Gintota and the shadows of extremism

By Dharisha Bastians in Gintota-Thursday, 23 November 2017

The bright red SUV screeched to a stop at the Gintota Thuparamaya Purana Raja Maha Viharaya for the second time on Saturday (18), creating a buzz of excitement among scores of villagers assembled in the temple’s expansive garden at sundown.

As the hybrid vehicle gleamed in the fading light, a familiar figure hopped out of the front seat. Galagoda Aththe Gnansara Thero, the controversial Bodu Bala Sena chief monk who strikes fear in the hearts of ethnic minority communities – was back in the region that had been the epicentre of communal violence the previous night.

This time he was purportedly playing the role of ‘peacemaker’ in the tense region off Galle, after 19 people were arrested following several hours of mob violence on Friday (17) night that caused extensive property damage and wiped out livelihoods.


Varying villains, horrific violence

Depending on which side of the village tells the tale the villains vary, but at least most people agree that it started out with a minor traffic accident on 12 November, escalated into repeated scuffles between the village boys and eventually morphed into horrific communal violence.

On Thursday (16), the night before the violence, a local Muslim politician, hoping to run in the forthcoming Local Government elections, reportedly led a mob from surrounding areas to attack Sinhalese residences in Gintota. Police arrested three persons including the local politician after three homes were damaged in the attack. On Friday night, the reprisals came.

Bringing back bitter memories of the Aluthgama communal riots in 2014, dozens of Muslim homes and businesses were burned and vandalised. In predominantly Muslim areas, the destruction of property is immediately apparent. Three-wheelers, motorcycles, a brick business and shops were set on fire by the attackers, carefully chosen targets to destroy means of income and livelihood.

Some of the scorched property was still burning even on Saturday evening. Among the wreckage is the still-smouldering grocery store run by D. Liyanage, a 58-year-old Sinhalese trader. Most of his customers are Muslims who live in the Maha Hapugala area. The cause of the damage appears to be a petrol bomb, Liyanage said. His neighbour Mohammed Rimzi seems equally upset by the damage caused to Liyanage’s shop. “They are our brothers. No one from this village would do this,” he insists.

Further down the road, N.Y.M Faheem is in shock about the damage to his concrete brick business and how the sudden loss of income will affect his family, including his eight-year old son who is battling cancer. Every week, Faheem takes his boy to the Maharagama Cancer Hospital clinic for treatment and must purchase expensive cancer-fighting drugs for the child. Faheem, whose business employed seven or eight daily wage workers, is distraught. The attackers crushed 800 new bricks and set fire on his lorry for good measure. “I can rebuild the bricks. But without my vehicle how will I deliver them?” he cries.

The residents explain that when the violence started, they ran into their homes and switched off all the lights. “We even turned off the street lights,” says Mohammed Yusuf, who hid under beds with his daughters and their children.

Yusuf alleges that most of the damage to his house occurred when the STF shot at it, after a gang of attackers ran past his house to escape when they saw the armed troops coming down the road. “They thought we were sheltering them, so they fired at my house,” Yusuf complains – “the bullets shattered the windows, leaving glass powder all over the house.”

Just like in Dharga Town, Aluthgama, many residents claim they could not identify the attackers as residents of their villages. Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunesekera confirmed that politically and racially motivated mobs from surrounding areas had been mobilised and gathered in Gintota on 16 and 17 November.


Growing fear and suspicion?

The violence affected a cluster of villages that lie across the ocean in the Gintota area, including Gintota East, Gintota West, Maha Hapugala, Kurunduwatta, Ukwatte, Welipitimodara and Piyadigama. About 3,000 Muslims and 600 Sinhalese residents live cheek by jowl in the region, where villages merge seamlessly into each other, linked by trade, community facilities like schools and playgrounds and main roads.

Residents say they trade at both Sinhalese and Muslim owned businesses, have minor complaints about infractions by neighbours or commercial establishments, but insist that they all generally get by peacefully. For most Gintota residents, Friday night’s violence was an aberration, but other politico-religious factors unfolding in the region indicate fear and suspicion between the two communities may have been growing over time.

“It was such a small thing in the beginning,” explains Mohammed Naseer, Imam of the Gintota Hillur mosque, who was locking up the premises ahead of a Police curfew scheduled to take effect at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

After they were blamed for inaction and premature withdrawal of Special Task Force (STF) personnel on Friday night, shortly before violence shook several neighbourhoods in the area, the Police were taking no chances. Every mosque and temple inside the tiny villages was being provided Army, Navy or Police protection.

But it upsets Naseer that the Hillur mosque which suffered minor damage in the violence will not host Maghrib prayers at 7:30 p.m. that night because of the night curfew. The Imam admits Gintota had experienced communal tensions even in the past. “But it is not often that these things lead to an attack on a mosque,” he mused. The mosque is fitted with CCTV cameras but the Police were yet to come by to study the footage, Naseer said.

According to the Muslim cleric, the real trouble began when the chief monk of the Thuparamaya Vihara summoned residents from nearby villages to the temple grounds and “worked people up”. “They met at the temple for two hours. People were provoked there,” the Imam explains.

The Thuparamaya temple to which the Imam refers lies a stone’s throw away from Naseer’s mosque, and is led by Ambalangoda Sumedhananda Thero. Lean and youthful looking, Sumenanda Thero refers to himself as a Buddhist scholar and author who has lived in the Gintota temple for 18 years. He vehemently denied allegations that monks at the temple incited violence in the region last Friday.

“Stemming from this road accident, tensions were running high between Sinhalese and Muslim residents. This led to a small clash in the village school,” the monk explains. “We summoned the residents to the temple on Friday evening to advise parents to ensure their children don’t get involved in brawls in school,” he insists.

The Chief Monk strongly denied an association with the Bodu Bala Sena, even as monks from the movement visited him to discuss drafting documentation on the 17 November incident to be sent onwards to President Maithripala Sirisena. But many of his words were nuanced by the same ideology spread by groups like the Bodu Bala Sena and Sinhala Ravaya.

