Wednesday 5 August 2020

Sri-Lanka - The Morally and Financially Bankrupt Banana Republic

The successive Sri-Lankan regimes have managed to deceive the world and, in the process, have bankrupted the country – both morally and financially! 

A Criminal Enterprise

Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers are world leaders in deception. 

The country has criminals, fraudsters and mass murderers holding important positions. 

This article will list some of the major deceptions of the Sri-Lankan regimes and will be updated regularly to include more examples of shams, deceptions and frauds.   

This is what Gotabaya Rajapaksa told "The Australian" newspaper on 23 March 2009: 

The UN may tell you that at least 2,000 civilians have been killed in fighting since January, but Sri Lanka's Secretary of Defence, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, says there are none. Absolutely none. 

"If you want to believe me, believe me, no civilian casualties! 

In 2009, the Rajapaksa regime arrested five doctors who worked in the War-zone and forced them to tell the media that a maximum of 750 civilians were killed in the final five months of the war! 

In 2011, the regime claimed that around 7,500 civilians were killed! 

A doctor who worked in Sri Lanka's combat zone in the final days of the civil war told the BBC in March 2014 that he was forced by the government to retract his claims about casualty figures. 

Speaking to the BBC's Sinhala service, Dr Varatharaja said he and his colleagues had been threatened with three to four years in jail if they did not recant their statements. 

A UN investigation said 40,000 people were killed in the final five months alone!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26670691

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13158916

http://www.channel4.com/news/sri-lanka-war-crimes-inquiry-doctor-varatharajah-thariajah

The regime first dismissed Channel 4's Sri-Lanka Killing Field programme as a fake. It then said in 2012 that it would use the programme to investigate allegations of War Crime! 

In March 2014, the Sri-Lankan foreign minister said in Geneva that the government would use Channel 4 videos to “identify witnesses.” 

Sri Lankan army to investigate civilian war casualties:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17049760

BBC investigates Sri Lanka disappearances:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24662898

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24648595

In 2015, the “new regime” of Maithripala Sirisena co-sponsored a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution calling for the investigation of allegations of war crimes committed during the island nation's long civil war. 

Sri Lanka co-sponsored the resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council along with 11 other countries calling for the investigation of allegations of wartime atrocities by both government forces and the Tamil Tiger rebels, The U.S, UK,  Australia and Germany were also among the co-sponsors. 

Under Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1, Sri Lanka committed to 25 key undertakings across a range of human rights issues. A core pledge was to set up four transitional justice mechanisms to promote “reconciliation, accountability and human rights” in the country. These included an accountability mechanism involving international judges, prosecutors, investigators, and defence lawyers; a truth and reconciliation mechanism; an office on missing persons; and an office for reparations.  

US imposes sanctions on Sri Lankan War Criminal Shavendra Silva:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/14/us-sanctions-sri-lanka-army-chief-shavendra-silva

US embassy cables reveal details of criminal activities within the Sri-Lankan government:

https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/sri-lankan-government-%E2%80%98officials-complicit-trafficking%E2%80%99-us-state-department

https://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/108763

https://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/243811

Maithripala Sirisena’s Con Tricks 

Maithripala Sirisena’s government had initially backed a UN resolution calling for a war crimes court supported by foreign judges. 

In March 2015, Maithripala Sirisena told the BBC that an investigative committee would work "efficiently, in a balanced, legal and impartial manner". 

Sri Lanka president Sirisena pledges war crimes inquiry:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-31844796

In January 2016, he changed his tune, as usual! He told the BBC that he would never allow international involvement!

Sri Lanka president wants 'internal' war crimes court:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35376719

In March 2019, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, told the Human Rights Council that in Sri Lanka, “there has been minimal progress on accountability. Continuing impunity risks fuelling communal or interethnic violence, and instability. Resolving these cases, and bringing the perpetrators of past crimes to justice, is necessary to restore the confidence of victims from all communities.”

https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24371&LangID=E

Sirisena’s government was given repeated warnings about the Easter Sunday bombings by the Indian Intelligence Service and others. 

He failed to take any action to prevent the attacks and has recently claimed that he was only the President and Minister of Defence and his job was in policy, planning, issuing directives and advice!

