India diplomat row: Delhi says 'no stand-off' with US

Devyani Khobragade maintained a diplomatic silence on meeting reporters in Delhi

India's Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has sought to downplay the row with Washington over an Indian diplomat who was arrested in the US. 

There was "no stand-off" with the US, he told reporters in Delhi, and predicted problems would be sorted out.

The row erupted after the diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, was arrested in New York on charges of visa fraud and underpaying her housekeeper.

She is now back in India after an apparent agreement with Washington.

"If there are any issues" India and the US will "sort them out mutually", Mr Khurshid said in televised remarks.

He was speaking a day after Ms Khobragade arrived in India, where she was greeted by her father, Uttam. On Saturday, the two were welcomed by Mr Khurshid.

Analysis

Jonathan Marcus BBC diplomatic correspondent

 

In requiring the US to remove one of its diplomats from Delhi, the Indian government is effectively treating the departure of its own diplomat from the US as an expulsion.

The question now is whether this draws a line under the messy diplomatic spat between the two countries.
Of greater importance is the longer-term impact this may have on bilateral ties. India, a democracy and rising power in Asia, is seen in many quarters in Washington as a natural fit to become a special partner of the United States. The US has sought a closer strategic and military partnership with Delhi but to a large extent has been rebuffed.

India is cautious about advancing ties too quickly. It doesn't want to antagonise Beijing, and many Indians still see the US as having been far too close to Pakistan.

Surrounded by reporters on leaving the Maharashtra Sadan state guesthouse, Ms Khobragade gave little away. 

"No comments, I am really thankful for all your support... I cannot make any comments right now. My government will speak for me, my lawyer will speak for me," she said.

Ms Khobragade was asked to leave the US as the diplomatic rift deepened.

The US meanwhile confirmed that an American official will leave its embassy in Delhi at India's request - Mr Khurshid described this as an expulsion.

"We have our reasons and have informed the US about it. We are in touch with the US. We will do what needs to be done. I do not think that this needs more discussion," Mr Khurshid said.

Washington said it deeply regretted the move but hoped that it would bring closure to the case and lead to a return to constructive ties.

The expelled US diplomat has not been named.

Sources told Agence France Presse that the individual was of similar rank to Ms Khobragade and had been involved in the Khobragade case.

'Shocked and appalled'

Ms Khobragade and her father (l) met the Indian foreign minister the day after her arrival in Delhi

 

India had demanded an apology after Ms Khobragade, 39, was handcuffed and strip-searched following her arrest last month. It refused to waive her immunity so she could be prosecuted in the US.

Ms Khobragade has always denied any wrongdoing.

On Thursday she was indicted by a US federal grand jury in Manhattan, but was also granted immunity by US officials, paving the way for her to return to India.

Ms Khobragade was arrested after a complaint from her maid, Sangeeta Richard.

She in turn accused Ms Richard of theft and attempted blackmail.

Delhi said it was "shocked and appalled" at the manner of her arrest, and ordered a series of diplomatic reprisals against the US.

Security barricades around the US embassy in the capital were removed and a visiting US delegation was snubbed by senior Indian politicians and officials.

On Wednesday, the embassy was ordered to stop "commercial activities on its premises". India also said that embassy cars could be penalised for traffic offences.

The embassy has been told to shut down a club within its premises which includes a pool, restaurant and tennis court, NDTV news channel said.

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Devyani Khobragade: Bureaucratic and diplomatic negligence

By PJ Crowley Former US Assistant Secretary of State

The Indian and US negligence has turned a minor legal case into a diplomatic and political test of the countries' relationship

Every crisis theoretically provides an opportunity. But the current diplomatic rift between the United States and India seems to be a lost opportunity to avoid a crisis.

Rather than deepening relations, the two countries are deep into a lengthy period of crisis management.
The brouhaha was triggered by the arrest of the Indian deputy consul general in New York, Devyani Khobragade.

Ms Khobragade was accused of lying on an application for her housekeeper's work visa, over-reporting the amount of money the housekeeper was paid.

This is the third case of alleged mistreatment by Indian diplomats in New York in three years.
The US contends that Ms Khobragade's limited diplomatic immunity does not cover private conduct that violates US law.

'Despicable and barbaric'

Political hell has broken loose in India over the manner in which Ms Khobragade was detained. She was handcuffed after dropping off her child at school, subjected to a strip and body cavity search, then placed in a cell with the general jail population.

Barricades were removed from the front of the US embassy in Delhi, apparently in retaliation 

 

A high-level Indian official characterised the treatment as "despicable and barbaric". Secretary of State John Kerry called Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon to express regret.

New Delhi has retaliated by taking away privileges accorded US diplomats in India and removing security barriers guarding the American embassy there.

It has also elevated Ms Khobragade to a position at its United Nations mission that carries full diplomatic immunity. Whatever this means for the court case, it clearly indicates the dispute is no longer just a diplomatic problem but a political one as well.

The strip-search was an unforced error.

The US Marshals Service says it followed "standard arrestee intake procedures," a cringe-worthy bureaucratic phrase that means it went by the book.

Ms Khobragade was treated like every other female defendant awaiting a court appearance.

"The US could have declared Ms Khobragade persona non grata, demanded her immediate departure and refused further work visas for domestic help for Indian diplomats”

But the arrest of a diplomat is never just another case. If the state department did not know she would be strip-searched, it should have - and should have demanded special handling.

In diplomatic circles, any perceived slight is reciprocated. You step on our toes, expect the same. The political and public fallout was predictable, particularly in a country like India with a vigorous and sometimes inventive media.

En route to the courtroom in lower Manhattan, both countries lost sight of the big picture and the broader interests that should shape the relationship between the world's oldest and largest democracies.

India is a rising power the United States has been cultivating for years.

Frustration over the consulate's dismal human rights record is understandable, but a prosecution is necessarily a lengthy process that is bound to cast a shadow over the relationship even under the best of circumstances. The Italian case of American Amanda Knox comes to mind.

The state department alerted India about the case in September, but it's unclear what diplomatic efforts were undertaken to resolve the underlying issues short of prosecution.

The US could have declared Ms Khobragade persona non grata, demanded her immediate departure and refused further work visas for domestic help for Indian diplomats.

But once the United States chose to prosecute, it had not just to do everything by the book but do everything right, to keep the case focused on her. That obviously did not happen.

Devyani Khobragade at a fundraiser on 8 December

On the Indian side, it is unclear why the Indian ambassador to the United States or the country's foreign ministry failed to clean house when first alerted by US authorities.

Indian diplomats surely understand that disrespecting US law and international norms undermine its emergence as a constructive global actor.

India's removal of security barriers is excessive and irresponsible.

Even if the remaining security arrangements are adequate - India has primary responsibility for embassy security under the Vienna Convention - New Delhi should understand how sensitive such a move is given last year's attack on a US diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

Once charges were pending, both sides should have worked together to ensure the case did not undermine vastly improved, but still occasionally testy, relations between the two countries. That didn't happen either.
That India and the United States have allowed a minor legal case to become a major test in US-India relations is bureaucratic and public diplomacy negligence.

After all, tending to the big picture is supposedly what governments and foreign ministries do for a living.
There are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about US-India relations. Mutual interests far outweigh differences. But if this week is any indication, the road ahead will be bumpy.

PJ Crowley is a former Assistant Secretary of State and now a professor of practice and fellow at The George Washington University's Institute of Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.

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Indian diplomat tells of anguish at leaving US without children

By Abhaya Srivastava 

.

New Delhi (AFP) - An Indian diplomat at the centre of a bitter row with the United States told Sunday of her "immense stress" at leaving behind her young family in New York, and vowed to clear her name.

Indian consulate official Devyani Khobragade was allowed to leave the United States on Friday after a month-long dispute over her arrest and strip-search on suspicion of visa fraud involving her domestic servant.
Khobragade was granted full diplomatic immunity and allowed to fly back to India -- just hours after charges were filed in court alleging she lodged false documents to obtain a visa for her servant and then underpaid her.

