With the UPFA reduced to a minority in the Eastern Provincial Council following the resignation of three Muslim members headed by M.L.A.M. Hizbullah, the opposition was considering the possibility of defeating the administration at the first council meeting.

The UNP, SLMC and the three member group led by Hizbullah charged that Friday’s appointment of Pillayan as chief minister for the Eastern Province was unconstitutional since he did not command a majority in the council and that the possibility of defeating the UPFA at the first council meeting was under active consideration.

The crisis in the UPFA exploded on Friday when Hizbullah wrote to the Eastern Province Governor, Mohan Wijewickrema stating he along with two other members would function as a separate group in the council under Hizbullah’s leadership.

In the letter to Wijewickrema, Hizbullah has stated that the trio had not given their consent to the UPFA to appoint any nominee other than Hizbullah as chief minister and has also drawn attention to the fact that the UPFA did not command the majority in the council without the support of the three members.

President Mahinda Rajapakse on Friday morning had met Hizbullah to discuss the crisis on the appointment of the chief minister.

Rajapakse had informed Hizbullah that Pillayan had to be appointed as the chief minister. Hizbullah after refusing to accept the President’s decision had also turned down Rajapakse’s offer to appoint Pillayan as chief minister for a period of two and a half years and Hizbullah for the remaining two and a half years.

Hizbullah told The Sunday Leader that at the meeting with the President he had requested Rajapakse to honour his pre-election pledge of appointing a nominee from the group that returned the highest number of members to the council.

"We asked him to give the post to us and said it was not right to appoint Pillayan. But the President said he had to appoint Pillayan," he said.

Hizbullah said Pillayan’s appointment was unconstitutional, as the UPFA has now been reduced to a minority in the Eastern Provincial Council. "The majority is now with the opposition," he said.

Hizbullah also said that they were now discussing the next course of action and said defeating the government at the first council sitting was a possibility.

Meanwhile, UNP General Secretary, Tissa Attanayake told The Sunday Leader that the appointment of the chief minister to the Eastern Provincial Council was unconstitutional.

Attanayake said that Pillayan’s appointment, as the chief minister was unconstitutional since the opposition held the majority in the council.

"As usual, the Mahinda Rajapakse administration has failed to abide by the law and the appointment of the chief minister has been done against the Provincial Councils Act. The UPFA won only 18 seats and since M.L.A.M. Hizbullah has now withdrawn his support to the UPFA with two other members they are not entitled to the two bonus seats. In this backdrop how could the President appoint a minority member as the Chief Minister," Attanayake said.

When queried whether there were plans to hold negotiations with Hizbullah, Attanayake said that the party has so far not decided on it.

Bishop Tutu opposes UNHRC seat for Lanka

Nobel peace laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has said that Sri Lanka does not deserve a seat in the UN Human Rights Council due to its worsening human rights record.

"In the entire world, Sri Lanka stands out as the most clearly unqualified state seeking election to the council this year, and the place where things are getting unambiguously worse," he wrote in a opinion column that appeared on the web site of the Guardian Newspaper in UK on May 15.

Sri Lanka is heavily canvassing to retain its seat in the 47 member council with Human Rights and Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe leading a high ranking delegation to Geneva recently to lobby other member states.

Before Bishop’s Tutu’s opinion piece international human rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International too had said that Sri Lanka should not get a seat in the council. The re-election vote will be held on May 21.

"Defeating the Sri Lankan candidacy would be a comfort to the people of Sri Lanka. It would place international pressure on the government to respect human rights, and to accept a UN human rights monitoring mission, which it has stubbornly refused.

"It would help make the council a place where true human rights leaders in all regions can help lead the world towards greater respect for human life and human dignity. An outcome, in short, that would benefit those who care about human rights in the world. Any other result would be a travesty," Bishop Tutu wrote.

He said that the country’s human rights record had worsened after joining the council two years back. "Sri Lanka has failed to honour its pledges of upholding human rights standards and cooperating with the UN since joining the council two years ago. Indeed, its human rights record has worsened during that time. The Sri Lankan idea of cooperation with the UN, meanwhile, has been to condemn senior UN officials (including the high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, and the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes) as "terrorists" or "terrorist sympathisers."

