Monday, August 31, 2009

justice served - jayaprakash tissainayagam racist hate monger and terrorist supporter gets 20 years rigorous imprisonment

justice prevailed today as colombo high court sentenced jayaprakash sittampalam tissainayagam for 20 years rigorous imprisonment.

he was found guilty of inciting violence and racial hatred, and collecting money in support of terrorism.

we should thank the court for seeing through his facade of being a journalist. it was used to cover his murderous activities. label "journalist" should not serve as a blanket immunity for dastardly crimes.

he had legal counsel and had all the opportunity to challenge the charges and evidence. he and his lawyers failed. he is appealing as he has a right to do .

unsurprisingly his supporters (to a man same ppl who opposed defeat of ltte terrorist murderers using violence if needs be) are protesting this and usually mention only the racial hatred charges, conveniently forgetting the other charges. much good such lies will do them (beyond generating some sympathy from tamil tigers' useful idiots in west who are too lazy to find facts) when faced with truth. if they want to make a case they should make it in proper form with facts and evidence in court. they already failed.

i personally hope his appeal fails and he gets to serve most of his sentence, and no unwarranted sympathy or amnesty is shown by sri lankan authorities. justice for all those innocents (including children) killed by terrorists he supported cry out for that.


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news - uk government freed lockerbie terrorist "for oil" - same hypocrites preach to us about justice & human rights?

leaked letters by british justice secretary jack straw published yesterday has revealed that it was in fact uk government (as opposed to merely the scottish one as was originally claimed) that agreed to release of the convicted lockerbie bomber, abdelbaset ali mohmed al megrahi. release was linked to finalization of a libyan oil deal for british oil company bp.

sri lankans who have their eyes and ears open are certainly not surprised that british did another despicable blood for money, anti justice, anti human rights, deal. it is what they have always done with regard to tamil tiger terrorist murderers. they let organized racists affiliated with ltte to collect money unhindered, they support terrorist parroting ngos, they have failed to prevent, investigate, prosecute, or even condemn, racists in britain for hate mongering and attacking sri lankans there, and we know what happened during last days of terrorist pussies, british foreign secretary david miliband rushed here to save the mass murderers and with others called for a ceasefire to let murderers breath again.

all this resulted in more death and suffering to us, sri lankans.

all this was done to pander to large tamil diaspora (in which racist voices, affiliated with terrorists and supported by violence, drown out others) there. some labour party politicians in particular are dependent on diaspora support to get elected, especially since polls point to a defeat for labour party in coming election. same motives, now in the form ratings and ads, drive some media there to publish unverified and unsubstantiated fables to slander sri lanka and inflame racist hate against sri lankans.

while this travesty of justice with regard to lockerbie bomber was rightly exposed, the same media will not expose british sheltering and financing of tamil tiger terrorist murderers. lockerbie victims, mostly americans, and their friends, have influence (thank god) to balance interests of some uk politicians and businesses, we sri lankans have no such influence and unlikely to have any, as long as that racist dominated tamil diaspora can command votes and sri lanka is still a developing country.

that is why we sri lankans will do well not to expect justice and fairness from united kingdom in the near future, we can only expect hate, harm, and injustice, whatever we do.

we should not pander to their politicians or media as some born slaves here sometimes recommend by giving them access or by giving supposedly independent foreigners to investigate and judge human right cases here. they will not be independent and we will not get justice.

instead we should aggressively and frankly confront them with facts and ask them to substantiate their claims. we should not hesitate to expose their real motives and hypocrisy.

we sri lankans should not let these shameless hypocritical british helpers of terrorist murderers to preach to us about justice and human rights, uncontested.



ps
of course we should also aggressively confront and expose the slaves (sometimes paid slaves) of these foreigners here, from paikiasothy saravanamuttu to sunila abeysekera, from sanjana hattotuwa, to indi padshow. they should be asked (at the risk of censorship, and in spite of the fact that they will not dare reply in any place where freedom of expression prevail) to explain why their stances in various sri lankan issues always seem to flow harmoniously with those of racist terrorists and their foreign supporters, instead of with substantiated facts and principles of justice, human rights, democracy, and freedom.

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

some quick points and questions about the channel 4's alleged "execution video"

british channel 4 tv has broadcast a video showing execution of naked, blindfolded, and bound men. they claim it shows tamils being killed by sri lankan military.
video is available on the web. here is a rapidshare link (h/t bailaman). (viewer warning - disturbing graphic content )

here are few things to keep in mind when looking at video and before drawing any conclusions from it.

clearly it is a horrible crime, if real. and those responsible should be brought to justice.

however in order to take this seriously or any kind of action to be taken, we need clarity concerning several things ( esp given the well documented and exposed doctoring of pictures and video by ltte terrorist propaganda.) .

