Thus was wrong about Methadrone, sort of, uh, I guess

June 24, 2010 – 11:51 am
Actually I quite like smoking and all the things advertised on this poster so it shows how messed up I am and how tricky and pointless it is to pontificate about this sort of malarky.

A couple of posts back Thus got on an uncharacteristically high horse about the dangers of Methadrone. My comments were not based on the government’s (subsequent) decision to ban the Chinese designer drug, but on reports from people I know and respect that it is generally horribly moreish and does one’s head in on an industrial scale. While the same or similar might apply to all sorts of legal highs, including alchohol, Methadrone/Mephedrone is a particularly potent drug.

But there is still no evidence that it kills people, per se. In March, after the death of two teenagers on Humberside, the then government of Gordon Brown jerked its knees and banned the drug, causing the resignation of Professor Nutt (Thus passim) who appears to be a bit of a blowhard but who probably had a point about the government using drugs legislation for political purposes.

A few weeks ago, after the general election, it was (not very widely) reported that Methadrone was not, after all, the root cause of the deaths. Without impugning the intelligence and impartiality of our glorious police force, which we all know is wonderful, the most worrying part about the ‘findings’ is that the police may have confused the word ‘methadrone’ with ‘methadone’ – a heroin substitute which the boys may also have been taking.

Notwithstanding the above, I apologise for straying into the drugs debate. The problem with Methadrone, like Crack, is that it’s far too cheap for the hit it provides. Apparently. But I don’t know what I’m talking about and I’m certain that neither the police nor the government do either.

John J Kelly

By John Kelly | Posted in Drugs legislation, Law and order, citizens' rights, civil rights | Tagged | Comments (0)

Conclusive evidence that Oxbridge produces financially illiterate, lying sociopaths.

May 24, 2010 – 8:40 pm

Ed Balls went to Oxbridge, thus making him eminently eligible to lead ‘New’ Labour through its next incarnation as the Pinochio Party. Then again, so did all the other ‘contenders’ as did most of the Coalition cabinet, but let’s stick with Balls for a minute . . . .

David Miliband/Ed Balls/Ed Milliband/David Balls - the new face of New Labour

Responding to a question from Peter Allen on BBC Radio 5 Live , Balls claimed that the £6 billion UK emergency budget cuts announced today would cost ‘hundreds of thousands of jobs.’ When asked to clarify, he repeated that the £6 billion cuts – many of which are earmarked to cull quangos, civil servants’ travel expenses and the like, would result in many hundreds of hundreds of thousands of  job cuts.

In perspective, UK unemployment increased by 53,000 over the past quarter alone to reach 2.51 million, the highest figure since the three months to December 1994 (three years before the New Labour project). By this reckoning, the Balls boys could have fixed the economy and romped home at the election for less than the price of an RBS bailout.

But they didn’t.

Oxbridge taught me the value of a banana. Let me lead you.

Balls had the further audacity to claim that the Lib Dem/Tory Coalition was bent on doing ‘what the Germans have told Greece to do’ – as if this was some sort of madness on the part of those whacky spendthrift Krauts. He furthermore blamed the UK recession on global economic conditions but claimed we were better off than most because we entered with lower levels of debt – oblivious to the fact that New Labour inherited a budget surplus from the Tories but have left the UK in its most indebted state since the Second World War.

As most people in the real world know, the £6 billion cuts announced today are a prelude to very scary and probably destructive slash and burn measures later this year, as the world’s credit markets, under pressure from Euro defaulters and other scallywags, take an increasingly dim view of Britain’s Stalinist-inspired cardboard economy and question our ability to repay burgeoning debts with exports of talent shows, sweary celebrity chefs and private equity Ponzi schemes.

Keep that banana away from me. I know it's not Fair Trade.

There is no question that we cannot continue to run a balance of trade deficit and public sector debt on anything like existing levels, but the question facing the Coalition is how to stimulate export trade in what increasingly looks like another downturn while enacting necessary cuts without choking off the domestic economy. By anyone’s definition, the UK is in crisis. Anyone but Balls, that is.

