UN expert on ‘Transitional Justice’ on long visit to Sri Lanka

by Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka-October 9, 2017, 9:05 pm 

The Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence is due to visit Sri Lanka on the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka, on rather a long visit, from 10th to 23rd October 2017. Almost two whole weeks.

According to the Office of the High Commissioner’s (OHCHR) website, Mr. Pablo de Greiff’s visit is "to examine the progress made in redressing the legacies of massive past violations and abuses, including those that resulted from a conflict that spanned more than 25 years."

Describing him as a "UN Expert on Transitional Justice" the news item adds that "In 2015, the Government of Sri Lanka committed itself to designing and implementing a comprehensive transitional justice strategy."

In September this year, in the Special Rapporteur’s report (A/HRC/36/50) to the Human Rights Council, Mr. de Greiff thanked Sri Lanka for the invitation and "regrets that his requests for visits to Brazil, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Guinea, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Nepal and Rwanda are still pending." Interesting.

He also revealed that "On 16 and 17 May 2017, the Special Rapporteur participated in the inter-agency retreat on the theme ‘United Nations support for transitional justice in Sri Lanka’, held at the United Nations Headquarters."

Transitional Justice

According to Report of the UN Secretary-General in 2004 on ‘The rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict societies’, "The notion of ‘transitional justice’ …comprises the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. These may include both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, with differing levels of international involvement (or none at all) and individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof."

What prompted the present Sri Lankan government to commit itself to "designing and implementing a comprehensive transitional justice strategy" in 2015? What was Sri Lanka transitioning from? What was it transitioning to? TJ evolved as a response to transitions to democracy from dictatorships (military, one-party, apartheid) and its mechanisms were aimed at establishing ‘rule of law’ in contexts where independent institutions had been wrecked.

The Special Rapporteur’s report presented in September 2017 confirms that "Even a cursory review of the development of the paradigm of transitional justice over the past 30 years suggests that it emerged from the experiences of a set of countries – in the Southern Cone of Latin America, to a lesser extent from those in Central and Eastern Europe, and then in South Africa – that shared many characteristics."

In this context, he says "Assisting societies devastated by conflict or emerging from repressive rule to re-establish the rule of law and come to terms with large-scale human rights violations, especially within a context marked by broken institutions, exhausted resources, diminished security, and a distressed and divided population, presents a daunting challenge…"

This challenge is identified as "…the establishment or reestablishment of an effective governing administrative and justice system founded on respect for the rule of law and the protection of human rights."

The situation in Sri Lanka was not exactly "a context marked by broken institutions, exhausted resources, diminished security, and a distressed and divided population…" The institutions were not "broken" and we had a functioning judiciary.

What made Sri Lanka in 2015 require "the establishment or reestablishment of an effective governing administrative and justice system"? Sri Lanka emerged from an armed conflict, certainly, but the State’s strength, coherence and functional competence were manifest in that it successfully defeated a separatist terrorist army and reestablished its territorial integrity, while remaining a multiparty democracy with functioning institutions. Throughout the war, the state paid the salaries of government employees and transported food and medicine to the population in the conflict areas which was not under its control. This is considered unprecedented in an armed conflict. So what made Transitional Justice applicable to Sri Lanka?

The Report of the Special Rapporteur

In the impressive report (A/HRC/36/50) presented to the UN Human Rights Council this September, the Special Rapporteur queries whether "the same model of transitional justice forged in post-authoritarian transitions can be applied to post-conflict transitions without modification." He further states that "transitional justice is not a "universal policy tool" that works equally well in all contexts." He identifies what he calls "a generalized tendency to copy institutions regardless of contextual fit" using a term from economics called "isomorphic mimicry" which is unhelpful. He calls instead, for a "close fit between problem and remedy, between context and solution".

In the situations that have shaped TJ so far, the Special Rapporteur identifies commonalities such as "a type of transition that may be characterized as "regime failure", either "outright collapse or terminal weakening." Clearly, this was not the case in Sri Lanka.

In addition, "Most States concerned regarded themselves as recovering legal traditions temporarily disrupted by authoritarianism...Transitional justice was also made feasible by the fact that the violations were predominantly and overwhelmingly perpetrated by just one actor…"

He adds that "proponents of transitional justice have been much less ready to heed rhetoric about context sensitivity than it should have been, as evidenced by the suspicious resemblance of institutional policies despite the very significant differences in the contexts in which they are applied."

In 2015, when the incoming Sri Lankan government readily agreed to design a transitional justice process, I wonder if it had thought the matter through or was guilty of "isomorphic mimicry". Or was it something else altogether?

In his excellent report, the Special Rapporteur admits the difficulties in applying TJ in post-conflict situations. "…Some of the background conditions … in post-authoritarian settings are simply absent in most countries in a post-conflict situation. In these contexts, drawing familiar lines between contending forces, between civilians and armed agents, and even between victims and perpetrators, becomes increasingly difficult." (My emphases- SdeSJ)

The existing mechanisms, according to the Special Rapporteur, were a response to "the result of the brutal exercise of State power …These States were emerging from authoritarianism… The violations were the result of the abusive exercise of a tremendously asymmetric State power".