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/sri-lanka-president-maithripala-sirisena-vows-to-block-easter-attacks-probe-2049944

https://economynext.com/former-prez-sirisena-refuses-to-accept-responsibility-for-sri-lankas-easter-sunday-attacks-71216/

Impunity Rains 

Murderers, Rapists and War Criminals enjoy immunity as the police and the justice system are corrupt and are highly politicized. 

Outrage as Sri Lanka president pardons Swedish teen's killer:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-50365125

Sri Lanka's president has pardoned and released an army officer sentenced to death for slitting the throats of Tamil civilians, including four children, during the island's bloody ethnic war:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/sri-lanka-pardons-soldier-killed-tamil-civilians-200327033617104.html

Sri Lankan president grants clemency to war criminal:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/30/prsl-m30.html

https://www.change.org/p/mp-hugh-mcdermott-we-demand-that-hugh-mcdermott-sustain-his-support-for-the-australian-tamil-community

https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/british-mps-calls-sanctions-sri-lankan-government-and-military-officials

https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/human-rights-sri-lanka-continue-deteriorate-warns-uk-foreign-commonwealth-and-development

http://www.slguardian.org/2020/11/sri-lanka-fate-of-democracy.html


Bankrupt Economy 

Sri-Lanka has just been downgraded from an upper-middle income country to a lower middle-income country by the World Bank. 

Sri Lank is one of only three countries that are moving to a lower category from the previous year. 

https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-downgraded-to-world-bank-lower-middle-income-country-as-per-capita-income-falls-71644/

http://www.ft.lk/columns/It-is-a-values-based-and-not-value-based-political-culture-that-is-needed-today/4-704038

Sri Lanka’s economy is among the worst affected by the COVID 19 crisis, according to a recent ranking by the Economist.


https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/05/02/which-emerging-markets-are-in-most-financial-peril

For the foreseeable future, Sri Lanka's economy will remain anemic due to its high debt, weak exports, low foreign direct investment and incompetent government.

Nepotism, Corruption and No Rule-of-Law 

Sri Lanka has a long record of state-sponsored violence and a culture of impunity.

Perpetrators of political violence and fraudsters who are connected to the government act with impunity and people with political connections and suspected war criminals are given important positions!

Sri Lanka’s Expansion into Despotism Goes Unchallenged by Western Democracies:

https://intpolicydigest.org/2020/05/01/sri-lanka-s-expansion-into-despotism-goes-unchallenged-by-western-democracies/

Sri Lanka: Human Rights Under Attack:

Lawyers, Human Rights Defenders, and Journalists Arrested, Threatened, Intimidated

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/07/29/sri-lanka-human-rights-under-attack



Check the following to see how Singapore went from third-world to first-world while Sri-Lanka is still stuck in the third-world: 






“Sri-Lanka has failed because it has had weak or wrong leaders”   Lee Kwan Yew.




 

Friday 2 October 2015

Cunning, Deception and Barefaced Lies of the Rajapaksa Regime










Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brothers and cronies are masters of deception!



This is what Gotabaya Rajapaksa told "The Australian" newspaper on 23 March 2009:

The UN may tell you that at least 2,000 civilians have been killed in fighting since January, but Sri Lanka's Secretary of Defence, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, says there are none. Absolutely None!

"If you want to believe me, believe me, no civilian casualties!

In 2009, the Rajapaksa regime arrested five doctors who worked in the War-zone and forced them to tell the media that a maximum of 750 civilians were killed in the final five months of the war!

In 2011, the regime claimed that around 7,500 civilians were killed!

A doctor who worked in Sri Lanka's combat zone in the final days of the civil war told the BBC in March 2014 that he was forced by the government to retract his claims about casualty figures.

Speaking to the BBC's Sinhala service, Dr Varatharaja said he and his colleagues had been threatened with three to four years in jail if they did not recant their statements.

A UN investigation said 40,000 people were killed in the final five months alone!






The regime first dismissed Channel 4's Sri-Lanka Killing Field programme as a fake. It then said in 2012 that it would use the programme to investigate allegations of War Crime!

In March 2014, the Sri-Lankan foreign minister said in Geneva that the government would use Channel 4 videos to “identify witnesses.”