[let us not forget channel 4 along with some other british media cater to a large tamil diaspora in uk (that includes lot of organized racists that sympathize with and financed the ltte murderers of us, sri lankans.) channel 4 in particular has failed to cover or expose this murderous financing and those involved. so much for its investigative abilities or objectivity]

first who provided the video? the video was allegedly provided by a group called "journalists for democracy in sri lanka (jds)" which has a german address. no names or interviews with anyone from this group were provided by channel 4. why? even though this group allegedly consists of exiled sri lankan journalists.

as they confess, channel 4 has clearly not independently verified the video. also it is wrong to claim it "cannot" be verified. i have nothing against their broadcasting a video of an alleged crime. however the claims they make (see below) cannot be justified if they have not verified it.

it is not clear where it was made and when. channel 4 claims jds claimed it was made in january 2009. but these are mere claims only, with nothing to back them up. sri lanka has a long history of conflict against terrorists, in north against racists and in south against marxists. lot of other criminal/vigilante/splinter groups too involved in these conflicts. so if this took place anywhere in sri lanka, it could have happened anytime during last few decades.

channel 4 claimed that killers speak a "country boy sinhalese accent" (!?!), in a "casual" tone.
indeed, a few words are heard in sinhalese in the background.
words as far as i can hear can be translated-
"as if can see... looked away "
"(indistinct)"
"that is a real..."
"strike? strike (repeated)" (i translated "gahamu" and similar as "strike", may be "hit" is better?)
"take turns like ...(comparison indistinct) ..."
"coming like ...(no comparison)"
"me (or i was) requested (by) this thing(or one- "oka")"
"telling stay and look? ...what? "
"sssstriiiike (sic). ours, its government property ... let's strike"
however it is not clear that killers in video speak at all, we do not see their mouths. and those killed are silent; no screams or moaning heard .

lot more gun shots are heard than those used for alleged killings in video, which are carried out by shooting one by one in single bursts of fire. where are the other shots coming from? in spite those shots, those recording and taking part in killing in the video, do not seem to feel threatened, even though they seem to be in an open field. camera for instance is steady and does not respond to shots heard, considering it is hand held.

it is quite possible that sound in the video was added later from a separate video/sound footage of fighting. this is just a theory but not outlandish given the doctoring of pictures and videos by ltte terrorist propaganda.

and the video was allegedly made from a mobile phone by a soldier (again channel 4 does not provide any basis for these claims). to a completely inexperienced person on the subject (like me) it seems to be made from a better quality camera. also there is no date or other identification marks on video footage.

killers do wear uniforms that show some vague similarity to sl military uniforms, but they are certainly not distinct enough for claims to be made that they are sl army uniforms.

there is no basis whatsoever in video to claim that those killed were tamils.


ethics and motives of claims, comparisons, and conclusions
in addition to those questions, there is also the ethics and motives of equalizing and identifying of various others with alleged killers (esp by "media").

even if this video is authentic. what does it prove? some (usual suspects the ngo peaceniks etc.) have already tried to make out that sri lankan armed forces are "guilty" and "same as ltte terrorists". others say that sri lanka should prove its innocence with a "neutral inquiry".

those conclusions are unwarranted even if the video is authentic.

how are sri lankans as a whole a guilty of this crime? or even sl military as a whole? at worst, it is a case of indiscipline by few criminal idiots in military. to slander thousands and millions of others who have no involvement is unwarranted and despicable .

this crime should be dealt with using normal judicial procedures relating to murder and military discipline (if video is verifiable and can be admitted as evidence) or if otherwise, sri lankan and other intelligence services dealing with terrorists' propaganda. those interested can follow those procedures and if there is anything wrong with them speak out .

-
i also don't see how or why this makes sl military same as ltte. ltte deliberately carried out killings of civilians as a policy. on the other hand, there is no proof that sri lankan military or civilian authorities sanctioned anything similar. on the contrary, they ruled out certain weapons and tactics (at the cost of lives for them) bc they can result in civilian deaths when terrorist murderers were holding civilians as human shields.

only a pro terrorist propagandist will claim that this video (even if authentic) proves sri lanka military is same as ltte.
-


if you feel that i have not covered any point about the video or that i was mistaken in anything feel free to comment. i may cover this later in another post if more details are forthcoming about the video.



