How the FDA and CDC Are Failing Us on BA.5, the Worst Covid Variant Yet


The BA.5 variant of Covid-19 is more transmissible than any we’ve seen — so why aren’t government agencies doing more to stop its spread?
By
DAVID AXE






A man wears a mask at Times Square, on June 06, 2022 in New York, United States. Parts of Manhattan back at 20% COVID positivity, the BA.5 subvariant of COVID-19, is believed to be fueling a sixth wave of cases in New York City.
John Smith/VIEWpress/Corbis/Getty Images

The latest subvariant of the novel-coronavirus is spreading fast. And the federal government is struggling to keep up.

There’s a lot the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can do to slow the BA.5 subvariant and prevent deaths.

But both the FDA and CDC have dragged their heels. The FDA still hasn’t taken arguably the most important steps — approving both second boosters for Americans under age 50 and new booster formulations for subvariants such as BA.5. The CDC meanwhile isn’t clearly communicating to the public just how serious BA.5 is.

The delays are hard to explain, experts say. “We have known for a while that this variant was coming and that it seemed to be more transmissible,” says Cindy Prins, a University of Florida epidemiologist.

BA.5, an offshoot of the basic Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, first turned up in viral samples in South Africa back in February. Three months later it was dominant in Israel and across Europe, displacing earlier forms of the pathogen while also driving an increase in global daily Covid cases from around 477,000 a day in early June to 940,000 a day this week.

In late June, BA.5 became dominant in the United States, too. For months before BA.5, daily new U.S. Covid cases had hovered around 100,000. This week cases jumped a third to 130,000 a day. Daily Covid deaths in the U.S. also increased a third, to 400.

BA.5’s dominance is baked into its RNA. Where the mutations that produced many earlier variants and subvariants largely affected the spike protein — the part of the pathogen that helps it to grab onto our cells — BA.5 has mutations all over its structure.

BA.5’s broad mutations make the subvariant less recognizable to our antibodies, whether they’re from vaccines, boosters, past infection, or a mix of all three. BA.5 is skilled at sneaking past our immune systems, contributing to rising rates of reinfections and breakthrough cases in fully-vaccinated people.

Still, practically no U.S. experts expect a fresh round of mask mandates or new restrictions on business or travel. Public-health measures such as these have become politically toxic in the U.S. “It’s a tough atmosphere right now,” Prins concedes.

But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless against BA.5 — or that the federal government doesn’t have a role to play.

One of the most helpful things the CDC can do is promptly communicate where the risk is greatest and where people should consider voluntarily masking up and limiting their exposure to crowds.

It’s not doing a great job, Prins says. “I do think that the messaging about BA.5 has been slower than what I would have expected.”

One of the CDC’s main tools for communicating Covid risk is an interactive map it maintains that displays COVID data on a county level. “The CDC’s community-specific model for assessing current transmission levels is an excellent compromise to keep the public vigilant that we are still amidst a pandemic, while adapting the recommendations to the local level,” says Anthony Alberg, a University of South Carolina epidemiologist.

But the map in its default setting displays somewhat old data. Joaquín Beltrán, a Congressional candidate in California, called the map “intentionally misleading.” The CDC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The CDC’s Covid map includes a default “community levels” setting that appears to show a quarter of America’s 3,223 counties with low Covid rates and 40 percent with medium rates, leaving just 35 percent of counties in the high category.

That might seem to imply that most of the country is weathering BA.5 without a big increase in cases. But that’s not true. Click on the map’s “community transmission” setting and the problem is apparent: 92 percent of countries are in the “high” transmission category.

The devil is in the definitions. The CDC defines the “community levels” on its default map as “new admissions” to hospitals in a given county. In other words, the “levels” map is all about Covid hospitalizations: how many people have been admitted to hospitals for serious infections.

The “transmission” map is more comprehensive and immediate. It depicts all reported Covid cases in a county — even ones that haven’t landed someone in the hospital yet. It even counts cases that might be pretty serious, but where the infected person chose to recuperate at home.

