tw news-features

by Dr A.C.Visvalingam

Having considered, from a common sense point of view, what the likelihood would be of the LTTE targeting the various persons on whom the government is currently spending vast amounts on security, it strikes us that those who decide upon the level of protection required in each case should, perhaps, have a fresh look at the whole matter.

Whilst there is no question that there are several key figures, political and administrative, on whom the LTTE would consider it worthwhile to expend the resources required (including suicide bombers), most of the others who are currently being provided security are actually assisting the LTTE, albeit unwittingly, by bringing the government and the State into such disrepute that it would be counterproductive for the LTTE to harm them in any way.

The more extreme elements of those who are being protected serve greatly to help the LTTE by creating widespread adverse international condemnation of Sri Lanka’s perceived unwillingness to settle the ethnic conflict peacefully.

One is inclined to think that the LTTE would not want to harm such persons in any way. Then there are those who indulge in or encourage open corruption. Their behaviour causes progressively increasing disaffection among the public against the powers that be and, hence, might well be considered by the LTTE to be most useful allies in weakening the state.

Moreover, judging by the numerous letters to the newspapers on this subject, one is forced to conclude that the arrogant and inconsiderate manner in which most security personnel look after and escort their charges on the public highways is causing a great deal of anti establishment feeling.

Here again, the damage caused to the government far exceeds any benefit that accrues from the security provided. It is obvious, to us at least, that a decrease in the total number of security personnel deployed overall would significantly reduce friction with the public.

As for the misuse of state security to protect the incorrigible offspring of those who do nothing for the country, it is time that President Rajapaksa gives his mind to the matter.

On the other hand, the study of security requirements should look into the safety of two particularly valuable groups - whistle blowers and media personnel. These two highly endangered groups, particularly in those sectors which have been subject to threats, physical attacks and even death in recent years, require urgent and special protection.

[The Writer is President of Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance]

by Walter Fernando

The media in Sri Lanka is divided into two categories, the state owned and the privately owned ones. The state owned media has lost all its credibility and by no stretch of imagination can anyone gather any news about the affairs of the country. This carries government and commercial advertisements with a minimum of foreign news and doctored local news.

We the citizens have given up our rights to force the government to relax its stranglehold of this media of which, we are the stakeholders and subsidisers. Many governments promised to divest these institutions but have never had the decency and courage to do this.

The manipulation of the media is the oxygen for the survival of all these political parties since none of them have any originality to lead this country. On the other hand some of the free media, privately owned are also not standing up as national newspapers, setting a yardstick in openly exposing corruption and maladministration; they are frightened that their vested monetary interest will be lost.

We have about six regular English newspapers, and it is very noticeable that most of these papers are committed to their paid journalists, without whom the papers cannot survive. While, this is understandable, it is not totally acceptable. Sad to say that some of these journalists are mediocre, particularly the ones in the state media. We are aware, given the frightening situation prevailing today in this country of targeting journalists by the state, may be one of the causes of their mediocrity.

However, the contribution of the media in defending the rights of the people is inalienable, more so in Sri Lanka which is forever deteriorating. The free media is the last straw we have to cling on to preserve democratic values. It is incredible that some newspapers — the owners, editors and journalists are battering the government and its machinery and risking their lives. I salute them and am sure most of the readers who are born patriots agree with me. I distinguish between the born patriots and the rhetorical patriots with political and financial interests, just playing to the gallery.

The majority of us citizens who have no political interest save the national interest have been sidelined. It is up to this free media to propagate and publish our views fearlessly and that is the only hope of bettering the future of our progeny.

It is my experience and view that even the free media is not exerting enough pressure on whichever government by publishing complaints, views and letters of the public, which admonishes the government and its administrators.

A survey of the letters appearing in the press will reveal that public opinion is not given its rightful place given the fact that everything under the sun in Sri Lanka is complainable. [a Lettter to the Editor - The Morning Leader, Colombo, Sri Lanka]

USAID Provides US$14 million Food Donation through WFP for Conflict -Displaced Sri Lankans

The first consignment of food assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), valued at US$5 million, was handed over to the Government by United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake at a function held on Sep 19th at the government warehouse complex at Orugodawatte. This forms part of a total food donation of US$14 million through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), with another shipment valued at an additional US$9 million set to arrive later in the year.

