ColomboPage News Desk
November 18, 2010
The first vessel that was anchored outside the harbor was taken into the harbor at the auspicious time of 10:30 a.m. today. Three ships led by the Sri Lanka Navy's Jetliner entered the Harbor ceremonially.
Addressing the ceremony the President said the arrival of the first ship at the Hambantota harbour has marked a new location in the world naval map.
President Rajapaksa also presided over the commencement of the second stage of construction of the harbour that is to be completed by 2014. He noted that the harbour is a new opening for the development in the next five years.
Seruwila, the first ship that reached the harbour brought a Buddha statue gifted to Sri Lanka by Myanmar to the shore.
Conveying the commendations and the best wishes of the Chinese government special envoy to Chinese President, Sang Guowei said the Magampura harbour is the prominent symbol of friendship between China and Sri Lanka.
The Chinese envoy pointed out that the harbour, to be developed as a leading intermediary harbour in the Indian Ocean Zone, will massively benefit Sri Lanka's economy through the building of extensive business relations in the region.
The first phase of the Harbour, built at a cost of US $ 437 million is a joint venture between China Harbor Engineering and Syno Hydro Corporation. The Government of China provided 85 percent of financial assistance.
First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne, Deputy Minister Rohitha Abeygunawardana, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority Dr. Priyath Bandu Wickrema also participated in the ceremony.
(Photos by Sudath Silva)
HELA JATHIKA ABHIMANEY!
By C.T. Fernando
(Hela Jathika Abhimaney,
Wadu Viruwan Sey Poraney,
Dinu Mau Bima Sau Siriyen Sarasau!
Pibhidev!
Pibhidev!
Sarasev!)//
Vira Vikum Paa Pera Daruwo,
Desa Rasa Mura Keruwo,
Aey Leya Athi Oba Sura Viruwo,
Nomawevu Naya Karuwo!
Deya Diyunata Padayana Naviya,
Goviya Bima Deviya,
(Wipathehi, Sapathehi, Nosalei, Nothalei,
Ata Lodama Huru Helaya!)//
Hela Jathika Abhimaney.../
Muhudata Aadena Maha Ganga,
Kuburata Yali Harawa,
Danya Waga Kota Sri Laka Mey,
Peradiga Keta Karawa!
Ara Pirimasmata Puruduwela,
Bindalau Duka Sanka!
(Parakum Yugayak
Nawathath Arambau!
Nija Bhumi Thaley Lanka!)//
Hela Jathika Abhimaney ...//
JAYAWEWA, Sri Lanka Matha!
Dozens of colourfully dressed traditional drummers beat magul bera at President Mahinda Rajapaksa inauguration on Friday for a second six-year term in office. The ceremonial inauguration included a march-past by thousands of troops. AFP PHOTO/Ishara S. KODIKARA.
20 comments:
Patriots!
Sri Lanka ... the Shining Gem of the Indian Ocean .. is Rising Again under the leadership of a Son of Lanka from Ruhuna!
After two millenia, the ancient port at Magam Pura has risen anew to contribute to, and witness, the restoration of the Ancient Glory of this Hallowed Land.
King Dutugamunu .. a Great Son of Mother Lanka .. went forth from Magam Pura to reunify Sri Lanka and lay the foundation of its greatness nearly two thousand years ago.
Today, Mahinda Rajapaksa .. another Son of Ruhuna .. from Magam Pura .. has risen to reunify the nation and restore those glories of old.
May the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha bless, protect and assist him in achieving this goal!
Jayawewa, Sri Lanka!
New Port Opening Promises Economic Boost For Sri Lanka
TheStreet.com
November 18, 2010
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka, Nov. 18, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Sri Lanka's new pounds Sterling 226 million deep sea port at Magampura harbor, Hambantota, on the south coast of the island has today been officially opened with the ceremonial docking of the first vessel to use the port facilities.
In a ceremony presided over by President Mahinda Rajapaksa as part of the week-long festivities surrounding his official inauguration for his second term in office, a traditional sailing yacht, Pradeepa 2, dropped anchor in Hambantota's Magampura harbor. She received a traditionally warm and colorful Sri Lankan welcome from the huge crowds gathered on the waterfront and quaysides.
Pradeepa 2 was chosen in recognition of Sri Lanka's age old role as a key stopping point on the ancient east-west silk trading route. She was followed into harbor by the Sri Lankan passenger ship Jetliner.
Phase one of the port, operated by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority and completed in August this year ahead of the scheduled completion in April 2011, is an integral part of the Government's program of economic action and reconstruction of transport and trade infrastructure after the successful conclusion of the three decade-long struggle against the Tamil Tigers terrorism campaign. It lies at the heart of a strategy to make Sri Lanka an import/export, marine services and transshipment hub at the locus of key worldwide shipping routes.
