Touting Sri Lanka’s Virtues To The Profit Hungry
By Tim Ferguson -September 28, 2013
Tim Ferguson
Sri Lankan honchos would like to be noticed, and in the right away. Hence their current post-war PR push, as the island nation’s representatives gear up for more engagement with the West. This was on display during a week in which South Asia generally caught increased if anxious attention.
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Tim Ferguson
Sri Lankan honchos would like to be noticed, and in the right away. Hence their current post-war PR push, as the island nation’s representatives gear up for more engagement with the West. This was on display during a week in which South Asia generally caught increased if anxious attention.Building A political A9 Highway To Connect The Old South And The New North
Rajan Philips
The best post-election comment in my view was in the statement of TNA Leader, R. Sampanthan, wherein he said that “the results of this election offers everyone an opportunity which should be fully utilized in a positive manner.” The principal actors in the utilization of this new opportunity are of course the Rajapaksa government in the south and the newly elected and TNA-led Provincial Council in the north. I am using the terms ‘old south’ and ‘new north’ merely in the context of the UPFA’s now routine victories in the Northwest Province and the Central Province, and the TNA’s overwhelmingly emphatic performance in the Northern Province. The congenital devolution detractors do not have to see any ‘seeds of separation’ in my allusions to new north and old south.
Mr. Sampanthan’s statement has categorically laid to rest the canard that the TNA is still nurturing separatism with the assertion that: “The democratic verdict of the (Tamil) people is clear. Within the framework of a united, undivided country, they want to live in security, safeguarding their self-respect and dignity with adequate self-rule, to be able to fulfill their legitimate political, economic, social and cultural aspirations.” It is time to move on and leave behind those who insist on barking and braying. What is needed is a new political A9 highway allowing the free flow of two way political and administrative traffic between the government in Colombo and the new NPC in Jaffna.
The big question is if the Rajapaksa government will allow the new Northern Provincial Council (NPC) with C.V. Wigneswaran as the electorally mandated Chief Minister, to fulfill its constitutional purpose as a concurrent and co-ordinate arm of the state, created to enable provincial self-rule in an undivided country. The constitutional purpose cannot be clearer, although the contours of that purpose and their extensibility are subject to administrative decisions, judicial interpretation and future political agreements. These could go on forever, but nothing will go ahead unless the Rajapaksa government sincerely and honestly acts according to the constitution and allows the new Provincial Council to take office and function.
