Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Sri Lanka Perspectives - December 2017: Political fallout of Local Government Polls

Col R Hariharan | 31-12-2017

Sri Lanka is expected to hold the nation-wide local government (LG) elections on February 10, 2018. Usually, local body elections are low key affairs. However, this election is important as a mid-term appraisal of the performance of President Maithripala Sirisena- Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe government. It would also provide an indication of the future developments likely to affect the fortunes of political parties and their leaders.

Over 15.8 million people will be exercising their votes on a single day to elect 8293 member to 24 municipal councils, 41 urban councils and 276 divisional councils is undoubtedly major challenge for the government. Sri Lanka’s past experience in conducting elections is a mixed bag of good, bad and the ugly. It ranged from misuse of government machinery and state media, use of both muscle power and money power to disrupt rival party’s election campaigns and even fisticuffs between contestants ending in killings.

The sheer size of the elections, with over 70,000 candidates in the fray, makes the administration’s job of conducting free and fair elections even more difficult. Will the political parties and people rise up to the occasion to make it a success? Probably, this is the question haunting the minds of elections officials and police administration.

The government has already drawn plenty of flak for delaying the local elections. Reasons for the delay are many, apart from political compulsions of the ruling coalition partners. Systemic journey to conduct the poll had been tortuous. The demarcation of new local authority wards took four long years to complete the process in 2016. The mixed electoral system was much debated; the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Act No 1 of 2016 made it mandatory for political parties to include 25 percent women in the candidates list. The Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Act No 16 of 2017 changed the ratio between the first-past-post and proportional representation systems of voting from 70:30 to 60:40 to ensure fair representation of minorities.

Though local issues dominate the LG elections, they serve as a national barometer of political parties strength at the grass root level. This has made political parties nervous as they are not certain about their performance on two counts. Firstly, they are not clear how the mixed electoral system would impact their performance. Secondly, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by President Sirisena’s unity talks with pro-Mahinda Rajapaksa faction of SLFP has failed. The latter will be contesting under the banner of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (Sri Lanka Citizens Front) formed sometime back. With former president Rajapaksa sotto vocethrowing spanners into Sirisena’s works to keep his flock, SLFP’s votes in traditional support bases are likely to be split. Any adverse impact of the split has the potential to adversely affect the future of President Sirisena’s leadership of the party and his ability to contain, if not prevail over, Rajapaksa’s influence within SLFP.

As both the factors are germane to President Sirisena dominant role in the unity government, the election results could also affect the durability of the SLFP-UNP alliance and determine the longevity of the coalition government.

For the present, President Sirisena probably has better chances as he enjoys the advantage of being in power with a B+ track record, not as badly tarnished as the Rajapaaksa regime.

The LG elections will also put the durability of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) led by veteran political leader Rajavarothiam Sampanthan under the lense. The TNA in spite of holding the majority in the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) had not been able to make good of all its election promises. Both the NPC chief minister C Wigneswaran and some of the alliance leaders like Suresh Premachandran of the Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) had blamed Sampanthan’s constructive and non-confrontational approach in dealing with the Sirisena government for not fulfilling the aspirations of the Tamil people. As early as January 2017, Premachandran had demanded the octogenarian leader Sampanthan and the articulate general secretary M Sumanthiran to resign from alliance leadership for below par performance.

However, TNA leadership seems to have handled the internal schism fairly well. After the EPRLF quit the alliance last month, TNA managed to finalise its candidates for the LG polls. Chief Minister Wigneswaran’s announcement that he would remain neutral in the polls would probably work better for the TNA, than its detractors.

The Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya at a meeting with political party representatives announced the guidelines for conducting election without causing inconvenience to the public. The guidelines include: allowing only one official party office per electorate; allowing display of propaganda posters only in the party office; limiting the groups canvassing for votes to ten members and conducting of election rallies only with prior police permission.

The independent election monitoring group - Peoples Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAAFREL) - has handed over to the Inspector General of Police a list of 32 candidates contesting the forthcoming LG polls with alleged criminal record of rape, murder, theft, financial frauds and corruption. The organization urged the IG to keep a close watch over these persons, during the election period. The chief opposition whip and leader of the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Anura Dissanayake has alleged that both the SLFP and the UNP had nominated tainted candidates, some of who had seven to eight criminal cases against them.

Despite such ominous signs, some hopes would be kindled to see President Sirisena starting the poll campaign saying “I am not sure who will be axed with my sword in my mission to have clean politicians.” The SLFP and UPFA participants at the meeting took a pledge to dedicate themselves to elect “educated representatives with high integrity, free of fraud and corruption to work in accordance with the conscience of the public for the protection of the motherland.” But, have we not seen such promises in the past evaporating into thin air after the elections?

In such an environment, one cannot fault Sri Lankans hoping to use the LG polls in the New Year to herald a period of constructive politics. Why not? People everywhere live only on hopes!

Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends, January 2018 issue www.security-risks.com

Col R Hariharan, a retired MI officer, served as the head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies and the International Law and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info

SRI LANKA ARMY CHIEF WANTS DATA ON CANDIDATES CONTESTING POLLS

Image: Military checking the candidate lists at Jaffna DS offcie. pix by Kajeepan.