Hospitalizations are what epidemiologists call a “lagging indicator.” Hospitals start filling up days or weeks after a local surge in infections. If you’re watching hospitals for signs a Covid wave, you’re way behind the curve. But that’s the data the CDC shows you first.

The FDA is struggling to keep up, too. Vaccines, boosters and past infection still offer meaningful, if somewhat reduced, protection against BA.5. The best protection comes from two prime doses of the messenger-RNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna plus two boosters.

The problem is that regulators have only approved Americans 50 years old or older, or younger adults with certain immune disorders, for a second booster. “They need to allow all adults to get a second booster,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington Institute for Health.

But the FDA won’t say whether, or when, it might authorize second boosters for younger people. “I have nothing to share at this time,” an FDA spokesperson said when asked about boosters for under-50s.

Pfizer and Moderna meanwhile have developed new boosters that they’ve tailored specifically for Omicron subvariants including BA.5. An FDA advisory panel endorsed these subvariant-specific boosters on June 30. The FDA announced it might finally approve them for emergency use for some Americans starting this fall. But the BA.5 surge is here now.

The FDA needs to move faster on various boosters, says Eric Bortz, a University of Alaska-Anchorage virologist and public-health expert. “It’s not hard to make [a booster] and shouldn’t need a long approval process.”

The agency already has methods for speedily approving new vaccine formulations. After all, it signs off on fresh flu vaccines every year without a top-to-bottom review process, Mokdad pointed out.

Regulators could apply the same fast-track process to Covid boosters. “The FDA should be able to rapidly assess the efficacy and safety of a new formulation,” Bortz said. But it’s stuck doing things the slow way.

The bureaucratic sloth is a bad omen as the Covid pandemic grinds into its 32nd month. It’s looking increasingly likely that the virus will be with us, well, forever — surging from time to time as more-transmissible new variants and subvariants evolve.

To help manage the virus, the feds must keep pace with its evolution. But they’re already falling behind.

3 men linked to Russian spies were in 'unhinged' Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting with Trump: report

Bob Brigham
July 16, 2022

President Donald Trump meeting with Russia's American ambassador Sergei Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov / Russian Foreign Ministry. LAVAROV WAS TRUMP'S KISSINGER

One of America's top counterintelligence experts revealed his thoughts on Saturday on the three men linked to sanctioned Russian spies who were present for a key White House meeting plotting Donald Trump's coup attempt.

"Four days after the electors met across the country and made Joe Biden the president elect, Donald Trump was still trying to find a way to hang on to the presidency," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said in Tuesday's public hearing of the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"On Friday, December 18th, his team of outside advisers paid him a surprise visit in the White House that would quickly become the stuff of legend," Raskin explained. "The meeting has been called unhinged, not normal and the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency. The outside lawyers who'd been involved in dozens of failed lawsuits had lots of theories supporting the big lie, but no evidence to support it."

At the meeting, the group discussed the idea of using the U.S. military to seize voting machines.

"In the wee hours of December 19th, dissatisfied with his options, Donald Trump decided to call for a large and wild crowd on Wednesday, January 6th, the day when Congress would meet to certify the electoral votes," Raskin explained. "Never before in American history had a president called for a crowd to come contest the counting of electoral votes by Congress or engaged in any effort designed to influence, delay, or obstruct the joint session of Congress in doing its work required by our Constitution and the Electoral Count Act. As we'll see, Donald Trump's 1:42 AM tweet electrified and galvanized his supporters, especially the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and other racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight against the government."

In a thread posted to Twitter, former FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok noticed a pattern among some of the participants. Strzok had also headed the FBI's counterespionage section.

Strzok said the meeting had 'staggering counterintelligence issues' presented by three of those in attendance.

"Mike Flynn, who who was paid by an organ of Russian state media to travel to Moscow to attend a dinner where he was seated next to Putin. Flynn later plead guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with the Russian Ambassador about election interference," he noted.

