Colombo (LNW): Efforts are being made to provide effective service to Sri Lanka by modernising the Civil Security Force, said Defence State Minister Premitha Bandara Tennakoon, addressing the Ministerial Consultative Committee on Defence held recently.
There was a discussion at length regarding the Civil Security Force and the MPs present held that they will receive high support from the officials of the Civil Security Force to alleviate the human-elephant conflict.
The provision of fuel facilities and other facilities required by the said officials was also discussed at the Committee meeting held.
Forest fires were reported in large numbers during the past and a programme will be initiated to prevent such occurrences, Tennakoon commented.
Moreover, there was a discussion regarding the security faculty and the hospital in Kotalawala.
Deputy Speaker Ajith Rajapakse, MPs Buddhika Pathirana, Kins Nelson, Dr. Maj. Pradeep Undugoda, Sanjeeva Edirimanna, Isuru Dodangoda, M.W.D. Sahan Pradeep Withana, Premnath C. Dolawatte, Upul Mahendra Rajapaksa were present at the Committee meeting.
Colombo (LNW): Endorsing the recent ‘Channel 4’ disclosure on the 2019 Easter Sunday Massacre, Archbishop of Colombo, His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith making an exclusive statement with the media this (06) evening urged Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and the government of Sri Lanka to immediately commence a thorough international probe regarding the speculated conspiracy behind the attacks.
Elaborating further the Cardinal underscored the importance of an inquiry that is ‘unbiased, transparent, comprehensive and fair,’ spearheaded by an independent international group, with the backing of all the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials who had previously been thrown out of the picture due to political interference.
The Cardinal made this appeal in response to a recent controversial documentary aired on Britain’s Channel 4 supposedly revealing the master plan behind the terrorist attack that took away more than 250 lives in April, 2019, which stirred controversy.
The documentary quoting statements from witnesses and high-ranking whistleblowers of the Sri Lankan government proposes that the 2019 Easter Sunday Massacre was carried out as part of a political conspiracy, paving the way for a certain candidate to win the subsequent Presidential Election.
GENEVA (6 September 2023) – Sri Lanka suffers from a continuing accountability deficit – be it for war crime atrocities, more recent human rights violations, corruption, or abuse of power – which must be addressed for the country to move forward, according to a UN Human Rights Office report published on Wednesday.
“More than a year ago mass protests demanded better governance and an inclusive vision for Sri Lanka – in short, a renewal of the social contract. But the potential for a historic transformation that would address long-standing challenges is far from being realised,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
Fourteen years since the end of the war, tens of thousands of victims and their families continue to experience the pain and agony of seeking truth, justice, and remedy. While the Government has proposed a new truth-seeking mechanism, the report stresses that the groundwork needs to be laid by genuine efforts to create the enabling environment for any transitional justice process to succeed.
This starts through meaningful and transparent consultations with victims and civil society on the current truth-seeking proposal and includes an end to all forms of harassment and unlawful and arbitrary surveillance against human rights defenders and victims’ groups, as well as support for initiatives to acknowledge and memorialize the experience of victims.
“Truth-seeking alone will not suffice. It must also be accompanied by a clear commitment to accountability and the political will to implement far-reaching change,” Türk said.
Among other recommendations, the report calls on the authorities to accelerate investigations and prosecutions into emblematic cases of human rights violations, as well as the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. The High Commissioner has previously urged an independent investigation with international assistance to pursue further lines of inquiry into the full circumstances of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
The report provides an update on the work of the accountability project established by the UN Human Rights Office pursuant to resolutions 46/1 and 51/1. The High Commissioner repeated his call for the international community to support accountability initiatives, notably through investigations and prosecutions using universal or extra-territorial jurisdiction, with other complementary measures.
The report also details a number of concerns with proposed new laws, including a new Anti-Terrorism Bill and legislation to regulate broadcasting.
The report notes that the President has set a different tone in advancing reconciliation initiatives and has promised to stop land acquisition for archaeological, or security purposes, which has been an increasing source of local conflicts and tension. At the same time, the UN Human Rights Office continued to receive reports of disputes over land, particularly in the North and East of the country.
The continuing impact of the economic crisis of 2022 and the global downturn on people’s human rights and well-being is highlighted in the report, including a dramatic increase in Sri Lanka’s poverty rate which doubled from 13% in 2021 to 25% in 2022. Food insecurity is affecting a significant proportion of the population, in turn impacting the right to health and increasing the risk of school dropouts.