Khobragade, 39, told an Indian newspaper of her anguish at leaving behind her daughters, aged seven and four, in New York along with her husband, a US citizen, who works as an academic.

"I wonder if I will be able to ever reunite with my family, my husband, my little kids. I miss them," Khobragade told The Sunday Express.

"What if my children choose to study and work in the US? What if I can never return to the US, which I cannot now. Does it mean we will never be able to live together as a family again?" she said.

"I know I am honest, and I will come out clean. But we do not know how much time it will take and for how long my family will have to suffer due to this," she added.

Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade gives a traditional greeting after her return from the US in New Delhi

 

Her arrest on December 12 outside her children's school and treatment in custody, where she said she was subjected to a cavity search, outraged India which claimed she benefited from full diplomatic immunity.

US prosecutors disputed this, and filed charges in New York accusing Khobragade of sometimes forcing the Indian maid to work 100-hour weeks, even when sick and often without a day off, for pay as little as $1.22 an hour.

Khobragade did obtain diplomatic immunity when last week New Delhi asked Washington to grant her a G1 visa given to diplomats at India's UN mission, which is also in New York.

The row between the two countries, which had embraced each other as strategic partners, saw weeks of feisty exchanges that strained bilateral ties and left resentment on both sides.

India has removed extra security barriers at the US embassy in New Delhi, demanded contract details for domestic staff employed by American diplomats and even stopped the mission importing duty-free food and alcohol.

On Wednesday, it ordered an embassy leisure centre popular with American expatriates in the capital to stop admitting non-diplomatic members, while scheduled visits by US officials to India have been cancelled.

In a fresh retaliatory measure late Friday, India asked the United States to withdraw an embassy official in New Delhi.

The expelled American diplomat was a "similar rank" to Khobragade and is thought to have helped the family of her maid travel to America where they were granted protection by prosecutors.

US prosecutors say the family of the maid were evacuated to the United States because of attempts to intimidate them.

In her newspaper interview, Khobragade said she would continue a legal fight to clear her name, including attempting to have her case in New York officially dismissed in a federal court.

"I have come to India but my stand still needs to be vindicated. And of course, I have been separated from my family, and I am under immense stress for my children," Khobragade said. 

"I spoke to my kids for hours last night, and they are already missing me. The four-year-old asked me, 'Mommy, when will you be back home', and I had no answer." 

She cannot return to the United States unless she surrenders to the court on arrival, and her name is being placed on US immigration watch lists "to prevent the routine issuance of any future visa", according to US officials.

 

TNA THUGS want their OWN STOOGES in GOSL administration of the Northern Province! Just like the LTTE they support!

Sequel to Wigneswaran’s demand:

TNA intensifies campaign against NPC Chief Secy with death threats

by Uditha Kumarasinghe and P.Krishnasamy 

SundayObserver.lk

January 12, 2014

The intensified campaign against the Chief Secretary of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) by Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran and other TNA Council members has ended in death threats.

Chief Secretary of the Northern Provincial Council Mrs. R. Wijialudchumi Ramesh when contacted by the Sunday Observer yesterday said that she has been receiving death threats via SMS from abroad and telephone calls from unknown persons demanding her to give up her post.

The death threats come weeks after Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Wigneswaran’s demand to oust Mrs. R.Wijialudchumi Ramesh from her post and appoint another SLAS officer of their choice. Wigneswaran has not only demanded the removal of Chief Secretary of the Northern Provincial Council but also its Governor G.L. Chandrasiri.

Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne said that the Chief Secretary Wijaialudchumi Ramesh has not done anything wrong and that she has acted with responsibility based on the guidelines of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service.

The NPC Chief Secretary who addressed a media briefing by the Sri Lanka Administrative Service Association (SLASA) in Colombo on Thursday said that she had received death threats from the NPC administration. The NPC Chief Secretary alleged that she is receiving death threats via SMS from abroad and unknown telephone calls threatening her to give up her post.

Minister Seneviratne said there is no necessity for his ministry to take action as this is a disclosure of threats received by a Government official and the police has already taken steps in this regard. She disclosed this to safeguard her life and duly informed the police. The Public Administration and Home Affairs Ministry Secretary had also inquired about this from the police. At present she has been provided security by the police, the Minister said.

Minister Seneviratne said when Wigneswaran assumed office as the NPC Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary had worked closely with him and the Provincial Council administration. Now they level allegations that the Chief Secretary does not cooperate with them. Information has also been received that some foreign organisations affiliated to the pro LTTE Tamil diaspora are also behind the move to remove the NPC Chief Secretary from her post.

The NPC Chief Secretary said the other SLAS members are also under pressure to vacate their posts to enable the NPC to appoint those willing to pursue its agenda. The SLASA also accused the NPC administration of intimidating its Chief Secretary and other officials.

SLASA officials said the NPC Chief Secretary is under heavy pressure from the NPC administration to support its agenda. The SLASA which expressed serious concern over the developments in the Northern Province warned that such interference could cause an adverse impact on the country’s post reconciliation process.The Association has called for the immediate intervention of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Northern Province Governor Major General G.A. Chandrasiri to end the intimidation of the Chief Secretary.
The Chief Secretary of Northern Province Ms. Vijaialudchumi Ramesh said that she was receiving death threats by way of SMS from abroad and phone calls from unknown elements who wanted her and other Sri Lanka Administrative officers in the Council to vacate their positions immediately to enable the ruling party to have their favourite officials.

She said that public officials in provincial councils and the line ministries have no peace of mind when carrying out their duties due to political elements in the ruling party interfering in their duties. She said that their primary duty was to protect the interest of the State and ensure that no person misuses or misappropriates public wealth.

She and her fellow officials of the Administrative Service had given their utmost cooperation to the members of the Northern Provincial Council within the rules and regulations of the country, she said.

Sustainability at a Sri Lankan hotel

 By Martin Wright
TheGuardian.com

January 9, 2014

Sri Lankan hotel chain Jetwing boasts impressive sustainability credentials. Martin Wright asks the chairman if it is all too good to be true.

 

 

 

Koggala Beach south of Galle, Sri Lanka, 2010. Photograph: Yadid Levy / Alamy Photograph: Yadid Levy / Alamy/Alamy

 

If you were going to pick a name for one of the most ecologically progressive hotel chains in the southern hemisphere, you'd hardly plump for 'Jetwing'.

It might smack of a tacky 1960s love affair with the glamour of air travel but this family-owned Sri Lankan business is quietly transforming itself into something of a green pioneer.

Not that you'd notice. Most of Jetwing's hotels hardly ooze greenery. There's none of the wood-and-thatch, earthy adobe ambience of your typical eco-retreat. Some of the chain's latest hotels, are exercises in defiant modernism. The new Jetwing resort in the Yala National Park looks more like a bold new art complex in Berlin that has been parachuted onto the Indian Ocean shoreline than a sensitive development on a world heritage site.

The green stuff – solar panels, biomass boilers, bottling plants which avoid the use of plastic bottles – are tucked away out of sight. It's all rather coy. But that could be about to change.

I met up with the chairman, Hiran Cooray, at a Jetwing hotel on the outskirts of Colombo, where he'd just treated himself to a week's ayurvedic retreat in an effort to offset the health effects of a corporate lifestyle. This is boomtime in Sri Lanka: the end of the Tamil Tiger insurgency has brought about a heady rush of optimism, with heavy spending on infrastructure, and areas once off limits opening up. Tourists are returning in droves, undeterred by controversy over the government's human rights record. Any tour operator in the country has to run to stand still. So sustainability has to prove it can pay its way, or it will get trampled in the rush.

Today, Jetwing's eco-initiatives are starting to look like sound economic sense, with savings on everything from diesel to electricity bills. But the business logic wasn't much in evidence back in 1991, when a stirring talk by Greenpeace activist David Suzuki convinced the young Hiran to act. "We started with the sewage. At that time, all the hotels sent it straight into the sea. That was normal practice." He persuaded his father, Jetwing founder Herbert Cooray, to set up a treatment plant, but had a harder time with the executive team. "They were saying, 'Why should we spend good money on recycling shit?' And to be honest, it was a gamble."