The port is located just 10 nautical miles from one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, used by up to 200 vessels every day, and can handle vessels of up to 100,000 Deadweight tonnage.
A government spokesman said: "The successful completion and opening of the superb docking and cargo facilities at Hambantota epitomizes the determination of the Sri Lankan Government and people to capitalize on the opportunity that is offered by the island's new era of peace, to bring prosperity to all.
New Port Opening Promises Economic Boost For Sri Lanka
.....continued....
"The opening of Hambantota port ushers in a new era which will transform Sri Lanka's important transport and shipping industry. We look forward to welcoming increased global trade through what is one of the world's most modern ports."
Phase one of the new Hambantota port was constructed by the China Harbour Engineering Company at a cost of some pounds Sterling 226 million and includes provision for a high quality passenger terminal, cargo handling, warehousing, bunkering, provisioning, maintenance and repair, medical supplies and customs clearing facilities.
The 2,000 hectares of land immediately surrounding the new port is to be developed as a dedicated investment and industrial zone, with 65 domestic and international investor businesses having already expressed an interest. It is anticipated that, once phase two of the Hambantota port project is completed in April 2011, the port will provide 40 per cent of Government income by 2020 and create 10,000 direct and over 60,000 indirect new job opportunities.
Further Government expansion of, and investment in, modern port facilities is underway at Galle, Oluvil, Trincomalee, Kankasanthurai and Colombo.
This has been distributed by Qorvis Communications, LLC on behalf of the government of Sri Lanka. More information is available at the United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.
SOURCE Government of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka's TOP TRAITOR, Ranil Wickramasinghe, HURRIES to Tamil Nadu to HELP STIR the Tamil Nadu COMMUNAL BREW!
With My Profuse Apologies to William Shakespeare, I offer ...
THE TAMIL NADU COMMUNAL BREW
By Rabble-Rousing Unpatriotic Quintet (Ramadoss, Vaiko, Thirumavalavan, Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha):
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poisonous ingredients throw.
Gullible men illiterate and poor;
Depend on us, poor fools..they endure.
Sweated venom of RACE we got;
Boil thou first in the charmed pot.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Fillets of a high and low CASTE snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake.
Head of Brahmin and entrails of Dalit;
Hearts Aryan and Dravidian shall fit.
Eye of Hindu and Moslem for RELIGION we take;
Tongue of Tamil and Hindi for LANGUAGE sake.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
For charm of political demons we make,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Add thereto a TAMIL TIGER's chaudron,
For ingredients of our COMMUNAL cauldron.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
...............
Sri Lanka Opposition Leader on a tour in India
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Nov 17, Colombo: Sri Lanka Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe is now in India, United National Party (UNP) sources say.
Wickremasinghe left for Chennai this morning for a three day visit, UNP said. He is to meet several Tamil Nadu leaders during his stay there.
The Opposition Leader went on a tour in European countries several weeks ago.
Meanwhile, sources close to the government say that more UNP MPs are keen to support the government following the second term swearing-in of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Shavendra tells LLRC:
The army killed no civilians; Tigers fought in civilian clothes
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Island.lk
November 18, 2010
LTTE accepted bodies of its cadres in civilian attire killed in action
Sri Lanka’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva on Thursday (Nov. 18) said that the Army had had absolutely no reason to target civilians during the last phase of the Eelam War IV on the Vanni east front.
Testifying before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) at the Kadirgamar Centre, the former General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Task Force I/58 Division said that there couldn’t have been any reason for indiscriminate action at a time the LTTE was clearly on the verge of collapse.
Responding to a query by the LLRC, Maj. Gen. Silva said that the government had set up a No Fire Zone (NFZ) and then shifted it gradually eastwards as the army advanced into the last enemy strongholds. Had the government failed to declare specific areas for civilians in the Vanni, there would have been large scale loss of life, he said.
The soldier turned diplomat alleged that the LTTE rump and a section of the media had been busy accusing Sri Lanka of war crimes. In an obvious reference to recent Aljazeera coverage of the last phase of the Sri Lankan offensive directed at the LTTE, Maj. Gen. Silva said that a section of the media had been engaged in a propaganda campaign against the country.
Maj. Gen. Silva cited a failed attempt by the LTTE and its allies in the media to blame his Division for having destroyed a hospital close to the frontline. The LTTE had dragged those who couldn’t walk out of the hospital and placed them on the ground, while a section of the media accused the Army of indiscriminate action. "But I was able to counter that campaign by taking a group of Colombo-based Indian journalists to the hospital within 24 hours. At the time of the initial accusation, three Indian journalists were with the 58 Division," the officer said.
The LTTE had gone to the extent of firing at Tamil civilians taking refuge in NFZ to blame the army of atrocities.
Shavendra tells LLRC:
The army killed no civilians; Tigers fought in civilian clothes
.....continued.....