The Muslims marry several women and have dozens of children, he complains. “They buy out land from Sinhalese residents by paying double its value, driving out Buddhists from Gintota in order to isolate the temple,” he asserts.

Vocal about the radicalisation of the Muslim community, Sumedhananda Thero said their ‘desire to be different from everyone else’ by covering their heads and eyes and ‘growing their beards’ had resulted in a breakdown of relations between the two communities living side by side for generations.

The chief monk of the Thuparamaya temple also laid blame for last week’s violence squarely at the feet of former  pradeshiya sabha member, Mohammed Nizar. The monk claims Nizar alias ‘Kiyaaz’ had brought 300 thugs to Gintota on Wednesday  (16) night and vandalised three Sinhalese homes.

“I spoke to the IGP and he promised to take action and deploy the STF; 300 people came for the attack but only three were arrested by the Police,” Sumedhananda Thero complains. The Thuparamaya chief monk claims that Muslim leaders alerted their people about Thursday’s incident and arrests during Friday prayers. “This upset the Buddhists. It created a lot of suspicion,” Sumedhananda Thero admits.

By all accounts, Thursday night’s incident involving the local politician and tensions stemming from a week-old traffic incident in Gintota had led to scuffles throughout the day on Friday, but residents, religious leaders and local politicians had managed to defuse tensions by evening leading to the withdrawal of the STF which had been brought in to the area to maintain order.


Alleged BBS links

But the meeting at the temple escalated the situation again, according to Imam Naseer.

“Do you know, the monk Gnanasara also came here today,” the Imam says in a low voice. He asserts that the “beautiful young monk” at the Thuparamaya temple is an Assistant Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena movement.

Naseer’s claim about the monk’s affiliations is corroborated by most Sinhalese residents except the monk’s inner circle, many of whom balk openly at the sight of reporters on the temple grounds. These supporters of the village monk tend to protest too much and too loudly about his alleged connections to the radical Sinhalese movement.

“This is a common place, we can’t prevent any priest from coming in here,” said a young man at the temple, who wore a friendship band woven in the colours of the Buddhist flag. “Gnanasara Thero came here because Sinhalese boys have been arrested, not because of any special friendship with us. Our priest has nothing to do with Bodu Bala Sena,” he asserted, without being asked.

The young man, who has just conferred with another monk at the temple, strongly urges us to leave the temple. “We have nothing to say to the media about this incident. The media always takes the Muslim side anyway. The Sinhalese are always the bad people,” he scoffed.


Gnanasara Thero’s intervention

When Gnanasara Thero walked into the crowd of assembled villagers at the temple at sunset on Saturday after the meeting in Galle, the young man rushes to him to warn him that there are reporters in their midst. The tall bespectacled leader of the BBS seemed unperturbed. “I have nothing to hide,” he chuckles, making his way to the small auditorium in the temple.

For hours, Sinhalese residents from the area had been gathered at the Thuparamaya temple, awaiting word from the Galle District Secretariat, where political and religious representatives were meeting to iron out misunderstandings that had led to Friday night’s violence. Of the 19 people arrested over Friday night’s violence, 16 had been Sinhalese men from the villages. Anxious to learn the fate of their ‘boys’ the villagers had put their faith in Gnanasara Thero’s interventions at the Galle Kachcheri that afternoon.

Before Gnanasara Thero addresses the crowd, monks from the nearby villages urge the people to trust in the BBS chief monk and listen to his advice. The Bodu Bala Sena Leader had intervened on behalf of the Sinhalese village and its security in the aftermath of the clashes, the monks told people gathered in the temple hall.

Uncharacteristically sober, Gnanasara urged the villagers to be calm and avoid further clashes. There was nothing he could have done to get the village boys out, the BBS monk told the crowd, since the paperwork had already been drawn up to put them into police custody. “Police will present the facts to court and by Monday they should be out,” he promised, “but only if all of you ensure there are no further clashes.”


Nuanced and ominous messages

Yet between the lines of his speech to calm the storm in Gintota, were more nuanced and ominous messages.

“It is important that we continue to struggle for our rights. We don’t need to submit to anyone. But we must also learn to be strategic,” he advised the crowd at the temple. There was experience to learn from, Gnanasara Thero said, in Mawanella and Dharga Town where similar communal violence had erupted.

“Windows and doors are broken and stones are thrown at houses. The following week, four storey buildings come up in those places through funding. So there is nothing to be achieved by throwing stones,” he explained. “Don’t be disorganised. The Sinhalese people must learn to turn this into an opportunity. Come together with your village priest and Police to face issues that confront us,” Gnanasara Thero emphasised. The common goal that Saturday evening after the clashes, the BBS monk said, was to “get the boys out”.


Questions persist

At the end of a day fraught with tension in Gintota, Government ministers publicly hailed the controversial BBS Chief Monk for his role in “defusing tensions” in the troubled region. Yet questions persist as to what factors drove the controversial monk so swiftly to Gintota, why village monks urged their people to heed his counsel and why he was permitted to participate in the Kachcheri discussions to resolve the issue.

Nearly a week after the violence broke out, these questions remain unanswered, but the shadow of the BBS and like-minded groups that are spreading messages of fear and mistrust of the Muslim community hangs over the latest communal violence in Gintota.

As the fear and hate-mongering filters down into tiny village temples all over the country, compounded by growing insularity and conservatism in the Muslim community, ethnically diverse regions have become particularly vulnerable to sectarian violence. Dharga Town, Mawanella and Gintota have all proved how little it can take to set things on fire when fear and suspicion is kindled in such communities over time.

 

Selfish Urban Professionals and Governance How the ignorant willingness of the urban middle-class activism keep this system going

• Legality and morals apart, more questions arose with respect to democratic rule.
• A whole lot of new amendments substituted a single amendment brought to the Provincial Council Elections Bill at the last minute.
• The crisis is evident in the education system that now needs complete overhauling.