02/01/2018

Army Commander Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake says the Army must have information on the candidates contesting the Local Government (LG) elections.

Speaking to the BBC Sinhala service, Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake said that gathering information on candidates and other key members of society does not mean they are being monitored.

However, he says if a situation arises where those candidates or others need military protection then the Army needs to have background information on them.

“There is no point waiting for a situation to arise to begin gathering information,” he said.

Asked whether it was not the duty of the Police to handle law and order affairs, the Army Commander agreed but insisted that gathering information was needed as even some former soldiers or deserters come forward to contest elections and the Army needs to have information on them.

In response to another question, Senanayake rejected claims the Army had committed war crimes during the conflict.

He also insisted that the Army was not involved in torture and that the ‘Joseph Camp’ does not exist.
Some human rights groups had alleged that the Joseph Camp in Vavuniya had been used to torture detainees during and after the war. (Colombo Gazette)

Sri Lanka’s No. 1 brand BOC dented by bond scam?

2017 brand value -2%

Wednesday, 3 January 2018

The highest share of voice(SOV) event of Sri Lanka in 2017 was undoubtedly the alleged bond scam of the Central Bank. Via TV, radio, press, social media and now on the political stage, whether highlighted by the SLFP, JVP or the JO, the echo is one. Fortunately, the President taking leadership and the top-notch commission to investigate the details saved face for the Government. The report was presented on 30December and made headline news in every medium once again.

Sri Lanka’s No. 1 brand BOC dented by bond scam.docx by Thavam on Scribd

Sri Lanka: A Regressive Society

A careful analysis of the developments in diverse fields in this country over the past 50 years or so leaves little doubt that Sri Lankan society has been on a gradual, regressive path. This proposition may appear to be inconsistent not only with the outward appearance of material change like infrastructure development but also with much touted positive indicators of social and economic development like literacy, life expectancy and income.

2018-01-03

But, when we look at the developments in such diverse fields as politics, the arts, public service, academia, professions, civil society, and social institutions, you begin to think hard. Once again, the proposition advanced above may appear to be inconsistent with what is visible in each of these fields today. All those who are active in these fields are far more visible, vociferous and pretentious today in comparison to their counterparts several decades back. Yet, a closer examination of the present state of affairs in the relevant fields would point to a very different picture.

What is outlined above is a wide ranging and complex narrative that can be simplified by way of a few illustrative examples from a number of fields. The rest of this article is devoted to this purpose. An overall, general observation that can be made at the outset is that the visible quantitative expansion of diverse fields such as education, politics, health, infrastructure, public service, the private corporate sector, the voluntary sector, and modern professions has concealed the steadily declining quality and standards in most of the above fields. While it is true that there are pockets of excellence or isolated positive examples in various fields, the general trend of deterioration is an empirically verifiable fact.

Let me begin with the less controversial areas of music and drama. There cannot be any doubt about the fact that the country witnessed a renaissance in music, drama and other related fields several decades back. Many people still talk about and enjoy the cultural products from that period. In more recent years, there has been a visible expansion of artistic activities such as reality shows, private and public institutions providing training in diverse artistic fields, talent shows, proliferation of media institutions, etc. but no one is talking about a cultural renaissance today.

As is well known, both the general and higher education sectors have expanded steadily over the last half a century or so. Student enrollment in schools increased rapidly during this period reaching universal primary enrollment. The number of universities has increased four fold over the same period. There are over 250, 000 teachers employed in nearly ten thousand public schools. Meanwhile education bureaucracy has also expanded steadily over time.

What is outlined above is a wide ranging and complex narrative that can be simplified by way of a few illustrative examples from a number of fields. The rest of this article is devoted to this purpose

Despite this unprecedented, quantitative expansion of the general education sector, there are clearly visible signs of declining educational standards measured in terms of skills of both teachers and their products. For instance, it would be surprising if even ten percent of the teachers in state schools have a reasonable level of competence in a second language at a time when the State has adopted a trilingual policy for the country and the rapidly changing local and global environment demands both teachers and students to be at least bilingual. In this Internet age, anyone with multilingual skills can have access to an ever expanding body of literature relating to almost anything under the sun.
But a large majority of our teachers and their students in most schools in the country cannot make effective use of this enormous resource due to their poor language skills. The current general education system that measures educational achievement by the grades that students acquire at examinations has effectively deskilled several generations of youth in the country. The situation is not much better within the higher education system.

As is well known, poor English language skills among university students prevent them from making use of library resources available at the Universities, let alone Internet-based literature. As is the case with school teachers, the language skills of many university teachers have also declined over the years. This situation has forced many university students, particular in the liberal arts stream to rely almost entirely on lecture notes, hand outs and a few publications available in their mother tongue.

This is not an environment conducive for intellectual development of university students and the expansion of their knowledge and skills. This situation has emerged in a country where a truly cosmopolitan atmosphere prevailed in the few local universities about half a century earlier. University academics originating from diverse socio-cultural and linguistic backgrounds merged into a broadly unified intellectual elite. The situation became worse with the establishment of universities in the provinces with inadequate human and material resources.

