evidence of racist pro terrorist bias in the associated press(ap) 'reporter' bharatha mallwarachchi's latest hack job

in sri lanka's there are certain paid western and/or pro tamil tiger terrorist tools. esp so in ngo and so called journalistic community writing in english. some of them are so deeply committed to their racist and slavish agenda, that they go so far are as to deliberately forget standard professional practices and ethics in order to parrot and exaggerate unsubstantiated terrorist propaganda, and try their best to slander sri lanka, sri lankans and its institutions (ranging from government to buddhism).

bharatha mallwarachchi currently working for associated press is one such. in this post i will examine his latest hack job for its racist pro terrorist bias.

following image is a screen-shot of the ap report authored by this tool (click to enlarge). it was published within last 24 hours.

first there is the title "sri lanka evicts some war refugees from villages".
really ?
note that title is not enclosed in quotation marks.

this 'eviction' turns out to be a mere allegation by tamil national alliance (tna aka itak), in particular tna mp suresh premachandran. so far reporter has not produced any other evidence to back this beyond tna statement. he has not verified this from independent sources.

maybe tna and mr premachandran are independent sources? only a totally sloppy reporter who has not done his homework, or a deliberately biased one, would think that. tna was tamil tiger terrorists' proxy political party when they were still undefeated. they obtained 90%+ of votes in areas under the murderous terrorists then, while other political parties were completely suppressed. party has not regretted this association and still indulges in most racist rhetoric possible. all of this and more about tna is easily verifiable.

but for bharatha mallwarachchi all that does not matter. to him, if tna said something, that is no longer a mere statement but a fact.

btw i am not saying he should not report on tna statement; he should do it like professionals do reporting it as a mere statement by tna (providing tna's background).

contrast his treatment of tna statement with his treatment of governments' (old) statements about refugees. "The government said ...", "government says... ", "Officials say ..."etc., ; in every (note every) sentence referring to them the fact that government's statements were not verified were emphasized. that is right, if reporter cannot verify them. but he fails to make similar qualifications to that degree with tna statements in the report and title.

now why doesn't mallwarachchi verify any of these statements before writing?

for instance camps housing 'refugees' are funded and run to a great degree by united nation's agencies. why was this reporter unable to find the truth(or not) of government statistics from those u.n. agencies? it should be easy for a real reporter looking for truth.

then why doesn't he? pro terrorist propagandists were implying from the 1st moment of their existence that the camps were there for a sinister purpose (concentration camps perhaps?). reporting the easily verifiable fact that u.n. is funding and helping to run the camps certainly destroys any such conspiracy theory. now guess the reasons of mallwarachchi's studied total silence on easily verifiable u.n. presence!

that is not all .

he does not seems to have asked for a government response to tna statement as any professional reporter would have done before writing.

instead he quotes "the party sought government clarification, but there has been no response". but that is again a mere tna statement about alleged government non response to tna statement. a real reporter would have tried to contact government directly and have reported the results directly instead of relying solely on tna's word .

he also resorts to distortion and unwarranted speculation. he selectively quotes from remarks 'government spokesman' (actually cabinet spokesman, and minister) keheliya rambukwella made before these allegations from tna, during a press conference last week, as if his statements about landmines were a reply to them when they may not be. is mallwarachchi preemptively speculating and creating government response before government has even said a word? that is not his job! but such a hack probably does not know the meaning of professional ethics.

there is still more,
it seems mallwarachchi's politically correct wording is not correct at all and totally one sided.
"The Tamil rebels fought for a separate state, claiming decades of discrimination by the Sinhalese majority."

they certainly claimed to be acting for tamils but were they? this is an important distinction.
tigers are not equal to tamils (only racists equalize them). making the tiger murderers representative of tamils as they claimed to be (and enforced by killing and terrorizing all other tamil leaders) is a mark of a racist pro terrorist.

mallwarachchi takes their claims as as pure truth.
unbiased person would have said "tamil tigers claimed to be ..."

and were they "fighting' (implying fighting against military only)? a real reporter would have referred to their actual methods (deliberate targeting of civilians even children and places of religious worship etc, use of suicide bombers etc ) and consequences (their inclusion in lists of terrorist organizations including those in usa, eu, etc) even if he does not prefer to not use the word 'terrorist' directly to them. all these are well documented.

unbiased person would have said "tamil tigers (listed as a terrorist organization by several countries due to their actions) claimed to be fighting for a separate state on behalf of tamils, alleging decades of discrimination ....etc ".

but for mallwarachchi they are 'tamil rebels' merely 'fighting'.

"rights groups have accused the government and rebel forces of deliberately targeting civilians."
again his desire to follow the pro terrorist propagandist agenda of creating moral equality between government and ltte is clear. yes rights groups have accused the government of targeting civilians, but so far without any proof whatsoever. in contrast what mallwarachchi calls 'rebel forces' have admitted, documented, and convicted, of hundreds of deliberate bombings of civilian buses, trains, airports, banks , places of religious worship etc etc killing thousands. now can he explain why he stops at mere 'accusation' when verifiable facts are available to all?

are his colleagues at ap going to say al-qaeda is merely accused of 9/11? really?

