Wednesday, April 10, 2013

BBS Fundamentalism: Where Does It Stop?

By Kamaya Jayatissa -April 10, 2013

Kamaya Jayatissa

“I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven’t melted.” – Jesse Jackson

Is post-war Sri Lanka truly multicultural?

For a country which finally came out of a protracted civil war we surely have not learned much of a lesson when it comes to tolerance and peaceful co-existence between communities. Lack of inter-communal dialogue, anti-Muslim propaganda, destruction of private properties, escalation of hate-speech against minorities, religious fundamentalism… Where does it stop? In these circumstances, it is legitimate to ask ourselves whether post-war Sri Lanka is truly multicultural or whether it just comprises of multiple cultures that are (hardly) living side by side.

From the outside, there is no doubt that Sri Lanka, as many other countries today, will appear as an internally diverse society. Whether it is through its history, its literature, its architecture or even its landscapes, one cannot deny the cultural diversity our country gained throughout the centuries. But when digging a little deeper, one can only wonder whether our mosaic remains undamaged. Indeed, how much do we exactly know about each other’s culture, religion, language? How much do we share with each other? Do we even respect, leave alone celebrate our differences? These questions need to be considered seriously, particularly given the dangerous escalation of religious fanaticism preached by groups such as the Bodu Bala Sena which claims that this island is neither multi-ethnic nor multi-religious.

For my part, I still want to believe that Sri Lanka remains a mosaic of communities that can live together in peace and in harmony. Nonetheless, I pity that we do not truly realize it and treasure it; thereby enjoying our diversity to its fullest.

Having recently visited an Araniya near Thihariya, I experienced quite an atypical moment which, despite the recent incidents, comforted me in my thoughts. This Buddhist forest monastery which was located on top of a hill was lost in the middle of nowhere. Its surroundings were so quiet and serene that one could easily lose track of time and space. Once I reached the top of the hill, I could hear resounding chants beautifully spreading into the forest. One chant came from the temple below where the monks had just started to recite their evening prayers while the other chant came in chorus from a nearby mosque. Though completely different in terms of resonance, the two chants fused as one. And while I am pretty sure that both the temple and the mosque must have perceived the noise made by their neighbor as quite irritating at times, to me that coincidental combination was one of the most striking melodies I ever heard. For a brief moment, it sounded as two religions, two cultures; one could even say two worlds, merging as one.

Unfortunately, as it has often been the case, we tend to forget that this Rainbow Nation of ours is way more than just a few communities living side by side. Too frequently do we tend to forget that, as a nation, we need to cultivate not only our commonalities but also our differences in order to foster respect, develop mutual understanding and mostly create a platform for open dialogue between our people so that no individual or community feels marginalized to the point of being considered as strangers in their own soil. The end of the war should have been the best occasion for such a platform to be restored. Instead, what emerged these past few months is an additional form of extremism, based this time on religious intolerance and racism, which juxtaposes itself onto the current socio-political and socioeconomic crises. And for such a form of extremism to have surfaced and grown this fast, in such a short period of time, it can only be due to the fact that we allowed it for already too long by remaining passive spectators of our own downfall.

Hence, what strikes me the most in all this mess is that most of the people seem to have stopped believing a long time ago, as if agonizing in silence was the safest thing to do. Although the Government must share its part of the burden, if no urgent and effective push is initiated by us, the people, there will be no interest or need for change at the top of the pyramid, leaving us once more with nothing else than a scattered and divided nation.

So far, one of our biggest mistakes was to fight solely for the end of the war rather than also for a positive, participatory peace. We forgot to forgive each other in the process and we are now facing the consequences of our own omissions by repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Mostly, we forgot that our diversity is also part of our culture and that it is our responsibility to preserve it as much as our communal traditions and beliefs; only then will we achieve lasting peace.

My only hope is that the present crisis does not go on forever and that we will be able to regain the communal peace our parents and grandparents once enjoyed, a communal peace that my generation never had the chance to experience truly. In this context, restoring hope and commitment in the nation-building process seems to be, to me, one of our biggest challenges as Sri Lankans. And for the cynics among us who are determined to play the card of skepticism, what better inspiration than President Mandela who once said “It always seems impossible until it’s done”.