The result was that many university students could remain confined to their own provinces, without having any contact with fellow students in other provinces or senior faculty members in other universities. This naturally reinforced their regional rather than national identities at a time when university students and graduates needed to transcend primordial divisions in society. What is also significant is that the emergent situation remained largely concealed from the outside world. Largely monolingual school leavers and university students rarely interact with English speaking elites in urban centers and vice versa. Look at the audiences at many seminars, workshops and conferences held in Colombo on a regular basis.

Sri Lanka: A Regressive Society Declining standards of university education have also been accompanied by a chronic neglect of Research and Development in almost all sectors. As a result, many research institutes and research centers established in the country after independence have by and large declined in the recent past. Inadequate funding and continuous brain drain have made the situation worse.

The poor state of agricultural research centers in different parts of the country is indicative of the general trend over time. Research institutes in other fields do not seem to have done any better. This is an alarming situation at a time when many countries even in the developing world compete for FDI and export markets on the strength of their highly skilled Human Resources and technological capabilities.

Backwardness of industrial research is obvious and this is partly related to the collapse of many primary industries after liberalization in the late 1970’s. While we have not paid any attention to modern industrial research focused on new industrial products and processes, both the elites and common people have simply become voracious consumers of imported industrial goods, ironically brought from recently developed Asian countries like Korea, China, Malaysia and Singapore. Almost all these countries were not more developed than Sri Lanka about fifty years back.

Post-colonial historians like David Ludden (2005) have documented the process of emergence of a development State in South Asia. The focus was mostly on India during the British colonial rule and post independence India under enlightened leaders like Nehru who made every effort to modernize the country by driving it away from caste, religion and superstition in favor of equality, science and practical application of empirical knowledge. The idea of planning was accepted as the cornerstone of State intervention. Many state institutions were established including the National Planning Council to steer the process forward.

Post-independence Sri Lanka did follow a somewhat similar path in the first two decades or so since independence. Yet, religion in Sri Lanka has emerged as a dominant force influencing public policy, pushing modern science to the background. The idea of secular education never got rooted in this country, let alone the idea of a secular State. Yet, progressive education reforms introduced in the early 1940’s , focused on the central school system, showed great promise but were later subverted by vested interests, resulting in the de facto segregation in education on ethno-linguistic lines preparing the ground for social and ethnic conflicts that followed.

Regressive nature of social and economic transformation soon became evident in almost all spheres. While the public sector became the main source of employment for the upwardly mobile social groups, including rural youth, in the initial years, state institutions played a significant role in addressing diverse social and economic issues in society. Progressive legislation and newly established institutions in such areas as land development, public transport, labor relations, cooperatives, social security and rural development played a catalytic role in bringing about positive social and economic change in the country in the 1950’s and the 1960’s.

A vibrant rural development movement, an extensive multi-purpose, cooperative movement, a rural women’s movement called Mahila Samithi and the mobilization of the farming community in all parts of the country around modern farming techniques were largely the result of state interventions through specialized institutions established for the renewal of the rural sector. Yet, the declining quality of education and the deterioration of standards in politics and public service, particularly after economic liberalization, adversely affected the functioning of state institutions. Increasing politicization of state institutions often undermined their effective functioning leading to loss of productivity, efficiency, poor quality of service delivery, etc. While the state policy after economic liberalization in 1977 emphasized the role of the private sector in almost all spheres, public services declined in significance. For instance, agricultural extension services took a backseat, while the market forces began to dominate the agricultural sector.

So far, in this article, an attempt has been made to advance the argument that the process of social, cultural and political change in Sri Lanka in the recent past has been a regressive one. The deterioration of State institutions in general over time is one clear example. The decline in standards in public service in particular and public life in general constitute another case in point. Of course, many other examples from diverse fields can be cited and exceptional cases can be found but the pattern remains more or less the same. Present public disenchantment and the social and political unrest in the country are at least partly indicative of the fact that many people have been able to sense the direction of change. On the other hand, understanding the negative trend is of little use if no attempt can be made to explore the possibilities of reversing it. It is in this context that understanding the causes of change is important.

It is by addressing these causes that we can hope to bring about the desired changes. On the other hand, many people have also been able to achieve their life goals thanks to the deteriorating conditions. As is well known, popular politics, religious revival and ethno-religious discord created unprecedented opportunities for many people to achieve a great deal in their lives in terms of material advancement and social influence. Most of them would have been non-entities in a society guided by knowledge based institutions, reason and modern values. So, any attempt to reverse it would naturally be resisted by people with vested interest. The present social and political contestations around national integration , religion and public policy reforms demonstrate this reality in no uncertain terms.

Yet, Sri Lanka can no longer afford to allow the regressive trend discussed above to persist. For what is at stake are the country’s prospects for sustainable development, social and political stability and improving the quality of life of the ordinary citizens.

That offensive ‘Public Property Act’

January 2, 2018, 8:30 pm

President of the Court of Appeal L.T.B. Dehideniya, on the 29th November 2017, issued a ‘Stay Order’ preventing the arrest of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. In his order, the learned President of the Court of Appeal has stated "in this instance, the monument was constructed by the Corporation on a contract entered into with the Foundation, and the Foundation had no intention of defrauding." He further says that, "in the present case there was no mental element for dishonesty or, misappropriation."

