A tensed situation developed in Bandaragama this afternoon after an armed group attacked a peaceful demonstration organised by the JVP over the arrest of the Venerable Dambara Amila thero on fake complaints,
The clash occurred when the JVP staged a protest against the arrest of the monk while Peoples’ Alliance supporters had attacked them. Daily Mirror quoted police spokesman SSP I.M Karunaratne confirming the incident, but he has not named the party that attacked.
According to eye witnesses, the attack was led by the Peoples’ Alliance Provincial Council supporters Tudor Dayaratne, Nimal Chandraratne and Chairmal of the Bandaragama Pradesheeya Sabha Manoj Sanjaya Hettige.
The injured were admitted to the Panadura base hospital.
Please note there is a difference in the version by the Police reproduced in the Daily Mirror online and the reality.
Civilians stand behind the barbed-wire perimeter fence of the Manik Farm refugee camp located on the outskirts of northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya
Sri Lankan soldiers fired at refugees trying to escape from a camp in the country’s north, wounding two of them, the Defense Ministry said.
The incident occurred yesterday at the Menik Farm, according to a statement posted on the Media Centre for National Security’s Web site today. The refugees attacked soldiers guarding the camp with “clubs and stones.”
The soldiers defended themselves with “warning fire” after one of the refugees tried to throw a hand grenade, according to the statement. Police have arrested 19 refugees.
More than 280,000 people, mostly Tamils, have been held in camps since Sri Lanka’s army defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May, ending its 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent his political affairs deputy Lynn Pascoe to the South Asian island nation on Sept. 16 to press for a swift release of the refugees.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa said earlier this month he wants to achieve reconciliation with the Tamil community and bring permanent peace to the country. Tamils make up almost 12 percent of Sri Lanka’s 20 million population. Sinhalese account for 74 percent, according to a 2001 census.
Sri Lanka on Sept. 15 rejected an assertion by Navi Pillay, the UN human rights commissioner, that Tamil refugees are being held in “internment” camps, saying they will leave when security is established and the region is cleared of mines.
The government is undertaking a program providing relief, resettlement and reconciliation to displaced people, Mahinda Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka’s minister for disaster management and human rights, said in an address to the UN Human Rights Council the same day.
The high rate of malnutrition reported among children in camps for displaced people in Sri Lanka is a cause for concern, a senior UN official says.
The UN’s representative on children and armed conflict told the BBC’s Sinhala service that the government should set up special feeding programmes.
Her comments come after a Sri Lankan charity said 5,000 children in the camps are malnourished.
Almost 300,000 people are being held in camps after they fled the civil war.
It was in the final weeks of the war that hundreds of thousands of civilians streamed out of territory held by the rebel Tamil Tigers.
Since then they have been kept in government-run camps in the northern district of Vavuniya.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN’s special representative on children and armed conflict, told the BBC Sinhala Service’s Saroj Pathirana that the UN hopes to send a delegation to advise the government on a range of issues relating to child welfare.
“The malnutrition rates are very high, especially among young children, and [there is a] need for special feeding programmes and all those kind of things in the camps for the children.
“So, our sense is that the sooner they can get back to normalcy, to education, to schools, it is the best thing,” she said.
Her comments follow concern expressed by Sri Lankan charity Sarvodaya about rates of chronic malnutrition in the camps.
Dr Vinya Ariyaratne, chief executive of Sarvodaya, told the BBC Sinhala service on Tuesday that the malnutrition was a result of fleeing from place to place in the final stages of war, without having a proper meal.
He added that the Sri Lankan health ministry was working with the charity and other aid agencies to tackle the problem.
Ms Coomaraswamy said that a UN delegation would also hope to provide advice on how to treat former child soldiers.
“The issue for us are child soldiers. Are they being separated from the adults and given the special treatment and rehabilitation they deserve, she said.
She added that the UN is also concerned about the plight of children separated from their families.
“The delegation is to look into whether there is enough effort being taken to reunite them with parents,” she said.
This is how the officers of the President talk to the media, taking the powers of their masters. (Of course, it is not too different from the master using the same language to Lasantha Waickramatunga!)
We do not mind Kumarasiri Hettige using language of this nature to address his wife, children or parents. Still as a public officer whose salary is paid by the general public he is expected to respect them. The public of this country is not as cheap as his wife or mother.
May be it is time for the public of this country to use the same language to Hettige’s wife, returning the compliment!
(I am sorry to reproduce the filth here, but the damage so done is far smaller to the damage caused by retaining such rotten individuals in public service.)
Till yesterday I thought only Mervin Silvas and Dhanawardena Guruges need fake doctorates to boost their otherwise shallow profiles. I also thought only dubious ‘universities’ like Medicina Alternativa offered such fake degrees. It was a surprise to see a prestigious institution like University of Colombo, apparently the only Sri Lankan one to be selected under the best 100 Asian universities by Asiaweek in 2002, joining the same game by bamboozling the gullible offering them something they rightly never deserve.
This is what the state owned ‘Sunday Observer’ reported:
The Senate of the University of Colombo unanimously resolved that the Degree of Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) be conferred on President Mahinda Rajapakse. The Senate has also resolved that the Degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) be conferred on Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse.
The degrees will be conferred on President Rajapaksa and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in recognition of their yeoman service to the nation in safeguarding sovereignty, territorial integrity; restoring peace and harmony among all Sri Lankan communities and uplifting the image of Sri Lanka within the international community, a statement of the Senate of the Colombo University states.
Political achievements needs appreciation, no doubt, but why mix them with academic honours? The academic honour system should be dedicated to recognize the appreciable work done by experts in their respective fields, and should not be exploited by corrupted and stupid politicians to boost their images. Can’t we just have some respectable universities offering these honorary degrees to those who truly deserve them, instead of making the whole system a big joke?
Let so called maha sanga honour the politicians they blindly worship. ‘Sri Rohana Janaranjana’ and ‘Vishva Keerthy Sri Thrisinhaladhishvara’ are quite mouthfuls. That is more than enough. Let the joke end there. There is absolutely no need for University of Colombo to join the game making fun of a stupid man. If he wants to be the emperor, let him enjoy that illusion, for this limited period, till he loses the next election. Why subject the poor man to a never ceasing stream of jokes by offering him fake doctorates?
A female Tamil Tiger rebel has blown herself up, killing 28 people and injuring dozens more in the north-east, the Sri Lankan military says.
A military spokesman told the BBC the woman blew herself up as she travelled with civilians fleeing fighting.
He said 20 of those killed in the attack in the Vishwamadu area of Mullaitivu district were soldiers. The rebels have made no comment yet.
Thousands of civilians have fled the fighting over the past few days.
Military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara told the BBC: “[The civilians] were coming to an area where there were security forces. A woman in that group blew herself up when she was being checked by female soldiers.”
Brig Nanayakkara said 20 soldiers, including three women, were killed along with eight civilians. About 50 troops and 40 civilians, mostly women and children, were hurt, he said.
The injured, Brig Nanayakkara said, were being evacuated to hospitals in the area.
The rebels have made no comment but on Sunday the pro-rebel TamilNet web site again accused the army of firing shells into civilian zones, killing 80 and wounding 200.
Independent journalists cannot travel to the war zone so information cannot be verified.
The rebel-held enclave is coming under sustained pressure from the army.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has called on the Tamil Tigers to let thousands more civilians leave and then unconditionally surrender.
Aid agencies have expressed grave concern for the more than 200,000 civilians believed trapped.