*Kamaya Jayatissa, President of What’s Next!, is a PhD student in International Law at the Sorbonne University, Paris. She holds a Master Degree in International Law from the Sorbonne and a Diploma in International Governance and Sustainable Development from Sciences Po, Paris.

Drawing the Battle Lines

Groundviews

Subha Wijesiriwardena-10 Apr, 2013

Monks of Sri Lanka’s hardline Buddhist group Bodhu Bala Sena pray during a protest rally urging boycott of consumer goods with Halal certification in Maharagama on the out skirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka in February. Picture and caption courtesy AP, via Asian Correspondent.

The growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Sri Lanka is pushing us to respond in numerous ways: we are talking, flustered, hopeless and helpless, shouting in outrage (when no one will listen), holding our knees to chests, trying to pull ourselves inside, into some sense of comfort and safety, whispers of more war, more conflict on our lips. The annoyance has turned to fear; the irritating din of the crowd has turned to the cries of a mob. In a matter of months, we have grown from worried to scared; that mob have grown from an absurd joke into a very serious problem. Worst of all, it has pushed some of us to retreat into the empty shells of ourselves, hidings our heads, hoping it will just blow over.

Here, at the threshold of this calamity, we teeter on the edge, about to make our most grave mistakes all over again; it may not blow over before it has destroyed so much more than we are willing to sacrifice.

The Bodu Bala Sena and Sinhala Ravaya and other similar groups obviously have a clear agenda –we are done with the Tamils, so let’s make the Muslims our new enemy. This suits the agenda of our current regime, in fact they were just done with a civil war and wondering how to keep the masses further mesmerised, hypnotised – fear of a common enemy, naturally, is just the way they’d like to do it.

These are dangerous, violent hate-groups that seem more sinister with each passing day, as it becomes clear that they are willing to attack their ‘enemy’ in the most horrific of ways. They are prepared not just to physically hurt people, their homes and their properties, they are willing to engage in the most lowly kinds of attacks; humiliating people and ripping them of their dignity, attacking their beliefs, rituals and faith and inventing and spreading totally ludicrous lies to demonize them. It’s school-yard bully stuff, medieval stuff – totally unsophisticated, totally cruel, and yet totally effective in creating fear when you have the numbers on your side. It’s made more dangerous by its very public association with the highest powers that be, who have condoned their actions and ideology by giving in to their petty, unreasonable demands and never once publicly condemned them.

So while most Sri Lankans are crushed beneath the weight of every-day life – the cost of living, corruption, lack of civil liberties and rights – our ‘great leaders’ are able to prey on our innermost frustrations, fears and insecurities, turning it into a hatred of ‘the other’ and thereby drumming up support for this dangerous campaign of hate. They are fooling us; distracting us from the harsh realities of life in Sri Lanka; distracting us from a crumbling economy, a faulty and unsustainable faux-reconciliation process and the fact that they have categorically been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Our responses to this violence are varied as they are fascinating. Don’t they remember July 1983, you ask. They don’t care. Don’t they remember how marginalising and victimising an ethnic minority led to a civil war of nearly 30 years, you ask. They don’t care. Remember how we all suffered? you ask. Do you want another war, you ask. Maybe they do.

Most often, we avoid delving into the deeper issues; we try to avoid feeling the deeper things. We want to prevent another war. We want to prevent another catastrophe – but only so we don’t have to suffer on behalf of someone else. Let’s for a moment put aside the larger questions about racism and fascism. Let’s put aside everything we know about every civilian’s right to life, the right to protection from the state from discrimination. Let’s put aside the right every one of us has to pursue any religion we like and freely engage in the worship of any faith without the fear of persecution. Let’s instead consider how one could draw glaringly obvious parallels between this situation and other horrific moments in our own history as well as the histories of other nations and other peoples. Let’s at least consider the fact that this could affect every one of us personally if it goes unabated.

If it’s hard to muster up the courage and the determination to fight for the rights of another community just because you should in principle, let’s at least consider the fact that none of us will survive more ‘ethnic conflict’.