Currently New York based Maj. Gen. Silva said that the LTTE fighting cadre, including its top leaders had fought in civilian attire. According to him even the likes of LTTE Jaffna Commander Theepan and Prabhakaran’s son, Charles Anthony had fought in civilian clothes. "I personally identified the body of Theepan following a major battle at Puthukudirippu. He was in civilian attire," Maj. Gen. Siva said. According to him the Puthukudirippu battle in April had effectively destroyed the LTTE command and control structure. The enemy had been encircled and decimated in a battle, which caused the loss of over 600 LTTE cadres, including their senior ground commanders, he said. Those, who faced the advancing troops subsequently in a series of battles, lacked the experience to have a tight grip on the combatants.
Commenting on the wives and relatives of LTTE cadres who had testified before the LLRC in the North recently, Maj. Gen. Silva said that claims were being in some quarter that those killed in battles with the army were civilians. The war veteran recalled how the LTTE had trained a civilian militia to fight alongside its regular units. He went on to explain the circumstances under which the Army had transferred bodies of LTTE cadres in civilian attire through the ICRC on many occasions. Although the dead hadn’t been in uniform, the LTTE always accepted their bodies as it knew they were fallen cadres, Maj. Gen. Silva said.
Responding to a query by the LLRC, Maj. Gen. Silva said that the LTTE had carried out a massive suicide bomb attack on May 17 evening as it gradually lost control of the last stretch of land on the Vanni front. He said a fire triggered by the explosion had destroyed a large number of vehicles belonging to civilians and the LTTE.
The Expression of Love and Gratitude for the Saviour of Our Motherland is INDEED the "Sri Lanklan Way."
Where CREDIT IS DUE let us FREELY ACKNOWLEDGE it!
Where Love, Respect and Gratitude HAVE BEEN EARNED let us BESTOW it!
May it LONG BE the "Sri Lankan Way".
The Gloom and Doom of Foreign Naysayers, and PAID LTTE Propagandists Notwithstanding!
Jayawewa!
.................
The Sri Lankan way
By Steve Chao
blogs.AlJazeera.net
November 19th, 2010.
The first time Mahinda Rajapaksa assumed the seat of president in Sri Lanka, it was to limited fanfare. The year was 2005. He had just survived a fierce battle with his party for leadership, and the civil war with the rebel Tamil Tigers was still simmering. There wasn't much to celebrate.
This time around, the pomp and circumstance surrounding his second inauguration is staggering. Posters adorned with his photo have been erected on virtually every street in the country, every few feet.
The government decreed a week of celebrations, starting with the planting of three million trees and the presentation of the world's largest milk rice cake for the leader's birthday; which just happens to coincide with his second oath to office.
"The milk rice is our traditional form of celebration," said one of the five hundred chefs enlisted to fashion the gourmet monstrosity that weighs some 7000 kgs.
"It is seen as a blessing from the Gods; to the people and to the president."
With nightly fireworks, marching bands, and ceremonial Sri Lankan dancers at various events held in honour of him, the resemblance of Rajapaksa's swearing-in to a royal ordination is not lost on the greater populace. And is on the whole welcomed.
Age of peace
The 65 year-old former lawyer is revered as the man who ushered in a new, and unexpected, age of peace; though some would say it was brought about through a ruthless campaign against the Tamil Tigers, that even until now is shrouded by international concerns of human rights abuses.
Still it is a ruthlessness many on this island are willing to overlook, as after 30 years of devastating civil war the economy is predicted to mark a record growth of eight per cent in 2010.
"Rajapaksa achieved what no one in the international community thought possible. There was a myth that terrorism could never be defeated but he did so, and he did it in our own Sri Lankan way," Keheliya Rambukwewla, a government spokesperson, said.
That the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, or LTTE, was in fact a terrorist group, is the view of the victors. Some in the country's Tamil minority continue to see it differently.
But with the ethnic group making up 13 per cent of the population Rajapaksa knows one of his main challenges in his second term in office is to prove he can forge reconciliation between Tamils and the majority Sinhalese population.
He has promised that all ethnic groups will share equally in the future prosperity of the country. There is a lot of rebuilding to be done.
Almost every minister in government will tell you that not long ago Sri Lanka was considered a failed state. The Tamil communities of the north, where much of the fighting occured, remains in utter ruins.
The Sri Lankan way
.....continued....
Dictator-in-the-making
However, beyond economics, perhaps of even more concern, is a litany of government moves that have critics fearing a dictator-in-the-making.
Shortly after Rajapaksa's re-election was the highly publicised arrest of Sarath Fonseka, his challenger and former army general. The war hero now spends his days shuttling between the courts and jail on various charges.
He has already been convicted of corruption and for using his military position for politicking; crimes that will have him serve a jail term of several years.