2017-11-24

We Sri Lankans witnessed some serious issues in governance during the past month or two. Not that we were without issues and problems before. Yet, past months left us in chaos.

For one whole week, the country was left in a fuel crisis. A single shipment was held as the reason for the shortage. The Government exhibiting inefficiency showed it cannot handle such crises in winning public trust. The credibility of this Government is such, another fuel crisis popped out last week with long vehicle queues over a mere rumour.
Legality and morals apart, more questions arose with respect to democratic rule.
A whole lot of new amendments substituted a single amendment brought to the Provincial Council Elections Bill at the last minute.

The Government leadership harped on increasing the percentage of elected women, while postponing Provincial Council Elections indefinitely. 

Legality of that amendment alone cannot justify the AG interpretation on it. Making himself available on very short notice to rule it can go without a “referendum” makes him sit with former CJ Shiranee Bandaranayake, who consented to allow Rajapaksa to have the 18 Amendment without a referendum.

Then the alleged Bond Scam investigation that is yet to conclude who is responsible for what in the trillion rupee scam. For now it is an “a la carte” menu for media, throwing out information that after Penthouse, implicates four top men in the ruling UNP and many others in the Yahapalana Government over clandestine calls with Arjun Aloysius.
Though they say, it is Yahapalanaya that allows even a PM to be called for questioning, it is also Yahapalanaya that brought a PM before a Presidential CoI.

The Bond Scam seems to outweigh the mega corruptioncharges levelled against the Rajapaksa regime. The Yahapalanaya thus have no legitimacy now to investigate any mega corruption of the Rajapaksa Government. That in Governance is no small political crisis.

The crisis is evident in the education system that now needs complete overhauling.
From pre-school to tertiary and to universities, from school curricula to syllabi, from teacher training to school administration; everything needs far-reaching answers.
So is the health service, dominated by self-serving medics, who have no clue that it is preventive health that needs more and better-trained health workers.
But that wouldn’t allow for a lucrative private and channel practise the medical doctors want.

Thus a crumbling State Health Service, dictated by a profession with corroding morals and ethics.

Transport and public commuting is a harrowing daily experience. Promoting highways can only engineer more and bigger corruption and more frequent flooding. Highways are no answers to huge traffic jams in Colombo and other main cities.

Over 3.3 million daily commuters who depend on railway and SLTB are given no importance in planning transport. Importance is in a mostly re-conditioned vehicle import trade with tax revenue for Government budgets.

Within all these, while this Yahapalana leaders remain stubbornly tied to the Rajapaksa politics of Sinhala racism, of voicing Rajapaksa verbatim on war heroes and war crimes investigations, they have created social space for anti Muslim violence.

While Gintota flared up in the South, there were reports of Muslim Mosques and shops being burnt in Vavuniya town on the Northern border.

There is definitely lack of Policing of society, the right way.

The Gintota incidents once again raised the issue of purposely neglecting effective security deployment for a repeat attack on Muslim property the same night.

The Government does not want to challenge racism hard and fast. There is also no consistent and a loud public demand for disciplined, independent and firm enforcement of law and order against hate speech and violent racist extremism. There is utter disappointment on Independent Commissions, with taxpayer money on them going waste.

Worst seems the Elections Commission that plays politics with the Government and the National Police Commission that is unable to turn the police into a civil department.
The Constitutional Council too remains manipulated by political leaders with the 03 civil society representatives, conniving and compromising. They are not even known to have attended CC meetings and what they stand for on issues, though they are in there to represent the people.

It is a frightening decline in collective social responsibility.
To put it across straight, there is no collective questioning of the wrong and no collective standing up for the right.

Yet the urban  Pundits claim, public space has increased post Rajapaksa.
If that sounds right, then there is a fundamental error that needs answers for. For seven decades now, we remain labelled as only a developing country.

Intellectual and dissenting social activism should thus begin in urban middle class circles that have better and good access to information, new knowledge, intellectual trends and discourses, a culture of socialising and also good exposure to what happens in the world outside. Opinion making thus becomes the strength of the urban middle class and within its selective enclaves like universities. In short, questioning of the existing order, its systems and its politics begins in urban professional circles and in the academia.

They then get percolated into other social segments, first into the organised labour and then to the petty farmer. This was how the parental “Left” politics of Sama Samaja began in early 1930s and grew into the early 1960s as a formidable political force. Failure of the JVP is in its origin. It remains where it began, as the militant political representation of the vernacular rural, lower middle-class.

But now, there is a tragedy that disconnects the norm from reality. 

The whole of the urban middle class professionalism and the academia is held entrenched in a very corrupt and selfish market economy; the neo liberal world. 

For over 40 years, these professional and academic clans were well catered to by global capital to create an ideology that would justify and nurture the continuance of free market economies.

The free market economy has turned all professional and academic associations into steamroller organisations that keep demanding better comforts and more privileges. The GMOA is a classic example of this rot. 

From the UN and its affiliate agencies to the WB and the IMF, professionals and academics are contracted for just that. So do most funded projects within prestigious universities and in research organisations. All their academic and professional services are geared to sustain the Neo-Liberal Global Economy.

Within countries with governments pushing ahead on heavily liberalised free market economies, the same is replicated in local terms. The outcome has been a very selfish, morally declined, socially alienated urban professional and academic caste.

Into the second generation, they can only think within free market economics and could only exist as partners of this extremely corrupt system.

In the process, the free market economy has turned all professional and academic associations into steamroller organisations that keep demanding better comforts and more privileges. The GMOA is a classic example of this rot.

All other professions from legal to accounting, from engineering to valuation and other consulting disciplines including the hierarchy of the State bureaucracy as well, have also created niches in making big money within this free market economy. In plain language, politicians are not alone any more.

What it means today is that, the urban middle class does not want any change.