Prejudice has no logic; it is an irrational hatred born from an irrational fear of the unknown and we are all complicit in different ways. It’s moments like this that require every single one of us to step up and take some responsibility, to care. Think, talk, act, now. Do your bit, do whatever you can. Disassociate yourself completely and publicly from individuals/organizations that support these campaigns of hate; and when you do, tell them why. Talk back, debate, get angry with the people who think it’s OK; it’s never OK. Find out everything you can behind the ideas and agendas of these campaigns, keep yourself informed and always ensure the information you’re getting is accurate and unbiased. Share this information.

It may not seem like there’s a lot you can do, but it’s time to pick a side. This is not the time to be non-partisan, undecided or apolitical. There’s a lot that extremist bigots are willing to do that peaceful moderates are not, but conviction should not be where we come up short.

The battle lines are being drawn. The fundamentalists are always quick to do so. Where do you stand?

WikiLeaks: Hakeem Only Interested In Maintaining His Ministerial Position

By Colombo Telegraph -April 9, 2013

“Muslims are increasingly worked up about the apparent surge in LTTE influence. In a meeting with a group of Muslims at Southeastern University, the team was told that Muslims felt that the LTTE was slowly but surely working to take over the Eastern Province. M.L.A. Cader, the vice-chancellor of the university, was adamant that eastern Muslims had to take steps to ensure that the government in Colombo heard their concerns. Muslims felt they were being ‘abandoned’ and ‘sold out’ by a government eager to make peace at any price with the LTTE. Cader bitterly criticized Rauf Hakeem, the head of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), asserting that Hakeem did not care about eastern Muslims and was only interested in maintaining his ministerial position in the government.” the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.

Hakeem

The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database. The cable discusses the situation in the Eastern province under the ceasefire agreement. The “Confidential” cable written on November 14, 2002 and signed by the US Ambassador to Colombo E. Ashley Wills.

The ambassador wrote; “On the human rights side, Cader admitted that “LTTE pressure” on Muslims was a bit less of late. Cader thought that this was clearly a tactic on the LTTE’s part meant to quiet critics, while the group continued its efforts to isolate Muslims and marginalize the security forces. In response to Cader’s concerns, the U.S. team underscored strong support for the peace process, stressing that the U.S. urged all sides to work together and exercise restraint.”

We give below the relevant part of the cable;

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 COLOMBO 002133 

SIPDIS 

DEPARTMENT FOR SA, SA/INS, S/CT; NSC FOR H. THOMAS;
LONDON FOR POL/RIEDEL 

E.O. 12958:  DECL:  11-14-12
TAGS: PGOV PTER PHUM MOPS ECON SOCI CE LTTE
SUBJECT:  Tigers gradually expand network of control in
the east, as security forces watch and Muslims fret 

Refs:  (A) Colombo 2101 

-      (B) Colombo 1180, and previous 

(U) Classified by Ambassador E. Ashley Wills.  Reasons
1.5 (b, d).

=================
Deep Muslim Anger
================= 

¶10.  (C) (((Note:  The U.S. team repeatedly asked
interlocutors about continuing reports of Muslim
extremism in the east.  Most observers had little clear-
cut information about the matter and Muslim
interlocutors denied it was a factor.  Nonetheless, the
team did notice many new mosques under construction and
various "Islamic foundation" offices operating in Muslim
towns.  It is hard to see how eastern Muslims could
afford to pay for the construction of all the new
mosques, so it would seem possible that Middle Eastern
money is coming in, as some claim.  When queried, Sri
Lankan security forces replied that they had not seen
any Arabs or Pakistanis visiting the region.  GSL
officials added that they just were not sure what was
going on in Muslim areas, however.  They had heard of
small extremist groups with names like "Jihad" and
"Osama" operating in the east, but did not think they
were much of a threat to the peace.  Pro-LTTE Tamils
that the team met with repeatedly claimed that Muslims
were radicalized, and armed and dangerous.  One pro-LTTE
figure, V. Kamaladas, the head of a local NGO Forum for
the east, basically indicated that the U.S. and the LTTE
should join together to defeat the Muslims!  End
Note.)))

