Day: 14 February 2021

PRESS STATEMENT A webinar with former top UN and US officials and Sri Lankan participants calls for a strong UNHRC resolution Warning that UN failure on Sri Lanka could spur worldwide pandemic of impunity, panellists emphasized the need to act on the UN High Commissioner’s recommendations A webinar “Sri Lanka: Quest for Justice, Rule of Law and Democratic Rights”, co-hosted by the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice – New York University, Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice and the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC),…

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Former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes and Global Criminal Justice Stephen Rapp recalled during a webinar on Friday (12) that then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa had admitted to killing LTTE leaders after they surrendered to the military in 2009 instead of putting them on trial. Speaking at an online panel discussion on Justice and rule of law Rapp said he remembered a conversation with the former Defence Secretary and now President Gotabaya Rajapaksa regarding LTTE leaders who surrendered to the army. Rapp said the government “hated the LTTE”. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/i-killed-them-i-killed-them-ex-us-war-crimes-ambassador-says-gota-told-him-about-surrendering-ltte-leaders/

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Sri Lanka has hit back at the United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s latest report calling for targeted sanctions, saying it is based on “speculative, presumptive and unsubstantiated opinions.” It came in a 30-page response to her report which called for targeted sanctions — asset freezes, travel bans and the reference to International Criminal Court of those responsible for violating human rights and international human rights laws. For this purpose, the UN agency wants governments to use “extraterritorial or universal jurisdiction.” There is not a semblance of evidence,…

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By C.V. Wigneswaran –  Justice C.V. Wigneswaran MP Someone asked me: Hon’ Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam has used the word “Genocide” in Parliament yesterday. Both Government and Opposition MPs objected to such a strong word being used. As a Lawyer, Law Lecturer, Judge and Politician what have you to say?  My response was: Due to logistical reasons I could not attend Parliament yesterday. Otherwise I would certainly have supported young Gajendrakumar, whose father was my contemporary at Royal. I congratulate him on his performance. As stated by him “Genocide” is not mere killing of a racial,…

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In fact, by this, it is only a shade less intrusive than co-sponsorship of 30/1 as was done in 2015. Is it prudent to go down the road of supporting a consensual resolution? Of course, the proponents of the resolution would fervently work towards a consensual text, as they would be able to sell it to other members of the Council on the basis that Sri Lanka is on board. The Sri Lankan decision makers on the strategy to be adopted should also give serious thought as to the reason…

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COLOMBO, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) — China has helped Sri Lanka in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the island country now looks forward to furthering its ties with China in order to recover from the pandemic, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary Admiral Jayanath Colombage said. In a recent interview with Xinhua, Colombage said 2021 will be a very challenging year for countries including Sri Lanka due to the fight against the pandemic, and Sri Lanka now needs the support of its friends more than in any other years in history.…

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(Lanka-e-News -13.Feb.2021, 11.30PM) The junta government of the Gotabaya-Mahinda Rajapaksa-led Rajapaksa family, which came to power swearing not to sell the country, has made all arrangements to sell 21 state-owned tea estates to China, reports Lanka e News. Who is this Fujian . .? As a first step, the government is announcing that the Sri Lanka Tea Board has signed a business agreement with China. Accordingly, the Ceylon Tea Board has signed an agreement with a Starchina International Trade Company Limited in China and China will buy 4 million kilos…

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Minister’s withdrawal of security to a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) frontliner for participation in this protest is part and parcel of a grand pseudo-nationalist bonfire that we are witnessing to our intense mortification, fanned by a racist media which has abandoned all claims to professionalism let alone impartiality. But this profound misery has been, let me repeat, enabled by criminal ‘yahapalanaya’ failures of which the TNA was very much a part. Its attempted resuscitation through Tamil ‘nationalist’ protest reminds me, irresistibly, of a ‘Saul on the road to Damascus’ moment, in…

