A well balanced article by a Sinhalese pin pointing the failure of the state of Sri Lanka

Basil Fernando
Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong

Dear Sir,

Your ‘Open Letter’ to all Sri Lankans

Your open letter is being published in blog site http://bonbenza.blogspot.com

We value your sentiments,

We wish the ''silent right thinking'' people in Sri Lanka would wake up.

We need a united Sri Lanka to build a new nation of friendship and prosperity.

We have to build from the ashes of a thirty year war forcibly imposed by a psychopath.

The psychopath was inspired by communal minded, selfish, cut-throat-liars who were our politicians.

And therefore we will avoid and ignore the whole bunch of cowards under the leadership of Sampanthan of Trincomalee.

Thank you,

The ''Open Letter'' of Basil Fernando of Asian Human Rights Commission

SRI LANKA: I also mourn for Prabakaran

Following the killings of the entire LTTE leadership there is a strongly expressed feeling among Sri Lankans, within the country or outside, that their deaths particularly that of the leader, Prabakaran, should not be a matter for mourning. I beg to differ!

That there were the most extreme forms of violence practiced by both the rebels and the state forces is the issue of real concern.

That the political and legal systems of Sri Lanka have not developed to an extent that it is possible to deal with any conflict, particularly a conflict between the communities living within the country, is a matter that cannot be separated from the way in which all actors in the present conflict have behaved.

The test of civilisation in modern times is the nature of the political and legal institutions within which people live and not their so called traditional cultures. If the situation of Sri Lanka is such that no such civilised political and legal systems exists, the actors for the state and those citizens who have taken to violence must be judged within the framework of this total situation.

Moral and legal responsibilities

This does not remove the moral responsibilities of those who have acted with barbarism either on behalf of the rebel groups or on behalf of the state.
Each must answer morally for their actions despite the colossal
defects of the political and legal systems within which they have acted.

For this each must answer separately. It is not exculpatory for anyone to claim innocence on the basis that such actions were done on behalf of the rebel group or the state if the acts themselves, are immoral or illegal even in the situation of a 'war'.

However, those who have made moral decisions which are wrong and which may have brought them to the ultimate loss of life due to these very wrongs, do not forfeit their human status and therefore they still deserve to be mourned.

Prabakaran was a citizen of Sri Lanka and a human being and there is no way of saying in an ultimate sense that he was not 'one of us.'

I am a Sinhalese by birth and as I reached my adulthood I told myself that this should in no way affect my judgement on anything. In the latter part of my life in particular, I have lived with many races and nationalities belonging to all continents.

At no stage the fact of whatever race or nationality these people belonged to has been a matter affecting any judgement, though the ethnic and cultural differences of people have played an important role in the enjoyment and enrichment of each other.

And I have asked myself, if this be the case, why should my judgement regarding the communities of my own country be any different to this?

Angulimala

In terms of the strongest cultural tradition of Sri Lanka which is
Buddhism, perhaps the story of Angulimala is to the point.

Angulimala, a bright student, was treated badly by his guru because of a misunderstanding created by jealous and rival students in the mind of the guru about him.

The guru instructed Angulimala to bring him a chain of fingers. The finger hunt resulted in Angulimala having the reputation of being the worst murderer in the region because he killed everyone he met to take their fingers.

One day however, the Buddha confronted him, facing the risk ofassassination himself.

In the process Angulimala was brought to his knees, made to understand his predicament and changed his ways.

The moral of the story is two-fold. That Angulimala's behaviour was conditioned and that despite of his atrocious criminal acts he was still a human being to be dealt with.

In the Christian tradition there is the story of the stoning of an immoral woman where the Christ told the crowd, those who are without sin, throw the first stone.

This does not imply that the moral and legal wrongs done by the LTTE under their leader should be forgotten or forgiven.

All the moral and legal issues of atrocious crimes need to remain the top priority of the national discourse until such time as the whole nation understands the implications of all these issues, so that measures will be developed in order to avoid their repetition in the future.

In the case of the rebellions of the JVP in 1971 and 1986 to 1991 no such discussion took place and, in fact, attempts at all such discussions was deliberately suppressed.

Therefore the repetition of similar and even worse behaviour happened again through the LTTE.

