Pillai Visit – Or How Bottom Fell Hells Narrative
September 5, 2013
By Rajpal Abeynayake - The state run Daily News Editorial - Thursday, September 5, 2013
Rajpal Abeynayake
The cacophonous song and dance that’s made about the alleged governance issues, the human rights deficit and the democracy deficit so-called of the government, is marked by the fact that people have forgotten the antecedents of this issue that once more gained some momentary play during the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillai.
Consider Pillai’s visit itself. She has to be thanked for her unqualified acceptance of the fact that there has been tremendous infrastructure development in the North and the East, of a very impressive order. This fact of course is now so absolutely clear that there is no argument about it. From the Julie Bishops to the French senators to the British parliamentarians, they have all said it.
What’s forgotten is the fact that this is not how it all started. Post 2009 and after the Nadikadal defeat of the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government was accused of maintaining mass internment camps that were also dubbed ‘barbed-wire concentration camps’ by interested parties that sorely wanted to carve out that first kink in a calculatedly false narrative.
Today there is nothing said about barbed wire and refugees. The dominant contrary narrative is one of achievements in resettlement, and getting the physical infrastructure in place to an extent that amazes all — detractor and neutral observer alike. Read More
Rajpal Abeynayake
The Age Of Identity
Mervyn De Silva
It was just the other day that Dr Ponna Wignaraja reminded me that the ‘Lanka Guardian’ was closely associated with the United Nations University (UNU) South Asian Perspectives project from its inception. That is correct. Professor Shelton Kodikara, I recall, was the other Sri Lankan who joined this ‘task force’ on nation building together with many other distinguished representatives from the region.
Needless to add, Dr Wignaraja’s reminder was part friendly persuasion, part polite blackmail. I was asked to look back, pick up some of the main strands of the ongoing discussion, and put down something on paper – which I did, almost overnight. So much by way of explanation and apology. Anyway, it’s the next two days’ exchanges that really matter.
The coincidence was fortuitous. The ‘Lanka Guardian’ was launched in 1978, the year in which the new constitution established an all-powerful Executive Presidency. Mr J.R.Jayewardene, leader of the United National Party (UNP) had assumed office as prime minister in July 1977. The conservative UNP, the strongest party in the island, had won a massive 5/6th of the parliamentary majority, albeit on 52% of the popular vote. Using that overwhelming majority, he installed himself as the first executive president of Sri Lanka, a former British colony that since independence in 1948, had earned itself a reputation as a comparatively stable and lively democracy, with a high PQLI rating. Prof. Jeyaratnam Wilson, one of the best known Sri Lankan constitutional pundits, described the new structure as “Gaullist”. Read More