Andy Burnham: turned out nice again? No, it hasn't

The Rocky Horror Show

New Labour, meanwhile, is staging a talent show of its own. Ed Balls, running on the Gordon Brown’s posterior ticket is jostling with Banana Boy David Milliband, running on the Blair Duke Nuke ‘em ticket, Ed Milliband, running on the Eco-by-gum Worzel Gummidge ticket and Andy Burnham, running on the George Formby Blackpool tram ticket. Diane Abbott, running on the black, proud-to-be-working-class and never mind about sending my kid to public school ticket and other, yet-to-be-revealed whack-jobs may yet emerge to remind us that our politicians are a reflection of the economy – weak, preening, deluded, second-rate.

The one thing they all have in common is that they all went to Oxbridge, as did 18 members of the Coalition Cabinet. What does this tell us? This is Britain, where every middle class white person (and the occasional VERY CLEVER and VERY PUSHY black person) has the right to become elitist, useless and destroy the economy. All you need to do is blag your way into Oxbridge.

I have very little confidence that the Coalition will do the right thing and enact genuine efficiency initiatives, sensitively protecting the jobs and services provided by front line workers while cutting the cadres of overpaid middle managers who have mismanaged the public sector to its present parlous state. I know this because they are incapable of listening to the people who know how to get the work done, and cannot possibly empathise with the people for whom the work needs to be done. That’s because they were educated in dreaming spires from which they never saw the need to emerge. How do I know this? because I went to Oxford. I left after a term, though that’s no excuse.

Oxbridge is the problem, not the solution. Maybe the cuts should start there. But they won’t.

By John Kelly | Posted in British identity, Political spin, Politics, UK politics, democracy, political theory | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

New Labour gambles on turkeys not voting for Christmas in May

March 30, 2010 – 2:39 pm

The UK media have been scratching their pointy heads of late as the opinion poll gap between New Labour and the Tories has closed to indicate at best a hung parliament. Despite looming and actual strikes, a record budget deficit with no prospect of recovery, real and impending tax rises, unemployment levels at a 30 year high, a weakened currency with no corresponding rise in exports, threats of public sector cuts, particularly in the education sector, a costly, murderous unwinnable, and strategically inexplicable war and a hopeless, bullying unelected gargoyle with little or no charisma, the nation apparently remains undecided. Why?

Leaving aside their general incompetence, bad advisors, dodgy donors, hooray Henry Metrocentricity and extreme reluctance to clarify, much less detail, any sensible policies, even the New Tories should have been able to savage the field of half-dead sheep that passes for the incumbent UK government. Part of the reason is demographics – Britain’s ‘much-admired’ first past the post voting system has been comprehensively gerrymandered so as to make it very difficult indeed for the party which gets a popular majority to ensure a working majority of seats. This has worked in favour of the Tories in the past, so no sympathy there. To ensure a landslide along the lines of the Labour 1997 victory, the Tories would need to be looking at a 15 point opinion poll lead at this stage. This time last year, it was trending that way. So whatever could be the matter?

It’s the economy, stupid. Or rather, the bubble economy which constitutes the UK public sector. Under New Labour, it now accounts for 6.1 million jobs out of 21.6 million full time workers, representing 28 percent of the UK workforce, the vast majority of which must be assumed to be ‘natural’ Labour voters. In addition, there are 7.1 million part time workers, many of whom either work in the public sector and participate in McJob schemes. That’s not to count the 2.3 million higher education students and 176,000 academics who teach them. The vast majority of these cadres wouldn’t be considered natural Tories. – nor have the Tories given them any reason to change their collective minds – but now they aren’t so sure of their masters’ intentions either. Proposed Labour cuts in the Higher Education budgets will definitely reduce jobs and the number of student places, plus a growing wave of discontent amongst workers in areas of the civil service, Network Rail and (privatised) British Airways, may mean that a significant number will lose faith in the ‘devil you know’ nostrum and punish the incumbents.

Moreover, despite the recession and clear evidence that the sporran is empty, Gordon’s job creation schemes, designed to massage grisly employment figures, have continued apace. Overall unemployment rose by 54,000 in the three months to January 2010, but this was mitigated by 20,000 new jobs in the NHS – 1.3 million employees – alone. Employment in the private sector fell by 61,000 in the last quarter of 2009 alone. Nobody can seriously believe that this version of Maoist economics can lead anywhere but to the IMF.

