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latest news says that a paki pilot landed his plane in ltte held area and that he was paid for it

Jeyaraj takes PM to task over apology drama

The Government was in the throes of another crisis yesterday over the public apology made by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake on the eviction of Tamils from the city with several Ministers to publicly criticise the Premier?s statement and distance the government from it.

Chief Government Whip and Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle on Monday criticised Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake for accepting responsibility on behalf of the government and apologising for the eviction of Tamil citizens from Colombo.

Fernandopulle on Monday said that the Premier?s statement was a betrayal of the members of the armed forces.

Addressing a public event organised to inaugurate an electricity generation scheme in Welivita Divithura Kuppiyawatte, Fernandopulle had further said that he would hold a media briefing today to explain details of the statement made by the Prime Minister.

The Morning Leader learns Ministers Karu Jayasuriya and Rajitha Senaratne too are expected to attend the press conference.

It is learned the decision to hold a press conference and disassociate the government from the Prime Minister?s statement follows strong representations made by Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse.

The move to criticise the Prime Minister is also viewed as a move to force his resignation.

Sources said there is a group within the government who are keen to promote Jayasuriya as Premier and has urged him to attend the press conference.

The Morning Leader learns efforts were underway to persuade Fernandopulle not to hold the press conference today and deepen the crisis but there was little likelihood of those efforts succeeding.

Sources also said it was siginificant none of the Defence ministry websites reported the Prime Minister?s statement.

The Prime Minister expressed regrets over the forcible eviction of Tamils from the city following documentary evidence surfacing that Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse had issued the directives at a meeting on May 31.

President Mahinda Rajapakse had 48 hours earlier in a statement said disciplinary action will be taken against any officials responsible for the eviction.

President attempts to clear the way before reaching Geneva

(LeN-2007 June 12, 8.30 pm) President Mahinda Rajapakse says refraining from alarming businessmen and civilians is the total responsibility of the government.

The president stated this at a discussion held at the temple trees to discuss issues faced by the Muslim community this afternoon before leaving to Geneva for the ILO conference.

Recently prime minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake said the government regrets the forcible evacuation of Tamils from Colombo lodges and said the government claims the total responsibility of the incident.

The presidential secretariat issuing a statement adds that it was decided to appoint a special secretary from the secretariat 24 hours to liaise with the police emergency units to help arrest the suspects into the abductions, murders and threats made to civilians.

So far 122 persons have been abducted for ransom and their list was also published by LeN recently. Meanwhile LeN also published the names of 6 Muslim businessmen who were abducted and release after paying a total of Rs. 400 million ransoms.

The president says that a political coup is behind these abductions in order to cause trouble to the government. The president requests the public to hand over any particular information in this regard to the authorities without fear adding that the government is vested with the responsibility of putting a stop to such incidents.

The presidential secretariat requests the public to inform the authorities on the below mentioned numbers.

Tel - 0112-380792
Hotline - 0773-418816
fax- 0114-733666

Police special operations unit
Tel - 0112-333496
fax - 0112-440435

Govt. in a human rights mess

When fighting a war and especially when it comes to fighting a guerilla outfit that uses ruthless terror tactics while hiding themselves among the civilian population, identifying the true enemy is absolutely essential. Any military strategist well versed in modern warfare would undoubtedly agree to this.

However the recent action of the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime leaves us wondering as to whether it has identified who the true enemy is. Furthermore it makes any discerning observer doubt the entire military strategy of the government. Is it fighting the real terrorists or engaging in an act of shadow boxing.

The ill advised action of the government officials led by none other than the Inspector General of Police Victor Perera (who now seems to be the scapegoat) to evict the bulk of the Tamil citizens who are not permanent residents of the Colombo city and residing in lodges scattered among majority Tamil areas last week has raised many questions. The chief among them is whether the government has lost its focus.

The main thrust of the fight against Tamil militant terrorism by successive governments over the last 30 or so years since the beginning of the conflict has been that this is not a war against the Tamil people of this country but a fight against separatism and terrorism. All governments so far have been able to maintain this moral high ground and argue against separatist propaganda churned out by the Tigers and their sympathizers in many an international fora and defend the case against the formation of a separate Eelam state in the North and the East of this country.

It is with pride that successive governments of Sri Lanka could clearly state without any doubt that the they were not communalist, racist or sectarian by simply pointing to the fact that the majority of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka were happily living in areas other than the North and the East and were cohabiting with the majority Sinhala community. It is ample proof that the majority of the Tamil community preferred to be under the rule of the Sri Lankan government and not the jungle law of the Tigers.

But last week?s shortsighted action by government authorities has completely jeopardized this equation and put all positive measures taken by successive governments to end the conflict in a manner that is acceptable to all communities in this country at risk. The absurdity of this action was quite apparent when considering the families with small children and aged persons who were asked to board buses and register themselves after being taken to Vavuniya and Trincomalee. One wonders whether how many LTTE suspects were among them since no one among them were arrested or taken into police custody on those grounds. But there is little doubt that the government has created several more LTTE sympathizers in the process.

