By Tisaranee
Gunasekara -
“Conquest
creates tyrants.” - Baron
d’Holbach (The Social System)
Three
provincial councils have been dissolved, years ahead of time. Millions of rupees
will be wasted on untimely elections, unneeded by the country and unwanted by
the people.
These incessant elections are not about democracy or devolution;
nor are they in popular or national interests. They are about shoring-up
Rajapaksa-power.
Unseasonal elections keep SLFP (national/local) leaders in
constant trepidation about their own political futures and thus disinclined to
think beyond their positions, perks and privileges. This increases their
dependence on the Ruling Family, for nominations, electoral assistance and
political preferment. The consequent combination of fear (of political death)
and desire (to prolong the good life of gilded-slavery) is a potent impediment
to any inner-party resistance to Sibling-rule.
Unseasonal elections also
enable the Ruling Family to increase the presence of Rajapaksa-loyalists (as
distinct from SLFP-loyalists) in national and local assemblies. Incessant
elections ensure the accelerated transmogrification of the SLFP from a
Ratwatte-Bandaranaike fief to a Rajapaksa fief.
The Katuwana attack is a
timely reminder of the dangers of opposing the Rajapaksas, politico-electorally.
The threats meted out to the President of the Federation of University Teachers
Association, Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri, demonstrate that under Rajapaksa rule mere
criticism is a de facto crime. The 18th Amendment has emasculated the Elections
Commissioner, turning him into a presidential-underling.
The unending
elections happen in this landscape of repression, fear and abuse. They are more
politico-propaganda gimmicks than real exercises in democracy and popular
franchise – the electoral-equivalents of a Carlton sports encounter, guzzling
funds which should have been spent on providing relief for drought-stricken
farmers or reducing the tax-burden on consumers.
The provincial council
system was enacted as a political solution to the ethnic problem. Today the
South, which neither demanded nor wanted devolution, is being inundated with
provincial elections while the North is deprived of an elected provincial
council. The resultant absence of devolution cannot but render even more
difficult the near-Sisyphusean efforts of Northern Tamils to rebuild their
shattered lives, post-war.
Unseasonal provincial/local elections are not in
Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or Lankan interests. They just serve Rajapaksa
interests.
The Rajapaksas might have personal differences; or disagreements
about how the power-and-wealth pie should be shared. But when it comes to
protecting Familial Rule, the Siblings operate in a truly polyphonous
manner.
Take l’affaire Kolonnawa. In the immediate emotional aftermath of the
murder of Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, Mahinda and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa were
publicly decried by Bharatha-supporters as Godfathers of the alleged killer.
Basil Rajapaksa worked tirelessly, soothing incensed tempers, calming the
impending storm, preventing closet dissenters within the SLFP from teaming up
with furious Bharatha-supporters and causing a pocket-revolt in the
party.
Last week, the CID informed the courts that the AG’s Department (under
President Mahinda) did not give a directive to record a statement from Duminda
Silva (the protégé of Defence Secretary Gotabhaya). 24 hours later, Speaker
Chamal presided over the foundation-stone laying ceremony for a Bharatha-statue.
The two incidents in juxtaposition demonstrate, again, the Rajapaksa modus
operandi; the seeming familial differences are often nothing more than a
necessary (and useful) division-of-labour in protecting and promoting familial
interests.
Country, nation, race, religion and party: all are ruses and
slogans. The raison d’être of Rajapaksa Rule is Rajapaksa Rule.
Economic
Pitfalls
Last week, award-winning actress-cum-environmentalist Iranganie
Serasinghe appealed to the Navy “to refrain from engaging in activities that
would have an adverse impact on the Panama lagoon” (The Island – 27.6.2012).
According to the Spokesman of the Panama Lagoon Fisheries Management Authority,
“the Navy had already acquired land belonging to the villagers and places
considered by the Central Environment Authority as rich in biodiversity” (ibid).