Voter turnout in the 2001 and 2005 General Elections was 59.4 and 61.4 percent respectively, compared to 77.7 and 71.4 percent in 1992 and 1997. John Major’s Tories won with a vastly-reduced majority in recession conditions mainly because Neil Kinnock’s ‘nearly-new’ Labour failed to convince the electorate that they represented a viable alternative. Five years later, the outgoing Major administration left Tony Blair and Gordon Brown with a budget surplus at a time of unprecedented global economic growth. Having put the budget back on an even keel, Major lost, apparently, because he couldn’t drum up the necessary ‘feelgood factor.’ From 1997-2001, after a four year period of pretending to adhere to the ‘golden mean,’ Gordon set about taxing, spending and consequently wrecking the exchequor just in time for a global economic downturn.

With the stakes as high as they are, I predict that the 2010 percentage voter turnout will be as high as in 1997. It would require epic numbers of turkeys to vote for Christmas for the pink-tinged Cameronites to secure anything like a landslide on a Blairite scale, given that from 2001 to the present time, the much-trumpeted growth in UK jobs has been driven by the public sector, so whatever goes down, we are unlikely to see a landslide. But public sector workers will need to weigh up as to what degree the inevitable budget cuts which will follow the election will be more savage under the Tories than under Labour. Meanwhile, those in the private sector know that taxes will rise whoever sits astride the woolsack. They won’t vote Labour.

So I’ll stick my neck out and say that, despite the unconvincing Tory arguments, most voters are going to wake up on polling day, survey the mess and vote for anyone but Gordon. The Tories will win a reasonable working majority, show their true colours and set about vigorously dismantling New Labour’s constituency, the public sector, partly because of the imperative to reduce the obese deficit and partly because that’s what they are ideologically inclined to do. This will be a shame, since it employs a lot of hardworking people who work for the public good, who deserved better leadership than they got under the Great Helmsman.

Thus the next election, which should be about the environment, sustainability, public sector reform, a fairer society, education, training, infrastructure and health will be won by the Tories on the feelbad factor, and Britain’s half-assed stab at the Middle Way will be history.

John J Kelly

By John Kelly | Posted in Economics, Education, Policy, UK politics, citizens' rights, democracy, political theory, public sector reform | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Methadrone IS dangerous. Knock it on the head right now

March 29, 2010 – 12:12 pm

Shilly-shallying about what to do about Chinese designer ‘plant food’ drug Methadrone/Mephedrone/MCat is another unwelcome example of how New Labour’s passive/aggressive approach towards protecting citizens’ rights does the reverse. It’s enough to drive a man to spliff.

Last October, former NL drug czar, the (perhaps) aptly named Professor David Nutt resigned/was sacked from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) for stating that so-called Home Secretary Alan Johnson must have been on one if he thought that upgrading cannabis from class C to B was a good trip. I was not surprised when Johnson later confirmed that Prof. Nutt had indeed been sacked, because his ‘advice’ cut across government policy to attack soft targets, such as weed-smoking kids, in order to maintain the pretence that the police, NL’s lard-arsed  political wing, were meeting their targets. Or something like that.

Nutt was sacked for arguing common sense. Alcohol misuse is linked to the overwhelming majority of violent crimes, ditto the number of admissions to hospital accident and emergency departments, breaks up families but is perfectly legal. Weed, and even Ecstasy are far less dangerous. Stoners can’t be arsed to do much more than flop around. Ecstasy becomes dangerous when taken in conjunction with alcohol. Banning one and not the other is a heavy trip down the road to – er  - somewhere else, man.

David Cameron as he might look were he unfortunate enough to become a Methadrone addict

But the Professor killed his own credibility when he strayed into the twilight zone of policy. A couple of his colleagues joined him and nobody apart from the Guardian gave a monkeys, until last weekend somebody called Dr. Polly Taylor also walked the ACMD plank. Speaking on the radio from Amsterdam yesterday – where he was possibly researching the wonders of legalised hash bars (despite what he was saying, there aren’t many left and it’s a load of bollocks to say that drug use in Holland is any less seedy than in the UK) – Professor Nutt reprised his theme that cannabis/weed is less dangerous than alchohol, criminalising it drives the price up, policing it costs money and wastes resources etc. Heavy.

Of course it is, but it’s a different argument. There is a time for expediency, and in the case of Methedrone, aka Mephadrone/M-kat, the time is now. I’m not a user myself, you may be surprised to know, but living in the ballsachingly trendy Bethnal Green/Shoreditch/Hoxton triangle, I know plenty of people with direct experience  - probably more than Alan Johnson or the nutty professor combined – who state categorically that this stuff is very, very bad indeed. Unlike the government or the squabbling scientists I’m happy to hear their unvarnished opinion that Methadrone is more moreish than Ketamine, Amphetamine Sulphide or Cocaine, can quickly reduce kids to a ‘feral’ state and, whether legal or not, creates a burning habit which sucks away money, energy and self-respect. Bummer.