This description does not apply to a State fighting a formation such as the LTTE, with its own army, navy and fledgling air-force, not to mention large numbers of suicide bombers in civilian areas outside the conflict zone. The Special Rapporteur recognized this in his differentiation:

"…while in post-authoritarian contexts the State is overwhelmingly responsible for violations, conflict scenarios have a more "horizontal" or symmetrical distribution of violence… in which multiple agents of violence operate. In the words of one author, ‘chaos has replaced tyranny as the new challenge to human rights in the twenty-first century’."

As such, his recommendations include "further research and discourse aimed at clarifying the role of armed non-State actors in the international legal framework. The lacunae in this framework concerning their obligations, rights and responsibilities, especially in post-conflict settings, are an obstacle to the implementation of transitional justice measures. Different United Nations organs, in particular OHCHR, could take the lead in these discussions."

However, even in the differentiation of post-conflict as opposed to post-authoritarian transitions in the Special Rapporteur’s report, things don’t exactly fit with regard to post-conflict Sri Lanka:

"...post-conflict transitions are conducted in a context of significantly greater scarcity of security and development. Cycles of violence, to which many of these countries have been subjected, affect all dimensions of life. Conflict decimates infrastructure, diminishes foreign and local investment, distorts government expenditures, decreases revenues, disrupts education, and generally depletes social capital."

Certainly by 2015, when we signed up for TJ, all of the issues mentioned had been taken care of by the State, as part of the post-war processes. As for government revenue, today with a new government in place after democratic elections in peacetime, the growth rate has halved from that maintained during war time, and well below the spurt Sri Lanka experienced in the immediate aftermath of the victory.

Another indicator of post-conflict societies requiring TJ is described in the report as containing "…institutions that are considerably weaker in terms not only of their extent of coverage but also of their depth. In such contexts, State institutions do not cover the entire territory, and significant legal vacuums exist, in addition to enforcement deficits". This had also been dealt with when the LTTE was defeated, and certainly by 2015, democratic elections had been held at all levels of the political and governance structure in the former conflict areas.

When TJ is applied in the Sri Lankan context, these therefore cannot be the relevant considerations for its application. The question has to be posed then, whether the Sri Lankan context qualifies for Transitional Justice at all.

Can a legitimate State with uninterrupted democratic elections and several changes of governments throughout the period of violent conflict, and with functioning democratic institutions, be a subject for a Transitional Justice solution? Justice, most certainly, but Transitional Justice? Is there a line of demarcation, or does every post-conflict process, even after a decisive victory for the democratic State rather than a mediated/negotiated peace, come under TJ, and if so on what basis?

In preparation for the Special Rapporteur’s report on his global study on Transitional Justice, (A/HRC/36/50/Add.1), five regional consultations were held, with States, UN agencies, regional organizations and civil society to understand the regional specificities, share priorities, lessons and good practices. The consultations took place in: Cairo, Buenos Aires Kampala, Berlin and in Colombo last year.

In the comprehensive report that followed, Mr. Greiff identifies what he calls "The most important contribution of transitional justice". He says that it is "quite simply, its unpacking of the concept of justice into constituent and mutually reinforcing elements: truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, in recognition of the fact that criminal justice alone would not be enough to satisfy the justice claims of victims of massive or systematic human rights abuse."

This then seems to be where the line of demarcation exists. TJ applies where ‘criminal justice’ alone would not be adequate and it would not be adequate only in cases where "massive or systematic human rights abuse" has taken place.

Sri Lanka had not agreed that these conditions exist in its case, according to the outcome document of the independent commission appointed to look into allegations of abuse during the conflict. The LLRC report (as it is commonly known) identifies individual instances of abuse which it recommends should be independently investigated under the criminal justice system, but does not find evidence of ‘massive’ or ‘systematic’ abuse.

According to the OHCHR, Mr. Greiff is expected to meet "Government officials at central and provincial levels, representatives of the legislature, members of the judiciary, the armed forces, law enforcement officials, religious leaders, political parties, the Human Rights Commission, civil society, victims’ groups, academics and representatives of the international community."

In this context, serious critical engagement with this mandate holder by all who are concerned in order to help him understand the complexity and specificity of the context, political and contemporary historical, in which TJ is sought to be applied in Sri Lanka, could be the most constructive approach.

March in Jaffna for release of Tamil political prisoners

09Oct 2017

Tamils in Jaffna protested for the release of all political prisoners and called for the Sri Lankan attorney-general to overturn the decision to transfer Tamil detainees’ cases from Vavuniya to Anuradhapuram.

The protestors marched through Jaffna town, starting off at the main bus stand, and engaged in a brief road-block on Hospital Road, which led to confrontations with traffic police.

Read More

Does the govt. have political will to make it happen?

Education reforms:

2017-10-10

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has remarked during a recent visit to a public school in Colombo, that his government would soon introduce a 21st century education system. What that education system entails is not yet clear, and, many past reforms coated in such blissful slogans had delivered very little. Education reforms which are conducted in secrecy and became a prerogative of a few could do more damage than good. Not least because in principle, reforms in such a key sector need multi-sector participation, but also because, if Sri Lanka’s current school and university curricula suggest anything, our educationists are not an impressive lot. Leave it unto them; they will spout out another half- baked solution. Their problem is they suffer from a disjuncture with the wider economic and technological imperatives of the labour force. They have done little to fill that void, by bringing in the insights of the right people in the corporate sector, who after all hire school leavers and university graduates.
Our school and university education operate in isolation from the needs of the labour market. Even in some fields where there is a convergence, it does not impart that extra-premium on the public school student that could help him outsmart his privately-educated peers. That is especially callous since a majority of Sri Lanka’s intellectually-gifted kids study in the public school system.   