The problem of dealing with moral and legal issues is that no one can take a holier than thou attitude. It is not possible to discuss and resolve and the moral and legal issues of rebels without discussing the legal and political responsibilities of the state.

If the state itself avoids criticism of its own behaviour and has no will at all to change that behaviour with the improvement of political and legal institutions, then the criticism of the rebels become a farce.

Such a refusal to discuss state responsibility can only be a ploy to continue with the defective political and legal systems for the benefit of some persons.

The threat of more repression on everyone

Thus, out of the fight against rebels there is the real possibility of the emergence of a state with greater powers of repression which would be used against the entire population.

It was the campaign against the communists in Germany which was utilised by Hitler to build one of the world's worst authoritarian systems.

It was the fight against the bourgeoisie and the internal party groups of the left opposition lead by Trotsky that was utilised by Joseph Stalin to create an authoritarian system which was even worse than that of Hitler.

In the aftermath of Prabakaran's death the exhibition of his body and the jubilation that was shown reflect badly on the sort of 'headhunter mentality' of some tribes who kept the heads of their enemies, captured in battle as trophies of their strength and glory.

When the political and legal institutions fails to live up to required standards a sub-stream of consciousness that remains from the past can surface, as Hannah Arendt in her extensive studies of various authoritarian regimes in the recent past has demonstrated. It was the surfacing of such tendencies which made even the concentration camps possible.

Thus, it is not only in countries with less developed political and legal systems that this can happen but even stronger systems can degenerate under certain circumstances.

The sub stream of consciousness from the past in south Asian societies, including Sri Lanka is conditioned by the unwritten laws of the repression of the caste system in which disproportionate and collective punishment is an integral part, as amply demonstrated by the recent popular novel, the White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga.

That there was such violent conflict in our own country is a matter for regret and sadness.

That there are no attempts to improve the political and legal systems so as to be capable of dealing with the differences and the conflicts is a matter for even greater sadness.

That the defeat of the LTTE is being manipulated so badly as to further destroy whatever remains of the political and legal system evokes even worse premonitions for society.

How the workers, farmers, the middle class, those who represent dissent and opposition and those who are engaged in providing public information and creating public opinion through the media will be dealt with in the future
in Sri Lanka is even more frightening to think about.

Celebrations of a failure

There is no real victory to celebrate, but instead tremendous failures to worry about. And if the artificial celebrations that are organised are meant to fool the people again then these celebrations will, in fact, be glorifications of failure.

The last thing that human beings can rely on is their common humanity and the last thing that the citizens of a nation can rely on is citizenship.

The fallen rebels as well as fallen soldiers are, in fact, bound by the bond of humanity and citizenship.

They all need to be mourned.

That is the least bit of decency that anyone can demonstrate.

I mourn for all of them, including Prabakaran.

[[[ The end of Open Letter ]]]

Fax: +(852) - 2698-6367

Lankan Tamils Daily Insulted and Assaulted By Politically Sponsored Thugs After Sri Lankan Govt Defeated LTTE

Ethnic Selective Punishment by Inaction and Blind Eyes of Lethargic Officials of the President Rajapakse of Sri Lanka ---

Mahinda Rajapakse

Sinhalese thugs force themselves into Lankan Tamil homes and demand money to celebrate their victory of the LTTE.

Does the Lankan Government accept Tamil Tigers as the ''SOLE'' representatives of Lankan Tamils as proclaimed by the LTTE ?

The ''silent'' majority of the Lankan Tamils did not accept the myopic views and policies of the Tamil Tigers.

It is evident from a comment of V Pirabakaran, the pseudo leader of Lankan Tamils, in November 1995 to his political advisor, late Anton Balasingham: ''Educated people are against us''.

Except for the riff raff of the community Lankan Tamils, in general, are educated.

It appears the unofficial policy of the Lankan Government today is to physically assault and destroy household goods of Tamils in general.

The J R Jayewardene's Government adopted the ''Assault Tamils and Destroy Their Goods'' policy in July 1983.

From the 4th day JVP, the Sinhala terror organization, stepped in with ''Bussed-Thugs'' armed with ''Voters List'' to identify the homes of Tamils.