"according to U.N documents, more than 7,000 civilians died in the last five months of the conflict "
as pointed out above mallwarachchi seems to be totally unaware of u.n. agencies working in refugees camps but has no problem finding non existent positive statements from u.n. that 7000 civilians died. in fact there are no such documents with such concrete statements from u.n., only allegations (clearly so indicated) at third hand. a professional (if he/she wants this at all in his report ) would have said." according to u.n. documents, more than 7,000 civilians may have died in the last five months of the conflict though the figure was never verified by u.n. "


does anybody still think bharatha mallwarachchi is a professional reporter? isn't he rather a willing tool of racist pro terrorists? if you think he is not such a tool let me know why below.

it is a pity and a shame that once respected news organizations like the associated press are employing ppl such as this racist with his pro terrorist agenda .

will they employ a committed 9/11 "truther" conspiracy theorist as a reporter? they won't. but we in sri lanka are poor and powerless in world, so maybe ap thinks we would suffer the slanders of this hack without protest.

we wont stay silent. this protest and exposure may not have any effect just now, but as i have said before these things count in the long run. truth and sunlight always triumphs. we should continue to document these despicable biased reporters and expose them to the world and future in detail. we should choose aggressive confrontation over silent suffering in the face of dirt bags like bharatha mallwarachchi.

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wikileaks video of u.s. helicopters killing ppl/reporters in iraq + some thoughts

i tweeted on this earlier but in case anyone missed, here is wikileaks video of u.s. helicopters killing ppl and reporters in iraq in 2007. details are in the video. its authenticity has not been disputed. (warning : some may find this disturbing.)



as far as i can see no major western news media organization has posted wikileaks video in their main outlets in full (in blogs/cnn ireport/etc, yes, but not in frontend)

on sunday americans also admitted that their coalition forces had a role in killing of some afghan women in february. there were many other similar incidents in the past.

meanwhile american installed and later elected afghan president hamid karzai has continued to condemn international coalition's disregard for civilians casualties.

he has also claimed that westerners are responsible for the fraud in recent afghan elections. he even named alleged main fraudsters; peter galbraith, american former deputy head of the un mission, and philippe porillon, french former head of european union election monitoring team. (the story is also available in non western media w/o the pro western anti karazi spin. i selected a western source so that reader can decide what is spin and what is not therein)

there are claims of fraud in recent iraqi elections too (anyway why does results take so long (weeks) to be released in both those countries? in sl they come out within hours and the process is open).

my thoughts
now i fully support american war against terrorism and use of military violence in the process.

i am also aware of the almost certain possibility of accidents, as well as outbreaks of indiscipline, criminality, and insanity, in some members of military in spite of all the best efforts of political and military leadership, and institutional precautions.

what i cannot stand is hypocrisy.

why is sri lanka and sri lankan military accused of all sorts of war crimes in its fight against ltte tamil tiger terrorists (with almost no credible and authentic evidence to back up the charges) while western government aren't (even with much more solid evidence for their alleged crimes)? accusations are certainly not made on the same level.

even when they are made there is a telling difference in how accusations are framed; it is never the 'americans', 'british', etc., or their governments, who are committing 'war crimes' but some specific soldiers, 'bad apples', etc., but in accusations against sri lanka it is always 'sri lankans', 'sinhalese', 'tamils', and sl government, who are committing the alleged war crimes.

all that is due to double standards, hypocrisy, and yes, racism .

of course realistic sri lankans expect that sort of treatment from west. we know we have to fight our own battles and cannot expect west to act with justice and fairness to us. look at the pathetic predicament and treatment of karzai for what happens to ppl who depend on west.

that is why we should not allow those hypocrites to assume some sort of fake moral superiority in order presume to pass judgment on us. we have to aggressively confront them with facts and truth and reveal their hypocrisy and presumption. it may not have any effect on them, but we need to make our position clear; they have no right to judge us.

but there are born and paid slaves here who see no such double standard in behavior of the west in spite of evidence. that sort of filth believe the best about their masters in west and worst about us. its about time sri lankans at large treat these as they deserve. i for one has always done that.

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jvp's lankatruth & sanjana hattotuwa's groundviews caught promoting a false 'news' story to attack sri lanka & prez

jvp/sarath fonseka run lankatruth and terrorist parroting sanjana hattotuwa's groundviews were promoting a false completely made up 'news' story within last 24 hours.

it slandered both the president and sri lanka, branding both as racists through a made up qoute maliciously attributed to president. this propaganda was taken up and spread further by tamil tiger terrorist supporters in foreign countries.

clearly the intention was to damage sri lanka in general and president mahinda rajapaksa in particular.

note the timing too; weekend (in fact saturday) before election, meaning, their aim was to get the story on sunday and monday newspapers and other media here and in foreign countries. that way government will not have time to correct it if it was picked up by 'mainstream' news institutions. we will see how many such institutions will repeat such an obvious lie without fact checking. fact check can easily be done and require only a video of president's jaffna speech (and a translator).

actions of the 2 websites will not be a surprise to those who know their history. sanjana hattotuwa has a long history of parroting terrorists after all (he had to delete groundviews predecessor moju bc it was so full of pro terrorist promotions and statements, from terrorist fronts like now internationally banned tro). he also arbitrarily censors corrections and criticisms of lies published in groundviews. everyone knows that no credibility can be placed on so called lankatruth which is closely associated with once terrorist jvp and some ppl arrested and released on bail (not to mention sarath fonseka). both websites actively participated in anti sri lanka slander mongering on january 27th.

now that truth is coming out, groundviews is trying to reverse its own words, we will see how far they will go. will they go so far as to delete own words? i have and will document the actions of these despicable liars. anyone interested pl do the same.

we will also check whether any of the so called real 'journalists' are sloppy and moronic enough to repeat this lie. so far nobody has, as far as i can see.

today is easter (btw happy easter!) and i have various obligations, so will write a detailed post (with screen-shots etc.) if necessary (in some cases it is not wise to give publicity to lies immediately) tomorrow or later. i will certainly write some time.

anyway as i always say, remember to ask for sources and verify through independent channels before you believe anything, esp when stories originates from such criminally habitual liars like the two mentioned.