The Navy had built a jetty in fish-breeding grounds and cut down
mangroves.
Conflate this outrage with the recent statement by the Army
Commander about the need for “a complete overhaul of the Army along military and
development lines” (Sri Lanka Mirror – 25.6.2012). The military, transformed
from a state-entity into the Rajapaksa Praetorian Guard, will be tasked with
implementing unpalatable and shady politico-economic dictats of the Ruling
Family. A stake in the economy will be their reward for acting as Rajapaksa
enforcers and yeomen.
The military, in turn, will bring into the economy the
habits of lawlessness, abuse and impunity it internalised during the war. The
ongoing devastation of Panama is but a forewarning of the ills of militarising
the economy. These ills will impact as adversely on Sinhalese as it will on
Tamils and Muslims. In their pursuit of profit for the Siblings and for
themselves, the military will not discriminate between the majority and the
minorities, and will not hesitate to treat as enemy-aliens anyone opposing their
‘developmental work’.
The Rajapaksa economic strategy is not aimed at
promoting productive and self-sustaining economic development or popular
welfare. Its aim is to create the necessary basis for Rajapaksa Rule by marrying
familial political power with familial economic power.
In the Rajapaksa-book,
development is a show, garish and gargantuan, with little relevance to the
lives, occupations, needs and expectations of most Lankans.
The Minister of
Higher Education is simply echoing the thinking of his masters – albeit his own
inimitably execrable manner – when he celebrates the closing down of rural
schools as a sign of development.
Rajapaksa development means agricultural
decline and industrial stagnation, a crisis-ridden educational system and an
under-funded health system, an ailing rupee and a ballooning debt plus worrying
hikes in income inequality, inequality before the law and crime levels.
In
dictatorships trains are no more punctual than in democracies. The former is
better not at ensuring punctuality but at creating an illusion of punctuality.
When real economic/developmental problems crop up in Rajapaksa Sri Lanka, they
are swept behind a curtain of roseate hues, woven with interlocking threads of
lies, deceptions and denials.
Last week when the rupee hit a new low, the
Central Bank, instead of dealing with the problem, ordered commercial banks not
to trade the rupee above 133.00 against the US dollar.
Maintaining
appearances is all that matters. Let the basics haemorrhage and innards rot, so
long as the economic-facelifts and developmental-makeup are in place.
So the
regime which is going hell-for-leather to enforce the plastic crates law is
planning the wanton destruction of pivotal agricultural land and the closure of
the country’s sole Agricultural Institute, to build a domestic airport. If
farmers, battered by government maltreatment and climatic assaults decide to
sell their lands and migrate to cities, that would suit the regime. Their land,
bought for a song, can be used to increase the worldly wealth and glory of the
rulers. The resultant decrease in rural population can be hailed as another sign
of development.
In ancient Greece the agora was a marketplace for goods and
ideas. This dual function is symbolic of the totality of democracy, of its
bipedal nature, political and economic. To be complete, and safe, economic
democracy and political democracy must complement each other. An economic
strategy which ignores the needs of the majority might ill-fit with political
democracy. But such a strategy, which aims at enriching a minority, will be the
perfect corollary of despotism.
Familial Rule must cause Familial
Development.
There is an impending confrontation between the university academics and the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) as the media spokesman for the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA), Dr Devaka Weerakoon, has very clearly stated that they would go ahead with their continuous strike action on 4thJuly as their main demands are not only about salaries but primarily on funding for the university education.
Jul-01-2012
T
The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) views all Tamil parties in Sri Lanka as partners working for the same cause and having the same objectives, and in many ways working together as any family that is doing its best under the circumstances. GTF spokesperson, Suren Surendiran, in an exclusive interview with LAKBIMAnEWS said that the Tamil Diaspora should be approached for talks by Sri Lanka, because it is they who have felt insecure, been victimized, and felt or experienced the danger for their as well as their family’s lives.