Welcome to Mission-SRI LANKA Foundation

  Today, we the Sri Lankan expatriates domiciled in the US, who share and treasure the democratic principles and values with the people of this nation and the rest of the civilized world, would like to bring to your immediate attention a matter of utmost importance to the people of Sri Lanka - men, women and children - irrespective of their ethnic, religious backgrounds or political beliefs.

At the outset we would like to remind you of Sri Lanka's brutal war against terrorism and how our country suffered over three decades losing over 80,000 lives.  Following the successful outcome of the war under General Sarath Fonseka, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has launched a very dangerous campaign of consolidation of power to his own hands by appointing his family members to all vital positions of the administration.  He managed to rig the presidential elections to get re-elected. There is   overwhelming evidence that He managed to rig the Presidential elections to get re-elected. A petition had already been submitted to the Supreme Court by opposition parties, against the Presidential election results requesting at least a recount of the votes. 

Similar to the Presidential election, all the state resources available to President as well as public funds of public institutions had been used to get his henchmen appointed at the subsequent general elections.  Now his own brother has been appointed Speaker of the Parliament, the second most powerful position as per Sri Lankan constitution - so that he can control the legislature, in which another brother, son and few cousins are also  members. Except for his son all other relatives have been appointed to the cabinet.  With all these family appointments, the supremacy of the legislature has been negated to the level of a lapdog of the president.

A new ministry for Economic Development has been created for his brother Basil Rajapaksa, duplicating the tasks of Ministry of Finance and Planning which comes under President’s authority which is responsible for formulation and implementation of fiscal and economic policies and strategies.

All Sri Lankans are well aware how the President manipulates the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka but we have hope in Chief Justice and soon we will be able to evaluate the independence of Judiciary by the way they decide the fundamental rights application of General Sarath Fonseka, Member of the Parliament who is being held in military custody - illegally - for opposing the President at the last presidential elections.  The President as the constitutional head of the armed forces and his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (A US Citizen) as the Secretary of Defense have abused their powers by ordering the Army to arrest Gen. Sarath Fonseka, the former commander of the Sri Lankan Army and detaining him without producing him before a normal court of law and by appointing military tribunals headed by hand-picked people to decide Gen. Fonseka's fate.

Whilst Gen Sarath Fonseka, a National Hero, the architect and the military  commander of the successful war against LTTE terrorism  is being detained against  the Constitution of the country as well as the very Army act, a former Terrorist , Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, (Nom de guerre- Col Karuna)  who was behind the brutal killings of 600 Police officers who unfortunately surrendered to him without firing a single shot, to abide by a temporary ceasefire agreement with the Terrorist and then Government of Sri Lanka in 1990,  is  being elected  an MP to the Parliament through the National list and had been now given a deputy Minister post as well . It is not a secret that many thousands of young underage Tamil children of the Eastern part of the country had been abducted and forcefully recruited by this former Terrorist during the time he was the Eastern Commander to LTTE. It is an indisputable   fact that he doesn’t represent aspirations of our Tamil and Tamil speaking Muslim citizens of the Eastern region of the country, nor would they have voted for him to become a Member of the Parliament.  Therefore appointing him as the deputy minister for Resettlement is a direct insult to the Tamil and Muslim Citizens of our country who had overwhelmingly rejected President Rajapakse, by casting their votes at the last Presidential election in favour of the common opposition candidate, the former Army Commander Gen Sarath Fonseka who emancipated the entire North and East from the clutches of LTTE Terrorism and ended a 30 year old brutal war.

It is also a well known fact that this former Terrorist Col Koruna is provided with paramilitary carders to threaten Tamil Civilians in the East. Col Karuna was arrested in London in year 2007 in possession of a forged passport and firearms and spent 9 months in prison in UK. British authorities have claimed that they have enough evidence to show that the Sri Lankan government was complicit in helping Karuna receive a diplomatic passport. Karuna had admitted    in court that the Sri Lankan government, through Permanent Secretary for Defense Gotabhaya Rajapaksa , the brother of the President Rajapakse , had given him the passport which is a violation of diplomatic protocol.

President Rajapaksa had brazenly violated our constitution by not implementing the 17^th amendment to the constitution which is the appointment of the constitutional council. As a result, the country is deprived of independent commissions such as, The Election Commission, The Public Service Commission, The National Police Commission,   The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, The Permanent Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption and The Finance Commission, leading to abuse of Political power with impunity.

It is also not an exaggeration to say that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has single-handedly violated the principle of separation of powers guaranteed by our constitution and carries on ignoring all international conventions following the footsteps of Iran and Burma.  We are very concerned about the future of Sri Lanka and we are absolutely certain that Sri Lanka will emerge as a "Pariah Nation" of the region.

On April 23, 2010 he appointed a known thug, Mervyn Silva as the deputy minister of Mass Media.  We wonder why Sri Lanka even needs a Ministry for Mass Media but we all know it is similar to the Propaganda Ministry of Dr. Josef Goebbels.  While having so many mass media channels under the government control, they want to subdue the few remaining free institutions.  Minister Mervyn Silva is the thug who two years ago bulldozed his way into the State controlled television station Rupavahini accompanied by few thugs and tried to assault an executive for not giving his speech enough publicity.  The employees at the station stood up against him and we all saw the pathetic figure of Mervyn Silva accompanied by his gangsters leaving the station - saved by some other ministers who timely intervened.  His appointment is a direct insult to the free press and media and then president has created a Propaganda Ministry similar to the one Hitler established in Nazi Germany.  The situation is really pathetic and Sri Lankans are helpless.  A few days ago President Rajapaksa merely to appease the international community took this ministry away from Mervyn Silva.

We request all Sri Lankans and the international community to join hands with us in fighting these brazen violations of our fundamental rights and principles of natural justice.  We owe this to our future generations.