Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Sri Lanka loses 0.5-pct of GDP in taxes from state worker car permits

Sri Lanka has lost 38.5 billion rupees in potential revenues from imported vehicles due to tax-slashed permits given to state functionaries, a government estimate showed.

The Central Bank annual report said the finance ministry estimated that another 8.5 billion rupees in revenues was lost in 2011.

Can US ignore TNAs complicity in LTTE terror? - Gotabhaya

EU report cited to prove direct link

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday said that US Ambassador Michele J. Sison was either ignorant of the post-war situation in the country or chose to ignore it in deeping with the US  agenda.

Ambassador Sisons recent speech at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo was meant to strengthen those still pursuing a separatist agenda, both here and abroad, Defence Secretary Rajapaksa told The Island.

Did India compensate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after the 1987 Indo-Lanka pact and the dispatch of Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka? The US administration believed so, according to a cable sent by its embassy here and released by Wikileaks.

A cable dated April 5, 1988 cites newspaper reports, which quoted J N Dixit, then Indian envoy to Sri Lanka that a stipend was agreed upon and was to be paid to the LTTE by the Indian government in view of the tax loss it suffered after IPKF was sent. The US cable said Rs 50 lakh was the compensation paid to the LTTE in July 1987 and only one payment was made before September that year when LTTE walked out of the deal over its participation in the interim council.

State AG or Govt AG ??

]A line of court cases that gained mega media publicity because of its Political essence and their Anti-Climax ends has raised has raised the surprise level very high in the society. It is now being alleged that the independence of the Attorney General`s Department has been vaporized completely and accusations are being made that the State attorney General has now become the Govt. attorney General.

Expressing his views regarding the present scenario, UNP MP Ajith P. Perera stated that these suspicions can be justified after carefully examining the events which took place during the past few days.

Military torture chamber near Matale mass grave

In a damning disclosure, the survivors of a military-run detention centre that existed during the southern counter-insurgency campaign have alleged the army had operated a torture chamber in a government school in the vicinity of the mass grave of Matale in 1989-90, and that the skeletons of the mass grave belong to the victims of that torture chamber.

The shocking disclosures come in the wake of Carbon C 14 Dating findings that have revealed the skeletal remains of over 150 bodies, unearthed from the mass grave, were buried in the period of 1986-90. Pubudu Jayakody, Political Secretary of the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), who insisted the remains that were unearthed from the mass grave were of his former comrades of the JVP, said the inmates of the torture chamber, which was operated from Vijaya Vidyalaya in the 1989-90, would soon come out to narrate their ordeal in the torture chamber.

Sri Lanka`s double burden

From Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka, comes serendipity, meaning the accidental discovery of something good or useful.

The word offers a good and useful, but incomplete, description of what some observers find when considering economic conditions on an island trying to forget two catastrophes, one natural and the other man-made.

Around the world, plenty of questions are raised about the way the regime of the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, handles dissent. But analysis of the country`s economy varies sharply, between those who - sometimes to their surprise - believe the government has made impressive strides and those with a much gloomier view.

Sri Lanka judges urged to boycott new chief

Sri Lankan lawyers on Friday urged judges to refuse to accept the appointment of a new chief justice ahead of a vote that is expected to see the incumbent impeached by lawmakers.

The Lawyers` Collective in letters to judges said a move by parliament to go ahead with a vote later Friday to remove Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was illegal as two superior courts had already declared the process null and void.

2013 will see valuable work for progress of democracy: President

President Mahinda Rajapaksa says the year dawning today will see valuable work for the progress of democracy, equality among people and important aspects of development in the mothers_day.jsp' class=black>motherland.

It is my belief that all communities will join in unity with the common purpose of success towards realising these goals, he said in a New Year message.

Writing in the Weekend Australian on December 15-16, the Sri Lankan consul-general in Sydney, Bandula Jayasekara, gives a very one-sided defence of the Sri Lankan persecution of dissenters, including Tamils. It is interesting that Jayasekara is being put forward as the Sri Lankan representative in Australia to defend the indefensible, an acknowledgement that the Sri Lankan high commissioner, Thisara Samarasinghe, has singularly failed to get his message across.

Whether government is expecting Muslims to carry weapons ?

Muslim Tamil National Alliance queryPothubala Sena` the Sinhala movement and other Sinhalese racists are carrying out unscrupulous activities against the Muslim and why government is silently watching.

Suppression against Muslims and continuous autocracies are unleashed against the Muslims by the government, and to protect their rights, whether Muslims should carry weapons, is what the government expect was queried by Muslim Tamil National Front. Movements appealed not to shove the Muslims to that state.

Take a step back

The only solution to what appears to be a standoff between the three arms of the government, the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary, is for one institution to take a step back in order to prevent the country from plummeting to a full-blown crisis situation, former Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, said, in what appears to be an advice to the government.

The Senior Minister of Good Governance and Infrastructure Development also said it is difficult to say who is at fault at the moment.

CA says it can hear CJ`s case against PSC findings .

The Court of Appeal today held that it had jurisdiction to hear the case filed by the Chief Justice against the findings of the Parliamentary Select Committee appointed to probe charges against her.

The Court of Appeal also issued notice on Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, the 11 members of the PSC memes who inquired into allegations against the Chief Justice and the secretary General of Parliament returnable on January 3rd.

Govt. toughens its stand on CJ issue as crisis grows

= JSA, BASL, Congress of Religions, Commonwealth and international groups issue strong statements

= President says he will act according to his conscience and appoint an independent committee to review proceedings, but expresses different view at meeting with media bosses

Cabinet ministers received urgent telephone calls last Wednesday to turn up at Temple Trees, now the official residence of the President, an hour ahead of the weekly meeting that evening.

Arrival of a Saviour

Such a pathetic predicament was avoided for the country by MR coming to power at the nick of time. The above developments would have left no Presidency for him to contest if he had to wait for the lawful end of the previous regime. It was the ruling that ended CBK`s term prematurely that enabled MR to beat the clock. Even so, he might not have been qualified to contest the Presidency, if not for the injunction against the investigation into the misuse of tsunami funds. Resisting the LTTE invasion, called for tremendous power which could not have come from a vacillating majority in Parliament. It was the blind eye turned by the judiciary on crossovers that gave an overwhelming two thirds majority to MR buttressing him in power and giving him the confidence to stand against all odds.

For the Rajapaksa Administration which pushed through the 18th Amendment to the constitution with barely a squeak of protest from society, the furor over the Divineguma bill must be hard to comprehend. The Bill is challenged in Court, the ruling is a defeat for the government and there is now a serious public debate over the issues concerned, with trade unions joining with protests and opposition to the Bill.


The timing of the furore over the Divineguma Bill comes at a fairly bad time for the government, faced as it is with serious confrontations with the judiciary, protests by FUTA and university students and a general increase in discontent in society. Such discontent is not easily quelled, especially from an administration, loath to make any real policy concessions or governance changes to accommodate dissent or diversity of opinion. The cosmetic time buying exercises merely postpone relatively briefly the day of reckoning.