If the Golden Jubilee celebrations were for a privileged few, the banquet for the Prince of Wales, where champagne flowed was for the hand-picked.
It began at 6.30 p.m. and went on till past 1.30 a.m. at the refurbished Janadipathi Mandiraya. The nimble touch of French decor and the Czechoslovakian chandeliers were much in evidence.
Seated together with Prince Charles and President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga were Speaker K.B. Ratnayake, Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, S. Thondaman, G.L. Peiris, Lakshman Jayakody, Anuruddha Ratwatte, D.M. Jayaratne, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, Chief Justice G.P.S. de Silva and British High Commissioner, David Tatham.
The colourful menu card was a souvenir which the guests were told could be taken home. The epicurean delights included:
Splash of Tomato: Piquet chilled sun ripened tomato and capsicum soup perfumed with fresh coriander.
Paradise Ocean Delight: Ocean fresh scallops and crab cocktail paced with a delicate housedish and bees honey dressing.
Fusion of sweet flavours: Rum and coconut soufflé sandwich with candied, minted pineapple and wrapped in white cocoa ribbon.
Tropical Fruit Platter.Serendib Sorbet: Highland Ceylon Tea infused with fresh lime.
Spicy Island Platter: Marriage of curried Tiger prawns and special chicken surrounded with cadju curry, egg plant pahi, gotukola badum.
Tea or Coffee.
Sri Lankan sweetmeats and chocolates
Though the banquet held in honour of Prince Charles was over at 1. a.m. the staff of the five star hotel which did the catering were left high and dry on the road outside the President’s House till 5 a.m. The hotel vans which were to transport the tables, chairs, cockery etc were not allowed into the gates of the President’s House at Fort by a police official.
As a result of the vehicles not being allowed the staff had to bring the tables and chairs onto the road and then load them into the hotel vans.
Britain’s Prince Charles in a message to President Kumaratunga from Kathmandu yesterday said he was horrified to hear of Friday’s bomb explosion in Kompani Vidiya, soon after his departure from Sri Lanka.
“I was horrified to hear on my arrival in Kathmandu that a bomb had exploded at Slave Island shortly after my departure, killing a number of your people and wounding more”, he said.
“My thoughts are very much with you and your people. There can be no justification for these appalling acts.
You and the families of those who were killed have my heartfelt sympathies and prayers at this time.
I send you my deep felt wishes for success in your brave efforts to find a way of bringing lasting peace to Sri Lanka,” the message said.
Religious, nationalist and political leaders have criticised President Kumaratunga for her controversial decision to give her golden jubilee independence address to the nation in English instead of the traditional Sinhala.
The Mahanayake of the Malwatte Chapter, the most Ven. Rambukwelle Sri Vipassi Thera expressed regret that the President did not speak in Sinhala.
“We are saddened by it. We are told she spoke in English as the speech was being broadcast live to the international community. But that is no excuse. She should have addressed the people of Sri Lanka in Sinhala,” the prelate said.
The National Joint Committee which has been spearheading a campaign against the government proposals to resolve the ethnic conflict, hit out strongly.
NJC Secretary Piyasena Dissanayake said the speech in English was a shock and he felt the President had insulted the whole country in the eyes of the international community.
The NJC Secretary said the President was failing in her national duty when she ignored a vast mass of ordinary people who did not understand English.
MEP leader Dinesh Gunewardene, another prominent figure in the campaign against the devolution proposals, accused the President of showing disrespect to the national language which was enshrined in the Constitution.
Former SLMP Vice President V.W. Kularatne stated that the President had violated the Constitution article 18 which refers to the official language of Sri Lanka as Sinhala. He said President Premadasa even addressed the UN in Sinhala.
The MEP leader also asked why the President had left her own mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, out of a list of national heroes whom she hailed in her speech.
He said it was not an error but deliberately done to a person who had paved the way for Sri Lanka to become a republic totally free of colonial strings. The Federation of Buddhist Organizations also hit out at the President.
Its secretary Gallage Punyawardene said President Kumaratunga had virtually reversed the process which her father had started in 1956.
A European diplomat at the golden jubilee independence celebrations at Sri Jayewardenapura wanted to answer a call of nature. He inquired from officials but was told there were no toilets anywhere there. When he insisted perhaps because the need was urgent he was given a water bottle and told to do whatever he had to.
A journalist nearby was in a similar plight but his fate was worse. He did not get even the bottle and had to suffer the shame of doing it in public.
Indeed it was a shame that officials of the Home Ministry had not thought of this basic need in an era where mobile toilets could have been obtained and set up without much difficulty.
Home Ministry Secretary Anura Piyawansa said that in the rush after the venue was changed from Kandy to Kotte they had not thought of toilet facilities. When they did so at the last moment they felt that foreign and local invitees could be sent to the toilets near the parliament guard room. But that was across the road and the tight security and the ongoing parade made it impossible.
So they all had to hold tight for several hours. The more fortunate ones probably got a bottle while others were put to a jubilee shame.
In a 28 page judgment that struck a much needed balance between the freedom of the press and the privacy of the individual, High Court judge Shiranee Tillekewardene this week acquitted editor of the Lakbima, Bandula Padmakumara of all charges of criminally defaming President Chandrika Kumaratunga.
The Lakbima editor was indicted with criminal defamation under the Penal Code and the Press Council Law on the basis that he had published an article in his paper which stated that the President had attended a birthday party of Parliamentarian Asitha Perera at the Taj Samudra, and in doing so had lowered the reputation of the President. In a succinct examination of the nature of criminal defamation, and the liability of the editor in question, the High Court found that the editor did not have the criminal intention or knowledge necessary to prove defamation under the Penal Code.
