Victims Of Sri Lanka’s ‘Development’ ?

By M A Sumanthiran -May 5, 2013 

M.A. Sumanthiran

The opening of the Mattala Rajapaksa International airport in Sri Lanka has been hailed by representatives of the Sri Lankan government as a significant boost to Sri Lanka’s economic development. In keeping with the priority the government clearly seems to be placing in the last few years, on large scale development projects, environmental and even economic concerns about the airport have been summarily dismissed by the unwavering government claim that the Mattala airport opens a new chapter in Sri Lanka’s economic development.

The Tamil National Alliance has repeatedly raised concerns regarding the ‘development’ policy of the government in the North and East. Government boasts of new roads, bridges and culverts in the North and East have done little to ease the desperate needs of those who live there – basic needs such as a return to their lands and property which they are still prevented from occupying, housing with proper facilities, and proper nutrition. These are needs that the government seems determined to ignore.

I have raised this concern many times, in particular following Hon. Gunaratene Weerakoon, Minister for Resettlement’s  statement in Parliament on the 21^st of March 2013 that 470 houses have been built by the government in the past 4 years. I emphasized that it is important to consider who truly benefits from such development and even more importantly, at whose expense such development takes place.

I have often said that the histories of Sri Lanka’s peoples are connected. The people of the South cannot forever stay unaffected by what happens to the peoples of the North and the East. Today, we see this in relation to the economic and development policies of the government.

Some weeks ago, the government announced the much anticipated revisions in the electricity tariff. The overall hike in the cost of electricity is estimated to be approximately 65%. Economists predict that the revisions in the electricity tariff will further deepen electricity poverty in Sri Lanka.

In addition to the cost of electricity itself, the increased cost in the production of goods and services will lead to a significant increase in the overall cost of living as well, placing an even more crushing burden on the consumer.

The announcement of the hike, unsurprisingly, led to a wave of protests from various groups, even resulting in a furor in Parliament that forced the Speaker to adjourn sittings. Opposition parties and trade unions have announced their intention of resorting to legal action in order to challenge the tariff hike. To date however, no proper response has been forthcoming to public questions relating to the tariff hike.

The Ceylon Electricity Board cites high production costs as the reason for the hike. This is however, amidst widespread allegations, including claims by employees of the Ceylon Electricity Board that the increase in the tariffs is to cover up massive waste and corruption within the Ceylon Electricity Board. Minister for Power and Energy Pavithra Devi Wanniarachchi, responding to questions in Parliament raised by acting Leader of the Opposition John Amaratunge, stated that the proposal to implement the recent power tariff hike had been made by her predecessor, long before she assumed duties. She stated that she had no choice but to continue with the decisions made by her predecessor. Her predecessor, Minister Champika Ranawakahowever, is of the opinion that the present Minister’s attempt to blame him for the latest increase is unfair, and that he himself believes that the latest price revision is unfair.

While it cannot be denied that action must be taken to reduce the significant losses faced by the Ceylon Electricity Board, what is unclear is why the government decided to address this by placing the entire burden of it squarely on the shoulders of the consumer.   The reluctance of government officials to take responsibility for the proposal clearly reflects the fact that even they cannot deny that this is completely unjustifiable.

Despite the financial crisis of the Ceylon Electricity Board and the resulting rise in the cost of living in Sri Lanka today, the government seems to be willing to spend colossal sums of money on large scale ‘development’ projects, such as the Mattala Rajapaksa International airport, which is estimated to have cost US $210 million. Was a second international airport really Sri Lanka’s most pressing need? If the Ceylon Electricity Board was facing a crisis so serious that the government proposes to address it with unprecedented tariff hikes for the consumer, would it not have been more beneficial to the public if this money was instead invested in alternative strategies to address the crisis within the Ceylon Electricity Board? The crisis is not a new one. The International Monetary Fund has repeatedly emphasized the need for power reforms and a more sustainable model for the generation of the country’s energy needs. Money could have been invested to provide short term financial assistance to the Ceylon Electricity Board, thus eliminating the need for such excessive tariff hikes for the consumer. Investment could also have been made to create and incentivize the generation of alternate sources of energy in Sri Lanka. Steps could have been taken to restructure the Ceylon Electricity Board and address the massive waste and corruption in generating, transmitting and distributing electricity.