U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake hands over a ceremonial sack of lentils to Sri Lanka Ministry of Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development Secretary W.K.K. Kumarasiri (right) with World Food Programme Country Representative Mohammed Salaheen (center). Photo: USAID/Zack Taylor

Ambassador Blake handed over 17,500 tons of mixed food to Mr. W.K. K. Kumarasiri, Secretary of the Ministry of Nation Building & Estate Infrastructure Development. Also attending the ceremony was WFP Country Director Mr. Mohamed Saleheen. WFP will distribute the commodities in collaboration with the Ministry to the conflict-affected people in the country.

“We are not here to make a political statement about the Sri Lankan conflict,” Ambassador Blake said at the handover ceremony. “This is food for people, enough to benefit nearly a million Sri Lankans of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. This donation will help alleviate suffering and food insecurity for those in need in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The United States will continue to assist the Government of Sri Lanka and partners such as the World Food Programme to help meet the food security needs of the conflict-displaced, as needed.”

The food has been made available for WFP through USAID’s ‘Food for Peace’ program. USAID has been a strong supporter of WFP operations in Sri Lanka; in terms of food aid the U.S. Government ranks fourth among individual donors, and they have also recently provided cash contribution of US$300,000 to improve the logistics capacity supporting WFP food aid programs.

“We are grateful for this kind gesture from the American people, who have donated this food to the vulnerable people in the North and East of Sri Lanka,” said Mr. Saleheen “This donation will further bolster the long-standing relationship between WFP and the U.S., which has provided consistent and sustained support for WFP programs in Sri Lanka.”

Food for Peace was established by former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and has assisted more than three billion people in 150 countries since its inception 54 years ago. USAID’s other programs in Sri Lanka include democracy and governance; humanitarian assistance; economic growth; and tsunami reconstruction.

WFP assisted 1.3 million vulnerable people in Sri Lanka with food during 2006, including emergency relief assistance to about 300,000 people newly displaced by the conflict. In 2007, WFP is providing food aid to almost 75 percent of the displaced people in the country. [US Embassy, Colombo, Sri Lanka - Press Release]

S. Visvanathan, Director (Tamil Unit) of the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and a popular TV Broadcaster has been honoured and felicitated in recognition and appreciation of his inestimable service he has rendered in the sphere of broadcasting for the last 25 years with dedication, devotion, high sense of discipline and total commitment.

Mr. Visvanathan hails from a respectable and illustrious family which has produced veteran musicians and dancers of international repute.

His father, ‘Kalabhooshanam’ Dr. Shanmugampillai, a veteran Mirudhanga Vidvan, and his mother late Mrs. Vijayalucksmi Shanmugampilli was a dancer who was held in high esteem by all the art lovers for her humane qualities.

His sister ‘Kalasuri’ Vasugi Jegatheeswaran is a dancer of international repute who has been honoured by Dr. Pathma Subramaniyam for the immense service she does in the field of dancing. She is the only dancing teacher who has presented more than 77 Bharatha Natya Arangetrams up to now.

Mr. Visvanathan is a science graduate (B.Sc) and a Diploma holder in Journalism and TV Broadcasting. This television training programme was conducted by a Canadian TV expert and was organized and arranged by the Ministry of Information. Mr. Visvanathan also learned TV programme techniques in Netherlands.

By D.B.S. Jeyaraj

“They seek him here;they seek him there; they seek him everywhere”.

These lines from a doggerel about the scarlet pimpernel perfectly sums up the life and times of KP - the elusive chief procurer of arms and armaments for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The latest round of excitement is over the reported arrest of the man in Thailand. New Delhi and Colombo are supposedly requesting Bangkok to extradite KP to their respective countries. But there is a hitch. Despite the initial blaze of publicity about KP’s arrest the Thai authorities are now denying that the arrest ever took place.