"Patrick Byrne, one of several men once in an intimate relationship with convicted Russian agent Marina Butina. Byrne gave money to Butina after her return to Russia, where she ran for the Duma, hounded Navalny, and supported the invasion of Ukraine," Strzok continued. "Rudy Giuliani, who repeatedly met with and took info from sanctioned Russian agents like Andrii Derkach, despite USIC warnings to the White House in 2019 that Trump’s personal lawyer 'was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence.'"

"So in this tiny meeting in the Oval Office where options to upend US democracy were advanced to the President of the United States, there were not one, not two, but three people directly linked to sanctioned and convicted agents of the Russian government," Strzok noted. "While I doubt Russia planned it, their efforts to gain access to Trump’s inner sanctum succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. And it demonstrates just how successful seemingly amateurish intelligence activity can be."

He included a Russian Foreign Ministry photo from inside the Oval Office of Trump meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The meeting occurred in May of 2017, one day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating Russia's successful efforts to help Trump win the 2016 election.

"President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State," The Washington Post reported a few days later. "A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No U.S. news organization was allowed to attend any part of the meeting."

Here is the thread Strzok posted to Twitter:

U$A
A Majority of Voters Fear For Their Rights Post-Roe

By Bella Kumar

As we all know, the Supreme Court recently announced its decision on Dobbs v. Jackson. This decision effectively overturned the protected right to an abortion under the Constiution which was established by the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. Justice Clarence Thomas argued in a concurring opinion that the Supreme Court “should reconsider” its past rulings codifying rights to contraception access, same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage.

New polling from Data for Progress shows that a majority of voters are concerned about losing a number of their rights and freedoms in the future. Among voters:

64 percent of voters are concerned about same-sex marriage becoming illegal

79 percent of voters are concerned about states restricting access to birth control and other forms of contraception

78 percent of voters are concerned about doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals facing lawsuits or criminal charges from providing necessary reproductive healthcare

89 percent of voters are concerned about victims of rape or incest being forced to give birth to their abusers' children

66 percent of voters are concerned about transgender individuals losing access to medical care






The state of Missouri has enacted a law that prevents abortions unless it is a medical emergency. There are no exceptions for victims of crimes such as rape or incest. Now, some health centers in Missouri have indicated they will no longer provide emergency contraception, also known as Plan B, to victims of rape or incest out of fear that doctors could be sued by the state for providing this care. Seventy-seven percent of voters agree that doctors took an oath to protect patients and the government should not prevent them from providing care, especially in the treatment of victims of sexual crimes. This includes 86 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of Independents, and 72 percent of Republicans.






Voters are terrified that their rights are at risk. These issues will be critical in the midterm elections and these rights must be codified now.


Bella Kumar (@bellakkumar) is a communications intern at Data for Progress.

Survey Methodology PDF

ABOLISH THE HOUSE OF LORDS

Anger at secret plan to fill Lords with Tory loyalists as petition launched to stop it

"Trump packed the supreme court, with disastrous results. Now Johnson is trying to do the same to our House of Lords."

 by Joe Mellor
2022-07-16 10:07
in Politics



ITV has claimed that there is a plot to shoehorn almost 40 Tory supporters into the House of Lords and it has been met with fierce criticism.

It has been proposed by Sir Lynton Crosby’s C|T Group and dubbed ‘Project Homer.’

They argue that if there had been around 40 additional committed Tory supporters in the Lords, Boris Johnson would have avoided more than half of the defeats he suffered in the second chamber since becoming PM.

Dinners as Chequers

It says the loyalty of individual peers could be rewarded by giving them CBEs for political service, making them special envoys or advisors to the prime minister, and giving them lunches and dinners at Chequers, the PM’s country residence.

To try and hide this anti-democratic process they propose that many of the new peers come from under-represented parts of the UK, such as the north and midlands.

It also says that if the list were to contain controversial candidates such as the Mail’s Paul Dacre then critics would concentrate their outrage on him, meaning that the wider plan might not be noticed.

