Desmond Tutu must be happy, so too must be Adolfo Perez Esquivel & former President Carter & perhaps many more of the human rights activists & NGOs that set in motion an international propaganda to project Sri Lanka as a nation in the grips of anarchy & urged member nations to reject Sri Lanka's attempt to secure a re-election to the 47 member UN Human Rights Council.
 
But is this seat all that important? Why is the US & Israel not a member of it since they voted against the establishment of the UN Human Rights Council on 15th March 2006 & why did Venezuela abstain from voting citing that certain paragraphs paved the way for intervention in the internal affairs of States. There are likely to be many interpretations of the denial of Sri Lanka to the UN Human Rights Council, of course in the world of diplomacy it may be considered a slap to the Sri Lankan Government & possibly a jolt to its ego internationally but then considering the countries that have secured election purely by the structure of the Council, it becomes questionable whether Sri Lanka should feel disheartened at all. Sri Lanka presently being accused of atrocious human rights abuses must feel quite content for being omitted from a seat in view of the members having to uphold highest standards in the promotion & protection of "human rights" not to mention being subject to periodic review. Arguably it would have been better for Sri Lanka to be bound to the Council rather than elected out of it. Would the status of exclusivity do justice to the oft hyped about injustices supposedly carried out by the Sri Lanka Government? This is certainly food for thought for Desmond Tutu, Aldolfo Perez Esquivel, President Carter & the scores of others who campaigned against Sri Lanka's bid for re-election & consider their actions as may be perhaps unknowingly helping the enemy to carry out violations with impunity! Apart from making international headlines they have really not done justice to the human rights they are supposedly aiming to uphold. None of us can recall their engagement throughout the 25 years of conflict in Sri Lanka either….why this sudden interest in Sri Lanka?

There is a saying that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones … it seems the perfect advice to the swanks of the UN who find themselves plagued with scandals involving financial, sexual & human rights. The UN is faced with the same sets of allegations that they have been accusing member states of committing. The scandals raise one simple question only – Does the UN have any moral right to point its accusing finger upon any member state before they put their own house in order? 

The UN Charter was signed on 1st October 1945. The ambitious preamble to the Charter read “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights... to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress."
The UN’s celebration of 60 years existence was no easy journey. It rode the storms of division that highlighted conceptual differences between Western & Eastern thought & countries that bore clear demarcations of where each was aligned to & obviously raised what type of rights to include in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was towards the 1960s that many third-world nations too joined UN member status.
Yet, 60 years on the UN sees itself far from succeeding the scourge of war …instead it is embattled in internal scandals that is rocking its very foundations & as each new scandal emerge it questions the integrity of an establishment that was to perform “miracles” in a world that is enveloped in global crisis.

One of the biggest scandals that was to rock the UN & involve member states as well was the infamous oil-for-food program that arose following the US coalition invasion upon Iraq. It brought to light exactly the bureaucracy & the greed for money that prevailed above any desire to salvage malnutritioned children, innocent women or a nation that had to suffer because of a single man & the coalition leaders desire to usurp power of an independent nation for the oil & to secure a stronghold on the Middle East with western vested interests.

Oil-for-Food program
 
The people of Iraq had to face severe hardships as a result of the sanctions placed. The Oil-for-food program set up on 14th April 1995 approved by the UN Security Council under Resolution 986 allowed Iraq to sell a certain amount of oil each year & the profits from the sale was to be used to buy food, medicine & other necessities for the Iraqi people. What really happened was quite the opposite. Oil was given to politically connected people including the head of the oil program himself (Benon Sevan). All those involved in the scam (including the former UN Secretary General’s son Koju Annan) got rich by more than $195,000 from the UN oil-for-food contractor Cotecna Inspection.
It makes one wonder whether Saddam was really the criminal as portrayed by the very people who seemed to have such close links with him.
Paul Volcker’s findings were surprisingly more alarming than expected & revealed to the world that the UN had a closet full of skeletons themselves. Let us include some of the key findings of that report:
•         $1.8billion in illicit kickbacks from companies collected by Saddam Hussein
•         Illegal financial kickbacks from 66 UN member states
•         Illicit surcharges by 40 UN member states
•         Illegal oil surcharges paid to 139 companies
•         “Humanitarian kickbacks” involving 2,253 companies worldwide
•         Russia received $19billion in oil contracts while France received $4.4billion
•         India’s then Foreign Minister Natwar Singh & other Congress Party members also alleged to have facilitated allotment of 4million barrels of oil to a Swiss energy contractor – Masefield AG. Natwar Singh resigned in December 2005 after he was stripped of his ministerial duties by PM Manmohan Singh.
•         British parliamentarian George Galloway accused of profiting through the allocation of over 18million barrels of oil.