I do not want to burden the reader with the treaties on criminal misappropriation and the Offences against Public Property Act. Suffice it to say that the Act at issue was brought to deal with the situation where the JVP and the LTTE wreaked havoc in the country, by burning buses, damaging power plants, etc. The government of the day found even the Emergency Regulations did not permit the suspects to be remanded for any length of time. Within three months, if no proper prosecution was instituted, the suspects had to be discharged. Therefore, the Emergency Regulation did not act as a deterrent to prevent misguided youth from thinking they could usher in a revolution of the proletariat. The lawmakers hurried through this legislation and called it the Offences Against Public Property Act.

No one then bothered about the draconian features of the law, but they just raised their hands and thumped their desks in approval. It was meant to be used against the Public Enemy Number One; the DJV and the LTTE. In drafting this legislation, the Law Makers forgot the basic principles of the Constitution of J. R. Jayewardene, which guarantees the personal liberty of the subject; that every person is presumed to be innocent until and unless proved guilty by a competent Court. One of the essential norms of the presumption of innocence also provides, according to the Constitution, the freedom of movement, freedom of expression and other basic rights.

But then, if legislation imposes a fetter on a person who is not even charged, but arrested merely on suspicion, and the law imposes a burden on the Magistrate to deprive the subject of being released on bail, it is indeed a serious matter.

No one in the Legal Profession or any Non Governmental Organization, mandated by their masters to protect the liberty of subject from such legislation, uttered a word. There were many reasons. Of all the suspects, alleged to have committed grave misdeeds , by burning buses and other terrorist related incidents, never had anyone representing them when facing their prosecutors in a Court of Law. Instead, they only had the pleasure of having their limbs tied and being garlanded with a burning tyre and being dumped on a street without even anybody recognizing who they were.

On the other hand, there were a few state officials who were brought to court for allegedly committing an offence as prescribed in the Offence Against the Public Property Act. They were remanded and very rarely were the accused given an opportunity to explain their innocence. But after being in remand a few months, they ultimately had to appeal to a Higher Court, and bail was granted. In most cases the reason adduced for granting of bail was nowhere comparable to the reasons given by Higher Courts, which played on the words, "exceptional circumstances". At the same time there were exceptionally brilliant Magistrates who were clever enough to interpret the Law, when they found that suspects’ were being kept in remand and if the law was strictly interpreted, there was no hope for them to get bail, and neither did the accused have an opportunity of facing a trial in the immediate future; and they dared; without any contradiction, to release the suspects on bail. Once bail was granted, unless in a very rare and exceptional case; the Attorney General would never seek to revise such an order.

Although the Prevention of Terrorism Act was misused and abused by the then government nobody except the LTTE and its sympathisers raised a hue and cry. The present government is using the Offences Against Public Property Act to frighten the Opposition into submission. The Public Property Law is also used to back the governent.

It is unfortunate that the provisions of this Act are used by the law enforcement authorities to deal with matters which have nothing do with Section (2), (3),( 4) and (5) of the Act, at the behest of their poltiical masters.

If Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had not made an application to the Court of Appeal and secured an Interim Order, he would have been arrested and remanded till the conclusion of the case.

Irrespective of the utterly wild interpretation, the prosecuting authorities gave to a transaction, which is nothing more than a civil transaction, where the loss was based on a contractual obligation, to bring forth and waive the offences against the Public Property Act, that Gotabhaya has misappropriated Government funds; there is a limit to which a Prosecutor could extend his sardonic pleasure of remanding a person to satiate the mean pleasures of their political masters.

We should be grateful to our Courts for having issued the relative ‘Stay Order’, preventing such abuse of political authority to condemn a man without an iota of evidence of criminal misappropriation.

The following are facts which we should take cognisance of.

(1) No person charged with an offence against Public Property has been convicted whilst being in remand,

(2) the legislature in its wisdom, has made it mandatory that these cases be heard and concluded, and given priority over and above the other cases,

(3) When a person is suspected of having committed an offence under this Act, though he has to be remanded until the conclusion of the trial, the possibility of the trial being given priority is a matter that should concern every reasonable and prudent man,

(4) As the Act does not specify in which Court the action could be filed, the Legislature should have envisaged that the urgent nature of the matter needed urgent attention of the Prosecutors to file action even in the Magistrate’s Court, which gives ‘special powers’ to the Magistrate to hear and determine a case against a suspect.

(5) Today, with the subsequent Amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code, all matters are referred to the Attorney General for him to determine the sufficiency of evidence. It takes a number of years to file an indictment against the Accused.

(6) Therefore, the present stalemate and the delay of filing charges should be a matter that should be taken seriously and Courts’ should not act as an appendage to the Government in power by remanding political opponents with or without evidence.

Currently, the independence of the judiciary has been demonstrated by Justice Dehideniya, as the President of the Court of Appeal. Though there may be some critics of the procedure adopted and the manner in which the stay order was issued, the end justifies the means, and the stay order would enshrine and further bestow the independence of our judicial system.