A No 10 spokesperson said: “This is not a government document and does not represent government policy. Unsolicited advice is often received – and disregarded.”

A spokesperson for C|T said: “The document you refer to was simply an early working copy of a discussion paper prepared for a think tank.

“It was not circulated outside of a small group of individuals and was not prepared for any audience outside of that small group of people, to aid discussion.”

A petition has now been set up to stop this and it was shared by Alastair Campbell.

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Related: Reactions as Liz Truss caught copying Thatcher again at Tory leadership debate                                                                                                                                                                                             

Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope damaged after being smashed by space rock, images show

Jon Kelvey

 Fri, July 15, 2022 

Permanent damage to C3, one of the Webb telescope’s 18 mirror segments, can be seen in the lower right corner of the image of Webbs primary mirror the right compared to the image on the left, taken before a micrometeorite strike in May, 2022 (Nasa/ESA/CSA)

Damage to the James Webb Telescope’s primary mirror from a micrometeorite strike in May is worse than first thought, according to new images revealed in a new report.

A paper published Tuesday on the academic preprint server arxiv.org detailing Webb’s performance during the commissioning of the telescope revealed that most of the micrometeorite strikes on Webb’s big mirror resulted in negligible damage, a strike that occured in mid-may left the telescope with permanent damage.

“The single micrometeorite impact that occurred between 22 — 24 May 2022 UT exceeded prelaunch expectations of damage for a single micrometeoroid triggering further investigation and modeling by the JWST Project,” the report read.

Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which encloses the primary mirror the telescope uses to collect light and focus light on scientific instruments in a cylindrical housing, Webb’s 6.5-metre diameter segmented mirror is exposed to space. But given Webb’s orbit around Lagrangian point 2, or L2, a region of space about 1 million miles from Earth, scientists only expected Webb to encounter potentially hazardous micrometeorites about once per month.

During the commissioning period from late January into June, as ground controllers calibrated, aligned, and tested Webb’s mirrors and instruments, the primary mirror sustained six total micrometeorite strikes.

Of those strikes, five did little damage, causing less than 1 nanometer of wavefront error root mean square (RMS), a technical way to describe how much Webb’s mirror distorts the starlight the mirror collects. Most of the distortion added by those five strikes can be corrected out of the mirror, since the 18 hexagonal segments that make up its face can be individually and finely adjusted.

But the sixth strike, which impacted a mirror segment labeled C3, did more damage that can be fully corrected for. That micrometeorite strike raised the wavefront error of the segment from 56 nanometers to 178 nanometers after correction by adjusting the segment.

Because every mirror segment is adjustable, however, the damage to the C3 segment could be compensated for and did not compromise the resolution of Webb’s primary mirror as a whole, according to the report. The total wavefront error for the entire mirror increased by around 9 nanometers due to the strike.

“It is not yet clear whether the May 2022 hit to segment C3 was a rare event (i.e. an unlucky early strike by a high kinetic energy micrometeoroid that statistically might occur only once in several years),” the report read, “or whether the telescope may be more susceptible to damage by micrometeoroids than pre-launch modeling predicted.”

The report goes on to note the Webb project team is considering actions to mitigate future micrometeorite strikes, such as limiting how long the telescope can be pointed in directions known to expose the mirror to a higher probability of micrometeorite strikes.

Preserving the long-term health of the Webb telescope is a high priority for Nasa and astronomers everywhere.

After more than 20 years and $10 billion spent in development, the space telescope was launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket on Christmas Day. That launch was more precise than expected, saving Webb considerable propellant it would have used to correct its course after launch, and nearly doubling the observatory’s projected operational lifespan — so long as space rocks don’t spoil its optics.

“Before launch, JWST was required to carry propellant for at least 10.5 years of mission lifetime,” the report read. “Now that JWST is in orbit around L2, it is clear that the remaining propellant will last for more than 20 years of mission lifetime.”

Drought in the Horn of Africa: Worst in 40 Years

by Graham Peebles / July 16th, 2022

The Horn of Africa (HoA) is once again being battered by climate change induced drought, with the UN report, over “20 million people, and at least 10 million children facing severe drought conditions.”