Alan Johnson, as he may appear to David Cameron in his hypothetical state as a Methadrone addict

It is regrettable that political correctness, as represented by Professor Nutt and his grateful-not-to-be-dead academic colleagues, has fetched up against political opportunism, as represented by Alan Johnson and his soon-to-be-dead-in-the-water authoritarian bastard squad. I almost certainly know more about drugs on a first hand level than most of the boneheads in government – not sure about the Tories, though – but surely here is a clear case for decisive legislation. Regardless as to whether it played a small, middling or large part in the recent deaths of three kids, Methadrone is far more dangerous and nasty than weed and hash – think crystal meth and crack cocaine. Criminalising it may well create an underground black market and drive up the price, but it’s facile to argue that notoriety will add to its popularity, since it’s all over the news that the stuff is legal and relatively cheap. Banning its import and resale will only hurt those who wish to go out of their way to use it, and will almost certainly deter recreational/casual/impressionable drug fashionistas. Result.

Ban Methadrone with immediate effect, not because it may or may not have the potential to kill, but because it sure as hell doesn’t do anyone any good. Nor is this a Human Rights issue. If it drives the price up, then boo hoo for the prats who want to use it. And let’s not confuse this with the cannabis/marijuana debate, policy which is in itself influenced by Britain’s costly role as the 51st state of the USA.This is too serious a debate for the chatterati, so while we’re at it, bollocks to the Guardian and the Daily Mail. The drones who write for those rags should get out more. End of.

John J Kelly

By John Kelly | Posted in Culture, Drugs legislation, Law and order, Policy, Political spin, Uk Home Office, Uncategorized, World health, citizens' rights, civil rights, consumerism | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

Australian researchers discover the heaviest element yet known to science

January 31, 2010 – 9:35 am

This report came to me by email, so it must be true.

Queens University researchers have discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (symbol=Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called pillocks. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2 to 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that

Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (symbol=Ad), an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium, since it has half as many pillocks but twice as many morons.

By John Kelly | Posted in British identity, EU policy, International Affairs, Policy, Political spin, Politics, democracy, political theory | Comments (7)

Why Quality is important and why we need more of it

January 5, 2010 – 3:04 pm

A bunch of people out there believe that doing things better is the answer to our economic woes. I can’t argue with that, so I’ve recently joined the Chartered Quality Institute as its External Affairs spokesman, because I firmly believe that until and unless we get to grips with the wholly unnecessary and avoidable malaise which has afflicted our country, we’re doomed to second world status. I’m starting a CQI blog which will argue for a radical change in attitudes. Here’s a preview:

Few would argue that Quality, Service, Value are the cornerstones of a happy, prosperous and competitive economy. It is not good enough to explain the recent painful economic downturn on global macroeconomic conditions and wait for the upturn. No amount of economic or political smoke and mirrors will save a company, much less an economy, from the inevitable consequences of charging too much for indifferent products and services, produced wastefully. A high cost economy with diminishing competitive advantages cannot afford a £130 -160 billion budget deficit, growing at a rate of £11 billion per month.

The CQI is committed to opening a transparent debate as to whether UK Plc wishes to reaffirm its commitment to quality or continue as a casino economy with a few beacon enterprises but a static domestic manufacturing sector and an increasingly outsourced service sector. Politicians acknowledge that cuts in public spending will be necessary to make inroads into this unsustainable deficit, mitigated by improvements in efficiency and productivity. But this begs the question as to why this didn’t happen earlier. The answer is that quality management, in its absolute sense, took a back seat when cash was king.

Public sector net debt has risen from 50 – 60% of UK GDP since 1999 and public spending now accounts for over 43% of the UK national budget, or £13,000 for every adult UK citizen. Unless radical inroads are made to the cost of providing services – or radical cuts - the UK’s credit rating will be downgraded. This will not only affect the government’s ability to borrow,  but will impact on every business left standing.  Only a concerted, nationwide drive towards reducing costs – not reducing the numbers of people in work, by the way – waste reduction but, above all, realistic, sustained continuous improvement, in the way we work, in private and public sectors, will reduce the deficit between what we make and what we consume and enable us to export our surplus, competitively, thus creating jobs. Failure to do so will cripple our economy. This much is self-evident.