 

The problem is twofold. First, our education is overly-focused on rote learning at the expense of critical thinking. That deficiency spreads out from primary education to the Advanced Level Arts and Commerce streams, though mathematics and science may be performing much better. Then, much of that rote learning is done in vernacular languages, further undermining the quality of education. Outside the walls of academia, the corporate sector conducts business in English. An aspiring youth who had a purely vernacular education finds his or her chances for career advancement seriously compromised. We have seen this happening to many generations of youth with devastating societal implications, which contributed to two youth insurgencies.  

Mr. Wickremesinghe has said: “English medium education was introduced in Sri Lanka before many other countries. It was a great opportunity over other countries. However, Sri Lanka could not sustain it. Other countries which introduced English medium education after Sri Lanka had managed to benefit more than Sri Lanka.”  

This is not some novel discovery of astute Mr. Wickremesinghe. Almost all Sri Lankans of several generations, who are not frogs in a well, have observed that. But, they did not have the power to fix the problem. They were not politicians. The only politician who genuinely tried to do something was President Chandrika Kumaratunga who introduced the English medium education to public schools. (Her successor unfortunately overlooked her initiative and let it die a natural death in most schools which initially opened English medium classes).  

Mr. Wickremesinghe has power and he claims his government now has money too, to fix the problem. Then why not do something concrete and long-lasting? Disappointing fact though is that his government has already wasted two years and its education minister does not sound like someone with a perspective to handle an intricate affair such as education. There is another problem that even the most competent officials in the field could not avoid without being bogged down. The gradual decay in the quality of education, especially that of English medium, is so overwhelming that it is not easy to reverse. The government could allocate any amount of budgetary spending, but teachers who can teach in English are few and far between. It will take another generation to rebuild that human capital which we had in abundance when misplaced populist policies tore the system down.  

Our school and university education operate in isolation from the needs of the labour market. Even in some fields where there is a convergence, it does not impart that extra-premium on the public school student that could help him outsmart his privately-educated peers

For the moment, Sri Lanka can take lessons from the experience of Christian missionaries of the 19th century, who with shoe-string budgets built a world class education system within half a century. Of course, their Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim counterparts and colonial government later chipped in, but they laid the foundation for that healthy competitive dynamic. They succeeded, because knowledge imparted tends to multiply and take its own growth cycle. So does mediocracy, as we witnessed during the latter decades of independence.  

The government should start from scratch and get at least the well-to-do schools and Maha Vidyalayas to open English medium classes from Grade one to Advanced Level. Few years from now, students who pass out from those schools can become better teachers than their teachers and add quality to education. The government can also tap into a large pool of students who have studied in international schools, who can be recruited as teachers. The government should also place an additional premium on English medium education, teachers and students. The corporate sector already does so. One of the unfortunate fallacies of previous tampering with education was equating vernacular education with English education. That removed the incentive for teachers to learn English, and later let them to monopolise the system, which over time contributed to the current status of an insular system. 

 
That would mean a big part of education reforms would entail training teachers already in the service. Interactive online modules which are already used to teach globally, including far more complex languages such as Chinese, would come handy and be cost-effective in promoting English language education.  

The other problem of curriculum should be less contentious. Countries learn from successful practices of lead states, and emulate and improvise those already tested policies and strategies. Sri Lanka does not need to reinvent the wheel, (that only serves the ego of a few), instead it should adopt and improvise syllabuses and best practices of other states. For instance, to teach science and mathematics, it can learn from high-performing Southeast Asian states such as Singapore, or Shanghai, China, of which students outperform their Western peers in global comparative tests such as PISA. And for God’s sake, it should also cut down on too much rubbish taught in the name of religion, culture and history. Such teaching, though may sound patriotic, comes at the expense of critical learning of students and leads to doom. Instead, kids should be given an outward-looking education that would help them thrive in the outside world, and not be trapped in the past.  

Mr. Wickremesinghe can give a try at many of those reforms. Sri Lankan parents have now come a full-circle from the disastrous populist reforms they themselves cheered six decades ago. Only glitch though is whether the Prime Minister has political will to invest political capital on this, which unfortunately for Sri Lanka, is not necessarily a vote winner in the next election. That should also be proof of how an insular education imparted for generations distorted national priorities.   

Follow @RangaJayasuriya on Twitter  

Devolution Debate: Facts that should not be forgotten

by Prof. G. H. Peiris-October 9, 2017, 9:03 pm 

(Continued from Friday (06)

The fallacy of the notion that the Provincial Council system (with a supposedly interim merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces) was the outcome of an indigenous evolutionary process of compromise and consensus in mainstream politics could be grasped from the following portrayal by another illustrious De Silva – Professor K. M., a close and loyal associate of JRJ – of the ethos at the formalisation of this pernicious Accord on 29th July 1987.