He also blamed the government as well as the Tigers for abuses — "The systematic abuses by Sri Lankan government forces are among the most serious imaginable. Government security forces summarily remove their own citizens from their homes and families in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. Torture and extra judicial killings are widespread. When the Human Rights Council was established, UN members required that states elected must themselves "uphold the highest standards" of human rights. On that count, Sri Lanka is clearly disqualified.

The separatist Tamil Tigers have used despicable tactics in their war against the government, including frequent suicide bombings. But that can in no way excuse the scale of government abuses, the Bishop has said.

Fishing restrictions back in Muttur

Fishing restrictions in Muttur that were relaxed just before the provincial council elections have been re-imposed soon after the results were announced.

Fishermen in the area said they had not gone fishing since May 11.

Fishermen in Muttur told The Sunday Leader that the naval authorities at the jetty had informed them that they could not allow them to fish due to ‘orders from above.’

The fishermen said that they were not even allowed to step into the beach.

Government lost the Muttur electorate by a large margin at the eastern provincial poll and the fishermen were harassed as a result Muslim Congress Leader Rauf Hakeem told The Sunday Leader.

The fishermen stated that around 2,000 families have been affected due to the restrictions being re-imposed.

The restrictions were relaxed 10 to 15 days before the provincial council elections that was held on May 10, according to the fishermen in the area.

Officials at the Muttur Divisional Secretary, who did not wish to be quoted, said that the fishermen were not allowed into the waters despite the restrictions being relaxed just before the polls.

The officials also said the restrictions had affected fishing in the whole of Trincomalee. Military Spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told The Sunday Leader that there were no restrictions in Muttur, but the fishermen were not allowed into the harbour area.

Friday’s suicide bomb attack on a police bus in the neighbourhood of the Hilton and Galadari Hotels in Colombo will affect the leisure industry further, city hoteliers said.

Hoteliers expressed mixed reactions as to the effect of Friday’s bomb blast on the tourism industry which killed more than 10 persons. Meanwhile some in the industry expressed doubts as to whether such acts could cause any further negative effects on the industry since the city hotels were already suffering due to low occupancy rates. 

President, City Hotels Association and Director Operations, Holiday Inn Hotel, M. Shanthikumar is of the view that since no foreign tourists were injured in the blast there would not be any severe repercussions on the industry. "This was targeted at the security personnel and not the civilians although they too were injured," Shanthikumar told The Sunday Leader.

Meanwhile, General Manager, Galadari Hotel, Sampath Siriwardena told The Sunday Leader that although the explosion took place in the neighbourhood there was no panic among the hotel guests.

"This has become a familiar occurrence now and hence this did not affect the local guests. Luckily, even the foreign guests too did not panic. However if this blast catches the headlines of foreign newspapers then it would no doubt affect the industry," Siriwardena added.

According to Siriwardena, the hotel had not received any cancellations or inquiries from tour operators abroad up to Friday evening.

"It is too early to say whether there would be any cancellations, but definitely the industry would further suffer as the occupancy rates in city hotels have declined considerably in comparison to the previous years," said Siriwardena.

However, General Manager Marketing, Ocean View Resorts, Ranjaka de Mel told The Sunday Leader that it was high time the relevant authorities sent messages to their counterparts in tourism generating markets that this attack was targeted on the security personnel.

"The BBC reported the venue as opposite Hilton Hotel which would create a fear psychosis among travellers. We have undergone worse situations earlier but have been able to bounce back. Likewise although this would have a bad impact on the industry we can overcome the situation if no more incidents of such nature occur in the commercial hub," De Mel said.

According to De Mel although the country was able to attract more tour operators at the recent Travel Mart in Dubai still there were many inquiries about the ground situation here.

"That was at a time when the Colombo situation was peaceful. But with these latest incidents we would receive more inquiries from the tour operators before forward bookings are made," De Mel further said.

All attempts by The Sunday Leader to contact the Hilton and Continental Hotels for a comment on the incident failed.