WILLS

Murdered then tossed into a mass grave: Sri Lanka unearths 150 decades-old skeletons and promises to uncover the truth

President appoints commission to seek answers to grisly find
The bodies date back to a Marxist uprising in the 1980s
Presidential commission will run alongside ongoing police investigation

By SAM WEBB

PUBLISHED: 15:24 GMT, 9 April 2013 | UPDATED: 06:54 GMT, 10 April 2013

MailOnline - news, sport, celebrity, science and health stories

The Sri Lankan government has launched an investigation into a recently uncovered mass grave containing more than 150 skeletons.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced a presidential commission will be appointed to investigate the chilling find, likely to be the bodies of Marxist rebels killed decades ago, said Lakshman Hulugalle, head of the government's Media Centre for National Security.

It was found late last year at a state-run hospital in the central region of the country.

Voice of the dead: A Sri Lankan worker unearths skeletons at a mass grave found in a hospital construction site. The president has announced an investigation into the site

Macabre: There are 150 skulls in the grave, most likely of Marxist rebels

Mr Hulugalle told reporters the commission's probe will be in addition to an ongoing police investigation, adding names of the members of the commission will be announced soon.

Workers found the remains while doing construction work in December at the hospital in Matale, about 65 miles northeast of the capital, Colombo. The 154 skeletons were found buried in neat rows, five or six stacked on top of one another.

More...

Last month, a judge declared the mass grave a crime scene, and said the skulls and bones recovered date back 25 years, strengthening suspicions that they belonged to suspected Marxist rebels killed at the time.

Judicial medical officer Asoka Jayasena carries a skull of an unearthed skeleton. The country has seen two major uprisings from Marxist guerrillas

Unearthed: The mass grave was found in December by workers on a hospital construction site

Magistrate Chathurika de Silva told a court in Matale that tests carried out by archeological and judicial medical officials showed the remains dated to between 1987 and 1990.

During that period, thousands of men and women suspected of having ties to the rebels disappeared after being arrested by security forces.

When the bodies were found, there were initial claims that they belonged to those killed in an epidemic in the 1940s or in a mudslide.

Light onto darkness: The presidential commission will run alongside the ongoing police investigation into the deaths

The Marxists were mostly rural Sinhalese, the country's majority ethnic community. They complained of economic hardship

However, hospital authorities did not have any records of bodies buried on the premises.

A Marxist group, the People's Liberation Front, which led two uprisings first in 1971 and again in 1987 to 1989 against the government, said the bodies may belong to its members killed by security forces and demanded that the government conduct a full investigation.

The Marxists were mostly rural Sinhalese, the country's majority ethnic community. They complained of economic hardship and said that rural people were denied equal opportunities.

Vanish: Between 1987 and 1990 thousands of people with suspected rebel links were arrested and went missing

India gave LTTE Rs 50 lakh as compensation for Indo-Lanka pact

B Sivakumar, TNN | Apr 10, 2013

CHENNAI: Did India compensate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after the Printed fr
1987Indo-Lanka pact and the dispatch of Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka? The US administration believed so, according to a cable sent by its embassy here and released by Wikileaks.

A cable dated April 5, 1988 cites newspaper reports, which quoted J N Dixit, then Indian envoy to Sri Lanka that a stipend was agreed upon and was to be paid to the LTTE by the Indian government in view of the tax loss it suffered after IPKF was sent. The US cable said Rs 50 lakh was the compensation paid to the LTTE in July 1987 and only one payment was made before September that year when LTTE walked out of the deal over its participation in the interim council.

An unnamed LTTE spokesman in Madras is quoted as saying that the payment was part of a larger secret package of guarantees, which Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi offered LTTE leader V Prabhakaran in July 1987 to get him to agree to the bilateral accord, said the cable. "We were in the jungles when the amount was said to have been paid to the LTTE. There was no communication from the ministry of external affairs to us about the payment made to get Prabhakaran to agree to the terms. It must have been a move by the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)," said Col (retd) R Hariharan, an analyst of Sri Lankanaffairs, who served in the IPKF.

