Sri Lankan-Born Michelle: The Winner Of The 2013 Miles Franklin Literary Award

June 29, 2013 

The winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Literary Award on why prize-giving is arbitary and Australia is more multiculturally successful than it admits, the Guardian reports.

Michelle de Kretser: the novelist won the Miles Franklin Award 2013 for Questions of Travel. Photograph: guardian.co.uk

“Two main stories are told over a 40 year period, both of which weave in elements from De Kretser’s own history. There is Laura, a restless Australian explorer who ends up working for a travel publisher not unlike Lonely Planet, the company De Kretser worked for before embarking on a writing career, and there is Ravi, growing up in Sri Lanka, De Kretser’s birth place, who dreams of becoming an IT professional but whose life is undone by the horrors of ethnic violence.” Fiona Gruber writes.

Michelle de Kretser left Sri Lanka with her parents in 1972 when she was 14-year old .

A recent trip to Sri Lanka reminded her of what a society ruled by fear felt like, and the move from Melbourne to Sydney a few years ago gave her fresh eyes to see her adopted country, its wastefulness and beauty, an experience she gives to Ravi in Questions of Travel.

Michelle de Kretser: 'Who travels? Who doesn't? What is home?' - interview

The winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Literary Award on why prize-giving is arbitary and Australia is more multiculturally successful than it admits

Fiona Gruber-Saturday 22 June 2013

Sri Lankan-Born Michelle the Winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Literary Award by nelvely

Hate Has No Place In Sri Lanka: “Rally For Unity” Goes Matara

June 29, 2013 

“Rally for Unity – Celebrate Diversity – Hate Has No Place in Sri Lanka”  07th of July, in Matara.

“Given the recent spate of hate speech and the marginalization of minority communities in general, a voluntary movement of concerned Sri Lankans from various institutions, professions and industries are organizing a series of non- partisan, non-violent awareness campaigns and rallies against racist actions and hate- speech in Sri Lanka.” says the organizers of the Rally for Unity.

Hate Has No Place In Sri Lanka “Rally For Unity” Goes Matara by nelvely

It Has Become A Mad-Hatter’s Tea Party: Fooling And Fumbling With 13A

By Kumar David -June 30, 2013 

Prof Kumar David

The LSSP-CP, Rajitha Senaratne, SLMC,Douglas, Thonda and many in the SLFP who don’t want to show their hand, quite rightly oppose watering down or repealing 13A. Though 13A has weaknesses, the motive of those who attack it at this particular point in time (JHU, Gota, Wimal, BSS) is to deny Tamils opportunities similar to what Sinhalese have enjoyed for 25 years. The issue is not 13A per se, but a chauvinist onslaught on devolution of some power to the Tamils. At another time I would be willing to reconsider 13A in the context of a well thought out alternative devolution package.

It Has Become A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party Fooling And Fumbling With 13A by nelvely

Ban on water supply threatens agriculture of Eezham Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 June 2013, 22:34 GMT]
By banning water supply to agriculture and paper mills and supplying water to tourist houses, the Colombo government is putting lives of many Eezham Tamils in stake in Batticaloa. The Sri Lankan Finance Ministry, which comes directly under SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also the finance minister in Colombo, has imposed on ban on supply of water from Vaakaneari lake to the agricultural farms, agriculturalists from the area complain. 

The water irrigation centre has been advised to direct the waters from Vaakaneari lake to the tourist house jointly set up by Mahinda Rajapaksa's Finance Ministry and paramilitary operative Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan's Pillaiyan group at the Kalkudda – Paasik-kudaa area, which comes under Koa'ra'laip-pattu division in Batticaloa district.

Orders have been passed to stop the supply of water to paper plant functioning out of Vaazhaich-cheanai – Kaavaththa-munai area. 

The Vaakaneari lake that comes under the administration of Vaazhaich-Cheanai Kendra centre was constructed in 1976 for small crops under the large irrigation project. Under the project, water is supplied to over 8,156 acres of paddy lands in 16 areas. Around 6,708 agricultural families are beneficiaries of the scheme.

The lake also supplies water to paper mill that employs over 700 people. Tamil civil officials say that the livelihood of over 7,500 families would be at stake if water supply is stopped at the mill.

Under LTTE’s administration after 1994, the water was supplied freely to all areas and to the paper mill without any hindrance.