A responsible government should not be content with defining development merely in terms of carving its name in stone and concrete; merely in terms of the number of large scale development projects; merely the number of large scale investors. It should not be content with making the rich richer, at the expense of making the struggle of the poor to survive even harder. Real development uplifts the lives of the people it is supposed to benefit. A government must measure development in terms of human well being, and in terms of an increased standard of living for its most vulnerable inhabitants.

I have cited previously, the following statement in a report of the International Crisis Group, titled ‘Sri Lanka’s North II: Rebuilding under the Military’ (dated 16^th March 2012), which stated that:

‘A more central defect of the government’s focus on large-scale infrastructure projects is that it has come at the expense of meeting the urgent needs of those most affected by the war’.

It is now clear however, that the government’s focus on large-scale infrastructure projects is not merely at the expense of ‘those most affected by the war’, but indeed at the expense of all its peoples.

With the end of the war, foremost among the government’s promises to Sri Lanka’s peoples was the benefits of economic development. Whatever economic ‘development’ that has taken place however, has only lined the pockets of a privileged few and has required the sacrifice of the economic well being of most of Sri Lanka’s citizenry. The victims of the Sri Lankan government’s ‘development’ are now not only peoples of the North and the East but peoples of the South as well.

It is time the government stopped defining development in terms of roads, bridges, airports and harbours and began defining it in terms of the true well being of all Sri Lanka’s peoples.

*The author, M A Sumanthiran (B.Sc, LL.M) is a Member of Parliament through the Tamil National Alliance, a senior practicing lawyer, prominent Constitutional and Public Law expert and civil rights advocate.

Sri Lanka's abused worthy of help

Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor. Photo: Arsineh Houspian

Chris Johnson-May 5, 2013

National Political Correspondent

Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor returns today from a visit to Sri Lanka, where he discussed the challenges of refugees and people smuggling.

Part of the ''Gillard government's commitment to deepening Australia's relationship with Sri Lanka'', the visit aimed to progress the Bali Process goals of tackling those difficult ''migration management'' issues.

Migration management is bureaucratic speak for ''what to do about asylum seekers'', but another thing happened last week, also concerning Sri Lanka, that should be of serious concern to Australia.

Amnesty International released an investigative report into the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the human rights abuses inflicted across the island nation.

Sri Lanka's Assault on Dissent concluded that the Rajapaksa regime was consolidating its political power through continued violent repression of its critics.

Since taking office in 2005, the Rajapaksa government has tightened its grip on power by targeting people in civil society at all levels who the regime believes can influence certain communities or hold sway with particular institutions.

Tamil Tigers committed many atrocities during Sri Lanka's civil war - as did the country's military - and there is little sympathy for them. But the end of the war in 2009 has not resulted in the end of conflict, and ordinary Tamils are being horrifically persecuted by victorious government forces.

Although the Rajapaksa regime denies it, the violations appear to be escalating.

''Sri Lankan officials and those working at their behest assault, jail, abduct and even kill those who challenge their authority,'' the report states.

Colombo is to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November and Sri Lanka will then chair the Commonwealth for two years. And the Australian government is fine with that.

The Gillard government will complete its mostly admirable term in the role with the handover. What is not admirable is the government's willingness to allow a difficult domestic political issue to prevent it from taking a more principled stand internationally.

Even before the release of Amnesty's report, Canada stated an intention to boycott this year's CHOGM if an unrepentant Sri Lanka is to host it. Canada is filling the leadership vacuum in the Commonwealth created by Australia's silence.

And the reason Australia won't get tougher with Sri Lanka over human rights violations is because the government could hardly justify sending asylum seekers back there if it did.

Instead, Foreign Minister Bob Carr has taken to defending Sri Lanka and even belittling Canada's bold stand. The Coalition has done the same, with shadow ministers publicly pretending that things have markedly improved. It's simple - both the Australian government and the Opposition have made political decisions to send asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka. To criticise that country's human rights record would only highlight the flaws in both sides' policies.

Last year Carr foolishly raised the idea of sanctions against Papua New Guinea over the simple timing of an election.

It would not be foolish this year, however, for him to consider expressing a little more outrage than he has over continuing human rights violations by a nation destined to chair the Commonwealth.

In February, Britain's high court ordered the Border Agency to stop the removal of Tamils refused asylum until an assessment was completed about the risk they would face if returned to Sri Lanka.