Fonseka's soft-spoken and dutiful wife, Anoma, has faithfully defended his innocence and speaks of harassment and a climate of fear created by the country's leaders against those who oppose them.
"Actually we don't have democracy, one can … understand that day by day we are going to the lower level," she said.
What has baffled this one-time close friend of the Rajapaksa family, is the president's personal history.
She says that in his days as a lawyer he championed human rights and the need for limits on the government's power, especially in the executive branch.
But just months after securing his presidency Rajapaksa amended the constitution, giving him overall authority in appointing civil servants, the police and judges.
He also removed the two-term limit for a president, allowing him to technically be in charge indefinitely.
The fact he has given himself and his brothers almost all the key portfolios in cabinet from finance to defence, has led to talk and criticism from international rights groups that he is running a family dynasty rather than a democracy.
Newfound confidence
But Rambukwewla says the world has nothing to fear, that at the end of the day the president will still need to run for re-election every six years.
"Whether he is having ten departments or a hundred departments, if the people are happy and the people are being given what was promised, or more than what was promised, why should the outside world be concerned about it?"
Where once Sri Lanka cared for what the world thought of it, Rambukwewla says there is a newfound confidence in the island nation's own abilities.
Rather than simply embracing the West and it's "ideals", he talks of expanding trade with nations like Iran and China.
Rajapaksa himself speaks of turning his country into the next economic "miracle of Asia". And the greater majority appear willing to let him try.
When asked about whether the president has too much power, most on the streets respond with shrugs and the typical response: "this is the way things are done here. It is the Sri Lankan way".
My Comment at the Economist:
The LTTE Propagandists at the Economist are indulging in their favorite pastime of undermining the Heroic President adored, for good reason, by the GREAT MAJORITY of Sri Lankans!
GIVE IT UP, I say .. it simply will not work!
US Presidents are inaugurated with great pomp and ceremony, as are Sovereigns of jolly old England. When those leaders perform outstandingly, and WIN the HEARTS & MINDS of their fellow citizens, the celebrations accorded them are ecstatically enthusiastic.
Yet, only Sri Lankans are not allowed to Honor their Victorious Patriotic Leaders with a triumphant march!
If they do, it is deemed that there is "Something Intrinsically Wrong With Sri Lankans"!
BOLONEY!
Let me tell you a secret: we Sri Lankans are no different from most people in this world .. we LOVE, RESPECT and HONOR those who have heroically labored on our behalf, to defend and protect our country, and propel it forward to become the New Wonder of Asia.
Our Expression of Love and Gratitude for the Savior of Our Motherland is INDEED Our "Sri Lankan Way."
Where CREDIT IS DUE let us FREELY GRANT it!
Where Love, Respect and Gratitude HAVE BEEN EARNED let us BESTOW it!
May it LONG BE the "Sri Lankan Way", Doom and Gloom prognostications of Foreign Naysayers & Assorted Pusillanimous Pundits grinding their axes at the LTTE mill, notwithstanding!
We PATRIOTS of Sri Lanka simply couldn't care less!
Long Live Resplendent Sri Lanka!
Ratna Deepa, Janma Bhumi,
Lanka Deepa, Vijaya Bhumi!
Sri Lanka has the wisdom to solve its own problems, President Rajapaksa says
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Nov 19, Colombo: Sri Lanka has the inherited wisdom to tolerate all opinions and take mature decisions and the country has a tradition of understanding its problems and conflicts and finding solutions for them, the President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa said today.
"We are not a miniature of a developed country. We are Sri Lanka. Our motherland is Sri Lanka," the President told the nation today following his inauguration to a second term in office.
Aiming at the critics of Sri Lankan government on its resolution to the ethnic conflict, the President said Sri Lanka understands its problems with perceived wisdom.
"We understand our problems with perceived wisdom, based on realities. The expectations of the people are not those of the terrorists," he pointed out.
President Rajapaksa highlighting the development work carried out in the North and East said all development work in the conflict-affected region is a closure of a highway to terrorism.
He said he strongly believes that the infrastructure development in those areas to banish poverty is a major part of a political solution to the ethnic conflict.
The President observed that the people of the North were able to use their franchise in freedom at the Presidential and Parliamentary elections and assured the right to vote freely and elect their representatives in the forthcoming local elections.
President Rajapaksa said he seeks a country where people can travel from one end to another in a few hours and an era which provides a good income for the people.
He told the nation to rise by making Sri Lanka the hub of development in the five-fold areas of naval, aviation, commerce and trade, power and energy, and knowledge.
When children are brought up with all facilities with love and friendship and provided shelter and security, there will be no room for hatred on politics, community, caste, or religion, the President noted.
Speaking of foreign policy, the President said Sri Lanka's policy is non-alignment and during the war-ridden era Sri Lanka worked with many nations in agreement and friendship for national security.
The President said now the country is entering into a development era and invited the friendly countries to assist Sri Lanka with that endeavor.