A Thug

Before JR's government woke up most Tamil business establishments, namely Cyntex, were destroyed.

Leading business men were brazenly stabbed to death. A glaring example is that of KG Gunaratnam of KG Industries.

And ''Shoot-to-Kill-Looters'' order was imposed only after the economy structure of Tamils was effectively damaged, but not irreparably though.

Today in the Rajapakse Government the Sri Lankan Police is refusing to record statements of victims of ''ethnic'' assaults.

''No Records and Therefore Nothing Happened''. Copied from Josip Stalin's policy of old Russia.

The media is in the safe pockets of Rajapakse Government and shamelessly fawns upto the powers-that-be.

Media People with moral character and courage were eliminated by ruthless governments till Lasantha Wicrematunge was done in during this Rajapakse government.

Lasantha Wickrematunge

Remember the Journalists who stood up against Sri Lankan Governments and their cruel fate !!

Lasantha Wickrematunge, Richard de Zoysa, and the list goes on and on into Tamil writers too.

Richard de Zoysa, journalist

Just before the 1956 racial riots the then Prime Minister, ''Old Sevala Banda'', SWRD Bandaranayke, said
''They asked for it,and they are getting it''.

Just before the racial riots of July 1983, the President J R Jayawardane said, ''We are going to break some heads''.

This time around a secret and effective campaign is underway in the cities of Sri Lanka

The Media and the Police both have closed their eyes and do not report or record the atrocities.

Let us know the Institution that could bring these atrocities out in the open --- and compile details of ''ethnic assault'' with a vision of charging the government of failure to protect citizens from bodily harm.

Let's avoid multi and varied actions to promote personal and selfish reasons, as in the past.

We are sure there are millions of right thinking people in the Sinhalese Community. They are ''silent'' as is usual in any society.

Basil Fernando, Executive Director of Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong, in his open letter to all Sri Lankans reminds us the story of Angulimala and concludes he mourns for all, including Pirabakaran, that sacrificed their lives for a ''cause''.

The 'Open Letter' could be had here

Let's join together under a single umbrella for Lankan Tamils.

We must avoid the path of ''hatemongers'' of our political spectrum .

We must take the path of ''friendship towards our neighbours''.

We must build a nation of peace and properity for our grandchildren.

Our children followed our selfish politicians and Tamil Tigers and failed.

We have to initiate action or join someone who has already organized a platform for action.

Please leave out the LTTE supporters.

LTTE has lost credibility. And therefore any action by its supporters will be for the detriment of the Lankan Tamils.

The President may be a victim of ''Cover Up'' by his minions, ''Yes Sir'' officers and Communal minded scum of the earth.

UN is initiating a fact finding mission on the Human Rights violations in Sri Lanka.

But here in Sri Lanka it is worse than what it is in Zimbabwe, the Southern African nation where assault on people is rampant.

Please be involved and active. Its our moral duty.

The humane sense in you should compel you ...

Rope in all those whom you know ---

President Rajapakse, announcing the defeat of Tamil Tigers, spoke a few words in Tamil to assure the ''Silent Tamils'' of better treatment and promised a political settlement soon.

As the situation is worsening day by day there will not be a Tamil Community to enjoy the promised fruits of autonomy.

There would be a Tamil Community reduced to Beggary.

And President Rajapakse will surely NOT win the hearts of all Tamil speaking communities.

Only the Bija would remain !

Is Catholicism Synonymous with ‘Homosexualism’ ? !

Was that painful to you ? Well, it was to me. A Roman
Catholic. Child of a ''three Rosaries a Day'' woman.

Catholic rosary
Educated in the oldest Catholic school in the land. And a hosteller. Witnessed many couplings between Catholic Priests and boarders.
a dirty priest taking advantage

Caused to report a case to local Bishop. The accused was sent out on a promotion !
Many other varied, but inter-connected, incidents made many of us attend to activities other than Church.
An E--mail this morning brings yet another report from Snowmail -- Channel 4 News ''Beyond Belief'' and goes on to say –‘child abuse on an industrial scale’.