The CQI argues that the alternative to slash-and-burn is a root and branch revisiting of the Quality ethos. This in itself begs the question as to how and why we lost sight of these principles. One fundamental reason is that there is a fundamental semantic disconnect between the consumer perception of Quality and its technical application. Consumers value quality. Companies demand it from suppliers, but a significant number of businesses associate the term with quality assurance, compliance and conformance, which they regard as costing time, money and complexity whilst creating little added value. Standards and targets are important – the opposite is no consistency and no goals - but the first is an audit function and the second is an aspiration. The earliest formal definition of Quality states that:

Total quality control is an effective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allow full customer satisfaction. (A.V. Feigenbaum, 1956, Harvard Business Review).

The logic is simple and incontrovertible. Development, maintenance and improvement efforts are the basis of sustainability. Maintenance is relatively easy. Development should be a continous effort, but analysis of successive business cycles have shown that Quality is all-too-often a crisis driven initiative. Step changes in waste reduction, increased productivity, more satisfied customers and higher profits are often followed by a period of maintenance, characterised by audit and target-setting. But without holistic continuous improvement, entropy is inevitable and the root causes re-emerge. At this point the patient blames the medicine and fires the doctor and reaches for a new panacea.

Quality -or whatever you want to call it -  means making and doing things well and then working out how to do things better, at prices people can afford. There is no quick fix or magic potion – quite the reverse. We need to realign the ‘Q’ word and all its powerful nested values, tools and techniques, and rally our workforce around the slogan ‘making things better makes everything better.’ Customers need to be assured by the value and pleasure they derive from buying and using the best products and services that money can buy, not by adherence to international norms and standards. Workers need to be proud to deliver these goods, confident that in doing so, their careers and futures are assured. Anything less is simply not Quality. This much I know.

John J. Kelly

By John Kelly | Posted in British identity, Business, Development, Economics, Education, Finance, Welfare State, consumers, management strategy, manufacturing, public sector reform | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

Afghan democracy postponed in an orgy of hypocrisy

November 3, 2009 – 1:43 pm

Thus predicted this outcome so long ago and so many times that I can scarcely be bothered to highlight our previous posts. Yet the grotesque reality of the US, Britain, NATO and especially the UN rewarding endemic fraud, corruption and weak government by a second term, all enacted under the banner of democracy, surpasses all expectations. Yesterday Tajik warlord Abdullah Abdullah declined to stand in the farcical runoff to the disgracefully-mismanaged Afghan ‘election.’ Not having the wherewithal and collateral to bribe as many ‘voters’ as President Karzai, he would have lost. His supporters have promised ‘Kalashnikovs on the streets.’ We predicted full-blown insurgency if Karzai got re-elected on a shoe-in. My views haven’t changed. Cry havoc and let slip.

Meanwhile, the same UN who spent between USD 150 – 250 million arranging this wet fish in the face of democratic practice, fired Peter Galbraith for daring to suggest that the outcome would be flawed and endorsed Kai Eide, the Norwegian Blue Parrot at the head of the UNAMA license to steal, are lining up to line their pockets anew. Why did the UN (and EU) doggedly stick by the election process, despite all the evidence that this will take the country (even further) down into the depths of violence and authoritarian kleptocracy? Sources in Kabul point to a new round of contracts, estimated at USD 4 billion, for the 5000+ UN agencies and NGOs running around in big white trucks doing fuck all. Bookmark this and see if I’m right. I apologise in advance if no new money is voted, Ban Ki Moon kicks Kai Eide up the arse and the ‘international community’ threatens withdrawal and sanctions. But the awful hypocrisy of  a rush to congratulate to Karzai from puddinghead Gordon Brown, wanky Ban Ki and the increasingly Bushlike Peace Prize Laureate Barack Obama are as emetic as anything I’ve seen for a very long time.

None of this was worth a single dead soldier, much less thousands of dead Afghan civilians. By the way, the ‘bad guys’ are in Pakistan – now. Drone bombing villages is winning no hearts and minds there either.

