Odds & Ends

Squeeze on SLMM

Poor SLMM is increasingly marginalized. First the striped kind cracked the whip and restricted their numbers from last August by barring all EU monitors. Now SLMM itself has reduced the local staff from 80 to 60 and pulled out the foreigners from the Mannar and Jaffna offices. Never mind, their spokesman says they have opened a new office this week in Vavuniya to oversee the northern region including Jaffna and Mannar. Earlier the Trinco office was entrusted the task of overseeing Batticaloa and Ampara.

How transparent is transparency?

What price transparency, when hatchet jobs are done to cover up the biggest culprit. Now old Chandra is asked to explain how only some khaki matters became so transparent in the report.

So Sand Anicut it’s nothing but ‘you scratch my back I’ll scratch your back.’ Transparency, my foot.

Who owns my own?

My own has been somersaulting so often, who owns him now is the question. For some time he has been publicly complaining that as Deputy he is ignored by officials. Certain greens think he is back in their fold, but the man is maintaining radio silence not even saying hello.

Diplomat’s forked tongue

Dominic might be chilling in his sermons against violence and violation of rights here, but then these diplomats are paid to lie abroad. According to the intelligence grapevine our kind amman has managed to enter Old Blighty with his wifey as things have got too hot for him with his erstwhile comrade breathing fire. Was his route through lampoor?

Still getting mileage

The controversial UN official Allan Rock is no longer the Special Advisor to the UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka but is due to deliver a lecture at the Carnegie Council in New York next week in this capacity. He will speak on how the Sri Lankan conflict has impacted on the recruitment and use of child soldiers and why the Government has not been more effective in protecting its children. Is he still trying to get political mileage from his former post is the question being asked by those who have seen the news release announcing the discussion on ‘Children and Armed Conflict: Sri Lanka, a Case in Point.’

What use is a busy line

An Air Force drill in the Negombo area on Wednesday night gave a fright to residents in the area. They spotted an aircraft with no lights flying by as well as the counter attacks by the Air Force. Desperate to find out what was happening, some resident called 116, the Air Force hotline to be informed in case of sighting a suspicious aircraft. But repeated attempts to get through failed. How are people expected to inform of suspicious aircraft if the line is always busy?

Given away by their vehicles

Allegation is that bribery sleuths are netting fewer and fewer sharks, although there are plenty of whistle blowers in this paradise isle. One reason appears to be culprits are tipped off ahead. The other, according to sleuths themselves, is that the four to five vehicles at their disposal for the last so many years are now known to practically everyone, even if they change the number plates on them as often as possible for raids.

These vehicles are particularly familiar to all police stations having been used so often. So no wonder crooked cops are increasingly wise to their presence.