Sri Lankan army to investigate civilian war casualties:

 

BBC investigates Sri Lanka disappearances:




Here are some examples of how Mahinda Rajapaksa lies:








        They lie brazenly and the lies are not even credible!


 




Friday 7 March 2014

Mass Graves in Sri-Lanka



Sri-Lanka has numerous mass graves across the country.

Successive Sri-Lankan governments have been involved in state-sponsored terrorism for many decades.

These graves date back to the 1970s when there was an uprising against the government by the JVP. The group led two uprisings first in 1971 and the second from 1987 to 1989.

The Sooriyakanda mass grave is the mass burial ground of murdered school children from Embilipitiya High School. These school children were killed and buried as part of the counter insurgency during the second JVP uprising.

It was alleged that over 300 bodies were buried in the location. The mass grave was located in 1994.

The Sri Lankan government last reported in 1996 to have conducted a forensic analysis of the burial ground uncovering an unspecified number of bodies. Local media, NGOs and the US state department have claimed that the investigations are not satisfactory.

"The state's army and paramilitaries carried out large-scale killings at that time and we ask the government to do a full investigation," said Anura Dissanayake, a lawmaker from a political party with ties to the former rebels.

In a BBC interview with David Frost on 28 October 2001, Chandrika Kumaratunga - who was the President of Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2005 - stated that at the time that her husband Vijaya Kumaranatunga was murdered, "Sri Lanka had killing fields; there was a lot of terror perpetrated by the government itself, state terrorism.”

Human remains of 200 people were discovered in Matale in December 2012. Politicians belonging to the JVP party allege that the victims were killed having been tortured and that the heads, arms and legs of many of them had been severed.

The then government was widely accused of running torture chambers in the area in the late 1980s and of conducting extra-judicial executions. As many as 60,000 JVP insurgents were reportedly killed. 

According to the Sri Lankan defence ministry website, the military’s coordinating officer and then commanding officer in the area at the time was Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

According to Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch:

“Unless there is real transparency in the forensic investigation, we will never be sure." "But we know they will not want to open a Pandora's Box that would incriminate many senior figures."

More and more mass graves are being found almost monthly!



“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who do not do anything about it.” - Albert Einstein


Useful links for more information:











Saturday 19 October 2013

Political Assassinations and Violence in Sri-Lanka




Sri-Lankan politics have a long history of violence.

S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike (who was Prime Minister from 1956 to 1959) was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959.

The government under President Ranasinghe Premadasa killed many opponents, but put the blame on groups such as the LTTE and/or JVP. Some of the leading people alleged to have been murdered by the Premadasa regime include: General Denzil Kobbekaduwa, Lalith Athulathmudali and Vijaya Kumaranatunga.

Vijaya Kumaranatunga was the husband of Chandrika Kumaratunga (President from 1994 to 2005) and he was murdered in 1988.

Soon after the killing of her husband, Chandrika Kumaratunga fled the country with her two children seeking self-imposed exile in the UK.

In 1995, alleging Ranasinghe Premadasa and Ranjan Wijeratne (a minister)
to have been behind the assassination of her husband, she appointed a Presidential Commission of inquiry into the assassination of Vijaya Kumaratunga. The commission implicated Ranasinghe Premadasa and Ranjan Wijeratne.

General Denzil Lakshman Kobbekaduwa was murdered in August 1992. A Presidential Commission concluded that President Ranasinghe Premadasa as well as members of the Sri Lankan Army such as Major W A N M Weerasinghe were directly responsible for his death.

Lalith Athulathmudali, a senior minister, was murdered in April 1993.

Initially, the government blamed the LTTE and produced the body of a Tamil youth named Ragunathan found near the scene of the shooting the following day. He had apparently died from taking a cyanide capsule. However, these claims were later proved to be false.

A Presidential Commission carried out by the Sri Lankan Government concluded that Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa was directly responsible for the assassination. It also concluded that the Tamil youth Ragunathan, was murdered by the same people who killed Athulathmudali, by forcibly administering him with cyanide.

Ranasinghe Premadasa and Ranjan Wijeratne were both brutally murdered!



"If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him." Hindu Proverb



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