And another thing: while the grim spectre of mass murderer by proxy Tony Blair becoming EU President recedes, the boat is floating for David Miliband to become EU High Representative. His only qualification, apart from being a Blairite, is undying loyalty to Hillary Clinton and the US. If that’s what we want – the United States of Europe – he’ll be perfect and the EU will be involved in full scale conflicts, wherever liberal intervention sounds like a good idea, before you can skin a banana.

John J Kelly

By John Kelly | Posted in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Development, Global security, Insurgency, carpet bombing, citizens' rights, democracy, ethnic cleansing | Comments (0)

Freedom of speech – Sri Lankan style

October 25, 2009 – 8:14 pm

Earlier this year the world’s media were largely banned from reporting in the North and East of Sri Lanka, with poignant echoes of Israel’s stance in Gaza. Some of us – mea culpa – believed the government when they claimed that it was largely for the safety of journalists and to avoid fanning the flickering flames of Tamil Tiger (LTTE) resistance – mea culpa. Unfortunately, murdering journalists and intimidating others achieves the polar opposite effect. Here is an article from Australian newspaper “The Age” which alleges serious abuse of human rights and indicates that Sri Lanka’s victory-gorged government is heading down a well-trodden path towards Totalitarianism. It’s a shame for all concerned. For a while I thought they were nice guys . . mea maxima culpa. Won’t get fooled again – and won’t be visiting Sri Lanka in a hurry, which is a shame, since it’s a nice country, full of nice people, but largely run by corrupt thugs, armed by China.

“FEARS over declining media freedoms in Sri Lanka have intensified after a newspaper editor was held by police and questioned about a report alleging tension between military officials and the Government. Chandana Srimalwtte, editor of the popular Sinhalese-language newspaper Lanka Irida Sangrahaya, was detained by armed police and questioned for publishing a report detailing tensions between military chief General Sarath Fonseka and the Government. Srimalwtte was in custody for more than three hours and investigators have made two subsequent visits to his office to question him. He now expects to be charged with ”’arousing the public against the Government” and could face two years in jail if found guilty. ”I told them I had no intention to stir up the society against the Government, I was just reporting what I had learnt from my sources,” Srimalwtte told The Age. ”The people have the right to know what powerful people are doing. They want to know about this crisis in the Government.” Sri Lanka has been ranked as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. The suppression of free speech following Sri Lanka’s civil war will only heighten the fears of Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil population and give added incentive to Tamils to sail for Australia in hope of asylum. Journalists say independent reporting has become even more difficult since the end in May of Sri Lanka’s 25-year conflict between the government dominated by the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil Tigers. In June, Pobbala Jayantha, editor of the Sinhalese newspaper Silumina, which has published stories critical of the Government, was abducted and severely beaten. ”I was kidnapped for about 1½ hours,” he said. His injuries included two broken legs, which are likely to leave him with lifelong disabilities. ”I will definitely be returning to journalism, but I have to recover first,” he said. In recent months many senior journalists have fled Sri Lanka for India and Western countries and others have found work in other industries. There is concern at the police reaction to Srimalwtte’s report because the story was essentially political in nature and had nothing to do with terrorism. Despite his central role in the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers, General Fonseka was removed from his post soon after the conflict finished and given the largely ceremonial role of Chief of Defence Staff. Opposition parties now want the disaffected war hero to stand for them against President Mahinda Rajapaksa in elections likely to be held early next year. Three other reporters from Srimalwtte’s newspaper were arrested and charged after writing reports about allegations of corruption against members of President Rajapaksa’s family. In late August, journalist J. S. Tissainayagam was sentenced to 20 years’ jail when found guilty of ”causing communal disharmony” and ”receiving money from Tamil Tiger rebels to pay for his website”. In January the editor-in-chief of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunga, was assassinated on his way to work. No arrests have been made. Many Sri Lankans worry about the loss of freedom of expression. ”You can’t speak the truth here any more,” one government official told The Age. ”If you speak the truth today you’ll go missing tomorrow.”