Other features of the package for the LTTE included an assurance of an offer of 7 out of 12 seats to enable it to form a majority in the interim provincial council in the north and east of Sri Lanka. India said it would route Rs 1 billion through the interim council to rehabilitate Jaffna besides $40million that was agreed upon by New Delhi at an earlier consortium meeting in Paris. The Indian government also promised to develop a police force after the formation of the interim council. Despite all this, the deal fell through almost the same day, said the cable.

As a parting shot, the embassy expressed doubt over the agreement itself. It said, "Left unsaid is an indication whether the package suggested above is still on the table in India-LTTE talks, which apparently have been going on for sometime." Quoting a BBC correspondent, the cable said talks between the LTTE and India began in Madras in February 1988, but fell through a week later.

Govt. won’t comply with UNHRC resolution: GL

TUESDAY, 09 APRIL 2013

The Government yesterday reaffirmed in Parliament that it did not concur with the US-sponsored resolution adopted at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions on March 22.

Responding to a statement by Opposition United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris said therefore the Government would not hold talks with anyone on the matters contained in the resolution.

“Sri Lanka cannot acquiesce with the resolution adopted. First and foremost among the reasons for such a decision is that the resolution calls for an oral update on Sri Lanka at the 24th session in September this year, and a comprehensive report at the 25th session in 2014. It means Sri Lanka will figure on the UN agenda every six months. When we survey the global situation, Sri Lanka is not a country with a troubling situation in the world. The proportionality of this resolution cannot be accepted as a result,” he said.

The minister said the resolution seeks to incorporate both the report of the panel of experts, dubbed by Sri Lanka as the Dharusman report and the report by United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay.

“Soon after the war ended in 2009, the High Commissioner called for an international investigation. In her report, she reaffirmed her position. We reject it,” he said and described the resolution as a catalyst for dissension and violence which has now spilled over to spheres such as cricket and cinema.(Kelum Bandara and Yohan Perera)

'Jewish Terrorist' sentenced to life for murder

Tytell given two life sentences, additional 30 years for murder of two Palestinians, other assorted crimes.

Israeli-American terror suspect Jack Tytell. Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski

The Jerusalem District Court sentenced “Jewish terrorist” Jack Tytell on Tuesday to two life sentences and an additional 30 years in prison for the murder of two Palestinians and an assortment of other crimes.

Just before the sentence was handed down, Tytell said he had no regrets and was proud of what he had done.

Court convicts 'Jewish Terrorist' of murder

Although he was only formally sentenced on Tuesday, he was convicted on January 16.

Despite his claim that an “angel” had controlled him, the court, explaining its verdict, found that Tytell was not insane and was thus “responsible for his actions,” which paved the way for Tuesday’s double life sentence.

The court also ordered him to pay NIS 180,000 to the family of each murder victim and NIS 150,000 to each attempted murder victim.

In its ruling, the court stated, “Our roots command: ‘Do not kill’ – but the accused shut his ears and his eyes, killed and tried to kill in cold blood... there was no foreseeable threat of a weapon or anything to fear from them [the victims].”

The state prosecutor for the case, Sagi Ophir, said he hoped the ruling would “send a message” that would “efficiently deter anyone who will perpetrate terror or participate or aid in terror.”

Tytell’s lawyer, Asher Ohayon, told The Jerusalem Post that they intended “100 percent” to appeal to the Supreme Court – “not 60%, not 70%” – and that they intended to appeal “both the conviction and the sentence.”

Last May, the court accepted an unusual plea bargain between the district attorney and lawyers representing Tytell, and determined that the defendant had murdered two Palestinians and committed other violent crimes from 1997-2008.

Judges Zvi Segal, Moshe Hacohen and Moshe Yair Drori said the court had determined that Tytell had committed the acts attributed to him in an amended indictment.

That indictment includes 10 of the original 14 charges against the defendant – including two murders and two attempted murders – as the prosecution agreed to remove charges relating to attempted attacks that authorities succeeded in foiling, as well as general language describing Tytell’s hatred for those who disagreed with or were different from him as the motivating factor behind his crimes.

The court did not formally convict Tytell until it had carefully reviewed whether he could be held criminally responsible for his offenses.

Although he agreed to confess to the charges, Tytell refused to physically plead guilty in court when he was convicted, because he claimed he did not recognize the court’s authority.