Obviously there is something here that just does not seem “right” but as Andy Warhol observed famously every one is entitled to fifteen minutes of fame. Now KP is having more than fifteen minutes of fame or is it notoriety?

But who is this man and what has he been doing?

The man known as KP was born on on April - 6th - 1955 in the northern coastal town of Kankesanthurai (KKS). His name was Pathmanathan and his father’s name was Selvarajah . Though he was known by a number of names and aliases in later life KP’s real name was Selvarajah Pathmanathan. [Read the full article in transCurrents.com]

by K.S.Sivakumaran

As a teenager, I could remember a cricket match played at the Colombo Oval between a team of Ceylonese cricketers and a team from Australia. I couldn’t watch the match as I was living in Maddakkalappu and there was no TV in the late 1940s. I was a keen cricket enthusiast then.

Famous Aussie cricketers like Don Bradman, Keith Miller, Arthur Morris, Ray Lindwall, Neil Harvey and the like and from Lanka (it was Ceylon then), there were big guns then M. Sathasivam, F.C.de Saram, C.I.Gunasekera, C.H.Gunasekera, Sathi Coomarasamay, Ben Navaratna et al whom I fancied.

Although I collected the cricket pictures of all the world cricketers published in the newspapers, particularly in the Sporting Times, then published by the then Times of Ceylon Ltd., I had a special age in my scrap book for Sathasivam and Keith Miller for their styles in Batting and Bowling respectively.

I wanted to be an all rounder like Keith Miller and a Stylist batsman like Sathasivam. But my dream- like adoration for Sathasivam vanished when I read in the papers that he was alleged to have murdered his wife. Crime those days was shocking and a mortal sin. But these days, crime is justified in some circles. What a crude world this is.

Sathasivasm is a subject of study by Prof. Ravindra Fernando in a volume of 480 pages published by Vijitha Yapa Publications. The title of the book is A Murder in Ceylon. It is an expose of the Sathasivam case. As a ‘whodunit’ crime story, the author takes us through 17 chapters and Figures of what really happened almost 60 years ago. It is a fascinating reading for those born after the 1950s.

The author is Senior Professor of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. He is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights of the Colombo University. Dr. Ravindra Fernando has many credentials which you would gather as you continue reading his book.

The blurb says: the book objectively examines and presents the pertinent facts and expert evidence led at the 57-day trial of this land mark case in the history of law and forensic medicine in Sri Lanka.” Right.

It would be interesting for the young people to note that three famous Lankans were legally involved in one of the notorious criminal cases in the last century. The figures were: the late Justice Gratiaen (Remember the Gratiaen Literary Prizes awarded yearly in Colombo by a Trust founded by internationally known Lanka born Canadian writer in English, Michael Ondaatji? ), the late Dr.Colvin de Silva, and Justice T.S.Fernando. ‘Despite an excellent scientific analysis of the evidence’, ‘What did the Jury decide?”

To find out, you have to read the book. If you are a legal and enlightened reader, you will find the book very absorbing.

Yes, the book reads like fiction. But it is not pure fiction. And the writer succeeds in stimulating the reader to follow his account until the end.

I found the letter written by the victim Ananda to her husband Sathasivam gives a clue for the rationale for the murder. But one is not sure whether she wrote that in English or it was translated from Thamil. Nevertheless, one notices that she was deeply hurt by the actions of her spouse. Here are some lines to suggest that:

“I will release you from the bond of this unhappy marriage. It is because you want something better than me to take about, that you leave me at home, and take another woman out with you. We are just not made for each other. I can never tolerate another woman to be seen with you, so why should we quarrel over this? You must do as you like, and as long as I am married to you, I will not allow this kind of taking women out behind my back…”

The author writes on page 452: “I had the opportunity to meet the only daughter of Mr and Mrs. Sathasivam living in Sri Lanka. She told me that all family members firmly believed that Mr Sathasivam did not kill her mother. “He was gentle person. He could not have killed any one. He did not do it.,” she assured me.”

Prof. Ravindra Fernando’s book is a contribution to a different genre of writing in English in this country.

Contact: sivakumaranks@yahoo.com