"There will be no development in the absence of peace, nor peace in the absence of development. Therefore, we will strengthen already existing relations between nations and are ready to establish new relations for national security and development," the President said.
Addressing the children of the country, the President asked them never to call this is small country, as Sri Lanka, a land with great history, had won the freedom from its powerful imperial masters and more recently defeated the most ruthless and savage terrorist group in the world.
(Photos by Sudath Silva)
Bravo, GOSL!
Whatever the PRETEXT, foreign citizens have no legal right to engage in domestic politics in Sri Lanka.
Kick the Buggers OUT, and NIP the crime in the BUD, before it BLOOMS!
Let us CONTINUE the steps taken to MONITOR & CONTROL the ANTI-NATIONAL activities of iNGOs posing as "humanitarian workers" as well!
....................
Protesting Lebanese couple arrested in Sri Lanka
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Nov 19, Colombo: Media linked to the opposition of Sri Lanka reported today that the government was taking action to deport a Lebanese couple who took part in a protest against the assault of Marxist People's Liberation Front (JVP) MP Sunil Handunnetti in Jaffna by a gang of goons.
Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department arrested the couple today while they were staying in a hotel in Kandy.
The couple has been identified as Mr. and Mrs. Mohammed Hotek. The husband is reportedly the Chairman of the Democratic Youth Union of Lebanon. They have arrived in the country on last 14th. Reportedly they are spending their honeymoon in Sri Lanka.
The photos of the protesting couple were published by the local media.
The couple can be charged of violating visa regulations, police sources say.
The International Dimensions of the JVP's new political connections, are troubling!
Are they taking a book leaf out of TOP TRAITOR Ranil Wickremasinghe's tours of Europe and Tamil Nadu seeking Political Allies for engineering Regime Change in Sri Lanka?
My God ... Sri Lanka is overrun with people who QUICKLY turn against their own country to Propel Themselves To Power!
There are NO LIMITS to their PERFIDY!
First Ranil Wickremasinghe, then Harak Gonseka, and now the JVP!
Bloody Quislings!
Shame!
....................
Sri Lanka's Marxist party condemns government decision to deport Lebanese couple
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Nov 20, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) today condemned the decision to deport a Lebanese couple from the country for participating in an anti-government protest.
JVP Parliamentarian Sunil Handunnetti told the media that the party condemns the government's decision to deport the Lebanese couple who took part in a protest held by the JVP in Jaffna.
Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department arrested the couple, identified as Mr. and Mrs. Mohammed Hotek yesterday while they were staying in a hotel in Kandy.
He said the Lebanese national is the Chairman of the Democratic Youth Union of Lebanon and also Lebanon's representative to the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
Handunnetti had reportedly met the couple while attending overseas forums and said that their recent visit to Sri Lanka was their first trip after getting married recently.
According to Handunnetti, the couple had participated in the protest, held recently against an attack on him in Jaffna, only on an observation level and as international friends.
Meanwhile, local daily The Island reported that the CID is conducting further investigations in to the Lebanese connection to the Marxist party. The CID is of the belief that the couple is representing a Lebanese organization, which funds the JVP and supports its anti-government campaigns.
"I was made to say ... wails the DMO"!
Every Day, in Every Way the Truth is Revealed!
The Frenzied Reports of Huge Civilian Casualties in the Mullaitivu Pocket were INFLATED & BOGUS!
So WAILS the Tamil District Medical Officer (DMO) compelled by the LTTE to issue them!
We Sri Lankans ALWAYS KNEW THAT!
Only the LTTE-paid FOREIGN MEDIA and International Humanitarian Organizations with an AXE TO GRIND against Sri Lanka BELIEVED THEM .. because it suited their own purposes.
Paid by the LTTE, Sustained in their JOBS by Humanitarian CRISES, these iNGOs are now self-serving organic bodies with an embedded need to survive by keeping international crises GOING ON as LONG AS POSSIBLE.
In Sri Lanka, they HELPED keep the Eelam War Going for 30 long years!
What if there are NO CRISES to SUSTAIN THEM in the MANNER THEY HAVE BECOME ACCUSTOMED TO?
Well, they germinate them in nurseries, plant them in beds, water them, fertilze them, and grow them lovingly into full bloom, so they have jobs and vast income into their "industry" from various sources with agendas of their own!
They are NO LONGER Solutions to such Problems but the CREATORS and SUSTAINERS of the Problems!
................
DMO says LTTE forced him to bloat casualty figures
By Nabeela Hussain
DailyMirror.lk
November 20, 2010
The District Medical Officer (DMO) of the Mullaitivu District said during the last stages of the war, the LTTE not only forced him to exaggerate the number of civilian casualties but also shot the civilians who tried to escape from the area.
