It was no easy task to compile this. Only a handful ordinary citizens would have the expertise to search for this information online, or elsewhere. There is no easy record retrieval of the President’s attendance in Parliament on its official website. But what is immediately obvious when the scattered media reports are taken as a whole is that the 18th Amendment has in no way at all contributed to a more accountable Executive. ”

Excerpt from ‘Months after the 18th Amendment: Is the Executive really more accountable to Parliament?’, http://groundviews.org/2011/06/11/months-after-the-18th-amendment-is-the-executive-really-more-accountable-to-parliament/

Yes it is indonicus. Which means he can be voted out. That’s important is it not?Another 24 hours and the 18th amendment will be a reality and all this crying will be in vain

Technically yes he can be voted out. But in reality it will be impossible, given the power that will be concentrated in the president’s hand after these amendments and condsidering that elections will be held while the president is still in power. We all saw how the last presidential election was held, the blatant violation of all election laws. Now it will be worse.

Not only crying, a lot of other things will be in vain after today. That doesn’t mean that people should wait till the next presidential election to show their opposition to what this government is doing.

Fascsim doesn’t establish itself overnight. It takes over gradually and in its early stages it wears the mask of populism and the badge of legitimacy, usually given by peoople who think they can get rid of the regime at the next elections and/or there is nothing that can be done about it.

We have to believe that RIGHT will prevail and when it does all this crying WILL NOT BE IN VAIN !

For the past 60 dreadful years, the Sinhalese wronged against the Tamils, repeatedly and brutally. Therefore, it is only the Sinhalese who must apologise for their wrongs. But why the Tamils?

This pertinent question should have been put forward to Jayantha Dhanapala by any serious person sitting on “Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission(LLRC). Why was it not done? Stupidity or hypocricy?

Further, most African countries that were repressed, resorted to armed rebellion and gained their independence, after attempts for peaceful resolutions failed. Even the UN ratified the indpendence of those countries. ANC, ZANU, MPLA, SWAPO, EPLF and FRELIMO were such armed groups that have become political parties, governing their countries now.

Therefore, Tamils taking up arms against state terrorist and genocidal regimes in Sri Lanka(SL), to gain independence for Tamil Eelam(TE), after the people democratically mandated it in 1977 and negotiations with SL failed, is not wrong but is absolutely right according to the “morality” of the UN.

Rightly therefore, the Supreme Court of New Zealand decided that LTTE was a political organisation and not “terrorists”. But the GOSL which signed even a CFA recognising the “de facto state” of TE and held talks with LTTE, similar to the present Israeli-Palestinian talks, defiantly propagated falsely LTTE as a sole terrorist organisation and Dhanapala spearheaded that rut.

Obviously, the covert purpose of the GOSL was to destroy the freedom movement of TE and the extermination of Tamils, inspite of being a signatory to all the covenants on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

You do not “sign justice” you do justice !!

SL is a war criminal and genocidal state running away from the UN enquiry, yet Dhanapala stated in the LLRC that this prodigal SL would contribute to the UN with its experience to fight “terrorism” and went unchallenged by any one in LLRC.

Undoubtedly, the LLRC is created neither to learn lessons nor to reconcile but to make Tamils accept and tolerate the crime and cruelty of the Sinhalese and live with repression forever.

Another 24 hours and the 18th amendment will be a reality and all this crying will be in vain!

“He still has to face elections.”

Awwwwww! That’s sooooo important isn’t it??

It is worth observing that opposition to the Rajapakse regime has already resulted in the death of a newspaper editor. And do you really suppose that, if he were so minded, G.L. Peiris would be free to oppose any of this and live to tell the tale? The weakness of some of his arguments suggests a man who knows no-one will answer him back, stand up to him, and demonstrate his claims to be false. But they also suggest in his heart of hearts he knows better.

For example, G.L. says that the abolition of terms limits will “strengthen the franchise” by permitting the people to choose to elect the President for more than two terms. It increases the voters’ range of choices, and thus “strengthens the franchise.”

There are only two ways in which this change can be seen to “strengthen the franchise.” The first is to take “the franchise” to mean the Rajapakse franchise; of course it strengthens that. But if the value of the vote is what G.L. is referring to, then the abolition of term limits strengthens it only if one ignores myriad countervailing factors which, taken together, are known as reality. When we consider these even cursorily, it is immediately obvious that G.L’s claim is the opposite of the truth. The truth is that the abolition of term limits can be, and very often is, a necessary step toward dictatorship. Of course it need not be. One can imagine a country in which war is a stranger, violence very rare, and the incumbent leader universally adored so that public pressure to abolish term limits causes it to be done. And one can imagine a very different country in which a war has been used to restrict freedoms, quash opposition, and control the media; where the state of emergency remains in effect long after the war’s end; where the elected President has put his brothers in senior cabinet offices and rapidly ensured that his family, elected and unelected, controls everything that matters. In such a context, how exactly does the abolition of term limits “strengthen the franchise”?

Similarly, G.L’s objection to the U.N. commission looking into events that ended the war in Sri Lanka, that “It infringes on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty,” is fallacious. If there is any issue involving sovereignty, it arises only when the Sri Lankan government objects to the creation of the commission and refuses to co-operate. That is, concerns about sovereignty, if there be any, cannot be the reason to oppose the commission because they arise, if at all, from that opposition. In any case, if a state’s sovereignty can be a bar to pursuing serious breaches of international law, then that law would be singularly ineffective and war crimes would often go unpunished.