Manu Gunasena
Bandarawela is situated 210km from Colombo. At 1,220m (4,000ft) above sea level, the town is blessed with a salubrious climate that many regard as the healthiest in Sri Lanka. Its temperature hovers between 12oC in December and 27oC in June with an average rainfall of 1,100 to 1,400mm annually. Its rich verdancy and its cool clean air make its climate invigorating, creating a health resort to keep both mind and body beautiful.
Daya Gamage, courtesy of The Asian Tribune, 19 December 2015, where the title reads “U.S. to persuade ‘Sinhala Hardliner’ Ranawaka for federalism in Sri Lanka”
A hard-line advocate for the retention of the unitary system in Sri Lanka whose advocacy resonates well with the majority Sinhalese sentiments met a strong advocate for a federal system for Sri Lanka in the U.S. Department of State on December 18 at a time the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe administration announced the formation of a constitutional assembly to discuss a new constitution for Sri Lanka. Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka, the leader of the nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya and a leading minister who could influence the Sinhalese opinion in favor of the current administration on the issue of federalism, met with Atul Keshap, the U.S. ambassador in Colombo, who has gone on record tilting in favor of the Tamil political agitation for a federal structure for the north-east region of Sri Lanka.
U.S. Ambassador Atul Keshap meets Minister of Megapolis and Western Development Champika Ranawaka.
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Filed under accountability, american imperialism, devolution, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
ONE: “A Constituional Court required,” says Ranil …. http://www.chatter.lk/constitutional-court-needed-to-uphold-credibility-of-judicial-system-pm/
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said today a separate Constitutional Court should be established to uphold the confidence of the people in the judicial system as politicization of the judiciary in the last decade had led to a loss of public confidence in the judicial system. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe expressed these views while delivering the 12th Sujata Jayawardena memorial oration organised by the Alumni Association of the Colombo University on “Strengthening Democratic Institutions” at the BMICH in Colombo. The Premier said politicization of the judiciary had been an obstacle to enshrining the Constitution as the supreme law and declaring all other laws which are inconsistent with the Constitution as invalid. “When establishing a separate Constitutional Court, we have to consider two issues. The first is the tenure of the Judges. Should it be decreed by an age limit or a time period? The second would be a possible method of ensuring the independence of the Constitutional Court,’ he said.
Good morning, and to all of you Ayubowan, Vanakkam. Thank you for being here. It’s a tremendous honor and a great pleasure to be here today.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your very kind introduction. To be at this respected institute, named in honor of the late and great Lakshman Kadirgamar, and an institute dedicated to the study of Sri Lanka’s strategic interests, is the right place to be today to talk to all of you, about the partnership between the United States and Sri Lanka. Few understood the strategic interests of Sri Lanka better than Kadirgamar, who was an accomplished international civil servant, and an unparalleled expert on foreign affairs – appointed three times as foreign minister. It has been nearly 10 years since his assassination, but his vision of a united, inclusive, and peaceful Sri Lanka is becoming more real by the day. Continue reading
Filed under american imperialism, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, governance, growth pole, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
Shamindra Ferdinando, in The Island, 16 December 2015, with the title “Sri Lanka’s role in CIA’s ‘extraordinary rendition” … http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=137050
In a statement issued on Dec. 10 to commemorate the Human Rights Day, Foreign Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, proudly declared: “Sri Lanka’s commemorations will not only be symbolic – it will also be substantive. So, I am very pleased to announce that Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, will today, this morning in New York, in fact, will be signing the International Convention on Enforced Disappearances.” In a hard hitting statement, Minister Samaraweera said that during the last decade or so, in Sri Lanka, human rights, were always spoken as an alien concept. The universal values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, were made out to be alien concepts or western values, as the previous government called it, and they used to say it’s western values and infringing on our country’s sovereignty. Although, the previous Rajapaksa administration cannot absolve itself of some of its actions, since the end of the war, in May, 2009, it took tangible measures to eradicate terrorism. Sri Lanka resorted to desperate measures. The world’s solitary superpower, and its allies, did the same at the expense of accountability in the wake of the al-Qaeda challenge.
Map of states participating in USA’s “terrorists” rendition programme 
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Filed under accountability, atrocities, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, Rajapaksa regime, security, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, wikileaks, world events & processes, zealotry
Courtesy of Daily News, 16 December 2015 , where the title reads “Rajiv Gandhi assassination case: Nalini Sriharan again moves Madras HC”
Nalini Sriharan, undergoing life imprisonment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, on Monday again moved the Madras High Court seeking a direction to Tamil Nadu government to consider her representation for premature release. Nalini, now confined in the Special Prison for women in Vellore, submitted that she has undergone imprisonment for more than 24 years. She was first awarded death sentence, which was confirmed by the Supreme Court and subsequently Tamil Nadu government under Article 161 of the Constitution commuted her sentence to life on April 24 2000.