By John Kelly | Posted in Human rights, Right Wing paramilitaries, Sri Lanka, ethnic cleansing, human rights abuse | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

The Legacy of Abuse in Sri Lanka – Nakba in the Indian ocean

October 19, 2009 – 12:01 pm

This article,  by Anna Neistat, appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus, 16 October, 2009. Thus is publishing it because like the rest of the sane world, I am aghast that the actions of the Sri Lankan government are becoming more sinister by the day. Something should – and could – be done. Hit them where it hurts. The spontaneous outpouring of compassion following the Tsunami generated a wave of cash, much of which was misappropriated. Early signs are that not much has changed following the ‘end’ of the War: loadsamoney is pouring into the bank accounts of the rough and ready Colombo elites while they wring their hands and tell us that they are doing everything in their power to ‘free’ the Tamils whom they have condemned to an Indian Ocean version of Nakba. A tsunami of contempt for the government and international rage at the concentration camps in the north and east might bring them to their senses. Choke off all foreign aid and investment until they treat the Tamil population like equal human beings and make sure that they continue to do so, or cut them adrift from the international community. This is NOT an endorsement of the disgusting LTTE or the screechy Tamil diaspora. By John J Kelly

Atrocities and Cover-up

For several months during and after the end-game of the decades-long civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka’s government brushed off Western criticism of its abusive practices. It has relied instead on moral and financial support from states less concerned with such matters, such as China and Pakistan. Countries with similar problems and equally questionable human rights records are paying close attention — has Sri Lanka discovered the magic formula for brazenly ignoring meddlesome Western countries and getting away with it? Sri Lanka’s policy of complete dismissal was initially successful. But now the government seems to have discovered that ignoring the strongly held opinions of powerful Western partners has consequences that might not be in the long-term interest of the country or its ruling elite after all.

On May 19, 2009, the Sri Lankan government declared victory over the LTTE. This marked an end to a 26-year-long civil war that killed tens of thousands of people. Human Rights Watch’s continuous research in the country established that during the final phase of the conflict, both the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) and the LTTE repeatedly violated the laws of war, causing numerous civilian casualties. Forced to retreat by SLA offensive operations, the LTTE drove civilians into a narrow strip of land on the northeastern coast of Sri Lanka. They effectively used several hundred thousand people as human shields. On at least several occasions, the Tamil Tigers shot at those trying to flee to government-held territory. LTTE forces also deployed near densely populated areas, placing civilians in greater danger from government attacks. As the fighting intensified, the LTTE stepped up its practice of forcibly recruiting civilians, including children, into its ranks and into hazardous forced labor on the battlefield.

The government, in turn, used the LTTE’s grim practices to justify its own atrocities. Sri Lankan forces repeatedly and indiscriminately shelled areas densely populated with civilians, sometimes using area weapons incapable of distinguishing between civilians and combatants. As the LTTE-controlled area shrank, the government unilaterally declared “no-fire zones” or “safe zones” on three different occasions, telling civilians to seek shelter there. Nevertheless, government forces continued attacking these areas. In blatant disregard of the laws of war, government forces also fired artillery that directly struck or landed near hospitals on at least 30 occasions. Sri Lanka claimed that in the last days of the war, it carried out “the largest hostage-rescue operation” that liberated thousands of Tamils from the oppressive rule of the LTTE. Yet in reality, to this day the “rescued” Tamil population has seen neither freedom nor relief. From March 2008 until the present, the government has confined virtually all civilians displaced by the war in military-controlled detention camps, euphemistically called “welfare centers.” In violation of international law, the government denied the displaced their rights to liberty and freedom of movement. The camp residents are kept in the dark regarding their own future and the fate of their missing relatives. More than four months after the end of hostilities, the government continues to hold more than 250,000 civilians in illegal detention.

The full extent of the crimes committed by both sides to the conflict is still unknown. The Sri Lankan government spared no effort to prevent independent coverage of its military operations and the plight of displaced civilians. It has kept out both international and local media as well as human rights organizations, has made sure that witnesses to its abuses are securely locked up in camps, and has harassed and persecuted those who dared to speak out — doctors, activists and journalists. It has even deported outspoken UN officials.