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Friday, August 21, 2009

paikiasothy saravanamuttu a "consistent, courageous, anti-racist voice"? facts say otherwise

in fact his public and substantiated actions indicate that he is on the contrary a consistent craven racist. and in accordance with those characteristics he acted as a lobbyist and apologist for ltte terrorist murderers.

i consider him a contemptible criminal; if anyone disagrees, they are free to read this post and dispute the reality and meaning of his actions i will highlight below. unlike others i do not censor anyone here.

sanjana hattotuwa's (cpa affiliated) groundviews blog which has been spouting out racist hate in one post after another with nothing to back their assertions, claims in its latest post that ngo centre of policy alternatives' (cpa) executive director, pakiasothy saravanamuttu, is "one of sri lanka’s most consistent, courageous, anti-racist voices". lol. btw the post is by one qadri ismail "associate professor of english at the university of minnesota." as usual with that site most of its approved writers and readers who are allowed to comment tend to be sri lankans living aboard.

[note- pakiasothy saravanamuttu recently alleged that he has received death threats. i do not approve any kind of illegitimate violence and condemn these threats, if real. however i remain highly skeptical about these threats. more like an attempt to get some attention and undeserved sympathy and money now that the racist cause he championed so consistently has lost.
i also condemn any effort by cpa, saravanamuttu,and others to link those peacefully but forcefully opposing their racist contemptible stands on many issues to these alleged threats.]


bebunking groundviews' claims with facts
in opposition to grundviews' claim i will list only a few of his many, many, many, racist, anti-democratic, anti- justice, anti human rights, anti-freedom, actions here bc even those few will be enough to justify my first statements here.

  • paikiasothy saravanamuttu consistently favored appeasement of terrorist tamil tigers, advocating giving these violent murderous racist pussies political power over millions, instead of supporting efforts to defeat them, with violence if needs be. is that courageous? is that anti racist?
  • paikiasothy saravanamuttu wanted sri lanka to accept terrorist ltte as the sole representative of tamils in order for appeasement talks to begin, and spoke against those who opposed such a pre-condition for talks. nothing can be more racist and more anti-democratic, anti-justice, anti human rights, anti-freedom, than this claim of sole representatives status of murderers. but he wanted sri lanka to accept it. is that courageous and anti racist? is that anything but down right contemptible?
  • he lobbied here and abroad on behalf of terrorist ltte. among many such lobbying efforts i will point to his opposition and attempts to prevent european union ban on tamil tigers. among other things ban made it a crime to collect money on behalf of ltte, which money was used by the terrorists to kill, oppress, and terrorize, sri lankans regardless of their ethnicity, and to fight sri lankan government's military. but he opposed the ban and gave blatantly spurious reasons for his stand on the issue. isn't that criminal for a sri lankan? is that anything but down right contemptible?

as i said before there are many many more such actions by him and his other ngo peacenik colleagues. and like those listed above they too are substantiated by public record during periods of their occurrence. but those posted above will be quite enough to oppose groundviews claims.

he of course has a right to engage in any non violent advocacy he wants. others similarly have a right to point out that what he advocates is racist and contemptible.

does anyone dispute the facts? they are free to do that here, if they can.

or will his defenders run from truth? and attack me for restating well known public facts that they cannot dispute?

let us see.


ps
i am not providing direct link to groundviews bc of two things,
1/ my comments are consistently and arbitrarily censored there regardless of content.
2/ sanjana hattotuwa deleted his old blog moju when it became clear that his posting of ltte propaganda and other falsehood by ltte fronts such as tro, could well make him and his ngo infoshare criminally liable, not to mention embarrassing and indefensible when challenged. i would not be surprised if groundviews follows suit. to avoid links from getting stranded like my old moju links, i link to a google search. readers can then at least read the google cache or similar.

-
here is the comment i posted to groundviews post i referred above. it remains censored at the time of this posting.

paikiasothy saravanamuttu he is a consistent craven racist.
he was a lobbyist and apologist for ltte terrorist murderers.
here are just 3 of his many crimes against human rights of us sri lankans .
he wanted sri lanka to appease terrorists
he wanted sri lanka to accept terrorist ltte as sole representative of tamils in order for appeasement talks to begin, and spoke against those who opposed such a condition
he lobbied against eu banning terrorist ltte . so that it can continue to collect funds there to kill sri lankans

of course there are more but will stop now bc that is enough to justify my first statement. evidence all these things are publicly documented.

nothing can be more racist , nothing can be more anti-democratic , anti- justice , anti human rights, anti-freedom, etc .

will substantiated truth be censored again here from challenging falsehoods of racist ?