Child Abuse Awareness

The investigation by an Irish High Court Judge shows::
1... child abuse on an industrial scale in the four decades following the second world war
2... very probably for many, many years before that.
3... 1000s of young people were abused by hundreds of priests, brothers and nuns
4... the care homes, schools, and other institutions the Irish state ran in conjunction with the Catholic church
5... where most vulnerable young people were housed and schooled, generated worst of the abuse.

Pope John Paul II

The former Polish Pope has gone on record with Apologies and millions of dollars as compensation to some of the abused.
The current Pope Benedict the 16th has Apologised to Australian victims of Catholic Priests.

Pope Benedict XVI
Does not a humble thought, arise in all of us ''Are these holy Popes, past and present, of the last twenty odd centuries, innocent and ignorant of what is taking place between Priests and Nuns and the Children under their care ?
''Do they not realise Catholic Priests with their vows of Celibacy are NOT exempt from God given ''Nature'' ?
Sex is natural --- Sex between ''man'' and ''woman'', as it should be, is a balancing gift given to human by the Creator.

act of love
This week's Outlook of BBC has an item on the opinion of two banking entrepreneur women ''The imbalance of man and woman in Boardrooms of Wall Street caused the present Financial Crisis. Leave alone ''man's Greed''.
They do have a point there.
The ''act of love'' between our parents gave us the gift of ''Life''. Rev Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it better than me.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu
And Catholic Priests, being human with all faculties functioning, as is said, ''all cylinders go'', will have their organs pump up ''Semen''.
Collected ''semen'' will agitate the poor man's brain and that alerts the senses - - -
An equally poor child nearby is abused !
But for the wisdom of the Holy Pope !!
We know when the last good Pope John-Paul the 2nd apologised for the wrong Catholic Church did to Galileo Galilei 400 years ago.

Galileo Galilei

Catholic Church will never relinquish its tenacious hold on the Celibacy of Priests --- use of Condoms or Birth Control methods and freedom of choice for Women.

'freedom of choice'
Then the Church should, for the safety of the Children,
add ''Masturbation'' in its curriculum of Theology.
This might, to a certain degree, save the Children from the lustful eyes of holy Priests and souly Nuns.

Masturbation the solution

It Seems Gordon Brown Isn't Honest and Open !

Yes, yes, We don't know it for a fact, or don't we ! - - -


BBC Channel 4




But we depend on the media to snoop and scoop all those closed door activities of our world leaders - - -








All world leaders, almost all, that is, point accusing fingers at those above them - - -

And when they themselves are on top, in time, they turn the pointing fingers at the media they used to reach up - - -

That's the norm --- and both are at their jobs !

There's a hell-of-a storm blowing in the ''Mother of Parliaments'' --- British Parliament.

We didn't call it that --- British Press used the adage !

And now we have the Daily Telegraph leaking and the BBC Channel 4 is lapping it all up to feed us.

Gordon Brown. The man who succeeded the infamous ''right-hand-of-George-Bush'' Tony Blair.
Brown isn't Black. But it seems, he isn't clean white either.



He too has joined his ministrial minions in swindling public money through Expenses-Incurred-As-A-Member-of-Parliament-trickery.

Trickery ? Whatelse ??

The swindlers insist that they are within the rules !

But they themselves made the rules ! !

Isn't that wile ? Isn't that guile ? Isn't that skulduggery ?

Anyway what did Gordon Brown do ?

For all his hocus-pocus ''Gordon Brown paid his brother Andrew thousands of pounds for a cleaner they shared''.

That's NOT all - - -

--- Communities Secretary Hazel Blears made claims on three different properties in one year, as well as a stay in an exclusive hotel.






Hazel Blears

--- Jack Straw claimed for full payment of council tax when he was actually getting a 50 per cent discount. He later repaid the difference. But he did make a ''Claim'' and he was ''Paid''.





Jack Straw - Lord Chancellor


And, --- Peter Mandelson ran up bills of thousands of pounds for work on his constituency home after he had announced he was stepping down as an MP.





Peter ''Lord'' Mandelson


The last named was ''made'' a Lord by Tony Blair.

Can you see the dirty fingers weaving in-and-out and all over the Community that leads a Public Life at the expense of Public Money and preach morality to us.

Andrew Thomas of BBC Channel 4 has filed an informative and schocking, if not shameful, report


Andrew Thomas BBC Channel4


You can have the inside scoop here !