Instead, in a highly unusual procedure that required special court approval, Ohayon – with Tytell present in the courtroom but refusing to take part – submitted an admission to the charges in the amended indictment on his client’s behalf.

Courts normally require that defendants confessing to crimes do so in-person in order to safeguard their rights and ensure that they have not been coerced into admission or confused about any element of their confession.

The Florida-born Tytell, 39, was originally indicted in 2009.

He is charged with the 1997 murder of Palestinian taxi driver Samir Balbisi, who was found shot dead in his cab.

According to the indictment, in around May 1997, when Tytell was still in the US, he decided to murder Palestinians and came to Israel for that purpose, smuggling a gun into the country by hiding it in a VCR.

He spent his first weeks in Israel with friends in Jerusalem.

He managed to acquire bullets for his smuggled gun, and began seeking out a suitable victim.

The indictment states that he chose to murder an Arab taxi driver because he thought he could ask the driver first to drive him to a suitable spot.

On June 8, 1997, he went to the Arab taxi stand at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, the indictment says, where he hired Balbisi and asked him to drive him to a hotel. After driving for a while, Tytell told Balbisi to stop and wait, then proceeded to shoot the Palestinian man in the head at point-blank range.

The indictment also charges Tytell with the murder of a second Palestinian man, Beduin shepherd Isaa Mousa’af Mahamada, who was shot dead near the West Bank settlement of Carmel, near Hebron, in August 1997.

In 2000, Tytell made aliya and lived in Shvut Rahel, a West Bank settlement north of Jerusalem, where he married and had four children. That year, police arrested him on suspicion of carrying out both of the 1997 murders, but later released him due to lack of evidence.

In March 2008, according to the indictment, he attempted to murder 15-year-old Amiel Ortiz, a Messianic Jewish teen from Ariel.

Tytell sent a bomb in a Purim gift basket to Ortiz’s home, which exploded when the youth opened it.

Other charges include planting homemade explosives in September 2008 at the home of Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell, a leftwing scholar from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Tytell also attempted to murder a resident of the Beit Jamal monastery near Beit Shemesh because he believed its inhabitants were missionaries who tried to convert Jewish children.

He attacked a police station in 2006 during a gay pride parade.

Following his arrest in 2009, he was remanded in custody in a secure psychiatric facility, and though an initial psychiatric assessment in 2010 deemed him unfit to stand trial, later tests showed that he was able to face prosecution.

Tytell’s lawyers had previously argued that their client had not known right from wrong when he committed the acts, and therefore the court could not impose a prison term.

There were even arguments that an “angel” had controlled his actions, and at least one expert said that Tytell was insane. But the prosecution successfully argued that Tytell was responsible for his actions when committing the crimes.

The court said that it accepted another expert opinion that regardless of whether Tytell may have had episodes of insanity during his trial and imprisonment, if he had been insane years earlier when he committed the crimes, he would have deteriorated to a far worse state in the subsequent years.

Based on the above and the rational manner in which Tytell gave statements to police when arrested, the court agreed with the expert that any episodes of insanity came after the crimes and during imprisonment.

On December 7, the court arrived at an interim conclusion that Tytell was indeed sane and criminally responsible, a development that paved the way for January’s conviction and Tuesday’s sentencing.

Gota And I Are Not politicians – Political Machinations

By Rajiva Wijesinha -April 10, 2013

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha MP

The urge to win elections rather than institute reforms

Over three years ago I told the President that he should not have Presidential election early, but should rather hold the Parliamentary elections first. Needless to say he ignored my advice, even though I sent him a detailed paper on the reasons for the view I held. He told me that it was only Gota and myself who thought it unnecessary to have the Presidential election so soon.

He said this jovially, implying I think that Gota and I were not politicians, and others knew much better. But, leaving me aside, he should have realized that the Secretary of Defence is the only one of his close advisors, excepting only the Secretary to the President, who has no personal agenda. And as it turned out, many of the problems we face now spring I think from that early election, though no one could have predicted the divisive effect – in an unexpected fashion – of Sarath Fonseka’s entry into the fray along with his insistence on being a common opposition candidate. As an aside, I should note that only one point in my paper was later addressed, namely the lame duck effect. But the remedy put in place caused worries of another sort, and it does not seem to have helped very much, if current reports as to continuing maneuvers are correct.