Monday, August 17, 2009

to interrupt the "yes! great idea!" chorus to "kottu print"

indi.ca has put forward the idea of publishing some of the posts in sri lankan kottu blog aggregator (which he administer and own) as a section of sunday leader newspaper.

almost all responses to this idea published at the time of writing were in agreement and failed to make the obvious objections. bloggers who wrote them should ask themselves why they failed to object? don't leave all objections to authority to be made by a "pariah" (to the kottu cocoon) like me, who bc of other quarrels may be suspected of mixed motives.

i wrote a comment at about 11 am, with a small addition about an hour later. those as usual have not appeared (as owner of blog indi.padashow has a perfect right to not publish my comments and only publish yes comments if that is what he wants). by same logic i have a perfect right to taunt him for wanting only yes comments, as i did on twitter. lol
btw here are my personal twitter account and this blog's twitter account. for more information on them go here.

(update: blogger rehani in comment with time stamp 2009-08-17 12:13:18 ( few min after my witter taunt ) has made some of the points i made)

but since i think points i made there were valid (imo) and perhaps need general consumption i will make them here in a post (i will also publish the original unedited comments at the bottom as well, though they basically say the same.)
-


bad idea!

it is a bad idea to publish blog posts created for a new medium on old failing newspaper medium.

one of results will be curtailing of new modes of expression so that they fit in with the restrictions of old medium.

i am not just speaking of non availability of multi media formats that most blog posts incorporate, though that should also be noted.

publishing for a newspaper will involve editors, editorial policies, and style guides (don't know whether leader has them but most newspapers do) both explicit and implicit. blog posts that will be published will be included or excluded and edited according to those policies, whatever indi says now. blogs on the other hand allow bloggers to express their ideas, reflections, opinions, satire, whatever,... without restraint, using whatever style they want.

but so what? you might object; ppl who keep on writing in a manner deemed unsuitable by editors of newspaper will not lose anything .they will still have the blog while ppl who conform will have another medium of expression. (and let us not forget that lot of bloggers can be classed as failed or wanna be newspaper writers. they will welcome the opportunity.)

yes. but i am not objecting to this on behalf of any of those ppl, but as a reader and appreciator of blogs (from world over) in contrast to newspapars. when ppl conform to newspaper restrictions their writing will change, and their readers will lose. we should also note that as a medium, blogs have been immensely successful and newspapers are failing. mainly bc readers do not get what they want from newspapers.

it is a bit like comparing a free market economy with a planned regulated economy, favored by socialists. in one side there is free unrestricted competition, and readers will decide. what ppl want to read will last or will find niche markets/readers. on the other side, decision will be with editors who will favor what they think their newspaper readers want to read.

in other words, if this idea is successful (a big if), for a time (best it can hope for), and lot of bloggers try to conform (as they have a right to do) to inevitable explicit and implicit restrictions, in order to see themselves in print (and/or to get the money) the blog readers will lose. sri lankan blogosphere and ultimately sri lanka will be poorer for it.

we should encourage new medium to its full potential, instead of restricting it to limits of an old medium.

--

i have some further objections

i doubt whether anyone with any decent principles will want to get published in sunday leader newspaper. that is a paper that made its name through slander, blackmail, and all sort of other dirty stuff. it is also failing, with relatively few advertisements (bc of limited and falling circulation).
-

it is already possible to get bloggers to publish if anyone wants them in newspapers; ask them! if a newspapers want blog posts as articles they should contact the specific writers concerned and ask for the posts to be rewritten to fit that medium. simple. btw bloggers who agree to this should be paid the normal rate not some low rate.
-

the top 10 at kottu (one of the proposed selective criteria) can be easily manipulated.

this happened to one of my posts in feb 2007, ironically on the subject of kottu (which generated other posts in other blogs) when someone (for reasons unknown) sent my post to top of the list in a clearly artificial way. this was confirmed by log in my blog. (btw i informed all concerned through email as it was occurring).

while such manipulations were not repeated for my posts (yes my posts do sometimes end up in list still. but surprisingly that is probably bc some ppl read them in spite of their boring length it seems), all indications are that problem was not fixed (even though the fix is pretty simple). the kottu list can still be manipulated. in fact if there is an open permission, this can be demonstrated by sending any random post to the top of list.

so this selective criteria is a no-no.
--

how to implement this bad idea to least objections.
in case these ppl are determined to implement this bad idea, here are some steps that must be taken.

1/ the editor of some sort has to make a selection to avoid manipulation.

2/ bloggers must be asked for consent and allowed to reedit their own articles to conform to old media format.