Mahinda Throws SLFP Into Crisis By ‘Vote Pohottuwa’ Call

author: COLOMBO TELEGRAPHJanuary 2, 2018

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is a Senior Advisor of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) appeared to have burned his boats with the party he has been a member of for more than four decades when he called people to vote for the Joint People’s Front.

Rajapaksa made this call when he spoke at the launch of the Joint People’s front election campaign at the Sugathadasa Stadium today at a meeting attended by approximately 8000 candidates contesting under the ‘Pohottuwa (bud)’ symbol.

Rajapaksa, in an hour long speech, detailed the reasons why the people should support the Pohottuwa, elaborated on the kinds of challenges that candidates are likely to face in the run up to the elections.

This is the first occasion that Rajapaksa has publicly called upon the people to support the Pohottuwa, the symbol of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). The SLPP, which includes most of the parliamentarians in the ‘Joint Opposition,’ will be contesting the local government election which will see the party going against the SLFP, United National Party (UNP), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and other registered political parties and independent groups.

The SLFP leadership has on many occasions vowed to take disciplinary action against members who go against party decisions, notably in May when the Joint Opposition held a separate May Day rally with the participation of several SLFP MPs including Rajapaksa.

This move by Rajapaksa, which directly calls upon voters to support a political party other than the SLFP, forces the hand of President Maithripala Sirisena who is also the leader of that party.

The SLFP, which is virtually split into the Sirisena and Rajapaksa camps, managed to secure a significant number of seats in Parliament in August 2015 because the two factions came together at the time.

Rajapaksa, an SLFP MP representing the Kurunegala District, is still popular among the rank and file of the party as evidenced by the unprecedented crowds that attended the JO’s May Day rally.

Basil’s arbitrary actions put Mahinda in trouble

BY GAGANI WEERAKOON-2017-12-31

In 1982, I never had the faintest dream that some day in the future, I will be addressing you as the President of this country and as the head of the SLFP, President Maithripala Sirisena recalled on Friday at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo. Addressing SLFP-UPFA candidates who are contesting at the forthcoming Local Government elections the President declared that he would hand over the leadership of the SLFP not to a member of his family but to an educated and intelligent youth who engaged in clean, decent and corruption-free politics.

"Nepotism, corruption, thuggery and misrule had harmed the country and the party and therefore I am determined to build a new political culture and nurture a new breed of politicians untainted by corruption and wrongdoings," he said.

Some 7,000 UPFA and SLFP candidates will contest the February 10 LG polls under the Betel Leaf or Hand symbol and he was hopeful that a corruption-free political culture and a new generation of decent politicians would be born on 11 February 2018.

"This is a vision to hold before you because you are the ones who must take over the leadership of this country and the SLFP. To do that you need to be educated, intelligent, bold and fully committed to desist from corruption, thuggery, misrule or misdeeds. The UPFA and the SLFP will never tolerate corrupt politics or corrupt politicians. We will begin cleaning up the local administration after the LG polls," he said.

He said he hoped to see a set of young politicians who read books, newspapers and engaged in intelligent debates.

"When this new breed of young and clean politicians take over the administration at the grassroots level, the results will influence provincial and national level politics," the President said.
He asked the candidates not to insult or pick up fights with other party candidates during their election campaign.

"You explain your development programmes to voters. You tell them how you are going to resolve their problems and how you will tackle their day-to-day issues. Never engage in character assassination. You must act as parents, siblings or friends of the voters," the President said.
He said some people ask what the government did during the past two and half years.

"Certain media institutions fabricated news to fit their agendas. When Russia suspended our tea imports to that country, our detractors were jubilant saying it is the end of our tea industry and is the result of the unfriendly relations with the global community, the President said. "I rang up Russian President Vladimir Putin and requested him to lift the ban and he responded in a positive and friendly manner and it was lifted in two weeks. There is a shortage of urea fertilizer these days. I spoke to Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi requesting his help. He spoke to me a few hours ago and said he will be sending a consignment of 40,000 metric tons of Urea to Sri Lanka immediately. That is the result of our foreign policy."

He said clean politics and clean politicians would never be defeated and that the SLFP and the UPFA would be victorious and would pave the way for 2020 general elections and the 2021 presidential election.

President Sirisena was speaking on being determined to clear corruption from local politics few hours before the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the Treasury Bonds Scam was handed over to him. The Commission's Chairman Justice K.T. Chitrasiri handed over the report when the Commission members met the President at the President's Office, yesterday, at around 12.20p.m. According to well-informed sources besides observations made by the Commission, the report also has made eight specific recommendations to be implemented. It is said that President Sirisena would forward the report to the Attorney General's Department without delay.

Goons as candidates

The People's Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) on Friday handed over a report to the Inspector General Of Police (IGP) Pujith Jayasundara which carried details of tainted candidates citing substantial evidence received by the March 12 Movement.

PAFFREL Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi requested the IGP to inquire into the charges and asked the IGP to look into the matter of the political parties, which conducted rallies during the last day of the nominations.

During the meeting, PAFFREL officials also discussed the deployment of observers in the polling centres.