Giving evidence at the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) Dr. V Shanmugarajah said the numbers exaggerated increased as the war intensified. “If there were only 75 I was made to say there were 275 casualties and at times it was increased to 575,” he said. He also said at times an LTTE video crew would follow when casualties were brought into the hospital.
Dr. Shanmugarajah said though the LTTE had not provided any financial assistance to hospitals there were Doctors and Nurses from the LTTE who helped in providing services. "There were 30 hospitals in the Wanni but only two were functioning at the time,” he said.
He also said any civilians who tried to flee LTTE held areas during the last stages of the war had been shot by the Tigers. “Most of the injured who came to us for treatment had wounds from shells and rounds,” he said. Dr. Shanmugarajah said those who came to the hospital during the last stages of the war were not discriminated. “We treated both the civilians and the LTTE cadres alike, when they came to the hospital for treatment,” he said.
Giving evidence before the committee Dr. Shanmugarajah recalled the relocation of the hospitals many times as the fighting got intense. “We transferred pregnant mothers, the elderly and the injured by ships to safe places with the help of the ICRC,” he said.
Combatants as civilians
Island.lk
November 2010
Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva, who led the war against the LTTE from the front, made no revelation when he told the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) on Thursday that the army had not targeted any civilians during the final phase of the war but the LTTE had used its combatants in civilian clothes to carry out attacks against the military. That most LTTE fighters were in civilian clothes is only too well known. This is equally true of all other guerrilla outfits in the world. Some terrorist movements, especially those engaged in urban guerrilla warfare do not use uniformed cadres at all.
The LTTE had, Maj. Gen. Silva pointed out, accepted on many occasions bodies of its combatants in civilian clothes transferred through the ICRC. Some interested parties, he said, were claiming that the LTTE cadres in civilian clothes who had perished in confrontations with the army were civilians.
The biggest advantage that terrorists have over the legitimate armies they fight is that they can pretend to be 'civilians' before and after committing crimes unless they get caught or killed in action. It is difficult to tell a Taliban fighter from an ordinary Afghan civilian unless the former carries a gun or is caught in the act of unleashing terror. Most of the Taliban combatants killed by the US-led forces were wearing civilian clothes. Naxalites in India, the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, the FARC in Colombia, the SPLA in Sudan and all other terrorist groups in different parts of the world, use their cadres masquerading as civilians in combat operations against armed forces in those countries or to carry out other acts of terrorism against civilians.
Never mind foreign terrorist outfits and the LTTE. All JVP guerrillas responsible for southern terrorism were in civilian clothes--some even wore sarongs and flip-flops--in the late 1980s. They killed civilians who held dissenting views while mingling with them. The JVP thus eliminated thousands of civilians including politicians and the personnel of the armed forces and the police before meeting its Waterloo in 1989.
Ironically, the JVP leaders responsible for killing thousands of civilians and causing tens of thousands of others to disappear at the hands of the military and vigilantes in the South have now taken up the cudgels for those who have disappeared in the North. It is also ironical that the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who championed the cause of detainees in the South during the second JVP uprising, is blamed for disappearances in the North. The JVP leaders have joined hands with some UNP bigwigs who were in charge of counter terrorism operations as well as torture chambers, which churned out corpses which the streets were strewn with in 1987-89, to campaign for human rights in the North!
Human rights must be protected, the issue of disappearances in the North and the East addressed and the details of detainees made public urgently. But, this noble cause is best left to genuine human rights activists without ulterior motives or a criminal track record. Attempts to dupe the world into believing that the dead LTTE cadres were civilians are counterproductive.
The most effective way of protecting civilians is to stand up to terrorists and force them to let go of innocent men, women and children without using them as a cover or human shields to ratchet up collateral damage as a political weapon against the States they fight. Sadly, what the self-styled human rights activists do is to mollycoddle terrorists while they are alive and then use their cadavers to keep their causes alive. What is happening in Sri Lanka is a case in point.
Sri Lanka's Jaffna Security Forces Commander to receive Gusi Peace Prize
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Nov 20, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Jaffna Security Forces Commander Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe is to receive the prestigious Gusi Peace Prize for 2010 next week in Manila, Philippines.
The Philippines based award, recognizing individuals working toward the attainment of peace and respect for human life and dignity has named Major General Hathurusinghe as one of the nineteen 2010 laureates for his contribution to the peace process of Sri Lanka.
This year's Gusi Peace Prize Annual International Awards Night will be held on November 24 at the Philippine International Convention Center in Manila.
Major General Hathurusinghe, who joined the Sri Lanka Army in 1980 as a Cadet Officer, took the leadership as the Jaffna Security Forces Commander in February 2010.
The Major General now commands the peace time military forces in the North and plays a key role in the development of the war-battered region that was once the heartland of the Tamil Tigers.
As the Security Forces Commander in Jaffna, he takes leadership in many community development activities spearheading government policy in liaison with all other agencies including building houses and promoting livelihood programmes for the displaced.