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akon, promoters, protesters = cheap publicity stunt

the obscure probably untalented so called musician akon is coming to sri lanka.

even though 99.99%+ sri lankans don't know and care about him there is supposedly some 'vast movement' (consisting of a fell-from-the-sky facebook group of few ppl) objecting and protesting against him, bc akon has supposedly insulted buddhism.

that is the spin. most of it coming from same media group that is promoting akon here.

stones were in fact thrown at offices of media group promoting the moron, by ppl who definitely did not look like they were practicing buddhists but looked more like few jobless idiots hired to throw stones.

seriously look at any pics of the incident and decide whether ppl throwing stones look like 'fundamentalist buddhists' or some drug addicts picked off the street to throw stones for few bucks?

unlike in past protests conducted in the name of buddhism, no monks were to be seen actively protesting. one group of monks had a media conference.

iow , imo all this looks like a cheap publicity stunt.

so cheap that ppl who are promoting this spin online are bloggers and websites who are known to repeat any lie as long as they get to create some non existing controversy and perhaps some rupees.

anyone want to bet that jobless who made few bucks here were not all throwing stones? lol

which 'news' website was trying unsuccessfully to make a big story about the ' vast protest movement ' aka above mentioned facebook group? hmmm.

which blogger is excitedly writing multiple posts about the same akon one after another, (while advising others to 'chill out' no less) ? hmmm

[a screen-shot of indi.padashow's twitter feed with its exclusively akon tweets and blog post announcements . 'chilling out' or excitement at at last getting a 'job' after fonseka ended up in prison? lol]

who got exclusive pics and quick access (to supposed target) before, during, and after, the 'stone throwing' ? hmmm.

did anyone say dinidu de alwis @ perambara and indi padashow samarajiva @ indi.ca? lol.

anyway in spite of all that 'preparation', excitement, pics, and access, they were so out of material to make this into some sort of big incident with any significance that they resorted to silly lies.

for one instance among many, indi padashow says "the last big star to come to sri lanka got grenades thrown at him. shah rukh khan escaped..."

in the first place akon is nowhere near a 'big star'. other 'big stars' (including shah rukh khan himself) did come to sri lanka after the incident referred, which happened half a dozen years ago.

here (click to enlarge) is the screen-shot of his confused argument trying to make present akon publicity stunt antics into a fundamental right to life issue using that long past shah rukh khan incident.


anyway what are facts when indi.padashow and ilk want to put their 'talents' and online assets at the service of a pr machine and pontificate about something or other while insulting sri lankans. huh?

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ps
will i get attacked through second hand blogs for pointing out who is helping out in cheap publicity stunts? lol

update
screenshots and captions etc added later. also few changes to text were made.

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challenge: name a single real news story that was censored in sri lanka recently

opposition propagandists and terrorist propagandists claim that sri lankans are not informed about what is happening in sri lanka bc news here is censored.

imo that is not so.

it can be argued, that not a single real news story, that would have passed a good editor in any reputable newspaper in west, was censored here.

please prove me wrong if you can.

as i always say to anyone who claims sri lankans are kept in the dark by government, go to the nearest newsstand (there are plenty everywhere ) and just read the headlines. not only real news, but unsubstantiated substandard stories, pro and against government/opposition/whatever are available to anyone. same with other media.

yes there was no story about election commissioner held at gun point on 27th, but that was not censorship, bc that never happened. same with sore loser sarath fonseka being 'under siege' and 'hotel arrest'.



to claim that these rumors were spread bc there was censorship of in mainstream independent media and there is a vacuum of information as one of official online unp/sf propagandists, indi 'padashow' samarajiva', does is false.

far from 'running media center for national security press releases', mainstream media in sl did report the facts truthfully. the false rumors were artificially created and spread on purpose to denigrate and undermine sri lanka and its democracy. indi padashow participated in that effort willingly and knowingly. he is now acting the sore loser like his masters' bc his artificial bubble of clueless hopes have burst.

my challenge to him or any anyone else making the same false claims about censorship : name a single properly substantiated news story that was not published in sri lanka recently in context and in proportion to its news value.

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does that mean there is no censorship in sri lanka? no.

attempts at censorship (mostly ineffective) directed against false anti sri lanka propaganda did and is taking place. government is quite open about it.

government blocked the terrorist propaganda website, tamilnet in 2007. some of those who were spreading false rumors through sms texts in bulk on 25th and 27th clearly aimed at denigrating and undermining sri lanka, national security, and sri lankan democracy at that particular point of time have been arrested. formerly terrorist jvp's propaganda rag lanka raided and shut for a day was due to it publishing an article inimical to national security.

note that there was nothing unconstitutional or illegal in any of government actions. for example, police who raided lanka followed proper legal procedure and were armed with court orders, search warrants, etc. same court also allowed the paper to reopen.

however i would support use of legal force only if these ppl were either intending to use force, conspiring with those who did, or somehow engaging in activities that could very well result in harm to sri lankans (such as disclosing details of intelligence operations as alleged about lanka article). since investigations are continuing we don't know enough to judge specifically about recent actions.