However, after Colombo captured the East in 2007, thousands of acres of lands in Kalkudda and Paasik-kudaa areas have been confiscated by SL presidential siblings under the pretext of ‘coastal protection’ and the so-called development scheme known as ‘Kizhakkin uthayam’ (the rise of the East). 

This programme has been conceived by the occupying Colombo according to ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ (Mahinda's vision) committing a structural genocide on Tamils. This ‘Chinthana’ functions much like the same way the LLRC deception is being taken forward in Geneva in providing necessary ‘time’ and ‘space’ for Colombo in committing the structural genocide on the nation of Eezham Tamils. 

SL Finance ministry and its paramilitary Pillaiyan Group have come together under the scheme to set up tourist houses. The tourist houses employ hundreds of Sinhalese and their families are settled in the area.

Initially, the Colombo government has said that it would create employment opportunities for the youth of Batticaloa district by setting up tourist houses.

It is reported that at least 5,000 litres of water is being sent to the tourist houses every day.

Even as small crops cultivated during the dry zone are ready for harvest, apprehensions loom large about the crops being destroyed owing to lack of water supply.

Rajapaksa's Finance Ministry has said that the water required would be supplied under Mathuru-oya water irrigation programme. 

It may be noted that a similar request to release water from Mathur-oya water irrigation, which is under Mahaweli water irrigation scheme, for crops in Vadamunai and Kallichchai areas was summarily rejected by Colombo.

By setting up tourist houses at Kalkudda and Paasik-kudaa areas, the SL government in Colombo seems bent on seizing the resources of the district. 

In the meantime, anti-social activities have also increased in these areas, Tamils complain. 

Participating in a meeting recently, even the SL Government Agent of the district, Mrs B S Charles has gone on record saying that anti social activities were on the rise in the district.

A Climate Of Fear Verging On Hysteria

By Emil van der Poorten -June 30, 2013 

Emil van der Poorten

A short while ago, I documented the attack launched by lorry-loads of goons accompanied by two members of the local police, on Vesak Day no less, on residents of my neighbourhood.

The second chapter of that little saga was when six of those Tamils resident on the informal colony adjacent to the land on which I reside were sentenced to pay fines of, I understand, three thousand rupees each for being inebriated (in their own homes on land they have occupied for a significant amount of time).  While there seemed little doubt that these men were inebriated at the time and place concerned there appeared to be some significance to the fact that not one member of the three lorry-loads of marauders, allegedly from the North Western Province bailiwick of a Cabinet Minister with a known propensity for violence, were charged with any offence whatsoever!  I am sure that the fact that the former were Tamils and the latter Sinhalese had nothing to do with this turn of events!

A Climate of Fear Verging on Hysteria by nelvely

Eyes wide open, yet blind to reality

"Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?
O'Brien: Of course he exists.
Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?
O'Brien: You do not exist. "
― George Orwell

By Vishnugupta-2013-06-28 

It's time the government and all other political parties and fringe groups realized that holding the elections for the Northern Province would eventually benefit not only the province in question, but also the country at large and its people. Those who occupy the threshold don't seem to have any place other than the threshold; they will keep in between extremes without having any pivotal role to play. Politics does not flow like that, other than in Sri Lanka whose leaders have never failed to sustain their own parochial thinking, and take an unsuspecting mass of voters along a very destructive path.

Eyes Wide Open, Yet Blind to Reality by nelvely

If Thuggery Is To Be Arrested…

By Malinda Seneviratne -June 30, 2013 

Malinda Seneviratne

Theft in institutions of whatever kind, if it takes on the character of ‘business as usual’, has implications.  It implies that there may be in-built (unidentified or ignored) chinks that facilitate pilfering.  It implies that the person in charge is either a thief or is incompetent.  If the boss robs, it amounts to a thieving license for all subordinates.  The logic can be applied to other acts not sanctioned by the relevant rules and regulations of a given institution or system.

If some random local government politician  throws his weight around, assaults someone, threatens, robs, rapes or engages in some other illegal activity and if that kind of infringement is rare, we can put it down to character quirk.  Indeed, we could even predict that the individual can forget about re-election.

That may have been the case a long, long, long time ago. Not now.  Hardly a day passes when we don’t read or hear about a politician who is associated with some form of illegal activity, some act of thuggery or abuse.  It is no longer ‘news’ and that says a lot about what the ‘usual business’ is.