The discourse they engage in, therefore only seeks to reform this unholy system from slipping beyond repair. They want everyone to believe that can be done within representative democracy, accountability and transparency that even for urban life would be non functional and fake. Political parties that know no democracy and allow no democracy and are run by unknown funding sources, when voted to power will not leave any democracy functioning. Thus over the past decades, all democratic structures and systems including elections have been turned into mere procedures with no utility and delivery.

Therefore there is an absence of serious political discourse to have long term, far reaching answers to issues that cannot be patched up any more. The cry of the urban middle class social and political activists to punish the corrupt in the previous regime, but with no demands to strip their own corrupt  Yahapalana leaders of power and punish them too, provide no answer in cleaning the system.

Their appeal to have a new Constitution with a promise for power sharing would only give into a stronger Sinhala Buddhist Unitary State, as their leaders cultivate Sinhala Buddhist extremism in MR style.

Therefore their fraternal appeal to this Government to honour the promise of good governance given at the 2015 January Presidential Election, would remain irrelevant in reaching out for actual long term answers to the crisis we are heading to.
What is still being asked for is a Zimbabwean change.

It is the people’s dance in Harare that tends to crown the exit of the big tyrannical rule of Mugabe as freedom won, while the corrupt and illegitimate Parliament schemes to install Mugabe’s side kick and Vice President, the ruthless Crocodile Mnangagwa as the next President.Though big Western allies would accept the Zimbabwean change what such slogans, decisions and statements in Harare leave is a huge void in “realistic political change” in the long term. It is the ignorant willingness of the urban middle class activism to keep this system going by patching up gaping holes that would once again provide a utility value for a Rajapaksa comeback at the next turn.

Sri Lanka: It’s Time to Go Ranil!

Ranil Wickramasinghe has been in Parliament since 1977, more years than even Robert Mugabe (since 1980). Even Mugabe has now resigned. RW has been holding the reins of the UNP since 1994 and his association with power perhaps only second to Mahinda Rajapaksa.

by Laksiri Fernando- Nov 23, 2017

( November 23, 2017, Sydney, Sri Lanka Guardian) In a democracy, if a Prime Minister’s name is tarnished in a financial embezzlement of the slightest nature, he or she should gracefully resign. This does not necessarily mean that he/she is directly responsible, but trying to be in office disregarding the tainted image do harm to him/her and more to the country.

This is not written in law or in constitution, but a democratic custom. It is also common sense. Otherwise, how can a PM maintains the financial integrity of the Cabinet?

In these columns, I have written about the case of ‘A bottle of Wine [Throwing] a Premier Out!’ (Colombo Telegraph, 17 April 2017), well before the Yahapalana government, where “The Premier of the New South Wales (state) of Australia, Barry O’Farrell, announced his resignation (16 April 2014) over the issue of receiving a bottle wine as a gift that he failed to declare in 2011 in the ‘Pecuniary Interest Register.”

I further said, “This is a case of ‘accountability and transparency’ that all Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers, Ministers and all Members of Parliament or members of any such representative institution in a functioning democracy should abide by.”

Therefore, my claim: “It’s Time to Go Ranil!” is not at all personal or aiming at him alone.

Before the Commission

There was no ‘charge sheet’ as such before the Commission, but there were 28 questions first (letter dated 10 October 2017) and then 20 more for the PM to answer, because of his implication and/or responsibility on the matter of bond irregularities. In addition, he was requested to appear before the Presidetial Commission to clarify several other related matters and the questioning lasted for about one hour on 20th November.

One may say that he answered well, which is true, or the Commission was so decent and polite without grilling him on the same matter again and again. It is also true that this is the first time that a sitting PM was questioned before an independent commission ever, and it speaks well for the democratic culture of the present government. The question or the necessity therefore is to take the next logical step.

Possible Culpability?

To the first question, the PM truthfully answered ‘Yes,’ that somewhere in early January 2015, he invited Mr Arjuna Mahendran (AM) to serve as the Governor of the Central Bank.

It is true that on the second question, he explained that the formalities under the Monetary Law Act were duly followed in the appointment. However, the third question further asserted that the recommendation came from the PM, based on AM’s evidence, and asked why AM was singularly considered ‘fit and proper person’ for the position of the Governor. The answer was ambiguous, going in rigmarole, even referring to the previous Governor unnecessarily, like in a Parliament debate.

The PM further couldn’t answer properly the suitability of a person who was not a Sri Lankan citizen (question 4), in the current context, or who has not even applied for the citizenship back. All indicated to the ‘conflict of interest’ on the part of the appointee being a citizen of Singapore and the PM with a possible self-interest due to friendship or other obligations overlooking the above ‘suitability’ of the appointee.

Most importantly, the PM has clearly overlooked or taken lightly the ‘conflict of interest’ between the CB Governor (AM) and a Primary Dealer, Arjun Aloysius (AA), directly and indirectly. This is how and where the irregularities have apparently occurred, the gravity and illegality of which have to be determined by the Commission. The questions 5 to 7 were surrounded on these matters. The PM has clearly admitted:

“I was aware that Mr. Mahendran’s son-in law Mr. Aloysius was the Chief Executive and Director of the primary dealer Perpetual Treasuries (Pvt) Ltd.”

The above could have been a disqualification for AM to be the Governor in addition to his citizenship.

Match Fixing?

However, the PM has thought otherwise. The most strange is the way he has tried his best to fix the apparent ‘conflict of interest.’ The following is what he has said,

“When Mr. Mahendran was offered the post of the Governor of the CBSL, I insisted that he should ensure that Mr Aloysius would resign as a Director of Perpetual Treasuries (Pvt) Ltd, and not involve himself in the business activities of that company in anyway.”

How come that the PM ‘insist’ that AA should resign as the Director of the Perpetual Treasuries unless they were a close group? How come that even AM ensures that AA resigns as the Director? Even going beyond those premises, the PM has said “[I] also strongly recommended that the best course would be for Mr Aloysius to divest himself of his shares in the company. This was conveyed by me both to Mr Mahendran as well as to Mr Aloysius.”