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i personally do not approve any kind of censorship, of news or of propaganda.

i believe in countering false propaganda by exposing the propagandists and their real loyalties to the world with evidence.

that is why when government blocked the terrorist propaganda website, tamilnet, i protested. even though i detest what that website is doing. i also helped literally thousands of ppl to counter the block bc my post is in top 10/20 search results for relevant keywords in google.lk. (btw one of the reasons this blog gets so many visitors is that i have posted lot of practically useful posts in the past).

similarly i have never called for banning corrupt peacenik sanjana hattotuwa's groundviews blog or its predecessor moju. even though both published blatantly untrue terrorist propaganda.

i believe in exposing their lies to sunlight through confronting them with facts and reason. aggressively so.

if the propagandists are allied to terrorists, their pro terrorist connections and lies should be exposed, whether they be tamilnet or groundviews. their racist ideologies and prejudices should be laid bare. eventually truth will triumph. tamilnet has lost all credibility. these days ppl visit it only to know how the terrorist pussies are spinning a particular story, not for facts. moju was deleted by sanjana when the criminal burden of its terrorist parroting lies became too much to sustain. note how sanjana hattotuwa is not maintaining an archive copy of moju site (even though he is maintaining such for various others).

if the propagandists were working to undermine national security and sri lankan democracy, and their actions do not go beyond mere propaganda, i would support and be satisfied with any effort to expose their lies and connections.

so when one of the online unp/sf propagandists, blogger indi 'padashow' samarajiva and same terrorist parrot sanjana hattotuwa' and their suckerboys like dinidu de alwis began to spread false rumors in blogosphere and in twitter on 25th and 27th (complementing their colleagues who were spreading the same lies in bulk offline through sms text etc.) principled thing to do was to expose them for what they are, as i said at the time.

in fact exposure of their lies, hypocrisy, bias and loyalties, based on their actions and facts should continue as long as they continue to engage in propaganda.


to conclude,

there is no news censorship in sri lanka, there was/are legal attempts underway to curb propagandist who may be undermining national security and democracy.

i do not believe in curbing even propagandists as long as they are nothing but propagandists. best way to counter propagandists is to expose them, their connections, and confront them with facts and reason .

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ps
on purely personal scale, with regard to censorship, i have not even called for removal of unp propagandist indi 'padashow' samarajiva's online thuggery against me, conducted through a second hand blog at present, from even kottu.

i have satisfied myself (in addition to documenting his disgusting activity for record purposes) with pointing out the hypocrisy and double standards indi.padashow applies to those who do his dirty work, in contrast to treatment meted out to those who used similar tactics against terrorists. former is encouraged and promoted while latter, like satire site tamilnet.tv, are banned from kottu.

wonder what indi 'padashow' samarajiva's kottu cocoon defenders have to say about this double standard.

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sore loser chronicles 1: 'brave' sarath fonseka was 'under siege' in a hotel [updated]

sarath fonseka was under 'siege' and 'house arrest' at a luxury hotel

you see, he did not make violent threats against his opponents to be carried out immediately after victory. if he mistakenly did, that was mere rhetoric. of course.

also his supporters had not booked lots of rooms for 400 ex military personnel on election night. so you see government placing very polite military around the hotel for security is an 'overreaction' instead of a prudent security measure. fonseka and his friends were not planning on anything. oh yes.

it was a very typical 'siege'

his friends could go in and out freely, except for a standard issue security check. lot of other ppl including tourists got on with their business, entertainment, and relaxation, at the same hotel at the same time. very definition of a 'siege' huh? very 'brave' of him to endure this.

he was under 'hotel' ... sorry 'house arrest' but he had total freedom of movement as military spokesman was saying from morning of 27th. sf 'bravely' said he did not want to go bc he fears assassination. no, not by security around the hotel, but by some unknown entity. as everyone knows, sf is so totally not given to making melodramatic statements. so this assassination threat and arrest must be true. totally!

sri lankans were inundated with sms texts to that effect. and much more. online sri lankans even got blog posts and twitter updates, plenty of them, from some of sf's/unp's /peacenik's/terrorist's loyal online propagandists. it must be true then.

finally, and this will bring complete conviction, he proved the truth of his words by leaving the hotel and going to his house totally unharmed and unbothered just hours after his press conferences where he uttered those 'brave' and 'noble' words!

oh i forgot to mention he freely scheduled, canceled, scheduled again, and finally held, press conferences for groups of reporters during the whole time he was 'under siege'. he also spoke to some individual reporters in private in person.

for a few who totally did not want to dramatize the whole thing and appear privileged, he spoke 'on the phone' even though they could easily have visited him if both wanted; 'election loser house arrested and under siege, tense situation, troops around, but great reporter i am, i interviewed him on the phone!' editors were told afterward, and news copy written to imply same. others merely omitted the 'on the phone' part.

meanwhile, rest of the country was celebrating or accepting with graceful resignation their candidates' massive victory or defeat announced by election commissioner in proper manner after a mostly peaceful election.

of course all that was not interesting compared to the 150% genuine 'siege' and 'house arrest'. as far as (esp western) reporters were concerned. you don't get your name to top of news websites, front page of newspapars, or perhaps 30sec on tv, by covering ppl eating kiribath in joy. you get that by writing words like 'seige' and 'house arrest'. same reason why they decided not to carry (spoil sport) government's denial of any 'siege' or 'house arrest'.

that is how 'totally unbiased' and 'totally non racist' western reporters covering sri lanka should behave;

ignore the millions of votes and legitimate authority, believe words of one man in a hotel.

that was a great victory for freedom of expression ! no doubt!


to be continued ...