"We requested the IGP to put these areas under special observation as a lot of trouble may occur in such areas. Most of these offenders are currently facing one or several cases in various Courts. According to the current law, they cannot be prevented from contesting or filing nominations, but what we want to do is make awareness amongst the public so that such tainted people will not make it to the council as rulers," Hettiarachchi added.

According to election monitors, over 32 criminals and at least three underworld figures have fielded nominations for the 10 February 2018 Local Government Elections.

Hettiarachchi noted that the report had details of such tainted and corrupt candidates from Colombo, Gampaha, Matara, Puttalam, Kandy, Ratnapura, Kegalle, Hambantota, Polonnaruwa, Galle and Kalutara Districts. The types of offenders include illicit liquor vendors, cattle thieves, rapists, drug dealers, prostitutes, human traffickers, land grabbers, illegal sand miners and illegal quarry operators, burglars and other fraudsters and those charged with accepting bribery. This is in addition to murder suspects, weapon dealers and gamblers.

MR caught in a storm

With strongmen of the constituent parties in the Joint Opposition joining President Sirisena, everyone is now keeping an eye on what would happen to newly formed lotus-flower-bud – Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is going to kick start its election campaign by making a special statement in Colombo on Tuesday (2).

This came to limelight with SLPP allies, who are contesting the forthcoming Local Government (LG) polls, openly acknowledging that the majority of them are disgruntled over the manner in which the SLPP leadership – specifically Basil Rajapaksa – had handled the nominations process.

"We know that the majority of the regional political leaders were disappointed and disgruntled because we were disillusioned with the candidacy quota we were promised at the beginning of the whole nomination process. While it remains a fact that most of our members are disheartened over the matters regarding nominations, our Party and many other parties believe that crossing over to this Government is however not the solution," a Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) Spokesman Sisira Jayakody said following one of their strongmen Somaweera Chandrasiri accepting Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) membership.

Chandrasiri met President Maithripala Sirisena and pledged allegiance to the SLFP. Somaweera had assured the President that he will do his utmost to ensure victory for the SLFP.

He noted that Party members had experienced problems in obtaining nominations from the SLPP and were therefore disgruntled due to the step-motherly treatment meted out to them.

"It was Chandrasiri's personal decision to quit the MEP. Regional and provincial leaders of the MEP had a common grievance with regard to getting nominations from the SLPP. However, joining the Government is not the solution," he said.

On the contrary, MEP Chairman, Parliamentarian Dinesh Gunawardena noted that Somaweera had not expressed his desire to quit the Party.

"He did not inform us at any moment that he is going to quit. He was only saying that he is not happy, especially in relation to personal issues, ones that he is mentioning now. Other than that, concerning the political issues, there was no discussion or expression of his ideas at the Party central committee meeting or any meeting of any other Party committee. I have no explanation to give about his personal woes. If he has any personal woes then he must settle them himself. If there are political issues, then I can answer those," he said.

He went on to note that the MEP is actively involved with the Joint Opposition.

Meanwhile, National Freedom Front (NFF) Politburo Member and Kandy District Organizer Nimal Premawansa yesterday extended his support to the SLFP for the upcoming LG election.

Premawansa had met President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday morning. During the meeting Premawansa had said that he would fully support the SLFP LG election campaign led by the President, the President's Media Unit said in a statement.

Moreover, several supporters of the SLPP, including two candidates who had expected to contest the election on the SLPP ticket, also agreed to support the President and the SLFP at the LG election. Former LG Member Raja Sooriyakumara and the SLPP Mirigama Branch President Sachithra Amarasekara were among them.

Disgruntled and disappointed over the way nominations were fielded on top of his strongmen leaving his leadership and the party, NFF Leader Wimal Weerawansa last week called the former President to protest against the discriminations. Weerawansa who vociferously, reminded Rajapaksa that it was him (Wimal) who invented the concept of Mahinda Sulanga (a project to revive the Mahinda force) was in for a deeper trouble when Rajapaksa lost his cool and launched a scathing attack on Wimal over the phone using a language that cannot be published.

Meanwhile, Priyanjith Witharana who left NFF Leader Weerawansa, is tipped to get a top diplomatic posting, post LG elections while Piyasiri Wijenayake is to be appointed as a Governor and MP Weerakumara Dissanayake is to be appointed most likely as the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs.
Meanwhile, it is also expected that at least three other party leaders in the Joint Opposition may show allegiance to President Sirisena while two top Rajapaksa allies from Kandy might return to the UNP – their original party. With their return another senior UNP minister from Kandy will not contest at the next General Election as he has already become extremely unpopular in the district and in the country as a whole.

Rs. 14.5 mn robbed in N' Eliya

2018-01-02

Rs. 14.5 million was robbed from a private cigarette agency in Nuwera Eliya this morning.

Police said that three men in a three-wheeler had robbed the cash when it was being transported to the bank from the agency.

The robbers had blocked the lorry transporting the cash and smashed the window of the lorry using an iron bar.

The suspects had then thrown chili powder in the faces of the driver and cashier and stolen the cash.