It appears that the PM had become an ‘advisor’ to both AM and AA, but none has heeded his advice, perhaps believing that the matters are not that serious or that the PM would protect them in any event. This was the standard thinking in Sri Lanka, particularly prior to 2015.

It was in the above context that the PM’s advice to go for ‘public auctions’ is highly questionable while the past practice has mainly been ‘direct placements,’ completely right or wrong. It is an obvious fact that ‘divesting shares’ is not that easy for anyone like resigning from a position of CEO or Director. A ‘conflict of interest’ can go even deeper, leading to ‘insider trading,’ as revealed by the fact that actual ownership of the primary dealer, Perpetual Treasuries, being with the Perpetual Capital Holdings.

Having known or aware of the above circumstances, the PM should have been much more vigilant and careful about possible ‘insider trading.’ He had already taken over the Central Bank under his ministry which otherwise was under the Ministry of Finance. It was also a political fact that he was like a ‘caretaker PM’ during that period without a direct mandate from the people.

Public Auctions!

In answering questions 10 and 11, the PM has admitted that he instructed AM in February ‘to issue bonds by way of public auctions in accordance with the economic policy of the Government,’ which could be his own or his party’s economic policy and he has not referred to any Cabinet decision or a meeting on the subject.

He has further given a theoretical discourse on ‘market liberalism’ and ‘macroeconomic liberalization,’ but it is not clear why he was so quick in overhauling the bond procedure that way, which has led to the erosion of credibility, arising ‘conflict of interest,’ ‘insider trading’ and at an enormous loss to the government according to the Auditor General.

From the answers given the following also were clear.

• “Mr Mahendran informed me that evening [26th] he may be able to raise money far in excess of Rupees One billion in the Bond Auction fixed for 27th February 2015” (The PM should have known that this is not a task of the Governor directly. He should have suspected a ‘conflict of interest’ or ‘insider trading’ arising).

• “After the Auction held on the 27th of February 2015, he informed me that in fact Rupees Ten billion had been raised.” (The PM should have requested more information directly as to who were the beneficiaries as he has known about the possible ‘conflict of interest’ or ‘insider trading.’ Although a ‘Briefing Note’ had been requested later, no further action had been taken).

• “I stated that neither the Monetary Board nor I was the proper authority to inquire into the issue.” (This was with reference to the Parliamentary debate of 17 March 2015 and appears evading of responsibility in addition to political defence of the whole affair on the pretext of criticisms over the previous administration).

• “As stated above, I have forwarded the COPE Report to the Attorney General to take appropriate action if there has been any transgression of the law by Mr Mahendran or any other person.” (This was clearly evading the question 25: “Did you consider that, it was fit and proper for Mr Mahendran to continue to serve as Governor of the CBSL after the events of the Treasury Bond Auction held on 27th February 2015?).

• “I deny that I had agreed to provide or provided copies of Minutes of meetings of the Monetary Board meetings/papers to Mr Aloysius or any other person. I resent the insinuation.” (This is in respect of an alleged text message (question 26) sent to AA by his personal assistant to request Monetary Board papers from PM and RK! The PM’s denial and resentment should be accepted.).

There is no much point in going further into other questions and answers in the Affidavits or his submissions at the Commission. The questioning at the Commission was solely ceremonial.

Let us assume, for his favour, that the nexus between his ‘market policy’ and ‘bond irregularity’ is purely coincidental, but he cannot easily absolve himself from overlooking the ‘conflict of interest’ or the ‘insider trading.’ The key question is whether he is not politically responsible for the whole Saga as the responsible Minister? If not, who is responsible?

International Best Practices

Let us look into the ‘international best practices,’ at least briefly, first in the case of ‘insider trading,’ and then the responsibilities of the minister in charge, and in this case the PM. The ‘conflict of interest’ between AM and AA, that the PM has conveniently overlooked, is fairly clear I believe.

About ‘insider trading’ the following is what Wikipedia states: “Insider trading is the trading of a public company’s stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock option) by individuals with access to non-public information…In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information is illegal.” It further says, that “A person who becomes aware of non-public information and trades on that basis may be guilty of a crime.”

It also says, “However, some economists have argued that insider trading should be allowed and could, in fact, benefit markets.” Milton Freedman is one such a prominent culprit. It is possible that Ranil Wickramasinghe and his advisors belonged to this category! This is in fact a serious situation.

In many countries, that I know of, insider trading is an offense. Australia, the US, UK, Germany, Netherlands, India, China and France are some. Sri Lanka is the same. There are many cases of prosecution and/or penalty. James Thomson (Macro Think Institute) gives a comparative picture of insider trading regulations.[i]

Let us look at the political side of the matter, in respect of accountability and responsibilities of the minister in charge. Sri Lanka is a unique case where the PM has involved or implicated almost by choice under the circumstances. In Britain, the PMs have been maintaining quite a high profile particularly in financial matters and there are no known cases of PMs involved in financial scandals or resigning on those grounds. But as Graham Thomas has recounted (‘Prime Minister and Cabinet Today,’ 1989) there are numerous cases of ministers’ resigning on financial matters prompted mostly by PMs themselves to preserve the integrity of cabinets. This is more or less the case of other parliamentary democracies including India.

In the case of France, however, there are numerous cases of PMs resigning after financial scandals. In 1993, the PM, Pierre Beregovoy, even committed suicide unable to bear the charges of a financial humiliation. There are many other cases of PM’s resigning on the issues of accountability largely to preserve the good name of his or her government. Let me finally refer to Shinzo Abe’s resignation in Japan in 2007 as the PM not due to financial malpractices on his part, but several scandals involved in his government. He became elected again in 2012 and 2014 because of his retained credibility after initial resignation.

Ranil Wickramasinghe has been in Parliament since 1977, more years than even Robert Mugabe (since 1980). Even Mugabe has now resigned. RW has been holding the reins of the UNP since 1994 and his association with power perhaps only second to Mahinda Rajapaksa. It is a common dictum that ‘justice should not only be done, but must also be seen to be done.’