The British court gets it; Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets it; Amnesty International and the Australian Greens get it. But it seems the major political parties in Australia won't allow themselves to accept that human rights abuse in Sri Lanka should significantly influence asylum seeker policy here.

Suffering The Follies Of Petty Tyranny

By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena -May 5, 2013 

Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena

Petty tyranny is not unique to political rulers afflicted with severe inferiority complexes. When rules of collective functioning are abandoned within a country, system or an institution, foolhardy and arrogant leadership becomes a dangerous and ultimately fatal combustion.

This can happen at the highest levels of political leadership in the government, in the opposition, in the judiciary or down the ranks to a village council leader and for that matter, a head of an institution. A once coherent and reasonably functional entity can implode or wither away quietly without much ado.

A caricature of a May Day

As May Day went by this year, marked with the ultimate insult of a devastating electricity hike aimed to hit the poorer segments of our society, a singular amusing sight was when leaders of leftist parties were caught literally napping on camera at the precise point of the celebrations. Undoubtedly this was a most appropriate reflection of the ridiculous antiquities that they and their parties have reduced themselves to.

The May Day rallies of two formerly major political parties, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) were themselves mere caricatures of once stirring marches. Both suffering from equally authoritarian and dysfunctional leadership, these two political parties have been reduced to nonentities. In a year where the May Day has become a mockery, the people have no respite for their misery either from the government or from the opposition who remain supremely unconcerned, joined as they appear to be at the hip, to further their own self interest.

We can look back yearningly to the time when public dissatisfaction with the performance of a government could be satisfyingly reflected in the periodic electoral process leading to change in political leadership. Now, those notions seem quaint and antiquated, as if they belonged to a different era.

Self-destruction through extreme self-interest

Political parties have not been the only victims of these twin self-destructive forces of arrogance and insecurity. On the contrary, we see this constantly in a variety of scenarios, systemic and institutional. So when we point one finger at the government for its vicious pursuing of dissenters such as a former Army Commander or a Chief Justice, two fingers must be pointed back at ourselves. Dictatorial rule coupled with non-governance which we see so clearly today in government is only a reflection of what is wrong in ourselves, in our society and in our systems.

Indeed, this rationale is specifically applicable to Sri Lanka’s justice system which, one can safely say, has not withered away quietly but on the contrary, imploded with astonishing violence. And as much as the political party process in this country has self-destructed through the greed of a few and the lack of courage of the many, our justice system has been subjected to similar travails.

As reiterated many times in these column spaces, a courageous reaction by the Bar, by judges (retired and sitting) by legal intellects of the day and by the citizenry at large including the media, who should have understood that the judicial system of Sri Lanka was being disemboweled before their very eyes during 1999-2009 may have prevented the worst of the excesses during that time. However, what prevailed was a deafening silence by and large. The result was a crippled judicial system which had deprived itself of its integrity and independence.

The years thereafter was a suspenseful waiting period with judicial mediocrity being predominant and civil society sleeping much in the style of our erstwhile leftist leaders when the 18th Amendment was passed. Not long thereafter, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court was dealt its final devastating blow when in late 2012, a sitting Chief Justice was taken before Parliament, insulted, humiliated and then run out of office.

Profound unequal treatment meted out

If that farcical impeachment of the 43rd Chief Justice did not teach us that Sri Lanka’s justice system is well and truly buried, last week’s granting of bail to the Rajapaksa administration’s favourite politician Duminda Silva, should surely hammer home this salutary lesson. Implicated in the death of a senior politician of his own party and three others, Silva was let out on bail, (with no objection incidentally being lodged by the Attorney General’s Department), on the basis that he had suffered serious injuries. Yet he was seen soon after, cavorting in public prior to being effusively welcomed at the Presidential Palace. Not content with that, we were then treated to the nauseating sight of police officers saluting Silva.

Just days later and with the Government significantly refraining using provisions prohibiting communal hatred in the anti terrorism laws against the militantly anti-Muslim Bodu Bala Sena despite its usage of inflammatory rhetoric, these same provisions were used to arrest a well known Muslim politician when he made public statements critical of the arousal of anti-Muslim hatred. Where is the equality here?

Why is the law operative?

This begs certain fundamental questions. Why are the Constitution, statutes and courts of law still in force? Why not have the Executive President clothe himself in the garb of the most supreme and omnipotent Justice and hear all cases before pronouncing judgment? After all, is this not what is happening already? Why not dispense with the farce and do away with this mockery? It will certainly be more honest.