Desperately needed support from UN agencies (World Food Programme (WFP), UNHCR and UNICEF) is limited due to lack of donations from member states. WFP have been forced to halve food rations due to the “lowest levels of funding on record”. Leading to what UNICEF describes as a “humanitarian catastrophe……. Urgent aid is needed to prevent parts of the region sliding into famine.” The disruption caused to supply chains and food production by the war in Ukraine is adding to the crisis, dramatically increasing food prices and limiting availability.

The region’s agriculture has been decimated by year on year rising temperatures and decreasing rainfall. Food insecurity, in a region with some of the poorest people in the world, is intensifying with the threat of famine looming, and food prices have sky rocketed. Livestock have perished – in Ethiopia alone 2.1 million livestock have died and 22 million are at risk, emancipated with little or no milk production – the primary source of nutrition for young children.

Child malnutrition is increasing and huge numbers of people are being displaced. Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea are all impacted by the most severe drought in forty years.

The effect on rural communities, and children specifically, is devastating. UNICEF estimate 2 million children are in need of treatment for “severe acute malnutrition,” particularly in Ethiopia and in the arid lands of Northern Kenya and Somalia, where the drought is most severe.

As well as decimating food production, drought is intensifying the water crisis in the area – with, the UN say, 8.5 million people (including 4.2 million children) facing water shortages. In Ethiopia, where around 60 per cent of the population (roughly 70 million) do not have access to clean drinking water with or without a drought, the situation is dire. Streams, wells and ponds, that people living in remote areas rely on, are either drying up or are completely parched. Such sterile water sources become contaminated by animal and human waste, increasing the risk of water borne diseases, cholera and diarrhea, which are the leading causes of death among children under five in the country; cases of measles have also been increasing at alarming rates in Ethiopia and Somalia, resulting in some cases in deaths.

Desperate families are being driven to extreme measures to try to survive, with hundreds of thousands leaving their homes in search of food, water, fresh pasture for animals and assistance. This is creating and intensifying numerous issues: Access to health care, education and protection/reproductive services is made difficult, or impossible. Children are forced out of school – approximately 1.1 million; schools close (in a region overflowing with children where 15 million children are already not in school); girls and women are made more vulnerable to physical coercion, sexual/child labor and forced marriage; displacement of persons explodes. Already a massive problem throughout the region, specifically in Ethiopia, where, according to UNHCR (as of March 2022) “an estimated 5,582,000 persons” were internally displaced due to armed conflict and natural disasters.

“Natural” disaster no longer natural

As the world heats up due to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) pouring into the lower atmosphere, the inevitability of extreme weather patterns including drought increases.

Like forest fires, heat waves and monsoon rains, drought was historically regarded as a “natural disaster”, but the frequency and intensity of such events is no longer “natural” and must now be understood to be man-made. Far from being freak happenings, such catastrophic climate explosions are becoming commonplace, and despite producing virtually none of the poisons that are driving climate change, those most affected are the poorest people in the poorest countries or regions.

The seed of the deadly drought in the HoA was planted and fed by the behavior of people in the US, in Europe, Japan and other rich countries. It is the materialistic lifestyles of wealthy developed nations (and disproportionately the richest people within such countries), rooted in irresponsible consumerism (including diets centered around animal food produce), that has caused and is perpetuating the environmental crisis. But to their utter shame the governments of such nations refuse to honor their debt, their responsibility to clean up the mess. On the contrary, because economic health is dependent on rapacious consumption, they continue to promote modes of living that are deepening the crisis.

Commitments made 12 years ago in 2009 by rich nations to give 100 billion USD a year to developing countries are yet to be fulfilled. In 2019 a high of 79.6 billion USD was reached, 71% of which was in the form of loans. Loans – for some of the poorest nations in the world, to mitigate the impact of climate change that they haven’t caused; loans that enable donor nations political and economic influence, perpetuating post-colonial exploitation and control, and ensuring Sub-Saharan Africa remains impoverished, and, more or less enslaved.