"Even as the cabinet met on 27 July violence broke out in Colombo when the police broke up an opposition rally in one of the most crowded parts of the city. It soon spread into the suburbs and the main towns of the southwest of the island and developed into the worst anti-government riot in the island's post-independence history… When Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi arrived in the island on 29 July to sign the accord the security services and the police were still engaged in preventing the mobs from entering the city of Colombo intent on demonstrating their opposition to the accord. The situation in the country was very volatile at the time of signing of the accord, with news coming in of a dangerous mob making its way to Colombo on the Galle road through Moratuwa and the Dehiwala Bridge. There was every possibility that the government would have been overthrown and JR himself deposed. That explains why a request was made for Indian army personnel to take over from the Sri Lanka army in Jaffna; and above all, the sending of two Indian frigates to remain outside the Colombo harbour – placed very conspicuously – as a token of Indian commitment to protect the government, and available to evacuate JR and those who supported the accord just in case it became necessary to do so".

In order to refute another fallacy that has even greater significance to current Sri Lankan constitutional affairs, I should draw the readers' attention to the fact that Rajiv's peace efforts, featured as they were by an ostentatious pretence of moving away from his late mother's aggressively 'imperious' approach to dissention between Delhi and its peripheries both internal as well as external, entailed the signing of several 'peace accords' that turned out to be short-lived; and, contrary to what some of our pundits would like to make us believe, the Accord of 1987 does not have the status of an inviolable treaty of the type enforced by the victor on the vanquished in wars the world has witnessed over several centuries and that, in any event, it was India that failed to fulfil its Accord commitment to Sri Lanka and make it null and void.

If the Steering Committee has proposed the en bloc adoption of the ''13th A (why this is yet to be clarified through an official announcement is typical of the absurdly surreptitious constitutional reform procedures), it indicates a perfunctory approach towards its task. First of all, 'Appendix II of the 'Ninth Schedule' titled 'Land and Land Settlement' makes it abundantly clear that the real architects of the '13th A' (bureaucrats of Delhi's South Block) had a prejudiced and excessively narrow, perception of what powers and functions over 'Land' in Sri Lanka really entails. In confining their stipulations almost entirely to the distribution of state land among the rural poor, they appear to have been guided by: (a) the thoroughly discredited notion of the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka constituting an exclusive 'Traditional Tamil Homeland', (b) a belief inculcated by the TULF of land settlement (the foremost development strategy in Sri Lanka from about the mid-1930s) being a government-sponsored process of Sinhalese encroachment of that homeland, and (c) a ready acceptance of the grievance of the TULF leadership that the ongoing Mahaveli Development Programme (MDP) will accelerate that 'encroachment', in disregard of the fact that 'downstream' agrarian development in areas earmarked by the 'Mahaveli Authority' for settlers selected from the Tamil and Muslim peasantry was being prevented by their own "boys". Thus, in their haste to work out a response to the TULF demand on 'land powers' in the hope that Tamil terrorist groups could thus be appeased, they also overlooked the fact that the term ‘land’ is definitionally hazy and that the related constitutional specifications should encompass a wide spectrum of powers and functions of government stretching in their applicability from an international plane (as witnessed at the 'nationalisation' of plantations in 1975 and expected for the inflow of foreign investment in the 'Singapore Model' of the open economy), at the one extreme, to that of the individual citizen (as experienced in the employment of the Land Acquisition Act of 1950 or the Land Reform Law of 1972), at the other. They also paid scant regard to the fact that a fragmentation of authority over land could result in a political cum administrative mess for large-scale inter-provincial development projects such as the 'Gal Oya Scheme' of early independence and the 'Mahaveli Development Programme'. The considerations stemming from these deficiencies of the 'Appendix II' appear to have been of no consequence to the relevant sub-committee (disgustingly including JO representation as well) or the pretended 'constitutional law' expertise that has gone into the compilation (as the snippets of information available to us) the Steering Committee Report. That is nothing compared to the shock of reading a national newspaper report on 30 September according to which the President of the Republic had not seen the Steering Committee Report supposedly submitted to parliament 10 days earlier.

The other considerations pertaining to 'Land Powers' that ought to have been accorded careful consideration in the compilation of the Steering Committee report are (to state as briefly as possible) are: (a) that development programmes in Sri Lanka involving the harnessing of ecological resources of large areas such as the MDP and the earlier 'Gal Oya Scheme' were implemented under special statutory 'Authorities' vested with administrative powers that transgressed provincial and district boundaries; (b) that 'Land' powers should be designed to embrace a wide range of vital governmental concerns such as environmental conservation, solid waste disposal and control of atmospheric and hydraulic pollution, counteracting natural hazards including the impact of global warming that would result in acute regional water deficiencies and, as Chandre Dharmawardena with his impeccable expertise has explained in a recent issue of The Island, territorial losses along the island's maritime fringe; (c) that, as C. M. Madduma Bandara, encapsulating long years of invaluable environmental research and his experience as the Chairman of a Land Commission of the late-1980s has insisted in several publications, the present provincial delimitation, a remnant of colonial administration finalised in 1898 designed mainly to set the stage for an explosive growth plantation enterprise in tea and rubber, is totally inappropriate from the viewpoint of contemporary land-based resource utilisation.