In advance of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting being held in Sri Lanka this year, such honesty would be only be exquisitely appropriate. Such a transformation by us would, in all probability, invite no more than bland injunctions by the Commonwealth to behave ourselves. That most estimable gathering which solemnly pledges to uphold shared democratic values and ideals while at the same time, ignoring its most blatant violators, would be pleased to host yet another ‘talk-shop’ this time on the virtues of equality of the law, no doubt.

The contrast is clear. The Commonwealth only acts against overt dictatorships such as Fiji. On the other hand, it is quite happy to tolerate and preach to covert dictatorships such as Sri Lanka in its own political interests, as hypocritical as this may be.

The people of Sri Lanka can expect no help from the monumental hypocrisy of the Commonwealth. We can only suffer through these insanities.

International aid complicit in Colombo’s structural genocide of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 May 2013, 21:22 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan State has stepped up Sinhala colonization in the cultivation areas that lie between Nedungkea’ni and Ma’nalaa’ru in Mullaiththeevu district. Thousands of acres of cultivation lands, belonging to resettled Tamil people in Karai-thu’raip-pattu division, lie in the area, where the occupying SL military has been blocking access to the owners of the land to even visit their lands. But at the same time in recent days, hundreds of workers have arrived from the Sinhala South and electricity supplies are being put up to accelerate the extension of Sinhala colonization of the area, Tamil civil officials in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet. The international aid providers not stopping the process are openly in complicity with the structural genocide of Eezham Tamils, the officials further said. 

• Appeal by Kokkuth-thoduvaay Cultivators Organisation (Tamil)

Struggle against such a structural genocide and international deception have to be primarily and face to face addressed against the principal abettors of Colombo in this regard, i.e., India, the US-West run monetary organizations and the designers of the LLRC-based resolution at Geneva that provides time and space for Colombo. But the direct struggle is still not forthcoming especially from Eezham Tamils in the diaspora, activists in Vanni said. 

After seeing the US-designed, Indian fine-tuned Geneva resolution of 2013, and after listening to the latest approach of the Indian Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma, we do not think that Colombo is just ‘misusing’ the aid, but the aid is specifically intended by the international donors for the structural genocide, the activists further said. 

The Ma’nalaa’ru scheme of the Sinhala State ultimately aims at demographically and permanently delinking the contiguity of the country of Eezham Tamils in the North and East of the island.

The location of the newly Sinhalicised division in the Mullaiththeevu district that will be wedging North and East, created after erasing out traditional Tamil villages and renaming it from Ma'nalaa'ru in Tamil to Weli-Oya in Sinhala. [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth. Legend by TamilNet]

The region of traditional territory of the nation of Eezham Tamils ‘officially’ Sinhalicised by genocidal Colombo with and aim of wedging North and East.

The location of Kokku'laay village and lagoon. [Satellite map courtesy: Google Earth]

The Sinhala colonisation planned by Colombo in pre-militant times, revised from time to time and now implemented in acceleration. [Image courtesy: Action Plan 1991 by MASL]

500 million rupees, allocated for the construction of educational institutions, especially secondary schools, in the Northern province for the next five years, have been completely diverted to the establishment of modern schools for the Sinhala occupants of the country of Eezham Tamils, education ministry officials in the North said. 

The SL State is also deploying the aid programmes announced by India and other countries in addition to channeling the assistance by World Food Programme (WFP) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) into the structural genocide being committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils. 

The assistance provided by foreign countries to provide electricity to the interior areas of the North where war-affected people are resettling, is diverted to Sinhala colonization scheme. 

Ma’nalaa’ru region in Vanni, bordering Vavuniyaa, Trincomalee and Anuradhapura districts has already been demographically Sinhalicised by Colombo, changing the Tamil name into Sinhala as ‘Welioya’. 

Carpet roads have been put up and modern schools have been built and hi-tech electricity units for power supply targeting agricultural cum industrial development such as the establishment of modern farms, inviting more Sinhalese from South for the systematic occupation project. 

The occupation, which took a new form in 1984 under the so-called Mahaweli ‘Development’ Porgramme’s L Scheme, funded and abetted by foreign countries, later remained restricted due to the armed power of the Eezham Tamils till 2009. 

