When all the 'FUN' is About Fooling Ourselves-Here in Sri Lanka, there is also polarisation of politics, a reaction to ethnic divisions and frictions within in a post war regime.
(COLOMBO, Sri Lanka) - “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” said George Carlin, the American Comedian, Social Critic and Satirist. “Come on, gentleman; let us drink to our stupidity.” said Santosh Kalwar, the Nepali poet and writer.
Some 'dud' somewhere had calculated that the Rajapaksa family clan have worked terribly hard from day one in power, to earn a paltry income of 120 to 180 million US dollars every year. That's only through Chinese projects and programmes. The same person has also done some arithmetic to say the real “intake” for the family clan with all other income sources would touch anything between 400 to 500 million US dollars annually. And, Rajeev Sharma in Delhi has put them all in his paper (No. 5261) that appears in South Asia Analysis Group, detailing how whole “fronts” put up by the Rajapaksas function, to leave no foot prints behind that could lead to the actual beneficiaries. But they still lead to most other conflicts in this post war Sri Lanka.
News, or rather interesting tales are not leaked to the media by politicians, ministers and Heads of States alone. They are at times leaked by others who have no stake in the issue, but, is privy to the issue. That tells us, this conflict between the Executive and the Judiciary is not the end of the story. It is only the beginning of a story that came into public domain, with Manjula Thilakaratne, Secretary to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), issuing a public statement as instructed by the JSC on 18 September, 2012. The accepted common interpretation to this conflict now out in the open after the physical assault on Thilakaratne and the subsequent “Motion” handed over to the Speaker of parliament on 01st November at an auspicious time, impeaching Chief Justice Shiranee Bandaranayake is that, the Rakapaksa regime fell foul over the determination of the Supreme Court on the “Divineguma Bill”, the Rajapaksa sibling wants implemented.
That single glossing over, does not give the actual reason(s) to the conflict between the Executive and the CJ Bandaranayake. There was nothing unusual in that determination the Speaker announced in parliament on 17 September. The Supreme Court determined the ‘Divineguma Bill’ should be referred to and consented by all Provincial Councils before it is taken up in Parliament. Yet for the first time, he notes that the Speaker had not been duly addressed too on the petition. On the following day, JSC Secretary Thilakaratne issued the historic statement to the media, to the effect that the JSC is being pressured by powerful political sources, but the JSC would not allow the independence of the judiciary and that of the JSC to be compromised in any way. Thereafter the ball started bouncing back and forth, with Thilakaratne ending up at the accident ward of the Colombo General Hospital and CJ Bandaranayake having now got to face the impeachment in parliament. The two incidents, the Speaker's announcement in parliament on the SC determination on 17 September and JSC Secretary's statement on behalf of the JSC on 18 September together, therefore draws a picture, that by itself is not the whole picture. That leaves a big question yet to be answered and is not answered by either party.