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note:
btw stormcrow has written an excellent and serious post about after election shenanigans.

update after tinker777's comment below
among the 'totally true' sms sent by sf's/unp's /peacenik's/terrorist's propagandists was this. allegedly from sarath foneska's daughter, long tweeted here by terrorist parrot sanjana hattotuwa. who, as you can see added words 'unconfirmed' but still went on spreading it for the sake of 'brave' and 'besieged' fonseka family. not to mention sirasa empty of surrounding soldiers. will do anything for the 'cause' is sanjana's motto.

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hypocrisy of indi.padashow's election spam and 'illegal' campaigning for sarath fonseka

indi of indi.ca and padashow blogs, sunday times columnist, person who ran unp online campaign in 2005, and son of a former political appointee whose patrons are now in sarath fonseka camp, is presently sitting in unp office and spewing out pro sarath fonseka propaganda from at least one of his blogs; indi.ca (he has so many others under various unacknowledged names).

his main complaints; mahinda rajapaksa has not stopped campaigning! even though it is 'illegal' to campaign in the last few days and on election day! what are these illegal campaigning tactics? getting himself indirectly referenced in ads, pasting posters etc, and some faux election complaint website allegedly run (according to indi) by mr camp .


(click images to enlarge)

now lets see what indi.padashow doing?
he is collecting complaints and documenting them for spreading . see this tweet



he is spreading unsubstantiated dangerous irresponsible rumors about bombs and such, received from sf supporters at second or third hand.


all this while he is working for unp and has endorsed sarath fonseka!
did anyone say faux complaints? lol

iow, if you want to file a faux complaint, don't go to alleged faux website run by some supporter of mr, go to indi's faux complaint office in unp office. they are the same thing from different parties.

same with illegal campaigning, indi.padashow in his website is campaigning for sarath fonseka today! in his hypocritical indignation he also forget such obvious facts like how sarath fonseka got interviewed on sirasa tv at normal news hour on sunday pushing news back by 15min. (sirasa is tv version of leader newspapers. both part of unp propaganda machinery). what about all those sf posters all around colombo today?

did anyone say hypocrite!!!

btw i am only commenting on his hypocrisy. as far as i am concerned he is free to campaign for unp and sf if he wants.

after all, political parties in all democracies exploit loopholes in campaign laws to get their message out. to pretend, as indi does, that it is one sided and only practiced by mr, while doing the same thing himself is hypocrisy. has he really not heard of 'push polls', '527 groups', etc in usa even tough he lived there? lol @ hypocrite

why is he acting thus?
indi was perhaps informed, what experienced unp hands in the office knew from first, that sf is going to lose big. (indi himself is clueless about all things sri lankan. among other basic facts he did not know until few day ago that one can mark 3 preferences in the ballot). in fact that is what unp leader ranil wickremasinghe's wants; get sf defeated, remain party leader/opposition leader for next 6 years hoping for better luck then.

indi behavior now is perhaps a crazed reaction to final realization that his often claimed competitive close election is far from real, a figment of pure imagination, created by silly racist myths about 'sinhalese' splitting votes and 'tamils' deciding, and manipulated election projections.

perhaps he was ordered by his bosses to use online propaganda to start creating the impression that election was rigged; always the default position of losers in sri lanka .

whatever the motivation, hypocrisy is obvious.

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election myths - 'sinhala' votes will split, 'tamil' votes will decide

as soon as sarath fonseka announced he was running against mahinda rajapaksa for presidency, some people started claiming that 'sinhala' votes will be split down the middle between them and the candidate who gets the 'tamil' vote will be the winner. they are still repeating it.

we will examine this claim closely, and show it to be a result of pure imagination with no basis in reality; a myth. in fact a racist myth.

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before examining it, we have to see who is making this claim, for our greater understanding.

if you look closely, you will see that it originates from unp/sf propagandists, ngo peaceniks, and/or ltte terrorist supporters (some ppl are all three at once). they have an interest in making this claim bc it is one of the methods by which they try to create the impression that the election is competitive, when in fact it was clear from the start that mr is going to win by a big margin. iow, this falls in to same category as the manipulated self created election projections and and fake polls going round. no surprise then that in the sl blogosphere it is indi.padashow (owner of indi.ca and padashow blogs, sunday leader columnist, son of a former political appointee, and person who ran unp's online campaign in 2005, etc.) and ppl of same ilk who are spreading this lie.

this is also repeated by some foreign reporters. reporters with a sloppy substandard work ethic prefer to confine their sources of information to cocooned pseudo elite class in sri lanka (sort of ppl who think in english and believe that makes them 'better' than other sri lankans). some of these reporters and their employers have tamil diaspora in west as a market for their content. given that racist ltte supporters are driving the conversation among diaspora the content providers catering for that market develop a bias for same attitudes. we saw that during military operations, we see that today. unquestioning acceptance and spreading of this myth by these media outlets is another good example of this bias.

corrupt ngo bigwigs like chris patten of international crisis group, frustrated that their support for our murderers did not bear fruit, will repeat it as a matter of course.

now if this is a myth, they will have egg on their faces on 27th. not that such shameless ppl will care.

same ppl, ltte supporters, peaceniks, unp leadership and propagandists, same foreign reporters and media outlets, and moronic bigwigs at international organizations (and of course sl bloggers who take their lead from those groups) got it wrong before (predicting ltte terrorists will not be defeated).

now as then, accepting racist myths as real will lead to same results.