The Jaffna Commander has special ties to Philippines having completed a course in 2009-10 at the Philippine National Defense College that included the participation of ranking military officers from all over the Asian-Pacific region.
The Commander has shared his experiences and knowledge on terrorist battles with the Philippine military establishment who themselves are in the midst of a secessionist conflict in the Southern Philippines.
The Major General has dedicated his award to his Commander-In-Chief President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa for their leadership in the war against the LTTE terrorist organization.
Major General Hathurusinghe will accompany a Sri Lankan delegation led by the Chief Minister of North Central Province Bertie Premalal Dissanayake to Manila to receive his prize.
The delegation will include a 14-member dance troupe that is scheduled to perform at the ceremony. Sri Lankan Embassy in Philippines has organized two other traditional dance performances to showcase Sri Lanka's culture.
Finally, an unbiased article from BBC by a Sinhala journalist!
BBC should hire MORE Sinhala journalists, IF that is the ONLY WAY BBC can RID ITSELF OF BIASED REPORTING on Sri Lanka!
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Sri Lanka gains from Indo-Chinese supremacy battle
By Saroj Pathirana
BBC Sinhala service
Dancers at a celebration for Hambantota seaport Sri Lanka's relationship with China and India is complex
As India and China jostle for influence in the Indian Ocean region, the island nation of Sri Lanka seems to be getting unintended economic benefits.
China has pledged more financial assistance as Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Shanghai Expo exhibition earlier this month.
China is already the biggest lender for the Indian Ocean island. Sri Lanka's Deputy Minister for Economic Development Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene says that China has, so far, pledged more than $3bn (£1.9bn) for infrastructure development, maintenance and other projects.
"China has been investing in Sri Lanka when many other countries were reluctant to invest during the war," he tells BBC Sinhala service.
China has finished the first phase of the major sea port of Hambantota on the southern Sri Lankan coast - Mr Rajapaksa's hometown - and is funding a new airport in the south. Chinese firms are also rebuilding roads in the north.
Many other projects are already in the pipeline, including handling a Special Economic Zone, a 900 megawatt coal-fired power plant and the Colombo-Katunayake expressway, the road connecting the capital with the island's only international airport.
China is also funding port projects in Chitagong in Bangladesh and in Pakistan and Burma.
Indian influence
Sri Lanka's closest neighbour, India, seems to be worried about the country's tilt towards China.
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While HSBC, for example, was offering loans with 9% interest rates, China has been offering loans for very low rates, such as 1% or even 0.5%” said Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene Sri Lanka's Deputy Minister for Economic Development
Both countries supported the Sri Lankan government's war efforts, which brought an end to the Tamil Tigers separatist movement.
A move by Western democratic nations calling for an investigation into allegations of war crimes at the United Nations Human Rights Council was also defeated by the combined efforts of these two Asian giants.
Alarmed by these Chinese investments, India too has started pumping in financial aid.
It has announced more than $100m of aid to rebuild houses for Tamil civilians living in the North who were displaced by the war.
India's plan to build a coal-fired power plant near the port city of Trincomallee is beset with problems. But still Indian companies are bidding for projects in the energy sector.
Power Grid Corporation of India, National Thermal Power Corporation, Lanka India Oil Corporation and many other Indian companies are planning massive investments in the war-ravaged country.
In order to check the growing Chinese clout, India has also opened a new consulate in Hambantota, where China is building a massive port. It also plans to open a new consulate in Jaffna to reinforce its cultural ties.
Indian investment in Sri Lanka has so far exceeded $400m, according to media reports.
Sri Lanka gains from Indo-Chinese supremacy battle
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Exporting labourers
Asantha Sirimanne of Lanka Business Online is of the opinion that the battle for regional supremacy has economically benefited Sri Lanka.
"The rates offered by China are higher than those offered by the World Bank, and direct government loans from Japan," he tells BBC Sinhala service.
"But it is definitely lower than the commercial bank rates."
"India should offer more incentives to Sri Lanka to offset Chinese influence” said DS Rajan Chennai Centre for China Studies
Minister Yapa agrees: "While HSBC, for example, was offering loans with 9% interest rates, China has been offering loans for very low rates, such as 1% or even 0.5%," he says.
While any infrastructure development invariably helps the economy, questions remain over other critical issues, such as job creation and poverty reduction.
"Chinese loans by Exim bank are mainly offered to buy Chinese products and services," says Mr Sirimanne.
He adds that the contractors, the subcontractors and even labourers involved in these major projects are Chinese nationals.
No exact figures are available, but journalist Namini Wijedasa claims in the Lakbimanews English weekly that 7,844 Chinese workers are currently on employment visas in the country. Other media reports have put the figure at over 30,000.
"And all raw material is imported from China," says Mr Sirimanne.