Police said the suspects had also stolen a cheque valued at Rs. 370,000. The Nuwara Eliya Police are investigating the incident.(Darshana Sanjeewa)

Pics by Shelton Hettiarachchi

Abbas condemns Knesset bill aimed at disconnecting Palestinians from Jerusalem

Approved bill will also make it harder for Israeli politicians to hand the Palestinians parts of Jerusalem in future peace deals

Armed Jewish settlers in the West Bank (AFP)

Tuesday 2 January 2018

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned on Tuesday the Israeli parliament's approval of a bill which aims to make it more difficult for upcoming Israeli governments to hand Palestinians parts of Jerusalem under any future peace deal.

The bill, which amends the Basic Law of 1980 titled "Jerusalem, Capital of Israel", was approved by a 64 to 51 vote. Israel's Basic Laws are its equivalent of a constitution.

Abbas said he considers the legislation to be "a brutal war on the Palestinian people and their land and holy sites".

"This voting should remind the international community that the Israeli government, with the full support of the US administration, is confronting a permanent and just peace, and systemically imposing an apartheid regime in all of Palestine."

The bill comes weeks after US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise the city as Israel's capital which has sparked deadly protests.

According to the new legislation, any ceding of lands considered by Israel to be part of Jerusalem would necessitate a two-thirds majority vote in parliament - 80 out of 120 members of the Knesset.

Once Palestinians are in a separate local council, Israel will say the centre of their life is no longer in Jerusalem

- Daoud Alg'ol, Palestinian researcher on Jerusalem

Saeb Erekat, the PLO's former chief negotiator, told Sawt Filisten radio that he considers the bill to be an extension of Trump's recognition of Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority, he added, met with Trump 36 times to reach a peace agreement, but the US administration has not kept its promises.

Esawi Freige, an Israeli MK with the Meretz party, told Haaretz that the new law "is a racist law".

"It's a law meant to cleanse Jerusalem of its Arab residents,” Freige said. “After the Israeli government chose to erect a wall within Jerusalem, now it is seeking to remove 100,000 of its residents from the city.”

Knesset legislation paves the way for the establishment of a new local council for the Palestinian neighbourhoods cut off from Jerusalem by a separation wall.

Such a move, according to experts who spoke to MEE in November, would reduce the city's Palestinian population by a third.

Jerusalem Affairs Minister Zeev Elkin told the Jerusalem Post that the new council would initially be governed by an interior ministry-appointed committee.

'Twilight zones' of neglect

Areas impacted by the bill are located on the far side of the wall which Israel installed a decade ago. They include Kafr Akab, Shuafat refugee camp and parts of Walaja, Sawahra and a-Sheik Sa'ad.

Haaretz estimates that nearly 150,000 people live in these areas, comprising as many as two-thirds of the population of East Jerusalem.

Even though the residents pay taxes to the Jerusalem municipality, Palestinian areas outside the barrier are “twilight zones” of neglect and lawlessness.

Residents in those areas have been effectively abandoned by the Jerusalem municipality, and have found it even harder to access the rest of the city, Daoud Alg’ol, a Palestinian researcher on Jerusalem, told MEE in November.

READ MORE►

How Israel is 'cleansing' Palestinians from Greater Jerusalem

“Once Palestinians are in a separate local council, Israel will say the centre of their life is no longer in Jerusalem and their Jerusalem residency papers will be revoked,” said Alg’ol. “This already happens, but now it will be on a much larger scale.”

Since 1967, Israel has revoked the residency permits of more than 14,000 Palestinians, forcing them to leave Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postponed an earlier vote on the bill, reportedly after US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

Israel to tell African migrants: leave or face indefinite imprisonment

Rights groups condemn plan to return those who entered Israel illegally and who do not have a refugee application pending

A protest by African migrants in Tel Aviv in 2014. Photograph: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Peter Beaumontin Jerusalem-Tue 2 Jan ‘18 19.47 GMT

Israel is set to inform thousands of Africans who entered the country illegally that they have three months to leave or face indefinite imprisonment.

The decision, opposed by rights groups, follows months of speculation over the future of both the migrants and the Holot detention facility in the Negev desert, which the government says it intends to close.

There has been often heated debate about the presence of around 40,000 African migrants in Israel, many from Eritrea and Sudan.

It is proposed that migrants who do not have a refugee application pending will receive a notice the next time they are obliged to appear at an interior ministry office to renew their residency permits, telling them to leave Israel or face indefinite imprisonment.

Details of the plan were disclosed this week in a statement by Israel’s interior minister, Arye Deri, and the public security minister, Gilad Erdan. They said the migrants would have “two options only: voluntary deportation or sitting in prison.”

Critics have pointed out that the option to leave is far from voluntary if the alternative is prison.
It is not clear whether Israel’s supreme court, which has intervened in the migrant issue before, will do so again.

Most of the migrants arrived in Israel in the second half of the last decade, crossing from Egypt before new security on the border sealed the route.

Groups including the Centre for Refugees and Migrants, Amnesty International Israel and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel have signed a letter demanding the expulsions be stopped. “Anyone who has a heart must oppose the expulsion of the refugees,” the letter says.