The High Commissioner said the international community, including international financial institutions, should support Sri Lanka in its economic recovery and in meeting its international obligations, while pressing for genuine progress in governance, transparency, and accountability.
“I urge the Government and Sri Lankan political parties to strive for and deliver on the urgent need for renewal, deeper institutional reforms and tangible progress on accountability, reconciliation and human rights,” Türk said. “This would be particularly appropriate in this year that marks both the 75th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s independence and the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
On Easter Sunday 2019, six suicide bombings hit Catholic churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, killing 269 people. Quickly, the perpetrators were identified as domestic religious extremists the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama’ath), claimed by Islamic State as their own. The wider world, pausing to note that the perceived threat of Islamic fundamentalism helped the controversial Rajapaksa family regain the Sri Lankan presidency a few months after the bombings, chalked it up as yet another terrorist atrocity about which nothing much could be said or done and moved on.
Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings, a new Dispatches investigation, makes serious new allegations about the attacks, based on whistleblower testimony. While the accusations are startling, they are straightforward: the charge is that allies of the Rajapaksas had associations with the NTJ, and that they made it hard for law enforcement to arrest its leaders prior to the bombings or to fully investigate the massacre afterwards.
Such information does not fill an hour of television; the programme is three-quarters done before the bombings take place. But, while the programme may feel like a 15-minute news report with a 45-minute preamble, that context is fascinating. The earlier section is a pithy summary of modern Sri Lankan politics, telling a tale of how authoritarians wield power, the lengths they will go to when that power is challenged, and how they lay dormant in the aftermath of apparent defeat, waiting to return.
We start in 1983, when an armed uprising by Tamil separatists sparked civil war, before spooling forward to the end of that conflict in 2009. Actions taken then by the Sri Lankan army, under the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, have since been widely described as war crimes, not least by the 2011 Channel 4 documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields –a film furiously criticised by Sri Lankan authorities.
Rajapaksa and his younger brother Gotabaya, appointed by the president as defence secretary, had already built a reputation as leaders to be feared. Numerous political opponents were threatened or attacked. The film recalls the chilling murder in 2009 of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, the government’s most prominent critic, who predicted his own demise and left behind an editorial to be published after his death: “Murder,” he wrote, “has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty.” Such violent retribution was, the Dispatches contributors say, believed to be carried out by a clandestine death squad called the Tripoli Platoon.
In 2015, the Rajapaksas, who had flooded government posts with extended family and were beset by allegations of corruption, were voted out. Senior police officer Nishantha Silva then investigated the Wickrematunge murder, finding phone record evidence putting Tripoli Platoon members at the scene. Making his first public statements in this programme, Silva claimsthat, despite no longer running the country, the Rajapaksas still had enough friends in powerful positions to ensure the case stalled in the Sri Lankan courts.
Dispatches’ star whistleblower is an exile named Hanzeer Azad Maulana, who spent nearly 20 years working within the Rajapaksas’ inner circle as a translator and aide. And so we come finally to those headline allegations: Maulana says he was in the room when Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered the founding of the Tripoli Platoon. Even more seriously, he says that in 2018, the year before the bombings, he brokered a meeting between NTJ members and Suresh Sallay, who was the Rajapaksas’ head of military intelligence. (Sallay, who was demoted to an outpost in Malaysia after the end of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency in 2015, denies this, telling Dispatches he was in Malaysia at the time of the supposed 2018 meeting. Gotabaya Rajapaksa did not respond to requests to comment.)
We are told that information from Indian intelligence sources, warning of an attack by the NTJ on Catholic churches, was not acted upon. Efforts by the police to arrest NTJ followers were, according to documents obtained by Dispatches and testimony from a further, anonymous whistleblower, derailed by briefings from military intelligence filled with baseless accusations against other groups.
In this thicket of secrets and lies, the film takes time to hear from the victims, interviewing two survivors of the Easter 2019 attack on St Sebastian’s church in Negombo. Their memories of seeing loved ones die – 115 perished at St Sebastian’s, including 27 children – form a lurching contrast to the smiling face of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, elected as president in November 2019 on a wave of fierce, fearful nationalism. The new ruler appointed Suresh Sallay as his new intelligence boss – Dispatches’ anonymous whistleblower claims to have evidence of Sallay then obstructing the investigation into the bombings. Sallay, who denies everything and is now pursuing defamation claims in the Sri Lankan courts, is still the director-general of the State Intelligence Service today.