-

now we will examine the claim in detail.

the claim betray the tendency see and interpret everything is sri lanka primarily and simply on ethnic terms, when reality sri lanka is more complex. as such i call it racist. above mentioned groups always commit this error.

let me be clear, mere categorization of voters as 'tamil', 'sinhala', 'muslim' etc, for analysis does not make it racist.

however assuming that vast majority of voters of a particular ethnic group make decisions based primary in their 'race' interests is racist. yes some ethnic groups in world history may have behaved like that, but it is rare, very. so before assuming any such thing the one who makes it must show the evidence of such a thing happening.

'sinhala' votes will split claim
cliam: 'sinhala' votes will split bc 'sinhalese' wanted the tamil tiger ltte terrorists defeated. as such when two 'war heroes' are contesting sinhalese will split their votes more or less evenly.

equivalent of a 'wtf!' would be the reaction of most sri lankans to this absurd logic.

i will break this claim down further into implicit/explicit sub claims.

claim: 'only 'sinhala' ppl wanted terrorists defeated'.

of course not.

everyone who respects life, human rights, freedom, justice, and democracy, wanted them defeated. anyone who really loves sri lanka wanted them defeated. and such ppl were certainly not confined to sinhalese.

claim: 'sinhalese' wanted ltte defeated bc it was an ethnic conflict between sinhala military and tamil ltte.

again no .

majority of sinhalese did not want ltte terrorists defeated bc of racist motives. sinhalese just like the rest of sri lankans wanted the murderers defeated to prevent them from killing, maiming, threatening, and oppressing, sri lankans (including themselves). they wanted a peaceful united sri lanka.

to equate ltte with tamils is simply racist.

vast majority of sinhalese, like most sri lankans, simply did not appreciate being terrorized and blackmailed into making concessions to an armed criminal gang, for decades.

claim: each candidate's responsibility/credit for the victory over terrorists will be the primary motivating factor for 'sinhalese' vote.

now if we replace word 'sinhalese' with more accurate (due to reasons explained above ) 'all sri lankans who value victory over terrorists' to get rid of racism, we get a modified claim

modified claim: each candidate's responsibility/credit for the victory over terrorists will be the primary motivating factor for all sri lankans who value victory over terrorists'

still wrong.

it is true that if one of them has been a person who has not contributed anything or even been a hindrance to defeating terrorists (ie ranil wickremesinghe) that factor would have played a major part in decision of the voter not to vote for him. basically anyone who was a peacenik and was weak in face of terrorist murderers is not acceptable to sri lankans.

but that does not mean, without such a contrast, sri lankans who wanted ltte defeated will split their votes more or less equally between candidates who did make a contribution.

far from it.

they will look at other factors and other issues. they will look at each candidate's polices, and their supporters (and why such support is extended). they will look at their personalities. they will observe what they say and how they behave. they will evaluate the propaganda of campaigns. voters will also take in to account traditional patronage relationships and loyalties.

individual voters will weigh all these factors according to their selfish interests and then decide (in most cases this will happen subconsciously). that is how voters in all democracies behave. and that is how it will happen here.

to disregard all this, and predict the voting decision, based solely on a decision about who gets credit for defeating terrorists, is foolish.

related to this, to claim that if both candidates contributed similarly to war effort, they will get more or less equal vote shares is also false and foolish.

btw voter are knowledgeable enough to know that one had greater responsibility by definition. (but as i said credit for war victory alone will not be the main motivating factor)

now for the other main part of the claim.

claim: 'tamil' votes will decide

no they won't

for anyone to claim that tamils (meaning sri lankan tamils) are a uniform group having common interests that will swing vast majority of them to one or other candidates is unrealistic. certainly racists ideologues of terrorist ltte claimed they did have such interests. they also claimed to be the sole representative of tamils and their interests. but they had to enforce that false claim by killing other tamils (with different ideas) by the thousands. that claim has no more validity than claims of hitler about germans .

tamils, like other sri lankans described above, will consider many factors before voting.

of course their experience of terrorist oppression and military operations to defeat terrorists was more personal than most sri lankans'. some were victims of military due to accidents or due to ltte using them as human shields. some may have been willing or unwilling collaborators of ltte's fascist regime. some may have had ltte cadres in family. so there maybe tamils who are less appreciative of efforts to defeat terrorists and feel an antipathy towards those who led that effort. but is that common to all tamils? no. even with those who feel that way, will the reactions at elections due to these factors be uniform? again no.

tamil voters' decision, again as with others described above, will depend on various factors, personality of the each individual voter, and their experiences . it is foolish to generalize theirs reactions.

after removing racist prejudices about ethnic groups we can state the original claim differently.

modified claim: votes of those who appreciate the victory over terrorists will split due to both candidates being war heroes, as such those who did not appreciate it will decide the elections.

while not offensive bc it is not racist, even this modified claim is still wrong and even absurd.

it assumes that those who appreciate the victory will split (more or less evenly), while those who do not appreciate it will not split.

that is irrational.

in fact, due to ppl weighing lots factors as described above, both groups will split. imo they will split unevenly. in fact any public indication that one group is trending one way will most likely create an opposite trend in other group.

iow, the claim is a myth. on all levels.