It is about flawed institutional arrangement exacerbated by flawed constitution, one might explain.  It’s about bad people doing bad things, would be another explanation.  It is a law and order problem, pure and simple, another would opine.  It’s all these, in fact.  But if ‘culture’ has a role, we need to understand that certain ‘cultures’ flow from institutional structures and moreover flourish and grow more pernicious because these structure favor the bad over the good.

It is then about people in key positions not willing to do anything about it or else are themselves too compromised to intervene.  When a minister calls the media and goes on to tie an official to a tree and gets away without a scratch to political career, lower ranked politicians take a cue.  Inaction is reward enough and encouragement to boot, after all.

This indicates rank insincerity on the part of those at the top or else a resolve to ‘let be’.  Letting be, though, has a dynamic of its own.  Bad news spreads fast.  What big brother does, small brother considers ‘fair game’.  And we so we have the ridiculous situation of schoolboy rugby matches necessitating riot police personnel being on hand to step in if things get bad.  Players punch players, linesmen weighs in to add muscle to player-player brawls. Spectators assault referees.  Inquiries are announced and held.  Through it all ‘pain of punishment’ has not made its way into the thick heads of thugs and thugs in waiting.

It is not a local thing, mind you.  The United States has demonstrated in word (Madeline Albrights scandalous-but-honest statement that the death of over half a million children in Iraq ‘was worth it’) and deed (in recent times Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria) that guns-in-booty-out is par for the course in the New World Odor.  That’s a Double-O license for the rest of the world.  If spying on private citizen is ‘ok’ for the US Government, then that will be ‘ok’ for others, Sri Lanka too. If plunder at gun point is ok for Uncle Sam, it’s ok for the Mervins of Sri Lanka, doctored or otherwise.  If war is a game and slaughtering Osama bin Laden or Muammar Gaddafi is ‘ok’, that’s a cue for nose-punching (and of course ‘thou shalt kneel at my command’) for every two-bit thug who has by hook or by crook got elected.

How do we correct this?  By objecting.  On pain of punishment.  This side of ‘that’ lies complicity, approval and the risk of being accused of partaking of spoils.

As things stand, with respect to hooliganism, thuggery and theft, the word in the street is that those mandated to arrest the situation are silent and therefore have legitimately earned the tag ‘beneficiary’.

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of ‘The Nation’ and his articles can be found at www.malindawords.blogspot.com

Pillay wants probe on war

June 28, 2013

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka in August, says an international independent investigation must take place in Sri Lanka into allegations of war crimes.

Pillay told the BBC Tamil service that she will look at the post war developments in Sri Lanka during her visit and meet all the concerned parties.

Pillay has decided to undertake a visit to Sri Lanka from 25 to 31 August this year. This is in response to an invitation formally extended to her by the government in April 2011.

Sri Lanka considers the visit as part of its continued, transparent and proactive engagement with the High Commissioner and her office.

“We believe that the visit would enable the High Commissioner to experience at first hand the significant strides made and also efforts presently underway in the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka, in the relatively brief period of 4 years since the end of the ruthless terrorist conflict that decimated our nation and its peoples for 30 long years,” the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva Ravinatha P. Aryasinha said last month.

NAVI PILLAY ON SRI LANKA VISIT: ‘I WANT TO SEE FOR MYSELF’

June 29, 2013
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay on Friday reiterated her call for an international investigation into allegations of human rights violations during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka.

“I have called for an international investigation; to investigate the root causes of the conflict, to investigate what happened during the last days of the war and to ensure that the rights of victims to the truth and the right of victims for reparation is ensured,” she said. 

Navi Pillay was taking questions from around the world on the BBC’s World Have Your Say programme.

Confirming that she will engage in a formal visit to Sri Lanka in August, on an invitation extended by the government, Pillay stated that she wanted to see the situation here for herself and hoped “to be able to speak to many people as possible” during the visit.

Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ravinatha Aryasinha had stated that the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay has decided to undertake a visit to Sri Lanka from 25 to 31 August 2013. 

BASL Launches Official Newspaper “The Bar Reporter”, Interactive Texting Service And Revamped Official Website

June 29, 2013 

Expressing commitment to the Rule of Law, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) launched its own official newspaper “The Bar Reporter” yesterday (28.06.2013).

The newspaper is published monthly by the Secretary, BASL on behalf of the BASL. It is printed by Leader Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, with media coordination by Independent Media Network (Pvt) Ltd.