It paid off in terms of reputation. "The number one attraction is the beach. If you're killing the beach, you're killing the goose that lays the golden eggs." Jetwing surfed on the back of enthusiastic media coverage, neighbouring hotels were bounced into following suit, and a few years later, the government made sewage treatment mandatory.

With the green bit between his teeth, Hiran started recruiting engineers and naturalists who shared his enthusiasm, and together they set about transforming the whole chain.

They started with hot water. Solar heaters, hardly revolutionary even for Sri Lanka in the 90s, were an obvious first step, providing "instant savings" on electricity bills. More adventurous has been the decision to install boilers fuelled by biomass – specifically, cinnamon wood. It sounds like an arcane choice. Is it really sustainable? "Completely", Cooray explains. "Cinnamon is a woody plant, and with two harvests a year, the farmers are left with a lot of waste which they have to get rid of quickly." Jetwing found farmers only too ready to let them take it off their hands and now the boiler wood stores, packed high with cinnamon wood, are suffused with a spicy scent.

Solar pv followed, and the latest hotels are set to be completely solar-powered, even selling surplus back to the grid, with diesel generators relegated to a backup role.

In a few years, lighting has gone down the power demand curve from incandescent to CFL to LED. The new hotels are all designed to make maximum use of cross ventilation – through draughts which keep the main spaces cool without the need for the artificial chill of air conditioning. That's still present in all the guest rooms, though Jetwing are pioneering air conditioning via reverse absorption chillers – essentially a form of heat exchanger – driven by steam from the biomass boiler.

But before this all sounds a bit too good to be true, it's time to mention the rather hefty elephant in the room – jumbo shaped in more ways than one. As befits its name, virtually all of Jetwing's customers arrive by air. That's quite a carbon footprint. I ask Cooray if he's considered offsetting. Yes, they thought about it, he says, but adds that there is a strong school of thought in Sri Lanka that doesn't believe in taking responsibility for the sins of others – the developed world, in other words. It's a common enough response from business leaders in the sub-continent, and to some extent it's understandable.

But for a tour company it's a tougher position to defend. I put it to Cooray that his customers are, after all, sinning in order to fill his coffers. "Well, that's true", he admits. If Jetwing does do more to engage its customers with its sustainability story, as Cooray intends, then inviting them to offset their flights – preferably via a project in Sri Lanka itself – could perhaps be a part of the message. Overall, the savings are ratcheting up, and he no longer has to battle sceptical management teams. "It may have started from the heart, but now the head is also feeling happy." And it's proving popular with some of the big tour companies who send customers Jetwing's way. For operators like TUI Travel, which has its own strong sustainability policy, it's a neat fit – although as Cooray ruefully comments, "unfortunately, their purchasing team doesn't answer to their sustainability team".

So as Sri Lanka throws itself into a heady rush of tourist expansion, will Jetwing's green stripes really bring competitive advantage at home? "I think so, but what you must realise is that while we're competing with other companies here, we are all on the same side when it comes to competing with other countries. The first decision a customer makes is whether to come to Sri Lanka at all." If the country as a whole has a greener reputation because other operators are surfing on the back of Jetwing's reputation, Cooray argues, everyone benefits.

Martin Wright is founding editor of Green Futures Magazine and a director of Forum for the Future. He is based in Mumbai.

Sri Lankan President and First Lady visit Church of the Nativity

ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. 
Jan 07, Bethlehem

 
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, hosted a dinner in honor of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and First Lady Shiranthi Wickremasinghe Rajapaksa Monday evening (Jan 6) on the Eve of Eastern Christmas Celebrations.

President Rajapaksa, First Lady, Palestinian President Dr. Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and local and foreign dignitaries were present at the dinner hosted by the Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III.


The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, celebrates the Eastern Orthodox Christmas on January 7. Most Eastern Orthodox Christian denominations celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on January 7, in contrast to the Western Christian tradition of celebrating on Dec 25.


The Church of the Nativity is a basilica located in Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity is a World Heritage Site, and was the first to be listed under Palestine by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The site is also on UNESCO's List of World Heritage Sites in Danger. Due to its cultural and geographical history, the site holds a prominent religious significance to those of both the Christian and Islamic faiths.

Special prayer blessings were conducted at the holy site, known as the Grotto, at the Church by the orthodox priests.

Later in the evening, President, First Lady, and the Palestinian President attended the midnight Mass for the Orthodox Christmas Eve at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem conducted by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.
(Photos by Sudath Silva)

This SERIAL TRAITOR to Sri Lanka MUST BE DEPOSED by the Catholic Church & PUNISHED!

This despicable man, Rayappu Joseph, is a Racist Separatist supporter of Eeelamist Terrorists posing as a Catholic Priest. He is a SERIAL TRAITOR to his Motherland, with a LONG RECORD of giving aid and comfort to Terrorists and Separatists.

Rayappu Joseph should be DEFROCKED & DISOWNED by the Catholic Church of Sri Lanka, if the Catholic Church is to retain its position as a Patriotic Religious Organization. Do it now, before the Catholic Church is tarred and feeathered with the same brush!

The Government of Sri Lanka should now bring TREASON charges against this man for ALL OF HIS CRIMES in support of the Terrorist Eelamists committed over the last 30 years. MAKE an EXAMPLE of this TRAITOR hiding behind priestly robes!

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Bishop Rayappu Joseph

Sri Lanka: Bishop calls for international investigation into war crimes
IndCatholicNews.com
January 7, 2013

The Bishop of Mannar, Mgr Rayappu Joseph has called for an international investigation to ascertain the truth about alleged war crimes. He said: "Given that most of the Tamils in the north and east of the country no longer have confidence in an internal process. This will contribute to reconciliation".

Bishop Rayappu Joseph, pointed out that many priests, lawyers, journalists and activists who have tried to cooperate with the institutions on the topic of "war crimes" have been threatened and intimidated. "On many occasions, the police and the Commission for Human Rights have even refused to accept complaints", he said.

"Thousands of cases of human rights violations, sexual abuse, murder, disappearances, extrajudicial killings remain unpunished".

ecause of this position taken - while the Sri Lankan government categorically rejects the idea of an international investigation - the Bishop has been labelled in some circles as "a political activist", but Mgr Rayappu replies: "There are too many controversial issues in Sri Lanka: people who disappear, others arrested and illegally detained, tortured or killed in prison. I hug, talk and deal with the aspirations of the faithful who live in my diocese and, more generally , throughout Sri Lanka. For me it is a human, spiritual and religious mission".

He said: "The people of the North and East still live in fear. The women live in fear of being raped. Others live in fear that the military will seize their lands. Many who are in prison live in fear of being tortured. The common people fear the high level of military presence. And all those who criticize the government, including representatives of many churches, live in fear and insecurity".

The Bishop asks: "What need is there to maintain such a high number of armed forces in the North and East of the island? Why can’t one completely restore the civil administration in those areas, such as in the rest of the country?".

Mgr. Rayppu denounces "the colonization sponsored by the state in the Tamil areas", to create an electoral imbalance and progressively eliminate the language, the culture and customs of a people.According to the Bishop, "In Sri Lanka we have a lot to learn from South Africa. There, the majority was dominated by the minority; in Sri Lanka there is a majority that dominates a minority. In Sri Lanka, the government, which is accused of war crimes and massive violations of human rights, is still in power, and is reluctant to committing itself in genuine dialogue".

The Bishop of Mannar, Mgr Rayappu Joseph has called for an international investigation to ascertain the truth about alleged war crimes. He said: "Given that most of the Tamils in the north and east of the country no longer have confidence in an internal process. This will contribute to reconciliation".

Sri Lanka expects to be an Upper Middle Income country by 2016

ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Jan 03, Colombo



Sri Lanka expects to graduate to the "Upper Middle Income" category by 2016 and the Central Bank will fashion its macroeconomic policies accordingly to avoid the Middle Income Trap, the head of the country's monetary authority said on Thursday.

Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal explained that as some countries have stagnated at this middle income level, Sri Lanka's medium term macroeconomic strategy will need to focus on avoiding this "Trap".