-

some speculations based on what we examined

now imo most of those other factors that voter will weigh will favor mahinda rajapaksa. that was obvious from provincial polls last year when his party got close to 70% votes. nothing has happened to those factors. so to begin with both groups were probably split in favor of mr.

as i predicted sf's lack a political organization forced him to inevitable mistakes (accepting conditional support of unp, jvp and others) and then he committed an avoidable mistake by accepting conditional support of unrepentant former ltte puppets in tna/itak, probably under the false impressions that 'tamils will decide' and tna represents tamils. iow, his biggest political problem got bigger due to his own actions.

if there is a trend favoring sf in the camp of those who didn't like to see ltte defeated due to some peaceniks and unrepentant ltte supporters extending him support, an opposite trend has started (and is encouraged by mr propagandists) among sri lankans who did like to see ltte defeated and want to prevent ltte supporters and appeasers regaining power.

in any case, the ppl who don't like the victory over terrorists are a much much smaller group than those who celebrate that victory. as such even in the unlikely event of first group favoring sf 100%, whole of that support is unlikely to cover the gap between him and mr in second group.

due to all these reasons, and contrary to above myth, mahinda will win, by a big margin. my prediction as before.

all this is speculation. but speculations of a person who lives in reality and depends on reason, rather than on racist myths.

෴

ps
btw here is a small myth test for regular bloggers and their readers.

if those who appreciate ltte's defeat are evenly split as claimed by the myth, why is it that all the bloggers who were in support of military defeat of ltte during the operations are now supporting mr?

if there is a split, it is among bloggers who were opposed to military operations, who are now either supporting sf, mr, or writing silly cliché ridden posts agonizing whether to vote or not to vote.
lol

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massive mahinda victory to close election? how sunday leader columnist indi.padashow twisted election projection data

on january 7th indi.ca blog (run by the sunday leader columnist who also runs the scurrilous padashow blog) published a "hypothetical analysis ...on what could happen" at presidential election. the conclusion of that election projection was in his own words "very hypothetical, but looks competitive" with both major candidates getting close to 50% of vote.

in this post we will look at the data in this "analysis" and show that a 'competitive' / 'close' (as he keeps on repeating his posts) election can only be projected by manipulating data to suit that outcome.

without such obvious manipulation even his data shows a massive victory for mahinda rajapaksa.

i am making available a screenshot of the post and a copy of word document attached to that post separately in case anybody decides to change things.

i also made a comment there (which said most of what i write here, in brief) and was censored as usual. his censorship is personal. he does allow some critical comments by others but nothing from me. since i don't make comments under any other name all my comments get censored. of course he has a right to do as he please in his blog.

before going into data we have to ask, who did the 'analysis'?

not indi.padashow. he has trouble calculating simple percentages and having grown up in foreign countries is generally ignorant about most things sri lankan. this is one of his recent statements about the election. (click to enlarge)

lol. anyone who has even heard about the law or has seen the ballot and voted in a presidential election here, knows that it is possible to indicate 3 preferences.

funny isn't it, that such an ignoramus is presuming to lecture sri lankans about law and politics. funnier still that so called 'newspaper' sunday leader ( which has taken a management decision to back sarath foneka ) would employ him as columnist. even funnier that unp used this person, son of a political appointee (corrupt by son's standard for accusing others of corruption), to run their online campaign (nothing more than a website really ) in 2005. (he used to actually edit comments posted in that unp website so that even unfavorable comments appear favorable. not my comments, but then frequent blogger morquendi's, hardly a friend of mine). [indi does not deny any of this if pressed (given the evidence in his own blog and others, he can't anyway), but is not into voluntary full disclosure either as demanded by journalistic ethics. iow a worthy and fitting columnist for the rag sunday leader.]

if not indi who made the election projection?
in the post he says "i think the document is from parliament somehow". my request for more information on that point went unanswered.

the properties of word doc attached to post says it was authored by "ajiwadeen_m". we have no idea who that is .

there is also the fact that same numbers and same documents appeared in at least two or three other places (including some pro ltte terrorist blogs/websites, not the ones blocked in sl). indi makes no reference to this in his post though at least one was clearly earlier than his.

indi also tweeted this,


since he does not provide the details of author, but published them on his blog, we will consider them his, until we get further information .

a look at the data.
i will confine myself to most obvious unexplained discrepancies.

he provides two forecasts based on ethnic and district votes (forecast I & II). lets start with first one.

Major Ethnic Groups	Valid	MR		SF
	Votes	Votes	%	Votes	%
Sinhalese	8,424,360	4,633,398	55.0%	3,731,991	44.3%
SL Tamils	868,198	182,322	21.0%	607,738	70.0%
Muslims	1,039,375	291,025	28.0%	744,193	71.6%
Ind. Tamils	618,859	326,138	52.7%	290,864	47.0%
Others	33,090	12,905	39.0%	19,854	60.0%
TOTAL	10,983,881	5,445,788	49.58%	5,394,640	49.11%

there is no explanation as to where he got these numbers.

according to this muslims comprise 9.4% of valid votes. according to department of statistics and they make up about 7-8% of population.

imo the figure for sl tamils is way too high and indian tamil figure way too low. we do not know true figures bc 2001 census is incomplete due to terrorist control of several districts then. as such there is no valid source for this sort of a breakdown.

for now we will proceed with these rather shaky looking figures

muslim vote
he says 71.6% of muslims will vote for sarath fonseka? why? he does not give a valid explanation even in word doc. muslim politicians and parties are split. if anything more elected muslim mps support mahinda rajapaksa than oppose him. nor is there any proof of such an anti mahinda tendency among muslims in recent elections.
a more realistic and rational projection would split the vote 50/50, or 45/55. nobody rational will go beyond 40/60. but indi padashow projection does.