Referring to a widely reported deal to pay Rwanda $5,000 per person to accept migrants, it adds:

“Rwanda is not a safe place. All the evidence indicates that anyone expelled from Israel to Rwanda finds himself there without status and without rights, exposed to threats, kidnappings, torture and trafficking.”

Rwanda has said it could take as many as 10,000 people. An investigation by the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an NGO, found people who had already agreed to leave for Rwanda were vulnerable to a number of threats including imprisonment, violence and extortion.

Recently the UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, criticised the emerging plan. “The Israeli government’s decision to expel 40,000 African asylum seekers is of great concern,” he said.

“Israel has a painful history of migration and exile. New generations must not forget that refugees do not flee out of choice but because they don’t have any other choice.”

German neo-Nazi lawmaker charged with hate speech is big Israel fan

Lawmaker Beatrix von Storch, accused by Cologne police of inciting hatred against Muslims, sees Israel as a model for Germany. (Nicolaus Fest)

Ali Abunimah-2 January 2018

A neo-Nazi member of Germany’s parliament who has been charged by police with inciting hatred against Muslims is a big fan of Israel.

Beatrix von Storch was suspended from Twitter and Facebook after she slammed police in the city of Cologne for this tweet – one of several put out in various languages – wishing the city’s residents happy new year in Arabic:

Polizei NRW K

✔@polizei_nrw_k

#PolizeiNRW #Köln #Leverkusen
تتمنى الشرطة في كولن لجميع الناس في منطقة كولن وليفركوزن والمدن الأخرى إحتفالاً سعيداً بعام 2018 الجديد.
http://url.nrw/silvester2017 رأس السنة 2017 ـ لمزيد المعلومات: #

12:43 PM - Dec 31, 2017

In response, von Storch accused the Cologne police of trying to “appease the barbaric, gang-raping hordes of Muslim men.”

This was an apparent reference to a spate of alleged sexual assaults that were blamed on men from Muslim-majority countries in the city on New Year’s Eve two years ago, and that then fueled exaggerated or outright fabricated claims against immigrants in other parts of Germany.

Police have filed a criminal complaint against von Storch for hate speech.

Her posts were removed under a new online hate speech law that civil liberties advocates have warned deputizes social media companies to carry out censorship on behalf of the government.

Neo-Nazis embrace Israel

Von Storch is the deputy leader of Alternative for Germany – known by its German initials AfD – the neo-Nazi party that won almost 100 seats in Germany’s general election last September, prompting alarm from the country’s Jewish community.

Like their neo-Nazi counterparts who just joined the government of neighboring Austria, AfD has been cozying up to Israel – a philosemitic stance that aims to rebrand the anti-Semitic far-right as defenders of Jews against a supposed Muslim threat.

Their embrace has been reciprocated by politicians in Israel’s ruling Likud party.

A granddaughter of Hitler’s last finance minister, von Storch told The Jerusalem Report last September that “For historical and cultural reasons, we will always look for good relations and close cooperation with Israel.”

She has been very explicit not only about her party’s support for Israel, but also that hatred of Muslims is one of the values she shares with its Zionist ideology.

“Both anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are strongest in the Islamic community, as well as the Left,” she explained. “They reject the fact that the Judeo-Christian foundations of European civilization are instrumental to its success. We recognize the threat they pose to both Israel and Germany’s Jewish community and their safety is a high priority for us.”

Von Storch concluded that “Israel could be a role model for Germany” as a country that “makes efforts to preserve its unique culture and traditions.”

This echoes closely the line of American neo-Nazi demagogue Richard Spencer who speaks of Zionism as a key model for the kind of Aryan homeland he seeks to create under the guise of preserving “European” culture.

Not surprisingly, von Storch’s Jerusalem Report interview was promoted approvingly by Breitbart, a major platform for racism and white supremacy.

Israel as racist model

Von Storch’s identification with Israel is a symptom of the long-standing alliance between the right, and even anti-Semites, on the one hand, and Zionism and Israel, on the other.

This alliance has recently found new life in a common hatred of Muslims.

Israeli leaders have habitually exploited violent attacks in Europe to further stoke Islamophobia and justify their own violence against Palestinians.

Yet while many mainstream commentators in Germany can be expected to express horror at von Storch’s anti-Muslim incitement, few dare speak out in criticism of Israel – including its prominent role in fomenting xenophobia and hatred of Muslims as part of its effort to push Europe further into its far-right camp.

Indeed, Germany’s establishment appears to be less tolerant than ever of advocacy for full, equal civil, political and human rights for Palestinians. In December, the city council in Munich passed a measure smearing the BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – movement.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee had written to city councillors to explain that the definition of anti-Semitism cited in the resolution is one drawn up by Israel lobbyists to deliberately conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

Yet there do appear to be cracks. Foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel is under intense attack from Israel for stating a simple truth. Israel’s public security minister Gilad Erdan, who is also in charge of combatting the BDS movement, accused Gabriel of engaging in speech that “demonizes and delegitimizes the Jewish state.”

Gabriel reportedly told a group of Muslim representatives in December that when he visited the occupied West Bank city of Hebron a few years ago, what he witnessed reminded him of apartheid.