"The entire course of the election, from the time of its announcement, was free of overt violence. The voter turnout was in excess of 56 percent and the election was keenly contested in several areas, said Mr. Kingsley Rodrigo, Chairperson of People's Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL).

He made these comments referring to the recently held Batticaloa election on March 10, in an assessment report issued by PAFFREL, yesterday (12).

"The decision of the TNA and UNP not to contest the elections was explained by them as being on account of their fear of violence. Their decision not to contest deprived the electorate of a fuller range of choice. PAFFREL therefore believes that it is incumbent on all political parties to participate positively in the effort to restore normalcy and the democratic process", he further stated.

Full text of the Interim report issued by PAFFREL on the Batticaloa local election.

The local government elections held in the Batticaloa district on March 10, 2008 took place in a peaceful environment. The incidents observed and reported by PAFFREL monitors and by the international monitors of the Nonviolent Peace force in the field were of a minor nature. The voter turnout was in excess of 56 percent and the elections were keenly contested in several areas. The absence of violence and the presence of large numbers of police personnel was a significant feature of these elections.

Sri Lanka is the only country which is feeding a terrorist outfit crippling the country's development process by attacking economic nerve centres in the country, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka said yesterday.

"We are the only country feeding terrorists. They are hitting back the Security Forces after eating the food supplied to them freely. Is this taking place in any other country ?," the Premier queried.

People of this country is providing food to these people as they are in a country filled with moral qualities and humanity, the Premier remarked.

Prime Minister Wickramanayaka made these observations, participating at a function to hand over air tickets for 13 Advanced Level students who had obtained highest marks in the Galle, Matara and Hambantota districts in the Southern province.

These students are due to participate at a week long visit to Singapore and are scheduled to visit universities, important places and other important places in Singapore during their stay in Singapore.

Addressing the gathering the Premier also said despite the attempts by the terrorists to destroy this country, the Government is effectively engaged in a process to defeat terrorism while developing the country despite the challenges from terrorism.

He also said that it was a well known fact that the LTTE is making use of the medical supplies sent to the North to treat their cadres.

An LTTE suicide bomber has exploded himself when a group of police officers tried to check a room of a three story lodge down Aluth Mawatha at Ibbanwala Watta, in Modara this morning (February 29). According to the available information 4 police personnel, including 3 women police personnel and 3 civilians have suffered injuries in the explosion. defence.lk special reporter in the area said one women police officer has suffered serious injuries.

According to the sources, the explosion has taken place around 6.05 a.m. when police acting on information has tried to check the room. The body of the bomber has destroyed into an unidentifiable condition and the walls of the room show lot of damages caused by iron balls, the sources added.

A senior defence official speaking to defence.lk noted that unless for the vigilant civilians in the area and for the police personnel who acted swiftly to the civilian information, the suicide bomber could have committed another civilian massacre in the South. Therefore, he said due to commitment and the bravery of the police officers who involved in this incident, a large number of civilian lives have been spared from a possible disaster.

The Northeastern coastline is of huge strategic value to the LTTE as it allows maritime access and the use of the Sea Tigers in operations in Jaffna or elsewhere. This is not to say that the Sea Tigers pose a significant threat to the Sri Lankan Navy.

Few effective maritime attacks have taken place in the north. The 21 January assault on the MV City of Liverpool, a cargo ship carrying foodstuffs to the Jaffna peninsula, involving five Sea Tiger attack vessels inflicted only minor damage on the ship. In fact, few major contacts have occurred in 2007. Other major engagements occurred when the Sea Tigers were in relatively robust health: the l October 2006 attack on the Dakshina naval base in Galle involving live Sea Tiger vessels disguised as fishing boats occurred while the LTTE still had a network of eastern bases and the coastal town of Vakarai under its control.

The Sea Tigers are now without not only Sampur and Vakarai, but also Silavathurai and a considerable percentage of their fleet of attack craft and cargo ships. The SLA even claimed that the last of the Sea Tiger cargo vessels had been destroyed on 8 October, the 3 cargo ship Matsusmina, sunk 700 nautical miles off the Sri Lanka's coast, only a week and a half after the death of Nishanthan, the Sea Tiger commander in a sea battle on 27 September. Significantly, until September, LTTE vessels had always been sunk by the navy within 200 nautical miles of the coast, with the greater distance of the Matsusmina sinking suggesting they are in possession of reliable international intelligence regarding ship movements. The signing of a memorandum of understanding on intelligence co-operation between Sri Lanka and Maldives on 2 November reflects this reliance on overseas intelligence. Nonetheless, despite the evident denigration in the Sea Tigers` capabilities, retention of access to the northwestern coastline is important for the LTTE, and hence its land campaign will likely reflect this.