In 2011, the ‘Welioya’ Divisional Secretariat, which had been earlier annexed with Anuradhapura district during the times of the war, was brought under the Mullaiththeevu District to make the expansion easier and to divert the foreign funds provided through Colombo for the ‘reconstruction and development’ of the war-affected Tamils, into the occupation scheme. 

A section of the housing-scheme under the Indian assistance programme intended for the uprooted people in the North and East, is being channeled into the occupation zone, which is being created from seizing cultivation lands from the resettled Tamils. 

A section of tractors and bicycles provided by India and intended for distribution among the war-affected people in the North and East, were also diverted to the new Sinhala settlers in the colonization project of the occupying Sinhala State in Ma’nalaa’ru. 

While the uprooted people in Mullaiththeevu district are not provided proper housing assistance by the SL State, a housing scheme has been set up by Colombo through Anuradhapura district for implementation in Welioya, which comes under Mullaiththeevu district. 

In the meantime, the Sinhala settlers in these new houses in ‘Welioya’ are being provided dry rations from the World Food Programme (WFP) assistance, which is channeled through Mullaiththeevu District Secretariat. 

On April 20, SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited the occupied and colonized Ma’nalaa’ru region and handed over land deeds to 3,000 Sinhala occupants at an event held at Sampathnuwara (meaning ‘town of wealth’ in Sinhala) school auditorium. The recipients were the occupiers of Janakapura, Gajabhapura (both Sinhalicised names), Naayaa’ru and Kokku’laay. 

The uprooted Eezham Tamils, who have struggled to settle down in their villages of Karai-thu’raippattu division in Mullaiththeevu district, have been complaining that their lands, to which the occupying SL military is still denying access, are being distributed to new Sinhala settlers. 

Now, the Colombo government, through its military and colonial governor of North, is appropriating the cultivation lands of Tamils and distributes them to the Sinhala settlers. 

Eezham Tamil owners of 2,408 acres of lands in the occupied area have repeatedly complained against the seizure of their cultivable lands. 

• Appeal by Kokkuth-thoduvaay Cultivators Organisation (Tamil)

The extent of the cultivation lands together with the names of the Tamil owners have been detailed in an appeal sent to various officials through the divisional secretary of Karai-thu'raip-pattu and the SL Government Agent of Mullaiththeevu district (See the PDF document). 

* * *

Karaithu'raippattu division in the Mullaiththeevu district of the Northern Province, Padavi Sri Pura and Kuchchave'li divisions in the Trincomalee district of the Eastern Province and Padavia division of the North Central Province.

Mullaith-theevu constitutes almost 30 per cent of the total landmass of the Northern Province and is the largest district in the province and is followed by Mannaar (23%), Vavuniyaa (22%), Ki’linochchi (13%) and Jaffna (10%). 

Mullaith-theevu district also has largest inland water (39%) in the entire province, followed by Jaffna district (38%), Ki’linochchi (17%) and Mannaar (4%). 

According to the last census of 1981, there were only 3,948 Sinhalese in Mullaiththeevu district. 

The appeal sent by the uprooted Tamils in Karai-thu’raip-pattu in January this year details the following lands: 

464 acres in Eringcha-kaadu (Chakalaaththu-ve'li), 250 acres in Akkarai-ve'li, 217 acres in Uththaraayan-ku'lam, 198 acres in Naay-adiththa-mu'rippu-ve'li (Karunaadduk-kea'ni), 140 acres in Akkarai-ve'li, periya-ve'li, panichcha-moaddai and Ka'n'naaddi, 136 acres in Naayadichcha-mu'rippu, 120 acres in Poo-madu-ka'ndal, 112 acres in Maariyaa-munai (Kokku'laay), 96 acres in Aamaiyan-ku'lam, 86 acres in Ve'l'laik-kalladi and Chivanthaa-mu'rippu, 73 acres in Nochchi-moaddai-ka'ndal-ve'li, 60 acres in Adaiyak-ka'ruththaan, 57 acres in Thaddaa-malai, 54 acres in Adaiyakka'ruththaan-ve'li, 44 acres in Va'n'naa-vayal, 44 acres in Uththaraayan-ku'la-ve'li, 40 acres in Veappangku'lam, 27 acres in Padu-kaadduk-ku'lam, 26 acres in Kedda-ka'nda-ku'lam, 24 acres in Aamaiyan-ku'la-ve'li, 16 acres in Erintha-kaadu-ve'li and 12 acres Kugnchukkaal-veli. 