Turning East

Despite mounting evidence of abuses in Sri Lanka, the response from Western countries was initially weak, though eventually several governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France, raised their voices. They strongly condemned indiscriminate attacks and urged a humanitarian corridor for civilians trapped in the war zone. After the war, they called for an independent investigation and continued to advocate against indefinite detention of the displaced. In a show of disapproval of Sri Lanka’s human rights violations, these countries, along with Germany and Argentina, also made the unprecedented move of abstaining from the vote on the International Monetary Fund’s $2.6 billion loan to Sri Lanka. The loan, delayed for several months because of these concerns, was eventually approved in July 2009. But each quarterly installment will need a separate vote of approval by the IMF’s board of governors. The Sri Lankan government, however, gambled on the idea that no matter how upset the West may be, nobody would judge the “winners.” It dismissed all criticism out of hand. It attacked Western governments for their own human rights practices, calling the pleas for civilian protection “hypocrisy and sanctimony.” And it accused critical governments and international institutions of being LTTE sympathizers. Sri Lanka’s confidence in the face of criticism was also boosted by a gradual re-orientation of its foreign policy toward the East. According to some defense experts, Chinese military ordnance was decisive in the final stages of the war against the LTTE. Pakistan has boosted its annual military assistance loans to Sri Lanka to nearly $100 million. Iran granted $450 million for a hydropower project and provided a seven-month credit facility so that Sri Lanka’s entire crude oil requirement could be sourced from there; it also reportedly provided low-interest credit so that Sri Lanka could purchase military equipment from Pakistan and China. Libya pledged $500 million as a financial co-operation package for development projects. Even Burma donated $50,000 to the Sri Lankan government.

In addition to substantial financial support, Sri Lanka’s new friends also stood up to defend Sri Lanka against accountability at the UN Security Council. In the Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka received wholehearted support from countries like Cuba, Pakistan, Venezuela, Iran, and others who ensured the adoption of a deeply flawed resolution that largely commended the Sri Lankan government for its current policies. In June, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — an intergovernmental mutual-security organization founded by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan — granted Sri Lanka the status of Dialogue Partner. While the support for Sri Lanka was largely driven by each country’s political and economic motives, some common factors were also clearly in play — an effort to counterbalance India’s influence in the region (in the case of China and Pakistan), similar problems with separatist groups and abusive counterinsurgency campaigns, and an overall tendency to jointly oppose Western criticism and challenge Western domination in the international arena.

Reality Bites

Sri Lanka’s hardnosed response to its Western critics may have worked in the short term but it may not be, after all, sustainable. The first reality check came with the European Union’s threat to withdraw significant trading privileges granted to Sri Lanka under a trading scheme called the Generalized System of Preferences plus (GSP+). Since 2005, the privileges allowed Sri Lanka to export goods and products duty-free to EU countries. According to an EU estimate, the agreement was worth €900 million and employment of over 100,000 people in the apparel sector in Sri Lanka.

In September 2009, the EU presented the Sri Lankan government with the results of a year-long investigation of Sri Lanka’s compliance with human rights requirements for continued GSP+ status. The Sri Lankan government refused to cooperate with the investigation. However, upon realizing that the threat of withdrawal was real and could become politically costly if the government calls early presidential elections, authorities launched an aggressive campaign, spearheaded by a president-appointed ministerial task force, to ensure the continuation of the trade concessions. Through it all, the government insisted at home that it wouldn’t bend under Western pressure. In the meantime, the U.S. State Department has been preparing a congressionally mandated investigative report into allegations of war crimes committed by both sides during the final phase of the conflict. Around September 21, when the investigation was due to be presented in Congress, pro-government Sri Lankan media published dismissals of the report, saying that it was based on hearsay and “violates Sri Lanka’s rights and sovereignty.” The critics admitted they hadn’t seen the text — which wasn’t surprising, given that the presentation of the report had been postponed and the whole campaign proved to be a false start. It did indicate, however, how anxious Sri Lanka is about the report’s possible conclusions. Some of the top officials must be particularly concerned about being accused of war crimes by a country where they hold citizenship or permanent residency status.

Sri Lanka’s nervousness about its international standing has not yet triggered any significant improvement on human rights matters, and there is no indication that the government is genuinely rethinking its policies. The changing discourse, however, implies that the government may be more susceptible to pressure than the international community previously believed. And the international community should use this moment to ensure progress on some of the burning human rights issues — freedom for thousands of displaced Tamil civilians, the end of persecution of journalists and civil society activists, and accountability for violations committed during the conflict.

In addition to pushing publicly and privately for the release of the displaced, the United States has a particularly important role to play on the issue of accountability. It should use its influence at the UN to help launch an international independent investigation into violations of humanitarian law. Washington should also make clear that future development aid to Colombo will depend on concrete progress on these key issues. Abstaining from the vote on the second tranche of Sri Lanka’s IMF loan would be an appropriate way to convey the message.

Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Anna Neistat is a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s emergencies division and is a specialist in humanitarian crises.

By John Kelly | Posted in Human rights, civil rights, ethnic cleansing, human rights abuse | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)