Very senior President’s Counsel N. R. M. Daluwatte attended the function at the Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo as Chief Guest. Unlike many high ranking people in the system, Daluwatte has an unblemished record of always having stood for the independence of the judiciary and the fight to protect the rights of the legal profession. The function, which was an official function of the Bar Association was attended by lawyers of different political leanings without political differences. Most of the best known senior lawyers and President’s Counsel were present at the occasion, which was followed by cocktails and music.

Several senior lawyers told The Colombo Telegraph that the choice of an elderly senior lawyer who has stood against interfering with the judiciary and politicizing the legal profession under many governments rather than a high ranker of the system seems to send a clear and powerful message.

At the official launch, President of the Association, senior lawyer Upul Jayasuriya who was elected by a massive majority of the legal profession, stressed that this newspaper is an essential need in today’s context. The newspaper begins with an existing circulation of over 12000 people, who are the members of the association.

The Editor-in-Chief is Attorney S. P. Sriskantha, Attorney at Law who is Chairman of the Newspaper Committee of the BASL, who spoke and highlighted at length the importance of what was being launched. In the first editorial, he states “Fortunately, unlike most other newspapers “The Reporter” is not saddled with the fear of threats to desist from reporting vital matters or be caught up in a strategic move of being bought over lock stock and barrell, literally to shut us up. This is so, as “The Reporter” is the property of the Bar Association and one will have to think twice before crossing swords with an united Bar.” He pledged that the newspaper will work towards making the country a better place to live in by carrying correct news without fear or favour.

The Colombo Telegraph, which not being run from within Sri Lanka was able to report previously that the Rajapaksa regime has been trying to work out a way to ‘capture‘ the Bar Association by somehow getting a lawyer with links to the regime or benefiting from it elected as its next President. This method has so far been used successfully by the regime on the higher judiciary.

Rajindh Perera, Attorney at Law, Convenor of the Newspaper Committee of the BASL gave an impressive vote of thanks at the end of the launch press conference.

At this occasion, the newly revamped website of the BASL (www.basl.lk) was relaunched and for the first time, an interactive texting service was launched enabling the BASL to have instant contact with its vast membership via SMS messaging. Lawyers shortly received a message from the BASL  President by SMS, announcing the success of the launch and inviting responses or suggestions from members of the profession.

No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka

Patients at a makeshift Sri Lankan hospital are vulnerable in No Fire Zone.

By JOSE TEODORO

Callum Macrae’s No Fire Zone surveys the final months of Sri Lanka’s recent civil war, but not merely to bring attention to yet another little-understood and woefully neglected Third World conflict.

By making extensive use of video clips clandestinely recorded by victims and perpetrators alike, Macrae and his collaborators set out to expose an astonishing list of crimes against humanity systematically committed by Sri Lankan government forces – crimes the government continues to vehemently deny.

The parade of atrocities exceeds even the most hardened viewer’s tolerance for human suffering. A mother describes watching her children die. A woman recalls collecting pieces of a baby for a makeshift burial. Bodies mutilated from shelling are wheeled into a hospital that is itself about to be shelled. 

The raped and executed corpses of female Tamil fighters lie half-stripped in the mud. “I would like to fuck it again,” a soldier exclaims off-screen. 

No-fire zones were established and promptly flooded with desperate civilians, and those same zones were repeatedly bombarded, the under-supplied hospitals that lay within their boundaries specifically targeted.

Was this campaign too indiscriminate to count as genocide? Was it just senseless slaughter, an exercise in total, crushing power?

No Fire Zone is both a documentary and a horror film. Its images are sufficiently graphic to give you nightmares – but sometimes it takes a nightmare to wake us up.

 No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka

Directed by Callum Macrae-

NOW Rating: N N N N

No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka surveys the final months of Sri Lanka’s recent civil war. Making extensive use of video clips clandestinely captured by victims and perpetrators alike, it exposes crimes against humanity systematically undertaken by Sri Lankan government forces. The parade of atrocities exceeds even the most hardened viewer’s tolerance levels: bodies mutilated in shelling are wheeled into a hospital that is itself about to be shelled; raped and executed female Tamil fighters lay half-stripped in the mud. Ostensible no-fire zones were promptly flooded with desperate civilians and then repeatedly bombarded, their hospitals specifically targeted. No Fire Zone is a documentary and a horror film. Its images are sufficiently graphic to give you nightmares - but sometimes it takes a nightmare to wake us up. Subtitled.(Jose Teodoro)