Presenting the Central Bank's policy direction and work plan for the upcoming year "Road Map for Monetary and Financial Sector Policies for 2014 and Beyond" for the eighth consecutive year, Cabraal said Sri Lanka for the new year targets a 7.8 percent growth in the country's GDP while maintaining inflation at mid-single digit levels.

"Now we are a US$67 billion economy. We expect the economy to grow 7.8 percent this year and to gradually expand it to 8.5 percent in 2016," he said.

However, the predicted growth could slow down due to external factors such as uncertain weather conditions, geopolitical tensions and slower growth in global demand.

Central Bank is confident that inflation could be contained at around 5% or below, in the medium term and it is expected to be 4-6% during 2014.

The Road Map 2014 presentation comprised an assessment of the macroeconomic developments in the previous year, policy direction for 2014 and for the medium term, particularly to ensure a smooth transition into the post-US$ 4,000 per capita Upper Middle Income era.

Reducing trade deficit from current 12.8 percent of GDP in 2013 to 11.6 percent of GDP in 2014 and continuous improvement in productivity are some other goals set for 2014.

The monetary authority expects the budget deficit to narrow substantially in 2014 to 5.2% of GDP from 5.8% in 2013. By 2016, the fiscal deficit is expected to be reduced to below 4% of GDP.

Noting that Sri Lanka aims to achieve a US$ 100 billion economy, the head of the monetary authority said it would demand a significant improvement in the productivity levels of the current workforce.

In the fiscal sector, the major reforms implemented in the recent past are expected to enhance revenue mobilization and in the medium term, revenue is expected to reach 15 to 16% of GDP with the expected improvements in the tax base and tax administration, and greater tax compliance.

The maintenance of foreign reserves at desirable levels will enable the Central Bank to prudently manage market dynamics and any impending risks, Central Bank head said.

The current account is expected to record a surplus in 2014, after 26 years, reflecting the rebound in revenue and the rationalization of recurrent expenditure. It is expected to improve faster than anticipated in the past due to increased inflows from workers' remittances, tourism and the service exports will mitigate the impact of trade deficit.

Cabraal expressed hope that state-owned enterprises will become more viable in the year. "We hope performance of SriLankan Airlines, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and Ceylon Electricity Board is going to change and this would create enormous impact on the well-being of the country," he said.

The Governor said the Central Bank is in a position to steer the economy along a more stable and sustainable path while maintaining economic and price stability and financial system stability to support sustainable and inclusive growth this year.

How to sue the United Nations

By  Dharshan Weerasekera
LankaWeb.com
December 31, 2013
 
 There has been renewed interest in a paper of mine published in Foreign Policy Journal in March 2013, titled, “The Illegality of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s approach to Sri Lanka,”[1] (see Shenali Waduge, “Dharshan Weerasekera exposes Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Ministry’s deficient legal work,” Lankaweb, 29 Nov. 2013).  In that paper I argued that the Secretary General exceeded his authority in commissioning the Report of the Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, which report subsequently served as the basis for two resolutions passed against this country at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

I recommended that one of the principal remedies open to Sri Lanka was to petition the International Court of Justice for an Advisory Opinion on the legality of the aforementioned report.  If the court deemed the report illegal, it would make all subsequent measures based on that report, including the two resolutions, illegal, and of no effect in law.  A number of people have asked me to clarify certain matters with respect to the original recommendation.  In particular, they have asked three basic but practical questions:  Who can file the type of petition I’m suggesting?  What is the procedure involved?  What are some of the specific questions of law that can be asked in the instant case?

I believe it is important to answer the above questions, at least in a perfunctory way, because it is becoming clearer by the day that a legal challenge may be the only concrete option Sri Lanka has to save its neck at the upcoming March-2014 sessions.  Navi Pillay has all but promised that she will push for independent war crimes investigations against this country at the aforementioned sessions.  Mr. David Cameron (no doubt also speaking for his friends the Americans) has promised the same thing.[2]  Finally, in an ominous development, the European Parliament, by resolution, has indicated that it might be time for independent investigations.[3]
To repeat, Sri Lanka’s critics are gearing up to give this country the thrashing of a lifetime at the March-sessions.  It is vital that Sri Lanka have remedies that give it tangible leverage in the international arena, and a pending legal challenge at the ICJ will most definitely give Sri Lanka such leverage.  I shall therefore take each of the aforementioned questions in turn.
         
i)  Who can file the petition?

The most important question with respect to my suggestion that Sri Lanka petition for an Advisory Opinion at the ICJ, is whether a country can file such a petition, without going through a UN organ.  Some people have said that there may be a problem with this matter, because both the ICJ Statute and the UN Charter, in the relevant provisions, do not explicitly say that a country, acting on its own, can file for an advisory opinion.
For instance, Article 65(1) of the ICJ statute says,

The court may give an advisory opinion on any legal question at the request of whatever body may be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to make such a request.[4]

It appears that the provision above contemplates that the request for an advisory opinion must come from an organ of the UN, and there is no indication that a country, acting on its own, can file the petition.  When one looks at the UN Charter, meanwhile, Article 96 says this:

(a)    The General Assembly or the Security Council may request the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on any legal question.[5]
(b)   Other organs of the United Nations and specialized agencies, which may at any time be so authorized by the General Assembly, may also request advisory opinions of the Court on legal questions arising within the scope of their activities.[6]

So, the Charter specifically designates the General Assembly and the Security as the principal organs that can ask for advisory opinions, and says that the General Assembly may authorize any other UN organ to also ask for advisory opinions.  In practice, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, UNESCO, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and others, have made requests for advisory opinions.  That still doesn’t solve our problem:  Can Sri Lanka, as a country, file the petition?  To my knowledge, it’s never been done before, but I believe it is possible.

The authority for a country to petition for an advisory opinion comes from a statute enacted subsequent to the Charter, namely, the “Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations,” adopted by the General Assembly on 13 February 1946.  Section 30 of this convention says:

If a difference arises between the United Nations on the one hand and a Member on the other hand, a request shall be made for an advisory opinion in accordance with Article 96 of the Charter and Article 65 of the Statute of the court.[7]

So, clearly, a Member can file the petition without having to go through a UN organ.  Sri Lanka can therefore file this petition on its own.

ii)  Procedure 

I shall briefly discuss the procedure involved in obtaining an advisory opinion, and also tackle an important question, namely, whether it would be sufficient for the request to come purely from the President.  The basic procedure for advisory opinions is set out in the Statute of the Court, as well as the Rules of the Court.  In essence, there are three steps involved:  first, an official letter to the court requesting the advisory opinion; second, general notification by the court to all UN Members, and third, special notification by court to selected Members and Organizations, plus the setting of dates for return of written submissions, as well as oral arguments.

Article 65(2) of the ICJ Statute handles the first issue above and says that the questions upon which the advisory opinion is sought are to be laid before the court by way of a written request “containing an exact statement of the question upon which the opinion is requested,” and is to be accompanied by a dozier containing all documents “likely to throw light on the question.”[8]  Article 66(1) handles the second issue, and says that the moment the court receives a request for an advisory opinion the court is to inform all Members of the UN that such a request has been made.[9]

Article 66(2) of the ICJ Statute addresses the third issue above, and says that the moment the court receives a request for an advisory opinion, the court is to make a special and direct communication to select Member States and Organizations the court considers might be able to provide information on the question that the court has to answer.  The court is to set the deadline for the return of submissions by the aforementioned States and Organizations, and also set a date for oral arguments, if necessary.[10]

I’ll next turn to the important question I referred to earlier.  Since a country filing for an advisory opinion is unprecedented, who would actually sign the letter making the request?  In other words, would it be sufficient if the President were to make the request through Sri Lanka’s official UN representative in Geneva?

This is a thorny issue.  Article 104 of the Rules of the Court says:

All requests for advisory opinions shall be transmitted to the court by the Secretary General of the United Nations, or, as the case may be, the chief administrative officer of the body authorized to make the request.[11]

In my view, the President of a country can be considered its “chief administrative officer” for the purposes of the above Article, and should be able to make the request.  I feel, however, that it is wise to be a bit careful at this stage.  For instance, one of the initial concerns the court will have is that if it accepts a petition sent by a leader of a country acting in a personal or unilateral capacity, it will open the floodgates for leaders of countries to file for advisory opinions at the drop of a hat:  the court will be literally swamped with requests for advisory opinions, and will not be able to get any other work done.  No court in the world will be happy with such a predicament.