now assume it was 40/60, instead of 28/72, among muslims, what will be the results? 1-1.5% increase in mahinda total vote percentage with similar decline in fonseka's

indian tamil vote
( i prefer to call them up country sri lankan tamil but will stick with this name for now)
here he says vote will split 52.7/47.
now ceylon worker's congress (cwc) the main political party of indian tamils, as well as second biggest, upcountry people's front (upf) are supporting president. only few defectors from them are with fonseka. and historically cwc has delivered 70+% of the indian tamil vote. in every election it had defections (usually the same ppl) but that does not seem to hamper its vote delivery. but indi padshow's number cruncher assumes for unknown reasons this time will be different. why? no reason given

now assume this vote splits conservatively at 60/40, instead of 53/47 as in indi projection, or more realistic 70/30, what will be the results? 0.5+% increase in mahinda total vote percentage with similar decline in foneska's.

these two almost certain but still very conservative roll back of unexplained irrational manipulations will result in a 51.5/47 split in total votes. a 4.5% or about 500,000 vote margin. realistic vote splits among muslims and indian tamils will double even that .

sri lankan tamil vote
i am not going to say anything about sri lankan tamil vote split. i don't know how it will split. it could be same as this prediction says(21/70/9) or it could be 40/50/10 or even 45/45/10.

anything is possible, so i am not going to speculate on any manipulations there.

ordinary tamils here, in india, or in diaspora, have generally rejected racist terrorist supporters ( like tna/itak) by not voting or voting for others if they get a chance .

as i said before i don't think sri lankan tamil vote will be high as these numbers. quite possibly it will be lower than indian tamil votes.

but lets leave him with his 21/70/9 split without change .

sinhalese vote
here he gives a 55/44 split. in recent provincial council elections the split in mostly sinhalese areas was 68-70/31-29.

however this is best examined by looking at his district based forecast (forecast II).

let us concentrate on kurunegala district (with no special connection to either candidate)

this is the last provincial council election result -
valid votes 709,186, upfa 497,366 (70%), unp+jvp 209,632 (30%)
in the padashow projection -
valid votes 938,397, mr 495,474 (53%), sf 436,355 (47%)

in other words, valid votes go up by 230k (which is ok since more ppl vote in national elections than in provincial elections),
but upfa vote fall by 2k (and 17% as share). almost all the extra votes go to sf, increasing his vote share by 17%

is that realistic? of course not.

reasons for this manipulation?
in word doc he says he reduced mahinda's vote in each district by 10-15% from what upfa got in 2008/09 provincial elections. no explanation why a major party will get less votes from a larger number of valid votes in a national election than in a provincial election.
he also says that since unp doubled its vote numbers from 2004 provincial election to 2005 presidential election, he is assuming it will do so again.

here are the actual figures for kurunegala
2004 pc election - valid 604,979, upfa 362,084, unp+slmc 240,078.
2005 presidential election - valid 896,497, mr 468,507, rw 418,809.
valid votes went up by 290k, upfa votes went up by 105, unp went up by 178k.

iow, he replicates 2004-2005 unp vote increase in pc to presidential elections, but does not want to do likewise with upfa's. bias much?

now let us assume that 2004-2005 scenario gets reenacted without the irrational manipulation .

we assume that valid vote increase from 2009-2010 is as he says, 230k, then instead of all of that going to sf as in indi projection, only 2/3rds goes to sf as in 2005. that would be about 154k. upfa will get other 1/3rd, 76k.

then the results for kurunegala in 2010 will be, valid votes 938,397, mr 573,000 (61%), sf 364,000 (39%) (in every step i rounded up for sf while rounding down for mr).

this is a percentage difference of 8% and in number of votes, 77k (compared to indi projection) for kurunegala .

same with other districts. it is less observable in districts where pc elections were held in 2008 before the war ended, but still there.

so even if we add only 1/3rd of increase in vote from pc to presidential elections to mr, and add the rest to sf , we get an 5%+ increase in mr vote share, over what indi.padashow gave mr in his projection.

this conservative change applied to his all island district based forecast (forecast II) results will give us a overall vote split of 53/46.
remember this accepts without question his figures for north and east provinces, as well as colombo and central (which as you may guess were similarly manipulated but will require lot of space to untangle, so i am not doing that here)

if we apply the above logic to sinhalese votes in forecast I, we get a 60/39 split in that segment. adding 418k (3-4%) to mr's total vote share, while reducing sf total by that amount.
even if we, to be on the safe side, reduce it by half, we still get 57/42. adding 210k (2%) to mr vote share while reducing sf's by same.

if we combine sinhalese, muslim, and indian tamil, sanitized vote numbers we get a overall split of 53.5/45. a 900k, 8 .5%, margin .which can hardly be called 'close' .


here are the sanitized results for forecast I - 53.5/45
here are the sanitized results for forecast II - 53/46

imo the vote margin will be bigger, as i have been saying from the start

remember i have not sanitized most of the manipulations, only the most obvious and easily demonstrated ones (esp in forecast II). i have also not sanitized his initial questionable valid vote numbers.

also as anyone who followed this carefully would have realized, when sanitizing manipulations i took a very conservative route (from rounding down votes for mr & up for sf, to cutting the possible mr increases by half )

given all that, it is safe to say even numbers of sarath foneska's devoted supporter indi.padashow, stripped of obvious manipulations, indicate that sf is in for a trashing.

෴

ps
by all means point to any errors on my part if any .
pss
i wonder if i get banned from kottu this time, for exposing indi padashow 's doings again. even though there is nothing false here. lol

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