Lanka should take urgent steps for implementation of LLRC recommendations with clear time bound programme.

"The Sri Lanka government should send message to the world that normalcy is restored by replacing Army by Police," the MPs said.

They also said that displaced Tamil civilians and refugees in India should be enabled to get back their houses and lands left in Sri Lanka by sending a team of survey and settlement officials from India and identifying the properties and pushing for claim from the concerned refugees.

"Fertile lands and fishermen villages of the north and east were taken away by the Military as 'Security Zone.' This should be handed over to owners and allow them to economically develop the country," the letter said.

The MPs also recommended establishment of centres for rehabilitation of widows, mentally challenged children and differently-abled persons and children.

"India's human resources department should send teachers for English, Science and Mathematics for schools with the cooperation of Tamil Nadu government as Tamil knowing teachers are needed," they said.

The MPs also suggested that Indian universities can have an understanding with institutions in these areas for higher studies.

April 29th, 2012

US tells Lanka; Unveil action plan in Colombo

In a clear-cut checkmate, the Obama Administration is attempting to make Colombo commit to implement the LLRC recommendations to its own people, before presenting it to officials in Washington DC.

The US Government wants Sri Lanka to unveil its ‘action plan on the implementation of the LLRC proposals in Colombo, one week before the Sri Lankan delegation led by External Affairs Minister G.L. Pieris arrives in Washington DC, Ceylon Today learns.

The Sri Lankan Government’s action plan for implementing the recommendations of the LLRC is presently being drafted by Additional Secretary to the UN Division, Kshenuka Seneviratne in consultation with Monitoring MP for the Ministry of External Affairs, Sajin Vaas Gunewardane and UPFA Hambantota District MP Namal Rajapaksa.

According to highly placed diplomatic sources, the US government wants Sri Lanka to unveil its ‘roadmap’ in Colombo before bringing the action plan to present to officials in Washington because it does not want to be seen as arm-twisting Sri Lanka into doing things that will then fuel tensions about ‘Western conspiracies’ back in Colombo. The Sri Lankan government maintains the same position because it does not want to be seen as bowing to the dictates of foreign powers.

Minister Peiris, who will be accompanied by MPs Gunewardane, and Namal Rajapaksa and Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunge to Washington on 18 May in response to an invitation from US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in January this year, for further engagement with US officials on reconciliation and accountability issues. Apart from Secretary Clinton, the Sri Lanka delegation is set to meet with several key members of the Obama Administration, presently overseeing human rights issues in Sri Lanka and other countries.

The Sri Lankan delegation will meet with US Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Susan E. Rice and Head of the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Samantha Power.

The delegation will also meet with US Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights Maria Otero who visited Sri Lanka in February during their visit to Washington.

Minister Peiris is also scheduled to make a presentation at the prestigious Brookings Institute, a high profile Washington- based think tank.

The US has also told Sri Lanka to translate the LLRC report into Sinhala and Tamil so that a larger majority of the people would have access to the report and they could find for themselves what Sri Lanka’s own commission has recommended for implementation for speedy recovery and reconciliation.

However this has not found favour with the government and the External Affairs ministry was not keen to translate the same paving the way for a few English speaking people to have access to the LLRC report.

Meanwhile, Secretary Clinton is scheduled to visit India and Bangladesh between 6-8 May but it is not immediately clear whether Sri Lanka will feature in her talks with Indian officials during her visit

Remembering Sivaram Dharmeratnam

April 29, 2012

By Mark P. Whitaker -

Prof. Mark P. Whitaker

Taraki Sivaram or Dharmeratnam Sivaram (11 August 1959– 28 April 2005) was a popular Tamil journalist of Sri Lanka. He was kidnapped by four men on April 28, 2005, in front of the Bambalapitya police station. His body was found the next day in the district of Himbulala, near the Parliament of Sri Lanka. He had been beaten and shot in the head.The following lecture was given by prof. Mark P. Whitaker in London on April 2010.

Taraki

To begin with I want to thank Mr. Arun Gananathan and Mr. Uvindu Kurukulasuriya and the Tamil Legal Advocacy Project for inviting me to speak at this Sivaram Memorial Event. It is entirely fitting and proper, I think, that a memorial for Sivaram should also entail public remembrance of the many Sri Lankans of all ethnicities who, like him, have sacrificed their homes, their freedoms, and, in all too many cases, their lives as journalists. Their sacrifices bespeak the intense need to protect freedom of speech as a fundamental right not only in Sri Lanka but in any state proclaiming itself a democracy. Now it is exactly five years since April 28, 2005, the night Sivaram Dharmeratnam — one of Sri Lanka’s most original, important, and (obviously, to some) infuriating journalists — was abducted on a Colombo street and, as we soon learned afterwards, murdered. Since I was unable to attend his funeral and actually see that, yes, the impossible had happened and my friend of over twenty years was now dead, I long felt a nagging, ridiculous suspicion that it was not true. That another late night phone call would come, another impossible knock on the door, and his inimitable voice would say again, “Ah, Mr. Whitaker, what have you been up to, machchaang[1].” I knew, of course, that this was not the case. His cousin called and told me, immediately after the funeral, that he had touched Sivaram’s surprisingly cold face in the casket. I knew he was indeed gone. But knowing is one thing; understanding quite another; and so a chance, periodically, to grieve for my friend officially is to me still very helpful.Read More

The Government must apologise to the Muslim community

by Dr Laksiri Fernando

Buddhism as far as I understand is one of the most tolerant and peaceful religions. I am also one who is highly attracted to the Buddhist philosophy and thinking. It is therefore unfortunate that some of the Buddhist priests in Sri Lanka are denigrating the religion and denigrating it in the most sacred places.

Apart from the matter being a case

of the executive branch stepping into

the judicial and justice matters,

completely on an arbitrary manner, which

is in itself is a dangerous tendency,

what is abundantly clear is the

‘political mess-up’ of the whole matter

by the government.

( April 29, 2012, Sydney, Sri Lanka Guardian) The violent mob attack on the Dambulla Muslim Mosque in the presence of the Police on 20 April is a serious event that can ignite communal disharmony in the country, including open violence, if the government fails to apologise to the Muslim community and take appropriate action to thwart the efforts by communal elements among its own ranks to create rift and mischief.

Dambulla Attacks

1. For the mob attack on the Dambulla Mosque.

2. For hearting religious feelings of the Muslim community in the country and internationally.

3. For the inaction of the police and the security forces who failed to prevent the event.

4. For the arbitrary decision of the PM which ignite the whole episode.

Laksiri Fernando, Senior Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Colombo, is currently is a visiting scholar at the University of Sydney in retirement.

Read More »