Sri Lanka Building a United New Nation from Ashes of Thirty-Year War

The Civil War in Sri Lanka is closer to our hearts and was a damn pain in the head.

Sri Lanka

In that the Nation was split into unimaginable smithereens of opinions and vengeful oppositions.
We didn't know whether we were coming or going.

The majority of the ''Majority'' wanted to be rid of the suicidal menace, the cancer in our society without any personal involvement. This hands-off attitude, prolonged the agony.

An erudite, magnanimous minority among the ''Majority'' was of the noble sentiment :: ''the ''Minority'' must be given their due rights and for heaven sake NOT much more''.

All versions of minority used the similar language and yet, sadly were disjointed

And there was the high players within the Defence Ministry and the Armed Forces anxious to make dough while bullets and bombs shone.

Dough Made

The general public indulged in gossips and nothing much more. They had nothing to lose and therefore had neither the inclination to make hay nor haa hoo.

On the other side of the divide the mind set was different. The victim normally and naturally remembers.

For little more than three generations the leaders of the ''Majority'' of 85% made several varied promises on many issues. Language, Land, Education, Employment, Housing and what else ?

And in politics, universally, there is an established unethical maxim :: ''Promises are Made to be Broken''.

We need not list out the open indecent secret, where and when the ''Minority'' were '' Let Down''.

It resulted in thirty years of unwanted unnecessary struggle at the hands of a psychopath.

Psychopath

Now that it is over and the due exhilaration and celebrations are subsiding the Government should embrace the Tamil, Muslim and other Races.

And the rest of us of the 15% should grasp the hand of friendship extended towards us and commence co-operation with the Government to build our Nation.

Children should learn all three languages but two at the least. Any two would do.

All Government Officers should know the Language of the Region they are engaged in.

The Majority has to be magnanimous towards its younger sibling for Peace and Prosperity within the Lankan Family

Detailed Report by CNN is here

Of Tony Blair and His Destroyed '' Expenses Claim'' File

Remember Tony Blair --- The Right Hand Man of the infamous President George W. Bush.

Tony Blair was, at one time, more famous as the Right Hand Man of George Bush than for his official designation of Prime Minister of Great Britain and United Kingdom --- the UK.

Of course he became notorious with murder of the soft spoken Weapons Inspector of the United Nations in Iraq, Dr David Kelly.

He insisted, there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq with President Saddam Hussein.

For that Dr David Kelly was murdered to go to war with Iraq.

We, the people with common sense, call it ''murder'', though a Specially appointed Lord Judge was completely blind to all evidences presented to him and willed it ''suicide''.

The Judge was appointed by Tony Blair himself.

Now another scandal is breaking around him.

You remember the present day agitation in the British Parliament.

Yeah, most of the House of Representatives are busy
standing in queues to pay back large sums of money to the ''Fee Office''.

No, no they are not being generous at all.

They are paying back the money they ''swindled'' out of the Government.

The nasty bunch of MPs were caught with their pants down by Daily Telegraph. Shameless Rascals.

So what does that go to do with our Tony Blair ?

We'll tell you.

Somehow, by mistake, by an over sight, by an error,
inadvertently, what else do they say in government offices
for a bloomer ? they have shredded the ''Expense Claim''
file of Tony Blair.

Bloody Holy Cow !

The total amount involved is too large for us common folks.
Forty bloody three thousand sterling pounds, it is !

The only file to go missing !!

It is a criminal offence to destroy documents to prevent their disclosure under freedom of information (FOI) laws.

We have a Stand-Up-Straight-Man in Member of Parliament Norman Baker.

He says of the lamentable inefficiency of the Fees Office ::

“How convenient that some of Tony Blair’s expenses have been shredded. This is either incompetence or obstruction of the Freedom of Information Act and should be properly investigated.”

Norman Baker is the MP who went on an 18 months Investigative Study on the ''Murder of Dr David Kelly.

Alastair Campbell, the Right-Hand-Man and Director of Communications and Strategy of Tony Blair too should be investigated.