A local TV station in its evening news telecast yesterday (February 25), reported that an unidentified gang that had come in a white van abducted a person named Muththusami Ilankoowan alias Sami at Pettah, Colombo on the same day evening. According to this TV station the person who was a holder of a Singaporean passport had been accommodated at a hotel on Kadireshan road before getting "disappeared".

Media personnel of this TV station who seemed to have got the first hand information on this "disappearance", quickly inquired from the police media spokesman who was only able inform them what he knew at the time. Later, the police spokesperson informed relevant media station that the person that it was referring as disappeared was actually a suspect arrested by the police. However, the media station carried out the same story spinning it as an abduction that carried out by the government giving less prominence to the police spokesman's clarification.

A senior intelligence official speaking exclusively to defence.lk said that Muththusami Ilankoowan is a number one LTTE terrorist who is suspected to have a hand in many civilian massacres carried out by LTTE in the south. Muttusami, is a Sri Lankan born Tamil, who has strong connection with terror chief V.Prbhakaran, and also with LTTE's international wing leaders such as Castro , Kumaran Padmanadan, David and Iyyanna. The suspect has his own shipping line by which he is said to be promoting cross border terrorists activities of LTTE as well as of other international terrorist organizations that work hand in hand with LTTE, the intelligence official said. As proof for his claim the intelligence official gave defence.lk few pictures of the suspect taken with the kingpins of the terror organizations.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam activists who are licking their wounds following their great failure of the "Mega Star show" that became a flop at London's Alexandra Palace few weeks ago are organizing a smaller show this time , to raise money for Velupillai Prabhakaran's tottering army in the Wanni jungles of Sri Lanka.

Backed by the same activists, the new show baptized as 'Ilam Kaatru' ( or Wind of Eelam) is to be staged in The Great Hall in Hatch End in the London suburb of Harrow by the other front of the LTTE , the Tamil Youth Organization (TYO),organizers said. The former show was organized by the LTTE's purported charity, White Dove.

Due to the wide publicity the White Dove's Mega Star event received in the Indian press as a show of a banned organization, the South Indian performers who were to fly to London refused to turn up and the show intended to earn one million pounds for the coffers of the banned group, LTTE became a flop. Subsequently, the two Paris shows were also cancelled.

Due to the difficulties of getting Mega Stars from Tamil Nadu and other states in South India the organizers are this time depending mostly on local talent, they said.

"Tamil Youth Organisation will be kicking off 2008 with their year's first show: 'Ilam Kaatru'. Come to witness the engaging talent that the members and friends of Tamil Youth Organisation have to offer," the TYO said about the show now scheduled to be on March 1, at Headstone Lane, Harrow, Headstone Lane, Harrow, Middlesex HA3 6NR.

Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam, Permanent Representative to the UN

The full text of the statement made by Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam, Permanent Representative to the UN, at the Working Group:

First, I would like to convey our appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, for the leadership you and your country have been providing to the issue of children and armed conflict. I thank other members of the Working Group for working diligently for the shared objective of bringing an end to the detestable practice of recruitment and use of children by armed groups.

Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and her staff also deserve credit for the manner in which they work effectively with member States concerned, with the aim of better implementing Resolution 1612.

Since independence 60 years ago, all successive governments in Sri Lanka have been committed towards creating a protective environment for children to live in dignity and to enjoy their rights with care and support of their families.

The blueprint for peace and development in Sri Lanka initiated by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa also demonstrates this commitment by advancing child-centred social development programmes, further augmenting free healthcare, and free education that has been the hallmark of Sri Lanka's child welfare policies for long years.

LTTE terrorists have exploded a bomb inside a public transport bus in Mount Lavinia, in the South of Colombo city around 10.55, this morning targeting innocent civilians. According to the available information, the bomb has been exploded in a privately owned bus that was plying from Moratuwa to Colombo. Due to the explosion 18 people including 10 males, 7 females and one baby have suffered minor injures. The bus and a motorbike parked nearby have been destroyed.

However, the terrorists' beastly intention to commit carnage against civilians has foiled due to the vigilance of the civilians themselves. According to the defence.lk reporter at the scene, one of the passengers having noticed a suspicious parcel has informed the driver and the conductor of the bus.

The conductor has alarmed the passengers and asked them to vacate the bus as soon as possible. At the same time, the driver of the bus has taken the bus to a safe distance from the civilians and informed the police, he said. Few minutes after driver got down from the bus, the bomb has gone off, he added.

According to our sources, unless for the responsible behaviour shown by the bus conductor, the driver and the passenger who alarmed them; a large number of civilians would have been killed.

Earlier this month, a navy petty officer saved large number of civilian lives by promptly defusing a similar parcel bomb placed by LTTE terrorists at the Anuradhapura weekly fair.