Stating that about 2,200 life convicts who had served 10 years of sentence had been released by Tamil Nadu, she said it had not considered her release on the ground that her case falls under a different section of Code of criminal procedure. She submitted Tamil Nadu government has framed a scheme of premature release of life convicts who had completed 20 years of actual imprisonment. A Government Order was also passed on Novedmber 10, 1994 even under which she was not considered for release, she said.
Claiming that she is eligible to be considered for premature release under this scheme, Nalini submitted that she had made a representation on October 22, 2014 to the state government to consider her premature release but government was yet to decide on the representation. She sought a direction from the court to decide on her representation within a reasonable time.Nalini was sentenced to death by the trial court in the case on January 28, 1998. Her sentence was commuted to life term by the Tamil Nadu Governor on April 24, 2000. (Pix:NDTV)
Dhanu (second from left and Sivarasan (the operational commander) wait for the Kill
Scene of carnage at Rajiv’s assassination- Pic from www.salem-news.com
Nalini & Murugan at trial
ALSO SEE
* Michael Roberts (2009) Killing Rajiv Gandhi: Dhanu’s sacrificialmetamorphosis in death, South Asian History and Culture, 1:1, 25-41 … http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19472490903387191 AND https://thuppahis.com/2010/01/06/killing-rajiv-gandhi-dhanus-sacrificial-met-in-death/
AND ABSORB the details in the book by DR Kaarthikeyan & R. Raju, The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination. The Investigation. Slough: New Dawn Press Inc., 1994…. documenting what was truly a remarkable work of detection and trial
A recent scene off the north eastern coast of Sri Lanka at Kokilai, a small town in the Mullaitivu District of northern Sri Lanka…. courtesy of http://www.fuzzfix.com/what-these-soldiers-did-to-save-this-whale-will-make-you-proud-to-be-human/2/… and with thanks to Senaka Weeraratne … not far from where the last battles of Eelam War IV were fought and where talaivar Velupillai Pirapaharan met his death Continue reading
Filed under sri lankan society, tolerance, world affairs
Daily News, 14 December 2015 … with emphases being the additions from The Editor, thuppahi who has also taken the liberty of dding a few bibliographical references from his own pen.
For the past 65 years, we have been talking a great deal about national unity. We talked amongst ourselves, in the media, at meetings and in legislative bodies. Yet, even with such a plethora of discussions, we still disagree over how national unity is best achieved, what it should look like, and precisely what it is that needs to be unified. We are always in question and, strangely, we have no shortage of answers – answers that are painfully polarized.
We often talk as if we have discovered the answer to our national question, but our tone of voice has a predictable, almost scripted, quality. Having rehearsed our lines, assumed our positions, and located our opponents, we are ready to perform. Some of us demand equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of their cultural, ethnic, racial, language, religious, gender, or other characteristics, saying Sri Lankan citizenship must be left undifferentiated, equal, and symmetrical.
N. A. De S. Amaratunga in The Island, 3 December 2015, where the title is “Government’ Dilemma” …. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=136400
The government seems caught up in a quandary of its own making. In both the economy and the security spheres, the Government seems to be perplexed as to what it should do on its own will rather than on the bidding of its Western “friends”. It appears the Government has got into an intransigent alignment with the West, with all the benefits accruing to the latter. In the economic sphere, the alignment is designed to drain our wealth, as clearly shown by the gradual devaluation of the rupee, which amounts to about 8% since January 8th 2015.
Several Western leaders and officials have visited Sri Lanka but none had pledged meaningful economic assistance, other than money for the North and the East, which is part of their political game in Sri Lanka. IMF officials came and laid down their conditions which have never helped any poor country to rise above poverty. IMF, World Bank and the ADB are the tools of the West, which make sure the passage of wealth is in one direction. Continue reading
Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, where the title is different and where a range of blog comments may eventuate
At the height of Eelam War IV, as the Wikileaks material reveals, American officials in Colombo as well as Washington and New York were bombarded with email demands and/or information from ardent Tamil advocates concerned about the deteriorating situation of the LTTE and the populace corralled within Thamiīilam’s declining terrain. The very diversity of fervent messages had an impact on the thinking of key American policy makers in 2009. The extremism of the vast majority of messages was immediately dismissed. But, in unplanned manner, these missiles opened the door for the US personnel of the State Department to give credence to the claims of the moderate few. This is the implication one can draw from Blake’s Despatch No. 314 of 20 March 2009. 
Robert Blake-Pic fr srilankaguardian.org
I go further. In explicit conjecture I contend that the same process has been at work in the past few years, especially at the moments when the UN bureaucracy was witch-hunting Sri Lanka in the interests of the desired regime change and/or reform in the island. So, it is a continuing process proceeding now, TODAY. Continue reading
Filed under american imperialism, democratic measures, devolution, disparagement, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, LTTE, nationalism, patriotism, politIcal discourse, prabhakaran, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes
thuppahi