He is the man that ''Sexed Up'' the Weapons Report ---
He was subjected to Alcohol Abuse ---
He was detained by Scotland Police for ''Odd'' behaviour ---
He punched a fellow Journalist over a joke ---
An unbalanced man ?!
He advised on presentation aspects of the "Iraq Dossier" and commented WMD's in Iraq, "Come on, you don't seriously think we won't find anything?"
He resigned in August 2003 after the Lord Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly.

The source of story by Jon Ungoed-Thomas is here

So far the House of Commons authorities to block disclosure have spent on legal bills to cost the taxpayer over £150,000.

Hmmm, British Parliament is not above those of the 3rd World countries after all !!!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++

Radical Changes by Obama and No Protests by Any

President Barak Obama announced new and tough proposals for
American vehicles.

There would a National Standard for Vehicle Emissions ---

All overlapping rules will be replaced.

Vehicle manufacturers will be required to improve fuel efficiency by 5% a year from 2012.

And reach an average of 39 miles per gallon for passenger cars, and 30 miles per gallon for light lorries.
.
US Vehicle Manufacturers and AAA Drivers Association welcome the move.

The extra purchase price of vehicles will be off set by cheaper fuel price.

This consensus proposal will remove 177 million cars from the roads in seven years. Today there are 250 million cars on American roads.

The savings in oil will amount to last year's combined US imports from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria,

Changes He Promised and Changes are being Delivered !

Catholic Church in Its ''Logicless'' World

Once again the Pope apologises. This time, the media says, to those Canadian abused children in residential Catholic schools.

Pope Benedict XVI

Last year this German Pope apologised to American children.

Then travelled down to Australia to deliver another apology to abused children there.

It is hoped the Pope would be honest to think of apologising to those in the African continent.

And all over South East Asia and the rest of the World.

Wherever the Catholic Church spread its wings to abuse children and then cover up exerting its ecclesiastical robe.

St Peter’s Basilica, The Roman Catholic Church, Vatican, Rome, Italy

The World has just a handful of long established religions.

Of which the Catholic Church is the only one to accept
responsibility for the sexual abuses of children under its care.

Abuses by the Priests who were ordained to spread the word of God and not the legs of helpless children to gratify their natural sexual urge.

Sexual Abuses in the Roman Catholic Church are recorded
in ''The Decameron'' of 100 novels by Italian writer Giovanni
Boccaccio.

Giovanni Boccaccio Boccaccio's Lady Fortune spinning her wheel

Every subsequent consequential writer from Voltaire to
Shakespeare have taken stories from the Decameron.

Voltaire Shakespeare

In the early 16th Century, 1517 to be exact, Martin Luther,
a Roman Catholic Priest, posted 95 Theses that led to the breakaway in the well established Church.

Martin Luther Initiator of Protestantism

The accusation was against the ''Purchase of Indulgences''.
.
The Pope preached ''The Sins of Human Nature could avoid
the 'wrath of God', the 'anger of God', 'the curse of God' by
purchasing 'Indulgences' with money from the Catholic Church !

This is a hell-of-a how-do-you-do !

Commit a Sin. Buy the said Indulgence. And you are
exempt from God's ''punishment'' !!

Just like Tony Blair sold Knighthood in Britain !!!

Tony Blair

The previous Pope, John Paul II, the Good Polish Pope, began the ''Apology'' from Jerusalem.

He apologised for wrong done by the Roman Catholic Church to the ancient Scientist Galileo Galilei. Four hundred years ago.

ancient Scientist Galileo Galilei

The old man said, " The Earth is round and it revolves
around the Sun''.

The Catholic Church said, ''The Earth is flat and Sun
revolves around the Earth''.

Galileo was compelled to retract under threat of ''losing life''.

The old man did --- but stepping down from the witness box
he is said to have muttered, ''Yet, it moves'' !

The sexual abuses by Roman Catholic Priests have NOT
ceased. They are only NOT reported.

Why cannot the Pope realise the truth and allow his priests to marry and satiate natural lust in the natural method given
by God to man and woman ?

Why cannot Pope allow the use of Condoms to prevent
spread of HIV/AIDS --- a disease not known in the days
the Holy Bible was compiled ?

Where am I and others of similar thoughts wrong in asking these questions in view of the evidence open to every
educated person to see and judge !