The puerile reason given to these people for their dislocation was that either they had ?overstayed? their visit to Colombo or had ?no valid reason? to be there in the first place. Any person with even a faint knowledge of the constitution of the country let aside the law enforcement officers and the government authorities who have taken an oath to protect it would know that such reasons to dislocate a person is a basic violation of their fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution.

This high handed action of the government authorities was brought to a halt by the intervention of the Supreme Court giving a sigh of relief to many people who were unable to believe that the government was engaging in an act of folly. The stay order by the Supreme Court on a fundamental rights petition filed by the Centre for Policy Alternatives gave some hope and that all is not lost.

But by that time the damage had been done. The good image built by the governments over the last decade about Sri Lankan in the eyes of the international community was tarnished in one day. The work done by people like the late Lakshman Kadirgamar who ultimately paid with his life for showing the world the true nature of the Sri Lankan conflict, was thrown out of the window.

For the first time since the signing of the ceasefire agreement in 2001 and many years before that, the international community condemned an act of the Sri Lankan government. The US, EU and India along with several other countries condemned this action of the government. So far it was the terrorist acts of the LTTE that was condemned by foreign countries and not action by the government. Even on incidents with a cloud hanging over the security forces the foreign governments and especially the US has always been careful to word its statements as ?raising concern.? But the fact that these countries have gone all out to ?condemn? the action of the government rings an alarm bell. Is the government in its gung ho attitude trying to alienate all its friends among the international community?

This is a situation that every right thinking person should be concerned about. If Sri Lanka is going to isolate itself from the international community and specially India, half the battle against Tiger terrorism would be lost. When this dawned upon the government it was too late and finally Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremenayake had to appear before the cameras to say that the government regrets the action of the authorities and that it accepts that a mistake had been committed.

Two days before the Prime Minister expressed his regrets the President directed IGP Victor Perera to submit a full report on the entire incident. This leads to a question as to where the actual orders for the eviction originated from. It would be too naïve for anyone to believe that the IGP acted on his own while all others in the government were in blissful ignorance when the eviction was taking place as cabinet spokesman and Media Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa tried to show at the weekly cabinet press briefing.

Without asking for reports after the damage had been done, the President could have very well given an executive order on that very day itself to stop what is being done. It seems now that all the blame is being apportioned to the IGP as if there was no political direction and the entire administration was in the dark when the IGP gave orders to his officers.

The eviction of over 300 Tamils from Colombo only adds to the dismal human rights record of this government. The statement made by Chairman of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) Justice P.N. Bhagwati this week only adds to this bleak situation. Justice Bhagwati while criticizing the Presidential Commission appointed to look into Human Rights Abuses has said that it had made little headway in investigations and does not comply to international standards and norms.

The culprits of many extra judicial killings carried out after abducting people in the heart of the city by posing off as CID or TID officers are still at large. The number of bodies being recovered from many parts of the country of people who had been put to death in execution style keeps increasing. The number of bodies being recovered from one location too has increased over the months with the latest finding in Dummanadeniya being nine bodies. The only explanation the government has been able furnish so far has been that these are done to embarrass the government. All investigations into these killings seem to have hit a stone wall that the investigators are finding difficult to overcome.

But the abduction drama does not seem to be reaching an end as it has now shifted to Muslim businessmen as well. The latest being the mistaken abduction of a driver of a well known Muslim businessman who died following his release in Mawanella after being poisoned. It defies all logic as to whether the law enforcement authorities are so inept as to being unable to make a single breakthrough in any of these incidents that been happening over a period of more than seven-eight months.

Such incidents can continue only in a state that has a complete breakdown of law and order. Or else in an absurdly authoritarian state such as of Stalinist Russia as aptly described in a magical realist flavour by the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov in his novel ?The Master and Margarita,? where people just disappear without a trace as if an illusionist is performing disappearing acts in rapid succession.

It is up to the government to prevent Sri Lanka from sinking into such an absurd stage where disappearances become a daily occurrence to a level where it even goes unnoticed after some time. And the fact that these are happening in the middle of heavy security where there is a policeman or an armed soldier virtually at every junction is because a situation and an atmosphere has been created where these can freely take place.

This week the President is scheduled to visit Geneva and is also scheduled to meet the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights during his visit. Questions about the present situation in the country would definitely be raised at this meeting. It remains to be seen how the President answers them.

In the meantime it is up to the government to rethink its strategy and concentrate more on winning the hearts and minds of the Tamil people. It is only through such an exercise that a durable solution to this conflict can be brought about. It is high time that the government starts to think that the ordinary Tamil civilian and the LTTE are not one but two different beings. Harassment of ordinary Tamil civilians will only help the LTTE and strengthen them more.

Even at this stage it is essential to recognize the true enemy. The inability to do so would not only compound the conflict further but would also strengthen the so far weakened hand of the separatists and would provide more ammunition for them to argue their cause further. That is a danger that should be avoided at all cost.