Imperial powers have outsourced the most severe effects of climate change; they either refuse to act at all or offer limited support with strings to countries and regions most at risk. At the V20 Climate Vulnerable Finance Summit in July 2021, heads of state demanded that higher income nations do more to meet their promises and called for grants not loans. UN Secretary General, António Guterres said that in order to “rebuild trust, developed countries must clarify now how they will effectively deliver $100 billion in climate finance annually to the developing world, as was promised over a decade ago.” But four months later at COP 26 in Glasgow, where climate finance was a primary issue under consideration, once again the rich nations failed. Failed to honor their word, failed to act responsibly in the interests of poorer nations, failed to stand for the collective good and the health of the planet. Shameful, but predictable. Politicians cannot be and, in fact, are not trusted; national and international climate pledges should be legally binding and enforceable.

Climate change and the environmental emergency more broadly is a global crisis; as such, it requires a global approach. This has been said many times, and yet national self-interest and political weakness continue to dominate the policies and priorities of western governments/politicians. If this crisis, which is the greatest issue humanity has ever faced, is to be met, and healing is to begin in earnest, this narrow nationalistic approach must change. As with other major areas of concern – armed conflict, inequality, displacement of persons, poverty – united, coordinated global policies and a powerful United Nations (UN) are urgently needed, but the single most significant change that is required is a fundamental shift in attitudes; a move away from tribalism, competition and division to cooperation and unity. A recognition, not intellectually or theoretically, but actually, that humanity is one, that we form part of a collective life that is the planet.

As the UN has said the men women and children in the Horn of Africa whose lives are being ravaged by drought need “the world’s attention and action, now.” Sustained action rooted in the realization of our individual and collective environmental responsibility. This requires governments to honor commitments: the $100m billion mitigation fund (as grants not loans), and making up the cumulative shortfall; it means funding the UN properly so emergency humanitarian aid can be supplied to those currently affected by drought in the HoA; it means supporting countries most at risk of man-made climate change in drawing up plans and initiating short and long term projects to minimize where possible the social and economic impact of extreme weather events; and individually, it means living thoughtful, conscious lives, in which the effect on the natural world is at the forefront of daily decisions, including diet, shopping and travel. It is our world, the people displaced by drought in Ethiopia and Somalia are our brethren, and we are all responsible for them.Facebook

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Graham Peebles is an independent writer and charity worker. He set up The Create Trust in 2005 and has run education projects in India, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Ethiopia where he lived for two years working with street children, under 18 commercial sex workers, and conducting teacher training programmes. He lives and works in London. Read other articles by Graham, or visit Graham's website.

SRI LANKA

Get Gota: Holding a War Criminal Accountable

by Binoy Kampmark / July 15th, 2022

The fall and ignominious retreat of Sri Lanka’s Gotabaya Rajapaksa has enlivened one distinct possibility.  Having formally resigned as Sri Lankan President, a point made via email from Singapore, those wishing to see him account for war crimes may get their wish.

There have been various efforts in train regarding a man who ruthlessly concluded his country’s civil war in an orgy of mass killing. The war itself, waged between the forces of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism and the minority Tamils seeking independence, was the rotten fruit of discrimination, exclusion and ethnocratic politics heralded by the passage of the Sinhala Only Act in 1956.  That legislative instrument, implemented by Prime Minister S.W.R.D Bandaranaike, made Sinhalese the country’s official language while banishing Tamils from important positions of employment.

Gotabaya’s entry into Sri Lankan politics was a fraternal affair.  His brother Mahinda, on becoming president in 2005, picked him as defence secretary.  Prior to that, “Gota” worked as a computer systems administrator at Loyola School in Los Angeles, during which time he became a US citizen.

The appointment made him overseer of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).  “My job,” Gota stated in an interview posted on the Sri Lankan Defence Minister website, “was to understand the priorities, rationally organise those priorities in terms of what was really required for victory and flush out needs and requirements that had zero relevance to our objectives.”