More generally the fact that Delhi's bureaucrats who prepared the 'position papers' for the Indian 'foreign affairs' stalwarts who were engaged in Sri Lanka "negotiations" during that fateful episode paid scant regard to these considerations is no cause for surprise. The real surprise is that the present 'Steering Committee' appears to have remained oblivious to the sordid thirty-year record of Provincial Councils which indicates more than all else that, while their custodians have spared no pains in personal empowerment and aggrandisement, they have failed to make optimum use of the resources placed at their disposal by the Centre, had many lapses even in routine functions such as salary payments to their employees, created bloated administrative structures, intensified local-level electoral malpractices and at least sporadically contributed to the proliferation of politicised crime and, barring a very few exceptions, accomplished nothing for the benefit of the people that couldn't have been done more efficiently and economically by agencies of the central government with due regard to prioritising the survival of Sri Lanka.

(Concluded)

REALIZING MUSLIM WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN SRI LANKA – WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME? – SHREEN ABDUL SAROOR

Image: Muslim women in Sri Lanka; Credit: Abdul-Halik Azeez.

09/10/2017

The Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) which was enacted in 1951 has been perceived primarily as religious and minority issue. Muslim male politicians and religious leaders and government actors for over decades have only considered it a concern to be resolved ‘within the community’. Thus this has prevented MMDA issues to be raised as a matter of equality and fundamental rights of Muslim women viz a vis the State despite the fact that MMDA is a law like any other law enacted by Sri Lankan Parliament and any judgments made by the Quazi court system is enforceable through our judicial system. More importantly the MMDA is part of our colonial legacy and no longer reflects current realities of Sri Lankan Muslims nor the advances made in the interpretation of Muslim personal law in Muslim communities and countries across the world.

Irrespective of discriminatory provisions and procedural irregularities, MMDA is protected through Article 16(1) of the 1978 Constitution which states that ‘All existing written law and unwritten law shall be valid and operative notwithstanding any inconsistency with the provisions of the fundamental rights chapter’. The Government of Sri Lanka has repeatedly placed the responsibility for MMDA reforms on the Muslim community especially on religious leaders and male politicians. This is despite the work of individual Muslim women and women’s groups such as Muslim Women Research Action Forum (MWRAF) working with processes that promised change and more recently Muslim women in the numbers making representations before the Public Representations Committee (PRC) on Constitutional Reforms as well as the Sub-committee on Fundamental Rights of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly to demand for equal and non-discriminatory laws and practices and specially reforms of personal and customary laws. These Muslim women, especially those directly affected by the MMDA, went one step further and even demanded they be given the option of accessing the civil court system for redress or even an option to opt out of the MMDA, by removing the clause in the General Marriage Registration Ordinance (GMRO) which currently prohibits Muslims marrying under general law, which in itself a discrimination between the citizens.

In addition women’s groups like Women’s Action Network (WAN) and Muslim Personal Law Reform Action Group (MPLRAG) are demanding that the new Constitution protects rights of all citizens, regardless of when or whether or not reforms to discriminatory laws take place. The demand is that Article 16(1) be repealed on the principle of ensuring equality for all citizens and to open further possibility of MMDA reform.

These women groups also have taken up this demand at various national and international forums and there is mounting pressure on the government to reform discriminatory provisions in the MMDA. The price these women, specially the affected and ground level activists, are paying is huge. They have been falsely accused of ‘betraying the community’ in the face of Buddhist extremists, and for opening up problems of the Muslim community for public discussion.

But for those advocating reforms to MMDA the motivation is simple. Injustices and discrimination faced within the community and family is the same as injustice and discrimination faced by the community from outside forces. Both are a struggle for equality and equal treatment before law. Both are a struggle for full recognition, guarantee and protection of rights. Both are a struggle for dignity and justice. It is important to realise that this current wave of MMDA reform activism is based on the significant work by activists, community leaders and scholars within the Muslim community and also from outside, but also on the failures of those who have insisted on gradualist reform agenda that has yielded little in the way of structural change at least since 1951.

Stalled reforms?

The MMDA reform committee that was appointed in 2009 by the then Justice Minister Milinda Moragoda consists of Justice Saleem Marsoof, P.C., former Judge of the Supreme Court (the Chair of the committee), Justice A.W.A. Salam, former Judge of the Court of Appeal, Mr. Suhada Gamalath, then Secretary to the Ministry of Justice and Law Reform, Mr. Shibly Azeez, P.C., a former Attorney General, Mr. Faisz Muzthapha, P.C., a former Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Professor Sharya Scharenguivel, Executive Director for Centre for Human Rights Studies., Mr. Mohamed Mackie, a Judge of the High Court and former Assistant Secretary to the Judicial Service Commission, Mr. S.M.A. Jabbar, former Chairman of the Board of Quazis (now deceased), Dr. M.A.M. Shukri, Former Director Jamiah Naleemiah, Ash-Sheik Mohomead Magdoom Ahmad Mubarak, former President Jamiathul Ulama, Ash-Sheik Mohummad Ibrahim Mohummad Rizwe Mufthi, President of Jamiathul Ulama, Deshabandu Mrs. Jezeema Ismail, Former member of the National Committee on Women and Human Rights Commission, Mr. Razmara Abdeen, Attorney at Law, Mrs. Safana Gul Begum, Attorney at Law, Mrs. Fazlet Shahabdeen, Attorney at Law, Mrs. Shermila Rasool, former National Project Coordinator, Access to Justice Project, UNDP, and Ms. Dilhara Amerasinghe, then Additional Secretary and Mr. A.K.D.D. Arandara, then Assistant Secretary to the Ministry.