In my opinion, given the unprecedented nature of the case, Sri Lanka should play it safe.  If the Government is going to file this case, it should first obtain a Parliamentary Resolution.  That resolution would assert the need for an advisory opinion, and ask the President to forward the request to the ICJ.  The Parliament consists of the representatives of the People:  a resolution in Parliament asking for an advisory opinion is therefore the equivalent, in a very real sense, of the entire country asking for the advisory opinion.

Under the above circumstances, when the President makes his request to the court, he will be able to cite the resolution, and in effect say that he is conveying a request made by the people of Sri Lanka as a whole.  I do not think the court will decline such a request.  So much, then, for procedure.  Let’s now move to the most important issues:  the questions that ought to be submitted to the court.

iii)  What are the questions that ought to be asked in the instant case?  

To the best of my knowledge, there are no set criteria for the types of questions that can be submitted for advisory opinions.  A perusal of past questions reveals that they cover issues ranging from the broad and profound, to the mundane and technical.  Just to give some examples, two of the most famous recent cases have been, one, where the General Assembly requested the court to give an opinion on whether, one, the unilateral declaration of Independence by the provisional Government in Kosovo was in accordance with international law (2008)[12], and two, where the General Assembly requested an opinion on the legal consequences of the wall being built by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (2003)[13].

A petition filed in 1953, meanwhile, was for an opinion on whether the General Assembly could on any ground refuse to honor an award of compensation made by the United Nations Administrative Tribunal.[14] 

In short, as I said, the legal issues considered run the gamut from the profound to the mundane and technical.  The only constant seems to be that the questions have to be pure questions of law, and not of fact.
With that background, I shall present my suggestions for the questions that ought to be asked, and then briefly discuss them.  (I emphasize that the following are merely suggestions and not definitive formulations.

The reader can suggest better and more refined questions.)  In any event, here is my choice for a set of questions:

1)  Having regard to the United Nations Charter, any other relevant document, and the record, did the Secretary General commit a fundamentally illegal act when he commissioned the Report of the Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka?

2)  If the answer to question (1) above is in the affirmative, what is the legal status of resolutions A/HRC/19/L.2/Rev.1 and A/HRC/22/L.1/Rev.1 passed with respect to Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council?

3)  If the answer to question (1) is in the negative, what is the scope of Article 2(7) of the United Nations Charter?  Article 2(7) says,

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter.

Who determines if an intervention has taken place, and if so, are there remedies available to the nation so interfered with?

I shall now briefly comment on the above questions, with special regard to possible tactics the UN’s lawyers might use to tackle them.  The first question is obviously the most important.  I believe this is also where Sri Lanka can make the strongest case.  The constraints of time don’t allow me to discuss in detail everything that is wrong with the Secretary General’s report, (I have sketched the main problems in my essay, “The Illegality of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s approach to Sri Lanka,” and refer the reader to that essay.)  My point here is simply that, I believe the UN’s lawyers will not try to defend the report either:  I think its easier for them to concede that the Secretary General exceeded his authority in commissioning the report, and then to try and defend his actions.

They have two choices:  one, they can argue that the Secretary General did what he did for a good cause, i.e. in the interests of justice, for the sake of human rights, out of compassion, and so on.  Or two, they can argue that whatever problems the report may have, including its possible illegality, it ought not to impact the two resolutions that have been passed against Sri Lanka, because the report was only an insignificant factor in the overall decision-making process at the UNHRC that led to the passage of the two resolutions.  Sri Lanka’s lawyers will therefore have to find ways to counter these to “defences.”

Let’s move to the second question.  I believe the real battle will be fought over this second question:  i.e.  “If the report is illegal, what happens to the resolutions?”  As I have said, the UN’s lawyers will say from the outset that the Secretary General’s report is “insignificant” a “redundancy,” and so forth, and that it in no way played any role in the decision-making at the UNHRC that led to the resolutions.  When they are shown the actual references and citations to the report in the record, they will say those references don’t mean anything because those references are only a minor part of a larger set of other sources of evidence which influenced the UNHRC in its deliberations over the resolutions.

Sri Lanka’s lawyers therefore have to make an air-tight case that the Secretary General’s report was not an incidental or insignificant factor, but in fact the sole basis for those resolutions, at least with respect to certain important matters contained in them, such as the demand for war crimes investigations.  I believe that, in addition to whatever argument Sri Lanka’s lawyers generate to establish the aforementioned case, they will have to be prepared to cite every single instant that the Secretary General’s report was cited anywhere in official UN discussions or documents up to the passage of the March-2013 resolution, so that the court can get a sense of the true influence of the report.

Let’s move to the third question.  Needless to say, if the court gets to the point of answering the third question, it means Sri Lanka would have “lost” the case, in the sense that the court would have already decided that the Secretary General’s report is legal.  In my view, however, morally speaking, Sri Lanka cannot really “lose” this case.  Even if the court rules that the SG’s report is legal, and hence the resolutions valid, Sri Lanka will be in no worse position than it is in now:  i.e. on the verge of having a resolution authorizing war crimes investigations from being passed against it.  At most, Sri Lanka would have been able to stall or postpone this result by a few months.  Sri Lanka, however, would have shown the world that it will not take abuse lying down, and that it is willing and able to take the fight to the critics.  That’s a moral victory.

On the other hand, if the court gets to the point of answering the third question, and answers it, that also is a tremendous moral victory, because it entails an advance for international law, particularly with respect to a long-overdue interpretation of Article 2(7).  One of the biggest problems one sees in international relations today is the tendency among certain powerful nations to intervene in the internal affairs of weaker nations, and to try to do it under the facade of international law, and often using facilities and mechanisms provided by the United National itself.

For instance, if we think about the run-up to the Iraq Invasion, the first thing that the Coalition led by the United States that was urging the invasion tried to do was to get a UN resolution authorizing the invasion.  (Of course, they did not get one, and invaded anyway, but to this day the only legal justification for the invasion, albeit tenuous, is that there was at least one resolution[15] in favour of some sort of meddling in Iraq.)

My point is this:  to the best of my knowledge, the International Court of Justice, the principal legal organ of the UN, has not had an opportunity to comment on the general practice of interventions such as the above, especially with respect to protections weak nations may have under Article 2(7) to resist such interventions, or at any rate to gain compensation in the event of such interventions.  If Sri Lanka files its case, it will be a marvelous opportunity for the court to give a definitive and extended legal assessment with respect to these issues, and this in turn will be of immense help to those nations that, now and in the future, face the prospect of such interventions.

For the above reasons, I believe the Government should waste no more time.  It should pick its team of lawyers and other experts and set them to work preparing the case, and, most important, set the machinery working with respect to getting the Parliamentary Resolution alluded to earlier, which will call on the President to request the Advisory Opinion in question.

Dharshan Weerasekera is an Attorney-at-Law practicing in Sri Lanka.  His book, The UN’s Relentless Pursuit of Sri Lanka, was published in July 2013.
   