It is obvious that he has overlooked or took mildly the ‘conflict of interest’ between AM and AA and oblivious to ‘insider trading’ perhaps because of his too much of market thinking. However, as the minister in charge of the CBSL and the whole saga of the controversial bond issue, at least until his name is clearly cleared, he should step down following the international best practices.

[i] http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijafr/article/viewFile/3269/2976

Batticaloa Tamil fishermen protest for rights

23Nov 2017

Tamil fishermen in Batticaloa protested on Tuesday demanding their rights and livelihood be protected from tourism and encroachment from non-native fishermen.

The protestors in Mukathuvaram said fishing communities in the area are struggling to make a livelihood, particularly with the granting of so much coastal land for military and corporate tourist resorts.

Groups from outside of Batticaloa are also engaged in illegal fishing in the district, the protestors said.

Related Articles: 

16 August 2017 : Sri Lankan navy arrests 9 off Point Pedro coast for alleged illegal fishing

30 July 2017 : Myliddy fishermen struggle to rebuild livelihood with inadequate government support

Consequences of Total Breakdown of Avenues for Redress

Our Education: Prisoner of a long, largely undeclared war - II

By Rajan and Kirupaimalar Hoole
Continued from yesterday

November 23, 2017, 12:00 pm 

The Jaffna Commerce batch that got its results in late 1994 is of interest for the reasons that follow. The 1995 batch could not complete that year because of the Exodus. Being displaced to Thenmaratchy and beyond, their final examinations were held at Chavakacheri Hindu College, Killinochchi and Vavuniya about May 1996 after the LTTE ceased open control of Jaffna. Two in that batch, Koperundevi (Kopi) and Shanthy got first classes, but their results were released only around March 1997, and so they could not apply for the academic vacancies for which interviews were held on 5th November 1996 in Jaffna.The candidate finally selected was a 2ndUpper from the 1994 batch, whom we refer to as Manager.

The selection board, in November 1996, was presided over by Prof. P. Balasundarampillai. The only qualified candidate was K. Ganeshanathan with the mandatory one year’s teaching experience demanded by Circular 721, who topped the 1992 batch with a 2nd Upper and taught during 1994. We understand that he was not absorbed into the staff because cadre positions were messed up by LTTE requests, such as to absorb a visiting lecturer.

A senior faculty member involved in the selection denied any knowledge of improper influence, but added that they did not at the start entertain an idea of taking Manager and did not seem to know his rank in merit order. However he, some days later, asserted that Manager topped the batch. Other contemporaries doubt this. At that time there was no GPA system, but the person who topped the commerce batch was announced as Rahulan, who then left Jaffna. A batch mate citing what lecturers who saw the marks list told them, said that Prapakaran (who topped the batch in the second year) and Sithamparanathan, who faced the interview, were above Manager in rank.

Towards an Epidemic of Malfeasance

Once the germ of corruption enters one faculty, it cannot be quarantined. VC Vasanthy Arasaratnam in her imperious way brought it to the Science Faculty in 2013, when she ignored Nilani Kanesharatnam, the consensual departmental favourite in Zoology who topped the batch with a first class and imposed a candidate from about the bottom of the merit list.

Manager, whose recruitment in1996 is questionable and became Dean of Management in 2011, played the game with added vigour. His trump card: coordinating with the EPDP in Vasanthy Arasaratnam’s re-election as VC on 8th March 2014, and the introduction of a dummy candidate. Ten days later interviews commenced for probationary lecturers in Management. Ravivathani, the leading candidate in merit order for Financial Management was dropped in favour of a candidate whose teaching experience was inflated in the schedule. The VC who was absent for most of Ravivathani’s interview certified her rejection. Her fundamental rights appeal to the Supreme Court in 2014 has faced inordinate delays and is yet to be argued.

Manager is meanwhile going strong undeterred. By stuffing the department with favourites, he ensured for himself a third term as dean. He contested for VC in 2017, unsuccessfully, but quickly re-established himself as a power behind the throne. Recently two external council members had to try to apply the brakes on his favouritism. We see how effective the Supreme Court is in restraining abuse.

A generation of abuse and its effects: Once recruiting mediocrities becomes the practice, those with superior ability who may challenge their peers are systematically kept out. Kopi and Shanthy from the batch after Manager’s with first classes were not taken in. After rejecting Ravivathani for Financial Management in 2014, it was difficult to take in an exceptional applicant when she came along. A young 27-year-old first class woman graduate in the field from Sri Jayewardenapuracame for an interview about November 2017. She was 9th among more than 4800 persons worldwide who sat for the British CIMA and was a fully qualified Chartered Financial Analyst, all of which she had acquired in three years and was employed by an American company at a six-figure salary. The panel was highly impressed with her performance at the interview and found her exceptional. Yet Manager and those backing him wanted to take his clerk’s son who was sixth on the Jaffna merit list from which there were other applicants for the single position with better GPA.Such blatant abuse in recruitment survives necessarily in a climate of broader abuse.

Towards Narrow Identity Projects

During the 2002 ceasefire, when Prof. Balasundarampillai was vice chancellor, the University tried to revive stalled plans for an engineering faculty and advertised for a professor of Electrical Engineering. A very well qualified candidate applied and nothing was heard. When the candidate inquired, he was told that they had changed their mind and wanted instead a civil engineer to put up the buildings. The University advertised and a well-qualified civil engineer, Dr. Sahayam, with a highly respected PhD in coastal engineering from Queen’s University, Canada, applied. Neither did this second applicant receive a reply.

Prof. Balasundarampillai had, as reported in the Press, voiced for many years ambitions of a Hindu University and Hindu Faculty, in which the LTTE had no interest. This appears to be the reason why Engineering was then left in the doldrums. Balasundarampillai and those behind him, represent a movement where the interests of the community and the quality of the University would be continually undermined by narrow identity projects.