All of these members are learned individuals and known for their professionalism. The very fact that they agreed to be part of this committee itself indicates that they all firmly believed that MMDA needed reform. However they have been dragging their feet over eight years to deliver, irrespective of the fact that there have been many promises made by the committee members to the community that they will deliver. Many dates and deadlines have been given and now a Cabinet sub committee too has been appointed to look into their report once it is released but so far nothing has materialized.

 Towards the later part of last year it was told by the Chair that the Committee’s report would be out soon. Thereafter it was believed that the chair based on the deliberations had circulated a draft report within the committee. I am of the understanding, now, that there is yet another proposal from All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulama (ACJU) to the committee which probably is aimed to cause further delay and regresses from providing solutions.

Do the committee members understand in the last eight years, that they have taken to contemplate on this reform report, how much injustice has been committed against the women and children in their own community? How could they be so thick skinned? How are they failing in their leadership to demonstrate that Islam is in fact a just way of life? Do they not realise how the failure to provide solutions through legal reforms has negatively impacted so many lives or does their reputation among male religious leaders over ride their humaneness?

Will the renowned lawyers and “progressive” Muslim rights activists of this reform committee stand up to backwardness and cowardly acts of certain faction of the community and deliver to the Muslim women their rights to be treated equal before law? Or are they going to turn a blind eye and succumb to conservative and religious fundamentalists?

For the Muslim community, religious and political leaders who think they are ‘protecting’ Islam by supporting discriminatory provisions in the MMDA, please check your privilege. Are you really trying to justify discriminations in the name of Islam? As a Muslim woman I believe in an Islam that is just and talks about compassion and dignity irrespective of one’s gender. It is painful to see increasingly the Islam and the Just God I love, has been hijacked by authoritarian forces and has been turned into something that I cannot connect with anymore. Unjust laws and practices in the name of Islam are untenable and lead to more inequality among Muslims. The quest for equality and justice for Muslims in Sri Lanka, should begin at home.

SRI LANKA: Journalist of ‘Sunday Apple’ newspaper tortured by Assistant Superintendent of Police of Tangalle

09 October 2017

Dear Friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) received information about Mr. Susantha Bandara Karunarathna, a journalist working for the ‘Sunday Apple’ newspaper. He was tortured by the Assistant Superintendent of Police of Tangalle, I. T. Daluwath. Susantha was engaged in his duties as a journalist, covering a peaceful protest at Hambantota Town on 6 October 2017. He was illegally arrested, detained, tortured and denied urgently needed medical treatment. The senior Consultant Surgeon examined the patient at the Debarawewa District Hospital, directing the Police to take the patient for immediate treatment at the Hambantota General Hospital. However, the Police refused, produced him before the Magistrate Court of Hambantota, remanding him in Tangalle Remand Prison. When his physical condition turned serious, Prison Authorities admitted him to the Hambantota General Hospital the next day. Observing the severity of the situation, the Doctors transferred the patient to the Matara General Hospital. Police have severely tortured, inhumanly denied urgently needed medical treatment and obstructed the journalist from doing his work.

SRI LANKA Journalist of ‘Sunday Apple’ newspaper tortured by Assistant Superintendent of Police of Tangall... by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Case Narrative:

Sri Lanka: LITRO Gas Boss Nabbed Over Cybertheft

( October 9, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sri Lankan police have arrested two men including LITRO Gas Chairman, Shalila Munasinghe, for allegedly helping international criminals who hacked into computers at a Taiwan bank and stole millions of dollars, an official said Sunday.

The pair were arrested after they tried to withdraw large sums of money that had been wired to their accounts with a Sri Lankan bank branch in the capital Colombo, the official said.

The police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was working closely with Taiwan counterparts to track down the hackers, who are said to have breached the Taiwan bank’s computers last week.

“We are looking at some US$1.3 million (RM5.51 million) that had come into three accounts in Sri Lanka,” the official involved with the investigation told AFP, asking not to be named.

“We have taken two people into custody and we are looking for one more person.”

Police in Sri Lanka did not disclose the name of the affected bank in Taiwan or the sum said to have been stolen, but a Sri Lankan media report said tens of millions of dollars had been wired out of the island.

In Taipei the Financial Regulatory Commission confirmed that the local Far Eastern International Bank’s SWIFT system had been hacked through a computer virus but gave no details.

Taiwanese media quoted the bank as saying that it detected irregularities in its SWIFT system and there were suspicious transactions starting Thursday to Sri Lanka, Cambodia and the United States.

However, Taiwan police have recovered most of the money with the help of counterparts in other countries, the reports said.

Bank officials were not immediately available for comment.

