Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

COLOMBO: The unease in the Sri Lankan Opposition in naming General Sarath Fonseka as their joint candidate for the Presidential elections against President Mahinda Rajapaksa, continued with UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe laying down a fresh set of tough conditions before the retired general.

Justice to the victims of the anti-Sikh violence in Delhi seems far away even after 25 years.

THE crowd at the Constitution Club in New Delhi on November 7 perhaps symbolised what Jarnail Singh said at the launch of his book on the anti-Sikh violence of 1984, I Accuse. In the hall, packed to capacity, were only Sikhs except for a few journalists, when Jarnail Singh, who shot to fame when he hurled his shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram during a press conference a few months ago, asked desperately: Why has no one except members of the Sikh community come forward as witnesses in the carnage that took place across the capital in 1984? Why, even after 25 years, only Sikh groups have been raising their voices against the government`s inaction?

Rajapakse regime and the Fonseka phenomenon: Genesis of current crisis
November 14th, 2009
by D.B.S. Jeyaraj

Notwithstanding desperate denials to the contrary, current developments have clearly demonstrated the deep divisions existing between the ruling Rajapakse regime and former Army commander Lt.Gen Sarath Fonseka.

In a controversial turn of events General Fonseka has submitted his resignation from the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) post held by him. It has been promptly accepted by President Rajapakse and is expected to come into effect from December 1st 2009.

...

On Thursday, he wrote to President Rajapaksa, expressing his desire to retire from December 1. There was speculation in some quarters that tried to make out that the President would not accept Gen. Fonseka`s retirement thereby frustrating any attempt by the General to come forward as a common candidate of a united opposition at a presidential election that is widely expected soon. There was sufficient legal opinion that held the view, broadly, that the Constitution, the country`s supreme law permitted `any citizen` the right to contest a Presidential election. The Constitution overrides all other laws and regulations in the country. But more than that, the President himself had no qualms about the move. He was quoted in dailies this week as having said that he would accept the General`s resignation within half an hour should he offer it. He was surely not going to be seen as someone churlish enough who was going to strip the civic rights of a would-be opponent. That would have been a terrible start to his own re-election campaign.

General Sarath Fonseka, Sri Lanka`s chief of defence staff (CDS) and architect of the military victory against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), may resign by the month-end.
This could clear the way for him to contest next year`s presidential election against incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa.

OFFICIALS in Sri Lanka are urging Australia to ban the militant group the Tamil Tigers and strike a clear distinction between genuine refugees and economic opportunists.
As Foreign Minister Stephen Smith flew to Singapore following talks with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Foreign Minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, aimed at stopping the flow of boats, officials in Colombo told The Australian Sri Lankan people fleeing their country did not need protection.

By Noel Nadesan

This speech was delivered at Mural room, Parliament, Canberra recently

There are several controversial reports on the conditions of the IDPs housed in the camps. In this speech Dr. Noel Nadesan analyses clinically, without political biases, the realistic conditions that prevail in the IDP camps. This is a first-hand report that is a `must read` to get behind the political spin that has distorted the realities of the conditions faced by the IDPs.

A GROUP of Christmas Island detainees have been isolated inside the $400 million centre`s feared `red block` for the first time.
Six Sri Lankans who staged a dramatic eight-hour standoff inside the immigration detention centre on October 30 have been placed in the high-security block, designed for the most violent, unstable and dangerous detainees.

The move has angered refugee advocates, who say the block is cruel and its use is contrary to detention reform.

TORONTO -- When a migrant smuggling ship bound for Australia was seized in Indonesian waters last month, a 27-year-old with a thick beard stepped forward to speak for the boat people.

He said he was Alex and that the more than 200 asylum seekers aboard the wooden cargo ship were ethnic Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka, but it was the way he said it that stood out: He spoke in a distinctly Canadian accent.

AN Australian customs ship holding 78 asylum seekers off Indonesia should be sent to Sri Lanka, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says.

Australia has been trying for two weeks to persuade the Sri Lankans - a group of ethnic Tamils - to voluntarily disembark the Oceanic Viking and enter the Tanjung Pinang Detention Centre on the Indonesian island of Bintan.

Crucial meeting tomorrow on Sampur Coal Power Plant

By Santhush Fernando
Sri Lanka Government officials will discuss with their Indian counterparts at a crucial meeting to be held tomorrow in a bid to finalise the much-protracted deal for the construction of the Sampur Coal Power Plant and the High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) undersea cable link to Anuradhapura.

Lawyers for the federal government revealed Thursday that at least two of the 76 men who came to Canada illegally last month are members of the Tamil Tigers, a group banned in this country as a terrorist organization.

Until now, the Canada Border Services Agency had not directly linked any of the Sri Lankan nationals on board the ship to the Tigers, although one expert witness who has testified at Vancouver immigration hearings has made the connection.

The Sri Lanka Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia has informed the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry that `Alex` the spokesman of the suspected 255 illegal Sri Lankan migrants in Indonesia had been involved in human smuggling for a long time and it is believed that his office is based in India.

Alex also once belonged to `Kannan Gang` involved in street fights and was deported from Canada in 2003, after being arrested for trouble making. His date of birth is 6th January 1982.

November 6, 2009 - 11:08AM
A Sydney father who defamed a school principal in an email attacking her competency has been ordered to pay her $82,543 in damages.

NSW Supreme Court Justice Henric Nicholas today handed down his verdict in favour of Jennie Ryan, the 61-year-old principal of Beecroft Public School, in Sydney`s north-west.

She had sued Rajaratnam Premachandran for defamation over an email he sent to fellow parents in April 2008.

Colombo: After `diplomatic endeavours`, the US has allowed Sri Lankan Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka to leave the country without grilling him on alleged human rights violations during the last phase of the war against LTTE, the government said today.


Fonseka left the US this morning to return to Colombo.