In seeing the 26 year conflict to its conclusion in 2009, an estimate by the United Nations put the death toll of Tamil civilians at 40,000.  (The number may well be as high as 70,000).  The formal line taken by government forces was that the Tamils only had themselves to blame, being used as human shields by the guerrilla forces.

Such killings took place even as US President Barack Obama urged a cessation in “the indiscriminate shelling that has taken hundreds of innocent lives, including several hospitals.”  Hoping for some balance, Obama also urged “the Tamil Tigers to lay down their arms and let civilians go.  Their forced recruitment of civilians and their use of civilians as human shields is deplorable.”

The unabashed statement of command responsibility by the former defence secretary is also supported by the view of US Ambassador Patricia Butenis, whose frank assessment is available via a WikiLeaks cable.  According to Butenis, “responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President [Mahinda] Rajapaksa and his brothers.”

There is also abundant prima facie evidence that Gotabaya is responsible for the execution of a number of political leaders and their families upon surrender, was responsible for bombing civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, and insisted that they would target and kill innocent civilians, if necessary, to defeat the LTTE.

His return to public life as president took place on a populist platform denigrating his opponents for not giving “priority to national security.  They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms.”   These remarks to Reuters assumed force in the wake of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings by Islamist militants that caused over 250 deaths.

Over the years, Gotabaya’s resume has been weighed down with blood.  His actions did not begin and end as defence minister.  A May report by the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) focused on the ex-President’s role in a number of atrocities committed in 1989.  The account focuses on the role Gotabaya played as District Military Coordinating Officer of Matale District, an area that saw brutal engagements between government forces and those of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

Between May 1989 and January 1990, Gotabaya oversaw a rule of forced disappearances (the report accounts for 1,042 victims), torture, and killing.  A number of Sri Lankan government commissions took note of over 700 forced disappearances.

His role in the disappearances was also noted by the lengthily titled Presidential Commission into Involuntary Removals or Disappearances of Persons (Central Zone) List of Persons Whose Names Transpired as Responsible for Disappearances – Central Province – Matale District.  (In a list of 24 alleged perpetrators, Gotabaya pops up at 16.)  The tenure was also characterised by an absence of interest in preventing the commission of such crimes or investigating them, “despite complaints being made to him directly by family members of the victims”.

Civil suits have become another avenue of redress in the absence of criminal proceedings, though these have been complicated by questions of state immunity.  Ahimsa Wickrematunge, daughter of assassinated Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, is one figure seeking damages from the man she accuses of authorising the murder of her father, former editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, in 2009.

The civil action, filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, alleged extra judicial killing, crimes against humanity and torture.  The action was dismissed because the plaintiff “cited no authority suggesting that Defendant’s citizenship alone should override the fact that all of the allegations against him concern actions taken in an official capacity as the Sri Lankan Secretary of Defense.”  In conclusion, the Court found for Gotabaya, as he was “entitled to common law foreign official immunity.”  There was an absence of “subject matter jurisdiction”.

Former detective with Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Nishantha Silva also argues that, as secretary of defence, Gotabaya had the means, opportunity and, in the words of his written statement for the People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists, “a clear motive for killing Lasantha Wickrematunge”.

Another possibility, one as yet unexercised, is available under the War Crimes Act of 1996, which amended the Federal criminal code to enable the prosecution and punishment of US nationals for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.  Law academic Ryan Goodman, in a pertinent 2014 piece for Just Security, argues that there would be “a legal windfall for any US effort to investigate and prosecute [Gota] across international borders.  His citizenship also expands US policy space – by reducing US vulnerability to accusations of meddling if we go after one of our own.”

As politicians the world over dread the spectacle of an enraged citizenry storming the residences of president and prime minister, taking dips in their pools, sitting at their desks and eating on the lawns as public commons, a number of dedicated human rights lawyers will be readying their briefs and submissions.  Their mission: Get Gota.

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.