Sri Lankan police investigated a similar theft in February last year when hackers broke into the computer system of the Bangladesh central bank and transferred US$20 million of stolen money to a Sri Lankan businesswoman.

The money was recovered and an court investigation is pending.

About 50% fund hike for President’s expenses in next year’s budget

PM gets 41% more for 2018

By Saman Indrajith-October 9, 2017, 11:28 pm

The government yesterday presented to Parliament its estimated expenditure for the next year in which the expenses of the President’s office has been increased by more than 50 percent. The expenditure of the Prime Minister is expected to increase by 29%.

The appropriation bill presented to Parliament by Acting Finance Minister Eran Wickramaratne has estimated the total government expenditure at Rs. 3, 982 billion (Rs 3, 982, 367,818,000).

The amount is an increase of Rs 2,162 billion compared to the previous year’s allocation of Rs. 1,819 billion (1,819,544,000,000) The limit on borrowings for 2018 has been set at Rs. 1, 813 billion (Rs. 1,813,367,818,000).

The allocation to the President’s Office (Rs 6.4 billion in 2017) has been increased to over Rs. 9.9 billion (9,983,525,000) in the next financial year, indicating over a fifty per cent increase. Of this amount, around Rs. 2.7 billion will go for recurrent expenditure while the rest will be for operational and development activities under the President’s Office.

Next year’s allocations for the Defence Ministry coming under the President indicate a slight increase as compared to the previous year when it received Rs. 284 billion. The Defence Ministry allocation for 2018 is around Rs. 290 billion (290,711,375,000), of which, around Rs. 260 billion will go for recurrent expenditure and around Rs 30 billion for capital expenditure. The Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment also coming under the purview of the President has been given Rs. 45.6 billion (45,611,154,000). 

The highest allocation has been made to the Ministry of Finance and Mass Media. It will get Rs. 227,572,088,000 while the least allocation has been made to the Ministry of Special Assignments; it is Rs. 105,000,000.

The allocation for the Ministry of Education, which received only Rs. 76.9 billion last year, has been increased to Rs. 102.8 billion (102,880,000,000) for the next year. The Ministry of Higher Education and Highways has been allocated Rs. 182.7 billion (182,757,000,000). The allocation for that ministry for the current year is Rs. 163.4 billion. The allocation for the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine stands around Rs. 178.3 billion (178,399,998,000). It is an increase of around Rs. 18 billion when compared to the allocation made in 2017 (Rs. 160,971,829,000).

The other big allocations are for the Ministries of Public Administration of Management (Rs. 185,625,365,000), the Law and Order and Southern Development (Rs. 82,898,883,000) and the Provincial Councils and Local Government (Rs. 218,217,379,000).

The expenditure of the Prime Minister for the next year will be Rs. 1,772,680,000. This is a 41% increase, compared to the allocation for the current year (Rs. 1,255,271,000

Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka’s Ministry of Regional Development will get only Rs. 972,755,000 while Champika Ranawaka’s Megapolis and Western Development Ministry will be given Rs. 51,109,160,000)

Among the other allocations are Ministries of Buddha Sasana Rs 1,462,955,000), National Policies and Economic Affairs Rs. 25,734,830,000), Disaster Management: (Rs. 5,810,700,000), Posts, Postal Services and Muslim Religious Affairs (13,530,800,000), Justice (Rs 11,149,911,000), Foreign Affairs (Rs 10,778,550,000), Transport and Civil Aviation (42,136,737,000), Agriculture (Rs 23,789,947,000), Power and Renewable energy (Rs  837,883,000), Women and Child Affairs (Rs 3,009,243,000),  Home Affairs (Rs 44,100,000,000), Lands and Parliamentary Reforms (Rs 9,097,252,000), Housing and Construction (Rs 11,247,500,000), Social Empowerment and Welfare (Rs 18,578,578,000), Sports ( Rs 5,425,000,000), Industry and Commerce (Rs 9,080,878,000), Petroleum Resources Development (Rs 308,800,000), Rural Economic Affairs (Rs 7,238,610,000), National Coexistence, Dialogue and Official Languages (Rs 762,570,000), Public Enterprise Development (Rs 5,572,400,000), Tourism Development and Christian Religious Affairs (Rs 1,024,477,000), Sustainable Development and Wildlife (4,778,970,000), Internal Affairs, Wayamba Development and Cultural Affairs (8,544,709,000),  Ports and Shipping (Rs 2,548,280,000), Foreign Employment (Rs 686,055,000), Science, Technology and Research (Rs 5,642,200,000), Primary Industries (Rs 3,511,00,000), Irrigation and Water Resources Management (Rs 24,631,380,000), Skills Development and Vocational Training (Rs 10,882,006,000), Development Strategy and International Trade (Rs 2,097,000,000), Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure (Rs 2,270,142,000), Labour and Trade Union Relations and Sabaragamuwa Development (Rs 5,231,381,000), National Integration and Reconciliation (Rs 2,770,318,000), City Planning and Water Supply (Rs 27,862,217,000), Hill Country, New Villages Infrastructure and Community Development (Rs 3,748,375,000), Prison Reforms, Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Hindu Religious Affairs (Rs 11,425,912,000), Plantations Industries (Rs 8,644,800,000) and Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development (Rs 7,758,195,000).