The deputy minister, however, says the figures are exaggerated.
"Sometimes, China uses its own labourers because of the language difficulties, but we don't have similar issues with regard to Indian labourers," Minister Yapa says.
There has also been concern over the lack of transparency in awarding these contracts, and the government's lack of enthusiasm to inform the public over the real costs involved, and the repayment methods.
But Minister Yapa says there is a "wrong attitude" that thousands of Chinese workers were imported specifically for Chinese projects.
"When they bring in specialists from China, many say Chinese labourers were brought in to Sri Lanka. But there is no huge impact," he says.
Rival interests
Not everybody is optimistic, though.
In the past, Sri Lanka has had bitter experiences for trying to outsmart India.
To move out of India's shadows, in 1977 this country moved towards the United States and the West.
Political analysts say India punished Sri Lanka for trying to ally with the West by providing arms and training to Tamil militant groups. It also forced the JR Jayawardene government of the time to sign the Indo-Lanka accord that gave more powers to minority regions, they say.
But both China and India have publicly insisted that they have enough space to develop, and that there is no battle over each other's supremacy.
The reality may not be that straight forward.
"The Indian government should not be concerned if China is only interested in energy security and maritime security to secure energy supplies," says DS Rajan, director of Chennai Centre for China Studies.
The former senior Indian government official says, however, it is always important to focus on any potential strategic partnership between Sri Lanka and China.
"Too much reliance on China will not be in the benefit of Sri Lanka in the long run," he says.
"India should offer more incentives to Sri Lanka to offset Chinese influence."
There are concerns in India that, in the future, China may try to use the Hambantota port for its navy.
Sensing India's anxiety, President Rajapaksa recently told Times of India newspaper that India should treat Sri Lanka, "not in a Big Brother sort of way, but perhaps like its little sister".
Sri Lanka, the fastest growing Asian economy after China - Singapore Deputy PM and Defence Minister
"Sri Lanka has emerged from a decades-long war, and is enjoying an economic revival. It is currently the second-fastest growing Asian economy after China, a fact not lost upon the IMF, which recently upgraded Sri Lanka to middle income emerging market status, stated the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Singapore, Teo Chee Hean.
The Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister was delivering the keynote address as guest-of-honour at the 6th International Conference of South Asia on the theme of 'South Asia in the New Decade: Challenges and Prospects', organised by the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) of the National University of Singapore (NUS) which has been rated three years running by the Times Higher Educational Supplement as one of the world's 25 top universities.
Like Brazil, Sri Lanka enjoys an adult literacy rate of just over 90%, he said adding 'Sri Lanka's gross enrolment ratio, which gives an indication of school attendance, is also comparable to that of China'.
Referring to Sri Lanka's gender gap he said, in the Global Gender Gap Report 2010 published by the World Economic Forum, which measures gender-based disparities on economic, political, education and health-based criteria, Sri Lanka is ranked within the top 20, the only South Asian country to do so. Closing the gender gap is not just an issue of gender equity, it is also one of harnessing the current human resource potential, and uplifting the potential of the next generation.
The most important determinant of a country's competitiveness is its human talent - the skills, education and productivity of its workforce. In any country, women account for half of the current talent base and have a key role in nurturing the next generation, Mr. Teo Chee Hean further said.
South Asia is a strategically important region. It is home to more than a fifth of the world's population. Add to that the fact that it sits astride the key sea lanes of the Indian Ocean, and it is easy to see how South Asia is poised to play a key role in the world in the 21st century, he said.
The region has already begun to display its economic potential. South Asia has seen a strong rebound in its economic growth since last year, and is poised to grow around 7% in 2010 and nearly 8% in 2011, one of the highest rates in the world, the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Singapore further stated.
Sri Lankan troops continue to recover mines and explosives from former battlefields
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Nov 21, Colombo: Sri Lankan troops and demining teams conducting search and clear operations in the North still continue to find caches of mines and explosives in the former battlefields.
An Army and Police combined search operation in Udayarkattukulam area of Wanni has recovered a massive haul of mines and bombs on Saturday (20).
According to the Army, the massive cache included 18,000 to 20,000 anti personnel mines, 4 claymore mines weighing about 12.5 kg each, 16 81-mm para mortar bombs, 52 60-mm para mortar bombs, 100 82-mm illumination mortar bombs, one 122 mm artillery shell and one anti tank mine.
In a separate mission troops conducting search and clear operation in the general areas of Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts recovered 4 hand grenades, one 111 anti personnel mines and one 60 mm pounder on Saturday.
Meanwhile, demining groups have recovered 45 anti personnel mines and 3 anti tank mines from the areas in Mullaitivu district on Saturday.
Several international demining teams are engaged in mine clearing operations along with the Sri Lanka Army's demining unit to clear the former battlefields that have been heavily mined by the LTTE rebels during the war.
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