---

[1] Dharshan Weerasekera, “The Illegality of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s approach to Sri Lanka,”  www.foreignpolicyjournal.com, 19 March 2013

[2] Mr. Cameron has reportedly said, “Let me be very clear, if an investigation is not completed by March, then I will use out position at the UN Human Rights Commission and call for a full, credible and international inquiry,”  (Neville Ladduwahetty, “The Channel 4 “Documentary,” Daily News, 29 November 2013)

[3] In Clause No. 3 of the resolution, the EU Paliament, “Calls on the Sri Lankan Government to further implement the LLRC panel’s recommendations, and for a proper, full, transparent and impartial investigation of the many outstanding allegations and concerns arising from a conflict that saw numerous war crimes and other violations committed by both sides,”  (European Parliament resolution on situation in Sri Lanka, 2013/2982 (RSP), 10-12-2013, www.europarl.europa.eu

[4] ICJ Statute, Article 65(1)

[5] UN Charter, Article 96(1)

[6] Ibid, Article, 96(2)

[7] Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, 13 February 1946, Section 30

[8] ICJ Statute, Article 65(2)

[9] ICJ Statute, Article 66(1)

[10] ICJ Statute, Article 66(2)

[11] Rules of the Court, Adopted on 14 April 1978, Article 104

[12] Compatibility or otherwise with international law of the unilateral declaration of Independence by the Provisional Government in Kosovo, 2008

[13] Legal consequences of the wall, 2003

[14] Effect of award of compensation by UN Administrative Tribunal, 1953

[15] For example, Security Council Resolution 1441, passed in 2002

SURFACING OF CEYLON HISTORY AFTER FIVE DECADES – II

Dr.Tilak Fernando

For nearly half a century Professor Laksman Susantha Perera’s research, bound in three volumes, consisting nearly 1400 pages on ancient inscriptions in ‘ Ceylon’ between 3rd Century to 10th Century AD gathered dust at the Peradeniya University, occasionally used by many scholars, lecturers and students over the years.
Of late, however, the University was sensible enough to convert the text onto microfiche format and save it from destruction. This has been the one and the only historical piece of evidence to the way of life of Ceylonese who lived during that era under Ceylonese Kingdoms.

This gem of history about Ceylon has been regularly used at the University by generation of historians until many of its pages were reduced to shreds by constant usage. Some who claimed to be ‘eminent scholars’ have used Perera’s Volumes as ‘ their original idea’ for personal glory, conveniently forgetting to acknowledge the authorship!

Over the years, Professor Perera’s ambition as a patriot to get this valuable piece of history published with a view to disseminating his stored up knowledge to the present generation was marked only by a single word ‘rejection’ by profit orientated publishers in the county. It was an unfortunate state of affairs and more so as Sudharshan Seneviratne, Prof. of Archaeology, University of Peradeniya once put it, a clear cut example of poverty of human values rather than poverty of history”. There were three copies available of the manuscript, one of which had been handed over to his guru Dr. Mendis, second copy to the Peradeniya University and the third copy remained with him for solid five decades.

‘Never say die until really dead’ !

As much as his enthusiasm to complete the study, Professor Perera’s attempts at publishing and making it known to the world never died. Decades after, while in retirement in London, he approached The International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Kandy. Its Executive Director, Prof. K.M. de Silva and Prof. Srima Kiribamune, Senior Research Fellow, enjoyed and identified it as a first rate study on vitally important aspects of the history of Sri Lanka. A silver lining, in Professor Perera’s ambition, began to emerge through dark clouds of many a year.

The laborious task of updating the references to inscriptions used in the text after 50 years and typing of 1500 crumbling and discoloured pages, which could not be scanned, were successfully completed by Prof. Sirima Kiribamune, assisted by Dr. Piyatissa Senanayake of the Department of Archaeology of the University of Peradeniya. Consequently Volume 1, (out of three) under the title ” The Institutions of Ancient Ceylon from Inscription (from the 3rd century BC to 830 AD) was released to the public in July 2001 at the Jayawardena Centre in Colombo amidst a distinguished gathering.

After the publication of Volume I, Professor Sudharshan Seneviratne was quoted as saying thus: ” The future, of both historical and archaeological studies in Sri Lanka, is at cross roads facing a dilemma of priorities, choices, resources, resource persons, attitude and above all quality of research. . After 53 long years, Prof. Lakshman Perera’s Masterpiece finally appeared in print as a classic. But that was only in part ( volume I). Unfortunately it is at present out of print and as the writer understands no more publications of this will be”.
Volume 1 which is factual history, containing 322 pages (from the 3 century BC to 830AD) bound in hard cover subsequently became available for the public to purchase from the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Kandy, Kinsey Terrace, Colombo 8 and most of the bookshops in Colombo.

Final Part

Volume II, part I and Volume II, part II came out of publication in 2003 and 2005 respectively, prepared by Prof. Srima Kiribamune and Dr. Piyatissa Senanayake . It is equally interesting to note that the author Lakshman Susantha Perera’s name appears on both volumes in Sinhala Script which belonged to the 9th Century AD to coincide with the contents of the publications.

The final part of the three-volume work deals with the gradual evolution of the Island’s institutions political, economic and religious aspects, beginning from 3rd Century BC to 1016 AD – which is the Anuradhapura period of Sri Lanka history.

An array of complimentary reviews by many eminent Sri Lankan scholars has commented as follows: “Author’s systematic approach dealing with each phase in a chronological sequence, under various headings, political, economic, social and religious, gives a clear picture of the development that has taken place over the centuries in Sri Lanka; the evolution of kingship, and the king’s role as ‘Defender of the Faith’, and the development of the Sangha from a cave dwelling, amorphous community to a more complex, compact one, controlling large economically independent establishments, the growth of the local government institutions, the irrigation system, taxation, the use of money, diet and many other facts; each of which is sufficient to open new vistas of historical research for an interested student”.

Dr. Lorna Dewaraja in her review states: ” In Prof. L. S. Perera’s meticulous study, he has expressed the life of a society in its political, economic, religious and social aspects and shows that in any society institutions are inter-related and affect each other”.

Overall inspirational reviews of this publication have shown that ” reading through the author’s masterly analysis of the earliest inscriptions, one is struck by the fact that they authenticate even in minute details of the Mahavamsa, which has been condemned by some as myth and legend. Not only can outstanding rulers like ‘Devanampiyatissa, Vattagamini and Dutthagami be identified in the inscriptions, they say, but even one of the latter warriors mentioned in the Mahavanmsa, Senapati Nandimitta could be identified with a good deal of accuracy’.

The writer learnt from the International Centre for Ethnic Studies that Volume I has already gone out of print and it will not be available in the future ! It would , therefore, be prudent for the authorities concerned with the history of Ceylon ( Sri Lanka) for this volume to be reprinted and published continuously as ” this path-breaking dissertation on which it is based was the first to use epigraphically in writing the history of ancient (Ceylon) Sri Lanka, and more so according to many comments, ” it is equally important, the author’s interpretations of the institutional structure in his dissertation on early Sri Lanka continue to be part of the current historical debate in the country as many of his insights have still not been challenged.”

Prof. Lakshman Perera has expressed his deepest gratitude and thanks to Professor K M de Silva and the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (Kandy) and particularly to Professor Srima Kiribamune and Dr Piyatissa Senanayake who did the editing and supervision of the camera ready copy for printing and to the staff of the ICES, Kandy and the Intercollegiate Sri Lanka Education (ISLE) programme, a consortium of US Colleges, whose funding made possible the publication of his thesis.

Profile

In his normal academic career Prof. Perera became the Administrative Head of four sub-departments in the second Faculty of Arts in Colombo when in 1952 the Faculty of Arts was shifted to the new campus in Peradeniya. He became the Professor of History of the Colombo Campus and later he was elected to the office of the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Being a member of the Editorial Board of the Revised University History of Ceylon and the Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies, Professor Perera contributed several chapters, covering the period of his research, to the University of Ceylon.

In 1973 Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommended him to the Education Department of the Commonwealth Secretariat as a Senior Consultant on Universities and Higher Education where he continued in this position for a decade till 1983. Even after his retirement from the University he has been serving as a member of the Executive Committee of the Council for Education in the Commonwealth.

On a bright mid-summer early morning in 1998, Prof. Perera was woken up by a long distance telephone call from Colombo. It was an old friend, Mr. George Coorey to seek permission to nominate him for the prestigious award for the Doctor of Letters, Honoris Causa (D. Lit) offered to luminaries by the Colombo University.