Citizens of many countries are accustomed, in the aftermath of apparently random and unstoppable terrorist horror, to learning that in fact the culprits had been “known to the intelligence services” and ought to have been intercepted. If the allegations here prove correct, the truth in Sri Lanka is even more disturbing.
Ambassador-designate of Sri Lanka to the Republic of the Philippines, Dr. Chanaka Talpahewa assumed duties at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Manila on 04 September 2023.
After the religious and traditional observances, the Ambassador-designate addressed the staff and emphasised the importance of team work in achieving Sri Lanka’s diplomatic goals including further strengthening and elevating the friendly relations with the Philippines to the next level.
An officer of the Sri Lanka Foreign Service Dr. Talpahewa came first in the country at the SLFS recruitment examination. He has served in the Sri Lanka Missions to the United Nations (New York), the Maldives, Turkey and the United Kingdom. He served in the United Nations (UN) as the Head of Agency of United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) for Sri Lanka and the Maldives. He has also served as the Assistant Secretary (International Relations) to the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. In addition, he has private sector experience.
Dr. Talpahewa obtained his PhD in Politics and Internationals Studies from the University of Cambridge, UK and was awarded the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholarship, Developing World Education Fund Scholarship & Smuts Scholarship in Commonwealth Studies. He obtained MPhil in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge and MBA, MA (IR), MDS and BSc. degrees from the University of Colombo. He was admitted to the Bar as an Attorney-at-Law in 1992. He has also been a visiting lecturer to many universities and higher education institutions in Sri Lanka.
An outstanding sportsman, he is the first Sri Lankan rowing captain. He has represented Sri Lanka at the Asian Games, won medals at South Asian Games and currently holds two Sri Lanka records.
Dr. Talpahewa has presented papers at numerous research conferences and has contributed articles to many research journals. He has authored Peaceful Intervention in Intra-State Conflicts: Norwegian Involvement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process (Ashgate, UK 2015 and Routledge, UK 2016) and co-authored A Quick Guide to Plants in the Maldives.
Colombo (LNW): The Dockyard Joint Trade Union Alliance today (06) organised a protest movement against the slashing of interest of the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and the Employees’ Trust Fund (ETF) and the government’s hostile labour law policy and for a number of other demands.
The protest was held in front of the Port Entrance near the Kahn Clock Tower, and was endorsed by many trade union members, civil movements and other concerned individuals.
Colombo (LNW): The Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR) indicates further depreciation against the US Dollar today (06) compared to yesterday as per the official exchange rates list issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL).
Accordingly, the buying price of the US Dollar has increased to Rs. 315.93 from Rs. 314.87, and the selling price to Rs. 327.51 from Rs. 326.65.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Rupee also indicates fluctuation against several other foreign currencies, whilst indicating a depreciation against Gulf currencies.
Colombo (LNW): The government has decided to exempt domestic rice production and equipment used by people with special needs from the Social Security Contribution Levy (SSCL), announced Finance State Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya today (06).
The Minister made this announcement on his X (previously known as Twitter) handle.
Colombo (LNW): The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) said it commenced a special initiative to probe over 11,000 complaints lodged by the public regarding human rights violations.
Accordingly, these complaints will be investigated at the head office and district level office, said HRCSL Commissioner Nimal Punchihewa.
Initial findings suggest that a portion of complaints submitted to the Commission would be better addressed by different entities, and these complaints, therefore, will be forwarded to the Public Service Commission, National Police Commission, Department of Labour and Consumer Affairs Authority.
The HRCSL Commissioner asserted that he is committed to overseeing the investigations undertaken by these institutions, and pointed out the importance of swift inquiries into all reports to ensure justice in cases of human rights infringements.
Colombo (LNW): MP Dayasiri Jayasekara has been relived of his position as the Secretary General of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).
The Party decision has been communicated to the MP via a letter from the SLFP Chairman, former President Maithripala Sirisena.
The letter highlighted that Jayasekara’s suspension from the post comes in his ineligibility to serve as the SLFP Secretary General.
Furthermore, there are impending disciplinary proceedings against Jayasekara due to several accusations directed at him.
Jayasekara has acknowledged receiving the letter which officially states his removal from the post and the subsequent suspension of his party membership.
Meanwhile, reports claim that Sarath Ekanayaka, the Deputy General Secretary of the SLFP, is now serving as the party’s Acting General Secretary.