We come to another instance of how the broader attack on dissent and public interest litigation, impacted on the universities. Having previously applied for Professor of Engineering in Jaffna and being ignored, Hoole in 2004 applied for Professor of Computer Science, while holding the position of Senior Professor of Computer Engineering at Peradeniya. The processing was stopped by Prof. Kumaravadivel, Dean of Science in Jaffna. Hoole went to the USAB and in March 2006 the USAB ordered the University of Jaffna to process the application.

This was where the relationships forged between lawyers and judges came into play in some sharp practice. We encountered Mr. Sumanthiran and his junior Balendra who defended Colombo University in 2005. Prof. Kumaravadivel got Balendra to file a petition against the processing of Hoole’s application in the Court of Appeal on 30th March 2006, putting the University of Jaffna as respondent, this coincidentally when the Supreme Court was coming down hard on CIMOGG. Prof. Kumaravadivel’s influence within the Council of the University ensured that the University bore the cost of hiring Sumanthiran for what was his personal appeal. The petition did not indicate the harm for which relief was prayed for or who the affected party was. He prayed the Court that "…irreparable loss and damage will be caused and the final relief will be rendered nugatory unless an interim order is issued [to stop processing of the application]" – it was tantamount to ‘do not consider him because I don’t like him.’

Kumaravadivel was neither, as Justice Sriskandarajah had specified in rejecting CIMOGG’s public interest appeal in his 2nd July 2006 judgment on qualification for locus standi,‘directly affected’, had ‘special expertise [in computer science]’, nor was he mandated by the university council to claim ‘sufficient interest’ on its behalf. Yet Sriskandarajah entertained the appeal, and effectively stopped the processing of the application.

Towards total breakdown and

closure of avenues for redress

In our glimpse at events in the 1990s, we saw the growing trend of favouritism in the Arts Faculty and the cavalier disregard for merit and therefore quality. Dons keep on asking for pay increases, and one of the reasons used is that unless that incentive is given, we will not attract people who have earned renown abroad. But when someone outside shows interest, we do everything possible to stop him.

Chief Justice Sarath Silva’s suspension of Elmore Perera in 2006 from practising in court symbolically marked a turning point, a silent revolution, where administrators enjoyed a significant jump in their freedom to abuse power. Long established rules were simply ignored. Many would have had the experience of confronting senior administrators, vice chancellors and UGC chairmen with well-established rules and finding them thoroughly indifferent. The same applies to the courts.

In Jaffna, we traced the growing abuse in the 1990s, and behind the suppression of merit, the rogues’ refuge of religious identity politics. Intellectual life was squeezed out. Manager is just one lesson in how to succeed in this environment. Discriminating against Excellence, a report put out by the Jaffna University Science Teachers Association (JUSTA) in 2014, which is available on the web, detailed many of the abuses.

JUSTA’s comprehensive report on abuse mentioned above was given to two UGC Chairmen who promised action, very insincerely, and to the Grievance Committee at Jaffna University set up by the former vice chancellor under pressure from the 2015 Council. Her placement of Prof. Sivasegaram on this Committee spelt its doom.

The Ombudsman and shrinking of avenues for redress

Justice R.B. Ranaraja, the Ombudsman was around 2003, readily accessible as an avenue for redress. He said in his address, Access to Justice under Human Rights, "The Ombudsman has the jurisdiction to entertain written complaints of allegations of infringements of Fundamental Rights or other injustice by a public officer or an officer of a public body or corporation. The complainant must have a sufficient interest in the matter…The complainant only has to bear the cost of a sheet of paper and a stamped envelope."

In September 2017, Prof. Hoole sought relief from the Ombudsman for his vacation of post from the University of Peradeniya in 2008 while on leave. The Ombudsman replied a month later: "It is observed that you have sent your petition to us before submitting it to the Human Rights Commission and the Court also granted you a judgment. If you are reinstated in your post, you may take steps to pursue matters with your appointing authority…" This was cursory reading of a complaint – there was no court judgment. Reinstatement was precisely the matter being refused by the University. No remedy was offered and no clarity on how to proceed.

The three parts of this article are based on the paper submitted by the authors for the seminar on "Problems of Higher Education in Sri Lanka" held under the auspices of the Ecumenical Institute for Study and Development (EISD), Colombo, on 18th and 19th November 2017.

The New Left: A new hope?

People are aware of the enormous and exorbitant expense in terms of human lives and resources that revolutions necessitate

The truth is that the New Left, be it the JVP or the Frontline Socialists, is the only proper movement in this country which defends the public sphere against the private

2017-11-24

Not too long ago before the American election unfolded and upset what was predicted to be a Hillary Clinton victory, I posted the following comment: “Clinton is a domestic dove and foreign policy dove. Trump a domestic hawk and foreign policy dove.” This was a simplification on my part, but one that was based on the belief we held as sacrosanct at the time that Donald Trump would deliver on his promises and take the United States away from the interventionist streak it had been cursed with since the George W. Bush regime. Things don’t always transpire as we expect them to and now you have Donald Trump, who promised to keep America from foreign misadventures the same way Charles Lindberg had during the Second World War, reneging on those promises.   

The New Left had done what the Old Left had not; take its fringe movement beyond the upper classes

The comment gleaned two fundamentally opposite responses. One was from an American, an unabashed supporter of Clinton, i.e. a liberal: “You are making a mistake. Foreign policy is almost always tied to domestic policy goals.” The other was from a Sri Lankan with leftist inclinations: “Hillary Clinton is part of the neo-liberal right-wing.” The former tried to equate the two sectors I had differentiated; the latter did pretty much the same thing by contending that Clinton’s foreign policy objectives were based on neo-conservative, neo-liberal domestic and economic policy objectives. It was all a matter of perspective, put simply, and now I realise how erroneous it was of me to make such a simplistic distinction with respect to a political movement involving an entire country. 