3/ they should be published with disclaimer/description like the following

"these articles are blog posts of note that appeared on kottu aggregator in past week as selected by editor and published with consent and editing by original writers".

these step will mitigate some objections and will be truthful to boot (rather than pretending they are the popular posts or true reflection of sri lankan blogosphere etc).

but to repeat, this is a bad idea to begin with.



here are the original censored comments.
-
not a good idea

bad to publish blog posts created for a new medium on an old failing newspaper medium.
( quite apart from being published in one specific newspaper, which is short on ads=circulation, and which made a name through lies and blackmails and other such stuff. not a place to be seen for some ppl with principles ) .

one of results will be curtailing of new modes of expressions so that it fits in with the old restrictions of a failing medium ( i can see that some of the comments above already trending to such a policy )

if newspaper wants newpaper articles they should contact the specific writers concerned and ask for article rewritten to fit that medium (and make sure to pay the normal rate btw)
-

also the top ten posts at kottu can be easily manipulated . as happened to one of my posts,(in feb 2007, ironically on the subject of kottu, to points made in which indi here sort of replied ) when someone ( for reasons unknown ) sent it to top of the list in a clearly artificial way as was confirmed by log in my blog . (btw i informed all concerned through email etc ).

while such manipulations has not repeated to my posts later( tough posts do some times end up in list) , all indications are that this was not fixed ( even though the fix for this is pretty simple ) , and the kottu list can still be manipulated .

if there is an open permission, this can be demonstrated by sending any random post to the top .
-
to add a small point to what was already written (where? here is to hoping that comment will reappear !) , specifically requesting articles to be reedited takes care of some problems.
a disclaimer/description to the effect -"these articles are blog posts of note that appeared on kottu aggregator in past week as selected by editor and published with consent and editing by original writers"- or some such will cover most objections .and will be truthful to boot ( rather than pretending they are the popular posts or true reflection of sri lankan blogosphere etc .



Sunday, August 09, 2009

uva provincial council, jaffna & vavuniya local council, election results online

according to tradition of this blog, i will publish the election results of uva provincial council , jaffna municipal council, and vavuniya urban council, election results on one page.

all results are linked to election department website, where you can find the official results of each with much more details if needed.

uva provincial council
result
upfa
unp
jvp
other
badulla



mahiyangana39, 909
12,013
1,943
303
wiyaluwa20,433
7,437
564
631
passara23,959
9,736
540
2,590
badulla21,386
12,084
628
1,027
hali-ela27,088
10,653
728
1,771
uva-paranagama24,569
12,036
1,525
638
welimada29,431
11,862
1,114
2,237
bandarawela33,702
12,821
819
2,805
haputale26,471
7,765
603
2,291
badulla postal
12,121
2,228
543
157
-
-
-
-
-
final badulla tot
259,069
98,635
9,007
15,449
percentage68%
26%
2%
4%
badulla dist. elected seats (21)14
5
1
1
-
-
-
-
-
moneragala



bibila 36,499
6,503
1,699
156
moneragala
49,420
9,187
1,208
236
wellawaya66,842
14,026
2,491
211
moneragala postal7,076
793
234
4
-
-
-
-
-
moneragala final total159,837
30,509
5,632
571
percentage81%
16%
3%
-%
moneragala dist. elected seats (11)
9
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
final full total
418,906
129,144
14,639
16,020
total percentage
72%
22%
3%
3%
total seats (32)
(w/o bonus seats)
23
7
1
1
total seats (34)25
7
1
1


"other" seat in badulla went to up-country people's front who got 9,227(2%) votes.

jaffna municipal council

result
upfa
itak
tulf
other
total votes
10,602
8,008
1,007
1,305
percentage51%
38%
5%
6%
total seats (23)
(including bonus seats)
13
8
1
1


"other" seat went to independnt group 1 who got 1,175(6%) votes.


vavuniya urban council

result
upfa
itak
dplf
other
total votes
3,045
4,279
4,136
832
percentage25%
35%
34%
6%
total seats (11)
(including bonus seats)

2
5
3
1


"other" seat went to sri lanka muslim congress who got 587(5%) votes.

sorry about the colors some of the colors i want to use clash with blog colors





Friday, August 07, 2009

thank you john hughes for the movies

film director and screen writer john hughes has died
i adore his 80s teen movies ( the breakfast club, pretty in pink, ferris bueller's day off, some kind of wonderful, sixteen candles). they are the best of the genre. they defined and influenced a generation.

i have never tired of rewatching them. allison, bender, duckie, andie, cameron, ferris, watts, etc. will remain as endearing (and weird) and above all recognizable as part of ourselves as long as ppl watch movies and are going/have gone through adolescence.

if you have not seen them, watch them. you will never regret it. (btw you will be surprised as to how many and how much new teen films and tv dramas "borrow" from his movies.)

"the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. they think he's a righteous dude. "