Australian Tamil Congress to support Breast Cancer Research

Come join the women of the ATC Women's Advocacy Team as we make appams and pancakes for the Pink Ribbon Breakfast 2010 to raise much needed funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Date : Saturday 30th October 2010

Venue : Church Street Mall, Parramatta

Time : 9AM to 11.30AM

If you would like join our team of volunteers please emial This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 1300 660 628

The Australian Tamil Congress is appalled at the decision to invite Sri Lanka's president to attend the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony.

The Sri Lankan government is accused of complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity in its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Although Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group have called for independent investigations, Sri Lanka has remained defiant, including by refusing visas to a panel experts from the United Nations.

"The Commonwealth members should exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government, as they did with Zimbabwe and Fiji," says Dr Sam Pari, spokesperson for the Australian Tamil Congress.

"Sri Lanka is an embarrassment to the Commonwealth. It has an atrocious human rights record and latest constitutional amendment which removed the term limits for a sitting president shows that it is only becoming less democratic," she added.

Sri Lanka lost its bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. It also recently lost its bid to Australia to host the next Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting.

Sri Lanka is now competing with Australia to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Mr Rajapaksa's home town, Hambantota.

Media contact:

Dr Sam Pari – 0433 428 967

Brisbane Tamil Story - ABC TV, 3 Sept 2010, 1.30PM

SMH Editorial – President for life 

On first running for president of Sri Lanka in 2005, Mahinda Rajapaksa pledged to abolish the ”executive presidency” because of the excessive powers that had grown around the position to a dangerous degree since the island nation replaced its British-model constitution nearly 40 years ago.

That was then. Since taking office, Rajapaksa has grown to like wielding those powers. Now, buoyed by last year’s bloody victory against the separatist Tamil Tigers and a landslide re-election in January – partly achieved by widespread abuse of those powers, according to impartial observers – the President is taking ever more discretion unto himself.

Last week, after securing the support of a few loose backbenchers to build a two-thirds majority in parliament, Rajapaksa’s government passed an amendment to the constitution removing the article that limits a president to two six-year terms. A second amendment reduces, perhaps removes effectively, a previous limit on the powers of the president to appoint and dismiss members of the supposedly independent commissions that supervise elections, the police, the central bank and the public service and inquire into human rights abuses and corruption. The aim, says the Sri Lankan foreign minister, is not to politicise these institutions but to ”ensure better governance, that effective people are appointed”. But of course!

The whole process of constitutional amendment took only two weeks from the government securing the necessary majority and tabling the legislation. The main opposition parties either boycotted the vote or opposed the amendments. Jehan Perera, the respected head of Sri Lanka’s National Peace Council, contrasted this rush with ”countries with stable and successful political systems [that] have engaged in mass education and public consultations for a considerable period of time prior to changing the constitution”.

Rajapaksa joins Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez as the most recent example of incumbent presidents removing constitutional restrictions against running indefinitely. Both are demagogic politicians with a high degree of current popularity. Yet the sad precedent is that as popularity ebbs, such presidents become increasingly authoritarian and corrupt as they enjoy power and fear to step down.

Already Rajapaksa has gone a long way down that path. The end of the war against the Tamils has not led to the lifting of emergency powers. Death squads still do their work around Colombo against critical journalists and human rights activists. A government minister led protests against the UN investigation of abuses. Three of the president’s brothers occupy powerful government positions. We can expect more desperate Tamils fleeing by boat, and more political refugees of all ethnicities coming by regular transport.