I was reminded of all this when I saw that the United National Party has declared that it must get ready for a Presidential election in 2014, because it believes there are plans to amend the Constitution to make this possible. As it stands, the election cannot be held before 2015, because the President has to complete 4 years in office before he can offer himself for re-election, as President Jayewardene quaintly put it when he introduced the 3rd amendment to the Constitution.
That amendment was outrageous, and it is a measure either of the control he exercised, or else of their incapacity to understand the salient features of a Presidential Constitution, that the Supreme Court did not recognize how such an amendment affected the franchise. Usually Executive Presidents have fixed terms. Under the Westminster system the Prime Minister can ask the Head of State to dissolve Parliament early and have an election, a prerogative which is obviously used to have elections when they are convenient to the party in power. I think that is a regrettable advantage that should be done away with, given the more and more obvious ways in which ruling parties offer sops to the electorate that are damaging to the nation.

But the effect of such an advantage is generally less in a Parliamentary system, given the numbers involved, than when an incumbent President can decide entirely in terms of his own interest. Incidentally, in addition to this manifest unfairness which the Supreme Court should have struck down, the 3rd amendment also had the ridiculous provision that, depending on who won such an early election, the next Presidential term commenced on one of two possible alternative dates. This provision, based entirely on greed, so that an incumbent President could go on for a bit longer, was drafted so preposterously that it seemed ambiguous and led to President Kumaratunga losing a year of her second term of office (a precedent the President ignored when he decided his second term would begin when the Constitution said it did, on an obvious reading that the previous Chief Justice had ignored).

Under the 3rd Amendment, the President could exercise only once the option of calling an election early if it suited him. The 18th Amendment makes it possible for him to do this again and again. Unfortunately this results in unpopularity setting in earlier and earlier, which the government seems to have realized might happen, if what the UNP assumes is correct. So it seems necessary to have the third election after three years, and doubtless, if a fourth ever occurs, that will happen after two. This means that the Constitution will need to be amended again and again.

When that happens, though, it will be clear to the electorate that the President is afraid of serving out his full term, or even the slightly truncated term the 3rd amendment permits. Indeed we saw that Jayewardene suffered from heightened unpopularity when he brought forward the election, since he won far less comfortably than he had expected. He had knocked out the principal opposition candidate, Mrs Bandaranaike, and the SLFP had obligingly split, with Anura Bandaranaike and most of his friends in the party (though not Mahinda Rajapaksa, who stayed loyal to the SLFP) in effect supporting Jayewardene. Nevertheless Hector Kobbekaduwa did surprisingly well, and indeed beat Jayewardene in the North.

The UNP effort to dragoon the President then into changing the Constitution again, and having an election next year, should be resisted. They claim that the excuse that will be proferred is that the President has decided the current term of six years is too long, and must be reduced – which is a good idea, though it should be brought down to four, as the Liberal Party has long suggested, rather than five. But it is absurd to suppose that the electorate will believe that it is for this laudable purpose that an amendment is being introduced, and it is only incidentally that the election can now be held after three years rather than four.

Why all this is absurd is that it is based on the belief that the President will necessarily have the election early, and would prefer it after three years rather than four, whether for astrological reasons or worries about electoral unpopularity at a later stage. But the simple fact is that the President does not need to go to the polls until early in 2017, and for him to risk three years of his Presidency – as well as the two thirds majority which it is wholly unlikely he will ever get again – would be foolish.

Rather, what he needs to do is to use that two thirds majority, not to consolidate power, but to introduce the reforms that will ensure the electorate continues to support him. The courage he showed in concluding the war against terrorism in his first term has to be matched by courage in ensuring a durable peace. No one will believe that he will take necessary measures when he has less support in Parliament than he has now, which is why instead of succumbing to the UNP’s desire for a quick election that must necessarily weaken him, he should move now to fulfil the positive measures in his manifesto and his budget that the massive Cabinet he has established have failed signally to promote.