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As Mr Lee would say, when Singapore parted from the alliance with Malaysia after the racial clashes in the early 1960 and Singapore wanted to be an independent state, Singapore’s leaders were in search of a model from which they could draw worthy parallels. The model Lee Kuan Yew picked was Ceylon. When I eventually asked the time-pressed Prime Minister Lee why Singapore forged ahead from a Third World to a First World country and Sri Lanka which was keen to emulate the city state was still dragging itself virtually…

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The alarming spike in Covid-19 positive cases in Sri Lanka over the past few days could be associated with the widespread transmissibility of the highly contagious, mutant viral strain first identified in the United Kingdom, a senior medical official said. https://island.lk/highly-contagious-uk-covid-19-variant-trigger-spike-in-covid-19-cases-in-sl/ New variant: Talks tomorrow on the need for islandwide lockdown http://www.sundaytimes.lk/210214/news/new-variant-talks-tomorrow-on-the-need-for-islandwide-lockdown-432644.html

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The minister who leads the National Freedom Front did not deny his controversial statement for obvious reasons. His entire interview with the Sunday Lankadeepa was recorded and he could not take the well-worn route of blaming the media. He therefore chose to clarify that what he intended to say was not that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa should replace Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa as SLPP leader, but that a “suitable position” in the party should be created for him. https://island.lk/pressure-group-in-the-making/ Burial issue: Health Minister will decide http://www.sundaytimes.lk/210214/news/burial-issue-health-minister-will-decide-432650.html Ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna…

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That Mr Weerawansa’s remarks stirred a hornet’s nest is to put it mildly. After all, the SLPP had been built on the sweat and toil of Basil Rajapaksa, its principal strategist. A top government leader sent Mr Weerawansa an emissary asking him to politely withdraw the remarks or face the consequences. He was adamant. Social media had a field day. Cartoonists lampooned the Minister, who gave up his Apple i-Pad after turning anti-American and switched to a Samsung tab. The criticism, severe as it was, was both political and personal.…

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PM’s remark on Covid-19 burial, ‘Legalising only through Gazette amendment’   Political decision expressed on behalf of Govt.  No special discussion on Covid-19 with Pakistani PM  All Muslim MPs and Opposition seek meeting  Notwithstanding the political decision recently expressed by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on behalf of the Government, permitting the burial of the bodies of Covid-19 victims cannot be done without amending the Gazette issued in this regard in April 2020, Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said.  http://www.themorning.lk/pms-remark-on-covid-19-burial-legalising-only-through-gazette-amendment/ By Rajan Philips – Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa who made the surprising call for the government…

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In one aspect, extra-judicial killings by various means such as enforced disappearances, Sri Lanka’s experience is much worse than in Myanmar where imprisonments were more than but killings after arrest were less. In Sri Lanka, after the election of the new president and the government, the military is directly running public affairs. If this process of militarization continues and if the basic concept of semi-dictatorship as introduced through the 1972 and 1978 constitution is not replaced, Sri Lanka will acquire the same problems experienced by the people of Myanmar. Myanmar…

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For the Rajapaksas, the minorities are aliens, permanent guests who will be allowed to live on sufferance, and on terms of manifest and submissive inequality. A case in point is the strangely similar genesis of the National Anthem and burial issues. The Army Commander laid the foundation stone for a temple complex in Kankasanturai, Tissa Raja Maha Viharaya, named after King Devanampiyatissa. The construction of the 100-foot chaithya will be handled by the Army. The National Anthem in Tamil was banished from Independence Day celebrations for the second successive year.…

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SLPP embarrasses Prime Minister; then buries its head in the COVID sand Nevertheless, the Government did not explain in Parliament as to why the PM had given an assurance that burials would be allowed, though some SLPP MPs dug an even bigger hole for themselves and their Government by claiming at a news briefing that what the PM meant was that the dead were allowed to be buried and that he did not mean COVID victims could be buried: a ludicrous explanation that made Mr Rajapaksa, a former President and…

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