On 15 August 1998, Professor Lakshman Susantha Perera was decorated at the convocation held at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall in Colombo, thus evidently becoming ‘the flower, which appeared to have been born & unseen and wasting its sweetness in the Sri Lankan air’ for nearly 50 years, had suddenly come to bloom so as not to ‘waste its sweetness any longer’!

tilakfernando@gmail.com

A sea of conflict

 By Meera Sirinivasan
TheHindu.com
December 19, 2013

Dec 19 (Hindu) Tamil Nadu fishermen entering Sri Lankan waters interfere with the livelihood of Sri Lankan Tamils struggling to make a living from the sea after a brutal war

The haunting image - from a reporting assignment over a month ago - of an army of Indian trawlers charging towards the shore of Analativu, a small island in the northern tip of Sri Lanka, remains vivid in my memory.

Though there were no arrests reported that night, the Sri Lankan Navy, on several occasions before and after that, have arrested Indian fishermen on charges of trespassing. Not just in Analativu, but at different points off Sri Lanka's northern and eastern coasts.

Indian fishermen have, over decades, fished in Sri Lankan waters - some have faced arrests; but the year 2013 has been particularly bad. A total of 600 fishermen from India - all from Tamil Nadu - were arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy this year, a sharp increase compared to the last few years (See box). Nearly 400 of the fishermen arrested this year have been released, while about 200 fishermen are currently in Sri Lankan prisons. A total of 107 trawlers were apprehended from the fishermen, of which the Indian side has retrieved about 40 so far.

Satellite images have, beyond doubt, established that Indian fishermen frequently cross the agreed-upon International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) that defines the two nations' respective fishing zones on either side of it.

However, many including Tamil Nadu politicians, passionately argue in defence of the fishermen, usually on three major grounds: that the fishermen erroneously stray into Sri Lankan waters without intending to; that it would take time to deter fishermen away from a zone where they traditionally held fishing rights; and that it is, at the end of the day, about their livelihood.

The argument that the fishermen naively stray into Sri Lankan territory falls flat, for, virtually all the trawlers found trespassing are equipped with GPS monitors that would clearly indicate where they are headed.

Change of course

Even if Indian fishermen traditionally held fishing rights across Palk Strait earlier - they had the zone virtually to themselves during Sri Lanka's 30-year civil war that ended in 2009 - four years is not too short a time to change their course. The idea of "traditional fishing rights" is also questionable, particularly when Indian fishermen are found coming all the way around, off the island's north-eastern coast, near Mullaitivu.

And to all those staunch defenders of livelihood issues who argue that it is, after all, a question of survival for those "poor fishermen" and therefore has to be dealt with with more lenience: you are right. It is, indeed, a very serious livelihood issue. And that is precisely why it should not get enmeshed in shrill political rhetoric.

So far, every case of arrest plays out in a predictable fashion with all the actors playing their part well, exactly by the book.

The moment news of an arrest is out, Tamil Nadu politicians put out a strong statement condemning the "atrocity of the Sri Lankan Navy" and urging New Delhi to take a strong position that is not diluted by its diplomatic compulsions. Both the ruling AIADMK and the DMK in the Opposition and all other political parties in Tamil Nadu share the same position on the issue.

Soon, New Delhi assures Tamil Nadu that it would do its best to get the fishermen released soon, a cue for backdoor diplomatic exchanges. New Delhi and the Indian mission in Sri Lanka, in particular, seem to have had a very hard time throughout 2013 - caught between Tamil Nadu's unreasonable demands and an increasingly strained diplomatic equation with Sri Lanka that effectively weakens its leverage vis-�-vis pushing for the rights of the Sri Lankan Tamils.

The Sri Lankan government, on its part, soon highlights how poaching by Indian fishermen has severely affected the Sri Lankan economy. Some forces within the Sri Lankan government also tend to use the fishing conflict to bait the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which formed the northern provincial government recently, provoking it to take on Tamil Nadu in this matter.

The issue gets further complicated when Sri Lankan fishermen are simultaneously caught poaching in Indian waters - as many as 171 fishermen were arrested in October and November 2013 alone. The fishermen arrested there, it is reliably learnt, are Sinhala fishermen using well-equipped longliners.

Following these parallel arrests, the two countries virtually end up with a barter deal on the release of the arrested fishermen.

The Tamil Nadu government and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who has been strongly criticising New Delhi for its stance, has, in the last few years, taken no serious measures to deter its fishermen from poaching in Sri Lankan waters.

If Tamil Nadu politicians care for Sri Lankan Tamils as much as they claim to, how come they completely miss the larger point about Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen being the worst-hit in this maritime mess? If it is about Tamil Nadu fishermen's livelihood, what is it then, for Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen on this side of Palk Strait who are struggling to cope with the after-effects of a brutal war?

2013 has shown that diplomatic trade-offs can, at best, be a myopic response to an acute problem. If the livelihood concern flagged by many is for real, then Tamil Nadu has the biggest responsibility.

It has to change its strategy from resorting to unreasonable, emotional outbursts to finding ways to equip its own fishermen in the best, long-term interest of their livelihood by, say, offering training in deep-sea fishing methods. It should actively discourage the fishermen from crossing the IMBL.

The TNA might want to open up channels of communication with the Tamil Nadu government to engage with it, particularly on the fisheries conflict.

An amalgam of Tamil political parties with varying degrees of Tamil nationalism among its constituents, the TNA has repeatedly emphasised how deeply it values the solidarity expressed by Tamil Nadu in support of Sri Lankan Tamils. However, only an ongoing dialogue between the party and Tamil Nadu will help get across certain specific realities about Sri Lankan Tamils.

Political stakes

Unlike earlier, the TNA also has political stakes with regard to this issue, as the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), a member of the ruling coalition in Sri Lanka that had a strong support base among fishermen, seems to be losing ground to the TNA, going by its performance in the recent Northern Provincial Council (NPC) elections.

In Kayts, an island off Jaffna, for instance, the EPDP secured 31.48 per cent of the votes in the September elections to the NPC, as compared to the 71.99 per cent that it cornered in the 2010 parliamentary elections. The fisheries issue, therefore, offers new political space for the TNA provincial administration as well. Even if the TNA does its bit, the future of several thousand fishermen in Sri Lanka's Northern Province - in Jaffna alone there are nearly 20,000 Tamil-speaking fishermen whose lives are tied to the sea - is, clearly, in Tamil Nadu's hands.

Ceylon in World War II

From Wikipedia,
The free encyclopedia

An RAF bomber takes off from Colombo's racecourse in Ceylon during the war.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, in the British Crown Colony of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), the government of Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka assured the British king and his majesty's government of its continued support.

Contents

• 1 Preparations for war
• 2 Ceylon Volunteers
• 3 Ceylon Navy Volunteer Reserve
• 4 Cocos Islands Mutiny
• 5 Japanese attack on Ceylon
• 6 Anti-War movement
• 7 Images
• 8 Notes
• 9 References
• 10 See also

Preparations for war

The British had occupied the coastal areas of the island since 1796, but after 1917 the colony had no regular garrison of British troops. The Ceylon Defence Force and Ceylon Navy Volunteer Reserve were mobilized and expanded. The Royal Navy maintained naval installations in Trincomalee and the Royal Air Force (RAF) had established an aerodrome in China Bay, Trincomalee long before the war.

After the fall of Singapore the Royal Navy's East Indies Station was moved to Colombo and then to Trincomalee. Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Ceylon with Air Vice Marshal John D'Albiac Air Officer Commanding and Admiral Sir Sir James Somerville appointed commander of the British Eastern Fleet.

The fixed land defences consisted of four coastal batteries at Colombo and five at Trincomalee, these were established just before the war. Air defenses where expanded starting in 1941 with the RAF occupying the civil airfield at Ratmalana near Colombo with its station headquarters set up at Kandawala. Another airbase was rapidly built at Koggala near Galle and several temporary airstrips were built across the country, with the largest at Colombo Racecourse Airstrip. Several RAF Squadrons were sent to Ceylon. Several Commonwealth units were also stationed in Ceylon for the duration of the war.

Ceylon Volunteers

As with other British Colonies conscription was not implemented in Ceylon, however Ceylonese were encouraged to volunteer for service. Many volunteered throughout the war, most joining the Ceylon Defence Force, which was expanded from a reserve unit to a mobilized force of 10 infantry battalions, 3 artillery regiments and support units. For the first time Ceylonese units were deployed outside Ceylon in formation until the Cocos Islands Mutiny after which deployment overseas of Ceylonese units was stopped with a few exceptions.