Yesterday’s presentation is considered the first reading of the Appropriation Bill. Its second reading is scheduled to commence with Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera presenting the budget proposals to the House on November 10. The budget debate is scheduled to continue till Dec. 10.

The budget deficit for 2018 will be Rs 1.8 trillion, the government said on Sunday, adding that it expected its revenue to be about Rs. 2,175 billion and its expenditure to reach Rs. 3,982 billion.

Namal’s Gowers money laundering issue: INTERPOL WARRANT FOR IRESHA SILVA

Evading court since the inception of the case

 Tuesday, October 10, 2017 

The Colombo High Court has issued a warrant through Interpol for the arrest of Batapola Arachchige Oranella Iresha Silva for her alleged involvement in laundering money amounting to Rs.30 million through Gowers Corporate Services (Pvt) Limited allegedly owned by Hambantota district Parliamentarian

Namal Rajapaksa.

High Court Judge Piyasena Ranasinghe had made this order taking into consideration the facts presented by Attorney General that the suspect had left the country and evading courts since the inception of inquiry into the matter.

On a previous occasion, three accused Namal Rajapaksa, the eldest son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Nithya Senani Samaranayake and Sujani Bogollagama who functioned as the directors of Gowers Corporation Pvt Ltd as directors were present in court.

However, the second, forth and sixth accused Indika Karunajeewa, Iresha Silva and Gowers Corporate Services (Pvt) Limited were not present.

The Attorney General had filed indictments against Namal Rajapaksa, Indika Karunajeewa, Sujani Bogollagama, Iresha Silva, Nithya Senani Samaranayake and Gowers Corporate Services (Pvt) Limited on 11 counts under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act for their alleged involvement in money laundering amounting to Rs.30 million through a company (Gowers Corporate Services (Pvt) Limited) owned by Namal Rajapaksa between 2013 and 2014.

This case is to be taken up for trial today (10) before High Court Judge Piyasena Ranasinghe.

Contractors lost Rs. 68,000 m because of Basil

- Oct 09, 2017

Medium scale contractors have lost more than Rs. 68 billion due to the contracts they had been given in a haphazard manner by former minister Basil Rajapaksa. The contractors say government authorities have refused them payment since the contracts had been given outside the government procedure.

Most of these contracts had been given in the mid-2014, with the contractors getting a 39 per cent commission. Basil had later got them to contribute 20 pc for the election campaign.

Grade one and two contractors have been unaffected by this as they had received the major contracts in accordance with the procedures. The medium level contractors request the president to intervene immediately and ensure justice for them. Or else, a large number of their workforce will lose their jobs, they say.

When contacted, a spokesman for the highways ministry confirmed having received several complaints. The subject minister did not respond to our calls to inquire from him about the action that could be taken regarding the complaints.

Parakrama Dissanayake

Central Expressway: Response To Rusiripala’s Questions

By Lakshman Kiriella –OCTOBER 9, 2017

Lakshman Kiriella – Minister of Highways

While I thank Mr. Rusiripala Tennakoon for raising 17 questions with regard to the tender procedure on Central Expressway (තවත් උණුසුම් සතියක් – මධ්‍යම​ අධිවේගී මාර්ගය හා තවත් කතා Colombo Telegraph – September 28, 2017), I must correct him on factual issues. 

Question 1 – Is it true that the tenders have to be called only from the Japanese Contractors instead of calling public tenders, as the Japanese Government gives assistance?

Answer – When we obtain loans from the banks operated in foreign countries usually there is a condition that limited quotations from the contractors in those respective countries should be called. This condition is there in the case of the loan for the Section 3 of Central Expressway which was arranged with the intervention of Japanese Government from a private bank. At the stage of loan negotiations as well there has been an understanding between the two parties that the tender should be limited to Japanese contractors.

Question 2 – If it is so, what is the assistance received from the Japanese Government for this Project?

Answer – The loan was arranged with the intervention of the Japanese Government. The Embassy of Japan in Colombo played a key role in arranging this loan facility.

Question 3 – Is it not a loan obtained from Japanese Bank on Commercial Basis?

Answer – This cannot be considered as a full commercial loan as there are certain concessionary terms such as 6 years of grace period and 15 years of repayment period. Also annual aggregated cost of financing ranges from 2.02 to 2.22 (including Libor) percent according to the behavior of financial market. This annual cost of financing includes interest, annualized insurance, annualized commitment fee, arrangement fee and annualized agency fee.

Question 4 – If it is so, are the interest charged for the said loan and the re-payment schedule, so concessionary that one that cannot be obtained from any other commercial bank?

Answer – Currently, the rate of interest for this Yen loan facility is 0.95 percent per annum, whereas, the current annual rate of interest for commercial loans in the international market lies between 3 to 6 percent per annum for any dollar loan. On top of this, commercial banks would request the insurance, commitment fee, agency fee and other charges as well. 

Question 5 – Before taking the decision was there a further fact finding report done?

Answer – Any external loan facility taken by Sri Lanka government is being negotiated by the Department of External Resources. With regard to this facility also there were several rounds of negotiations with the respective bank officials by the Department of External Resources with the participation of officials from the Ministry of Higher Education & Highways.

Read More