 
Month of revolution 

 It’s roughly the same story with our Left movement. There is rhetoric and there is perspective. Being the month of revolution I suppose the leftists will have their say in the matter of “out-lefting” their ideological opponents within and outside their movements. Being the month of Lenin and Marx and Trotsky the new and the old left will probably get together by their denunciations of the capitalist order. And being the month of their own stalled project the New Left in particular will be commemorating their dead, those who were murdered for their political affiliations. (They were, as Malinda Seneviratne put it, killed for the sin of being born during the wrong decade, the wrong convictions.)   
They weren’t the only ones who suffered though. They also made the people suffer. That is why perspectives matter. This was evident in the 1971 insurrection, when the likes of Colvin R. De Silva and N. M. Perera referred to them as fascists. But the New Leftists were never fascistic. They were only desperate. Consequently, they made the people desperate, somewhat overzealously. The idealism of Old Left rhetoric disappeared with those who were made to disappear. The second insurrection, bloodier and more enduring (for all the wrong reasons), was born out of this shattered idealism. From that shattered idealism evolved a new idealism, a new hope. For the first time in our left movement’s history, the youth, the educated and the unemployed, got involved. The New Left had done what the Old Left had not; take its fringe movement beyond the upper classes.   

Substituting action for rhetoric  

The JVP and its affiliated offshoots including the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya substituted action for rhetoric in the bloodiest, most violent way possible. They were merely stoking the fires that the State, then headed by the UNP, was about to unleash on the country. They were the provocateurs, not that this absolves the State by any stretch of the imagination. Those who joined them were not just hard done by, they were also disgusted by what they felt was a lack of understanding and sympathy by a largely conservative society. There’s a saying that everyone is a socialist at 20, which was pretty much true of the eighties here. I’ve heard stories of teenagers who ran away from home, because of personal tussles with their parents and relatives, and joined the JVP. They were there for a reason. They were sick, tired, and wanted something, anything, that could let those elders know that they cared. They did this by resorting to the gun.   
It is true that youthful idealism is at the heart of any revolution, and in the case of the JVP and the DJV that idealism was a response to the contortion of political realities in the South by various State actors, including the president and the military. Nanda Malini in her song “Rana Derane” implores a soldier to not shoot a member of his own class for the sake of vested class interests elsewhere. That was how determined and resolved the insurrectionists were. The result, in fact the only result, of all this was the creation of a powerful ideological apparatus in our institutions; our Universities, our Trade Unions, but not our political periphery where compromise was and is the name of the game and once political membership was guaranteed even the purest of pure revolutionists would turn away from their ideological convictions. No, our New Left was largely self-financed, rooted in youthful idealism, provocative, and opposed to what 1956 bred; a bifurcation of our public sphere between the few who had power and the many who had no power.

Rift

The bifurcation of our intelligentsia into swabasha and non-swabasha has been debated by two schools of thought. One of them contends that 1956 represented the dislodgment of the elite (Kumari Jayawardena); the other contends that it represented the substitution of a more insidious form of class discrepancies for the discrepancies that had existed until then (Regi Siriwardena). What this leaves out is a third possible theory, which I subscribe to: that 1956 represented a bifurcation into the swabasha multitude and non-swabasha elite that appropriated privileges so much for the latter that a rift developed within the former between those who wanted to maintain their identity and those who wished to join the elite. The proponents of the federalist-devolutionist discourse, who joined the NGO intelligentsia despite their rural backgrounds, belong to this specific social subset.   

The idealism of Old Left rhetoric disappeared with those who were made to disappear

The truth is that this Left movement was spent long, long ago. The truth is that the New Left had to be the ideological shapers of that movement. The truth is that not even a bheeshanaya could dislodge the peripheries of power that developed within our Universities. As long as the State remained apathetic, as long as the Old Left was seen to be flirting with the status quo, those peripheries would stay in place. The rift between the Communists and Stalinists on the one hand and the Trotskyites on the other was largely an ideological one borne out of personal convictions. The rift between the Old and the New was more than just ideological; it was a statement for those who wished to do away with the establishment and against that aforementioned social subset that sided with it. The split in the latter, between the JVP and the Peratugami Samajawadi Pakshaya, was not unlike the ideological splits in the former during the forties and the fifties, with the caveat that it has not been enough yet to erode the dominance of the JVP.   

I hate taking sides in any revolution, but I am aware of the enormous and exorbitant expense, in terms of human lives and resources, that such revolutions necessitate. When the Cuban revolution played out and was later intensified by the threat of outside invasion (courtesy of the US), you couldn’t have sided with José Miró Cardona, who became Prime Minister under Castro and later left, ostensibly disgusted with the new administration’s descent to an authoritarian state, to become his fiercest ideological opponent. When the Russian Revolution played out you couldn’t have sided with the Mensheviks and the reformists. When the French Revolution played out you couldn’t have sided with the middle class bourgeoisie. You had to be the revolutionist or join those who wanted the revolutionists out. Moderates and intermediaries were not popular on either side. Human lives are lost, damage is inflicted on property, but these are prerequisites to any secular revolution and upheaval. It was no different in Sri Lanka.   
The truth is that the New Left, be it the JVP or the Frontline Socialists, is the only proper movement in this country which defends the public sphere against the private. The tussle over the SAITM issue, the spate of strikes in the Electricity Board and the railway sector, indicate quite clearly that they remain as potent as ever, even if those who lead these strikes and protest movements are different to and more committed than the individuals who lead their parties. Let’s not forget, after all, that last year’s private bus strike was carried out independently, without the express approval of the president of the Private Bus Owners’ Association. Let’s not forget that in pretty much every movement of this kind a rift exists between the leadership that flirts with the status quo and the membership that survives and thrives on and flourishes through (youthful) idealism.   

We ought to be thankful, I should think. Particularly in a context where 37 years of globalisation and neo-liberalism in Sri Lanka has led us, not up the garden path, but down the rocky slope. The private sphere pretty much determines the public, an issue I wish to tackle in a later column. For now, however, let us reflect on this month of revolution, on the men and women who laid their lives, and the idealisms that bred and nurtured them.