Ceylonese continued to volunteer and joined the British Army, RAF and the Royal Navy. They were supplemented by personnel of the Ceylon Defence Force who requested transfer to front line units of the British Army. They served in the Burma and later in Malaya. Ceylonese served in the Royal Engineers in Italy and with the Royal Army Service Corps in the Middle East and North Africa. The 1st battalion, Ceylon Corps of Military Police served in Malaya till 1949.^[1]

Several of those who served with Commonwealth Forces during the war went on to serve in the Sri Lankan Armed Forces after Ceylon gained independence in 1948; these include General D. S. Attygalle, Major General Anton Muttukumaru, Major General Bertram Heyn, Major General Richard Udugama, Major General H.W.G. Wijeyekoon, Rear Admiral Rajan Kadiragamar and Air Vice Marshal Edward Amerasakera.

Ceylon Navy Volunteer Reserve

The Ceylon Navy Volunteer Reserve was taken over by the Royal Navy. Cutting its teeth on the Port Commission Tugs Samson and Goliath, it later manned and operated trawlers and Antarctic whalers converted as Minesweepers and fitted out with guns, submarine detection equipment and anti-submarine weaponry. They were H.M. Ships Overdale Wyke (the first ship to be purchased by the Government of Ceylon), Okapi, Semla, Sambhur, Hoxa, Balta and H.M Tugs Barnet and C405. In addition it manned several Motor Fishing Vessels (MFV) and miscellaneous auxiliary vessels. All were manned exclusively by CRNVR personnel. These ships were meant to sweep and guard the approaches the harbours but were also often used on extended missions outside Ceylon waters. In the course of these operations, the ships came under enemy fire, recovered essential information from Japanese aircraft shot down, sailed to Akyab after the Burma front was opened in two FMVs for harbour duties, and was called upon to accept the surrender of the Italian colonial ship Eritrea and escort her to port with a prize crew on board.

Cocos Islands Mutiny

Main article: Cocos Islands Mutiny

The sinking of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, and the subsequent fall of Singapore, punctured forever the myth of British invincibility. Against this backdrop, and on the agitation of the Trotskyist-inspired Lanka Sama Samaja Party, soldiers of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands mutinied on the night of 8 May 1942, intending to hand the islands over to the Japanese. The mutiny was suppressed within an hour, however, and three of the mutineers were later executed — the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.^[2]

Following the mutiny the use of Ceylonese combat troops was discontinued by the British, although a number of supply and transport units were used in the rear areas in the Middle East. The defences of Ceylon were reinforced by the 7th Australian Division and elements of the 1st (African) Division because of the island's strategic importance, holding almost all the British Empire's resources of rubber. Rationing was instituted so that Ceylonese were comparatively better fed than their Indian neighbors; a measure taken to prevent their disaffection.^{[citation needed]}

Japanese attack on Ceylon

British anti-aircraft defenses in Ceylon, 1943

Main article: The Easter Sunday Raid on Colombo

Main article: Indian Ocean raid

The Easter Sunday Raid was the air raid carried out by Japan on Easter Sunday (5 April) 1942 on Colombo; a few days later Trincomalee was also attacked. These were undertaken as a part of commerce raiding and the harassment of the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean.

Although the military effect of the raids was substantial - it resulted in the sinking of several ships including two cruisers and an aircraft carrier, the effect on the Ceylonese population was far greater as it had heard of the Nanjing Massacres and of the act of brutality of the Japanese in occupied countries. The civilian population began a panicked fleeing of Colombo and of Ceylon by boat to India following the raid. Such was the panic amongst the British and Ceylonese that a large turtle which came ashore was reported by an Australian unit as a number of Japanese amphibious vehicles.^{[citation needed]}

Anti-War movement

There was resistance to occupation, both against the Axis powers and against the colonial power, the British. This was done completely by the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party, which supported the independence movement and led the anti-war movement, made it clear that it did not side with either the Axis powers or the Allies and considered the war an internationalist one. The Communist party of Ceylon too supported the anti-war movement as they saw it also as a war of imperialists, but in 1941 when Germany attacked the Soviet Union they joined the war movement in support of the British calling it a peoples war.

There was some opposition to the war in Sri Lanka, particularly among the workers and the nationalists encouraged by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, many of the latter of whom hoped for a German victory. But much of the populace dreaded a Japanese victory.

Among Buddhists, there was disgust that Buddhist monks of German origin were interned as 'enemy aliens' whereas German and Italian Roman Catholic priests were not. Two young members of the Governing Party, Junius Richard Jayawardene (who later became President) and Dudley Senanayake (later th 3rd Prime Minister), held discussions with the Japanese with a view to collaboration to oust the British, these discussions did not go further since the much older D S Senanayake (later th 1st Prime Minister) stopped them.

Independence agitators turned to opposition to the Ministers' support for the British war effort. The local Ministers brought motions gifting the Sri Lankan taxpayers' money to the British war machine, which were opposed by the pro-freedom members of the State Council. Propaganda was carried out among the troops, Australian and British as well as indigenous with little effect.

Starting in November 1939 and during the first half of 1940 there was a wave of spontaneous strikes in the British-owned plantations, basically aimed at winning the right of organisation. There were two main plantation unions, Natesa Iyer's Ceylon Indian Congress and the All-Ceylon Estate Workers Union (later the Lanka Estate Workers Union, LEWU) led by Samasamajists.

In the Central Province the strike wave reached the zenith in the Mool Oya Estate strike, which was led by Samasamajists. After Mool Oya, the strike wave spread southward towards Uva, and the strikes became more prolonged and the workers began more and more to seek the militant leadership of the Samasamajists. The Trotskyist leader N.M. Perera addressed a large meeting in Badulla on 12 May, and the police were powerless to act, although it was banned. At Wewessa Estate the workers set up an elected council and the Superintendent agreed to act in consultation with the Workers' Council. An armed police party that went to restore 'law and order' was disarmed by the workers. The strike wave at last was beaten back by a wave of terror by the police, aided by floods which cut Uva off from the rest of the country for over a week.

However, the colonial authorities were finding that the independence struggle was getting too powerful. After Dunkirk, the British colonial authorities reacted in panic (as revealed in secret files released many decades later) and the LSSP State Council members N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena and others were arrested on 18 June. The Samasamajist press was raided and sealed. Regulations were promulgated which made open party work practically impossible.

Public disgust at British colonial rule continued to grow. Among the elite there was irritation at the colour-bar practised by the leading clubs. Sir Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke, the Civil Defence Commissioner complained that the British commander of Ceylon, Admiral Layton called him a 'black bastard'; this was merely an expression of continuing white-supremacism. However, it was grist to the mill for an increasingly angry middle class that this was the attitude of their rulers who had been bested in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma by Asians.

Sri Lankans in Singapore and Malaysia formed the 'Lanka Regiment' of the Indian National Army, directly under Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A plan was made to transport them to Sri Lanka by submarine, to begin the liberation struggle, but this was abortive.

The LSSP leaders were able to escape, with the help of one of their guards. Several of them fled to India, where they participated in the struggle there, underscoring what had been established before the war, that India's and Sri Lanka's freedom struggles were interlinked. However, a sizable contingent remained, led by Robert Gunawardena, Philip's brother.

Images

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  Womens Royal Naval Service (WRNS) in Ceylon
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  Royal Naval School of Malaria and Hygiene Control, Colombo

Notes

1. Forgotten campaign, forgotten veterans
2. Cocos Island Mutiny

References

• Arsecularatne, SN, Sinhalese immigrants in Malaysia & Singapore, 1860-1990: History through recollections, KVG de Silva & Sons, Colombo, 1991
• Crusz, Noel, The Cocos Islands Mutiny, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, WA, 2001
• Muthiah, Wesley and Wanasinghe, Sydney, Britain, World War 2 and the Sama Samajists, Young Socialist Publication, Colombo, 1996
• Lankan was privy to WW II covert operation