Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

We don`t know exactly what General Fonseka`s motives were when he wrote that letter to the President, but the result is that now 130,000 Tamil civilians will have their freedom.

Sri Lanka Top General Signals Bid For Presidency

By REUTERS
Published: November 20, 2009
Filed at 4:48 a.m. ET

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka`s top general, who quit amid speculation he could run for president, pledged on Friday to fight for democracy and human rights after the end of a 25-year separatist war, suggesting he would soon announce his candidacy.

General Sarath Fonseka, widely credited for the army`s role in defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels in May, urged the army to rebuff any bid to politicise it.

UN presses for freedom for Sri Lanka war-displaced

(AFP) 10 hours ago

COLOMBO The United Nations on Thursday stepped up pressure on Sri Lanka to free thousands of war-displaced civilians held in state-run internment camps.

`Months after the conflict ended, our main concerns haven`t changed. People are still not given free access to leave these camps on their own free will,` UN humanitarian chief John Holmes told AFP after a visit to the camps.

(Lanka-e-News 14.Nov.2009 7.45PM) The Combined group of religious leaders who went to the Europe Union, addressing a media briefing yesterday (13) to reveal their experience following the tour said, their efforts to get a further extension for the GSP+ benefits to SL was a flop.

Sabaragamuwa University campus Professor and Kam burugamuwa Vajira Temple Prelate said , the European Union is making various accusations against SL claiming that there is no Democracy in the country . The economic problems aggravated by the war must be put on track by an organized effort. They added that in this tour they were able to get an insight into the opinion the European countries nurse regarding SL. There are organized groups which are making attempts to mislead the EU Ministers.

* World news
* Washington Post

By Emily Wax

With candles glowing next to his computer, Chandrasiri Bandara, the nation`s most popular astrologer, looked at his birth chart and predicted that he would soon be assassinated.

`Even astrologers have horoscopes,` said Bandara, who has his own Web site and writes a column for an opposition newspaper. `Mine does not show a long life. Until 2012 there is a chance of someone in the government killing me.`

Arresting and intimidating political dissidents, from journalists to aid workers, is nothing new in Sri Lanka. That was especially true in May when a final government assault on the separatist Tamil Tigers ended one of the world`s longest-running civil wars.

# November 16, 2009 12:00AM

THE Rudd government chartered a 100-seat jet to Sri Lanka at the weekend to forcibly remove six asylum-seekers who staged a dramatic eight-hour protest inside the Christmas Islands immigration detention centre last month.

The six Sinhalese fishermen became the first asylum-seekers to be isolated inside the centre`s controversial `red block`, built by the Howard government, with small metal cells to detain violent or unstable detainees.

This is an extract from Fonseka`s resignation letter to the President:

`14.The plight of the IDPs is also a point of great concern to me. Thousands of valiant soldiers sacrificed their valuable lives to liberate these unfortunate civilians from the brutality and tyranny of the LTTE in order that they could live in an environment of freedom and democracy. Yet, today many of them are continuing to live in appalling conditions due to the lack of proper planning on the part of the government and the IDPs who have friends and relatives elsewhere in the country must be given the choice to live with them until proper demining has been done in their areas.`

Can China bear a regime change in SL ?

By Upul Joseph Fernando

For the EuroAsian Alliance (China, Russia, Tran) , the aim of ending the Sri Lanka civil war was to ensure the materialization of the Chinese Port and to prevent any possibility of a regime change in Colombo which would ensure the continuity of a Sri Lankan Government . allied to China, Russia , Iran .. Mahdi Darius ,Nazemvoaya, Global Research.

Lankatruth:

He would announce whether he would come to politics or not after he officially resigns from his post of Chief of Defense Staff says Gen. Sarath Fonseka.

He said this speaking to the media after participating in religious observances at Kelaniya Temple. He visited Kelaniya Temple after handing over his papers of resignation to the Presidential Secretariat.

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George Abraham

12 November 2009 Choosing between Australia and Canada must have seemed a no-brainer for the hundreds who set sail from squalid camps in the north of Sri Lanka a few weeks ago. Australia presented a shorter voyage, but events over the last week have shown that those who set their compass on Canada made a far better call.

Recently, one of the 76 Tamils who landed in British Columbia on Canada`s western shore actually walked away with his brother, a naturalised Canadian, barely four days after setting foot on Canadian soil. The rest are still at a detention centre, but unless the Canadian border and immigration authorities can demonstrate that any of them is a known Tamil Tiger, it`s only a matter of time before all of them are accepted as refugees in Canada.

Myanmar dissidents condemn S.Lanka over junta visit
November 11, 2009 (AFP) - Dissident Myanmar monks living in Colombo on Wednesday criticised the Sri Lankan government for inviting junta leader General Than Shwe for a state visit.

The monks said Sri Lanka`s increasingly close relations with Myanmar`s military regime would further raise international concern over the island`s human rights record.
They said President Mahinda Rajapakse was `foolish` to become associated with Than Shwe, set to arrive on Thursday.

Sri Lanka: Journey through Sri Lanka`s refugee camps, where life is a daily struggle
An Indian volunteer talks about his experience with internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Vanni in August and September. He describes the tragic living conditions in camps and hospitals, details the suffering of women, children, the elderly and the disabled and explains the refugees` desire to go ...

Thursday, October 22, 2009By Asia News

AFP:

COLOMBO The IMF on Monday warned Sri Lanka against issuing government bonds to build up foreign currency reserves after it released the second instalment of a 2.6-billion-dollar bailout.

The International Monetary Fund said Colombo`s reserves were at a `comfortable position` having slumped to a historic low of one billion dollars earlier this year, but cautioned against more borrowing.

`There is a difference between borrowed reserves and reserves collected from the current account (of the balance of payments), like booming exports,` IMF resident representative in Sri Lanka, Koshi Mathai, told reporters.

By Romesh Abeywickrema

Unfortunately for the powers that be, though it may seem the `no news good news` strategy is doing wonders as far as the mainstream media goes, the grapevine, the source the Sri Lankan news consuming public has increasingly come to rely on in the recent past in the evolving atmosphere of media subjugation, is working overtime with information galore on the many deals also known as development projects that are being concluded at the speed of greased lightning.

H. Res. 711 resolution: `Rights of Sri Lankan Tamils`
H. Res. 711 resolution, passed in the US House of Representatives on Thursday Nov 5th, 2009 by a vote of 421 to 1:

Suspend the Rules And Agree to the Resolution, H.Res. 711 with Amendments (The amendments consist of a new preamble, a substitute text, and an amendment to the title)

111TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION H. RES. 711

Calling on the United States Government and the international community to address the human rights and humanitarian needs of Sri Lanka`s Tamil internally displaced persons (IDPs) currently living in governmentrun camps by supporting the release of such IDPs, implementing and facilitating an independent oversight of the process of release and resettlement, and allowing foreign aid groups to provide relief and resources to such IDPs.