Lakbima Editor Ranjith Padmakumara walks out from the High Court after being acquitted
Dealing with the question as to whether the disputed article was in fact defamatory, the Court stressed that what was important was whether the ordinary reasonable reader would think less of the President on reading the article in question.
It was the opinion of the Court that the mere fact that the President was reported to have gone to a birthday party of a person who admittedly and according to his own evidence, is a friend of the President’s cannot be said to be defamatory. Neither was the imputation that she had gone there without her normal security personnel.
However, the later portion of the article which suggested that as a result of going for the party, the President had arrived late for an important government parliamentary group meeting the next day was ruled by the Court to be defamatory. This was on the basis that such a suggestion would lead the reader to think that the President was given to frivolity and did not take her responsibilities as head of state seriously.
The High Court then went on to consider whether the accused had the requisite intention or knowledge, which in criminal cases must be proved by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt. It was pointed out that the Penal Code makes it plain that in criminal defamation, there must be the element of threat to public peace or the likelihood that an offence would be committed. In that respect, there is a material difference between civil and criminal defamation, the Court stated.
The accused editor had maintained throughout the trial, that he had been unaware of the publication of the impugned article, and that he had first got to know that the article was possibly defamatory only during the case against the Editor of The Sunday Times. He explained that due to the procedure of publication, he checked only the editorial and articles on the front page of the newspaper, while the deputy editors and the sub editor scrutinized the other articles. No person had brought it to his knowledge that the article carried incorrect information immediately after publication, and in fact the first intimation or knowledge that he had of the contents of the article was when the CID officers had come to see him a month after the publication of the article. He stated that on getting to know that the article might be defamatory, he had wished to apologize but had been advised by his attorneys against such a step due to the criminal liability that might then attach to him.
On consideration of these matters, the High Court stated that it was clear that the Lakbima editor had no criminal intention to defame the President. That Lakbima had published past articles laudatory of the President, and that the source of the defamatory article had been a hitherto trustworthy source were also considered as relevant by the Court. The Court conceded the point that the Lakbima editor had showed reluctance to divulge the source of his information, but emphasized that case precedent has established that editors and publishers ought not be compelled to disclose the source of their information.
The High Court went on to state that though the right to know is a universal principle, journalists are subject to fundamental duties both individually and collectively.
“The indelibility of the printed word must bring with it a high degree of responsibility for it can be an awful weapon if used with wrong motives and can cause untold damage,” the Court warned. It found that though the desired high standard of professional accountability had not been present in the instant case, the criminal charges brought against the accused had not been proved, and accordingly, he had to be acquitted.
Last week’s acquittal of the Lakbima editor marks the close of the second case where a Sri Lankan editor had been charged of criminally defaming President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Since 1995, Editors of five Sri Lankan newspapers have been indicted on charges of criminal defamation either against the President or her Ministers. The first such case against the editor of The Sunday Times, based on the publication of a gossip item with substantially the same facts as the disputed article in the Lakbima case, resulted last year, in a 7year suspended sentence of one and a half years imprisonment and fine being imposed on the editor.–
A civic group opposed to the Government’s handling of a $425mn foreign investment deal to exploit the Eppawala phosphate reserves is challenging senior officials to a public debate over it.
The Solidarity Committee for Protection of Eppawala Phosphate Deposits, a rainbow coalition of paddy farmers, trade union activists, agricultural scientists, old soldiers, Buddhist priests and others has thrown down the gauntlet.
It is calling on Board of Investment chief Thilan Wijesinghe, and other officials who negotiated the largest ever deal struck in Sri Lanka’s manufacturing sector, to respond to their questions over the airwaves and in print.
“We, on behalf of the SCPEPD would like to challenge Mr. Wijesinghe, and other members of the Negotiating Committee that reached the final agreements with the foreign companies (U.S.-based IMC Agrico/Freeport-McMoran Resource Partners and Tomen Corporation of Japan) on the invitation of Her excellency (President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga), to participate in a public debate over the Sri Lanka Rupavahini, the National Radio and the Press, to justify and defend the terms and conditions of this deal...which we feel are absolutely unfavourable and destructive from the point of view of the interests of the people of Sri Lanka and for the short term and long term development interests,” the coalition said in a letter dated January 26 and released last week to The Sunday Times.
Citing three main reasons for why it is against the deal, which it claims will be signed on February 15, the group added:
Sri Lanka will get a poor return on its investment relative to the export value of phosphate; mining for the mineral will cause environmental destruction and displace communities settled in-and-around the north-central town of Eppawala; and, in as few as 30 years, a potential source of fertiliser that could go a long way to meeting Sri Lanka’s food security needs would be exhausted.
The SCPEPD also said it is sending a petition to the President signed by 152 of its supporters:
“We are in possession of a letter...requesting that this agreement should not be signed and that alternative arrangements should be made for better and more sustainable utilization of this resource.”
BOI’s Wijesinghe, reached on Friday for comment, ruled out that the deal would be signed by next Sunday, but confirmed it was close to being clinched. He said he hadn’t yet heard from the SCPEPD, but would be open to taking part in a debate should it come to that.
“All of us, as public officials, should be prepared to hold ourselves accountable to Parliament and the Public,” he told The Times. “Therefore, as the principal investment officer, I am in a position to defend this project.”
Continue to the News/Comment page 4 * Remove defamation laws now * Peak hour chaos after Friday’s bomb * Where was the freedom for Independence? * Prince cool beats the heat in style
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