The Mullaith-theevu district and the newly created Sinhala division that will be wedging the North from the East

Prophets Also Err: Darwin And Marx – Science Of Change

By Kumar David -May 5, 2013

Prof Kumar David

Unless you knew it, I am sure you will be surprised to hear that Darwin never once used the term evolution in Origin of Species – he used “evolved”, in the last line of the book, simply as a generic past tense of evolve, not subject-matter terminology. You may also be surprised to learn that Marx, never once in his entire life’s opus, used the double-barrelled term “dialectical materialism”; even the solo from  “dialectic” is absent from the substantive text of the three volumes of Capital. (It appears five times, all on the same page, in the Afterword to the Second German Edition of Volume 1). Both Darwin and Marx were too busy describing, delineating, adumbrating and elucidating the causes and workings of change (in the natural world and in society, respectively) to have time for catchy phraseology.

The immensity and intensity of their achievements are breathtaking; and build on insights dug up by others. Darwin poured over Leyell’s geology, Lamark’s version of evolution, and Linnaeus’s taxonomy; Marx was steeped in Hegel, Smith, Ricardo, Saint-Simon, Feuerbach, Proudhon, trade and output statistics and factory inspector’s reports! What is distinctive about their lines of attack is systematic, rigorous and concrete attention to the nitty-gritty details of incessant change, evolution-revolution, the dialectic, or whatever you call it.  Both differed from abstract exponents like the Buddha (impermanence), Hereclitus the Foggy (“everything flows”), and previous thinkers sensitive to the permanence of impermanence, in that prior to abstraction, they established concrete causes and effects empirically. They steadfastly pursued hard evidence, as only materialists do; in a word, they were scientists.

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Trading On Human Rights

By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole -May 5, 2013 

Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

Legacy of the Twentieth Century and CHOGM

According to Time magazine, human rights are our legacy from the twentieth century. The legacy has left the world a better and richer place. The far greater danger is when nations make lucre out of that legacy. Nations have the largest potential to strengthen that legacy as well as to breed cynical skepticism about it. A test came with whether Sri Lanka is fit to host the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November. The Commonwealth failed.

China is China – but Britain?

We have seen China being blind to what Tamils undergo in Sri Lanka and bankrolling a corrupt regime in exchange for white-elephant contracts that do Sri Lanka no good at high interest loans from China. Sri Lankan ethnic cleansing in Tamil areas seems to follow Chinese population transfer policies in Tibet. Planned with World Bank funding, the World Bank cancelled the population transfer project because it failed Social Impact Assessment Tests, but China had its own funds. Sri Lanka has no funds so who funds Sri Lanka’s policies? China of course.

China is China. But Britain, which gave the world the thoughts of the Magna Carta? It would seem that after all that fuss about CHOGM, Prime Minister David Cameroon seems set to attend, now that a multi-billion dollar Rolls Royce Engine deal between Sri Lanka and the UK is being inked. Is Britain’s commitment to our legacy worth just a mere few million dollars?

Australia

Australia has a questionable history with South Asians, for instance, the racially motivated beating up of Indian students (even though Australia badly needs foreign students for their tuition money), and the then Australian Prime Minister John Howard calling Muthiah Muralitharan a “chucker” (a charge of which he was cleared after laboratory testing without receiving a sorry from the bigoted Howard). Australia now seems horrified by the thought of thousands of black Tamils pouring in with genuine claims for political asylum. Julia Gillard’s government, despite Australia’ treaty obligations and her labour-credentials, is unable to overcome its color prejudices and pretends that Tamils have no problems in Sri Lanka.

Yet Kumar, whose case was widely reported including by ANC News (see picture), went to Sri Lanka recently without scars and returned shortly later heavily scarred by torture. He did not scar himself and indeed had a proper visa in Australia which precluded the usual argument that stories of torture are cooked up for a visa. It therefore takes immense stubborn blindness to not recognize what Sri Lanka did to Kumar and to say, as Gillard’s government does, “that there are no legitimate reasons for any person from a specific country, namely Sri Lanka, to seek asylum.”

Gillard’s government reminds me of a corrupt African policemen who stopped me, asked me for my vehicle papers, and, when tendered them, claimed he could not read them. When I asked to see his officer-in-charge, he claimed he would be on duty for another six hours and I was free to wait till then. Unfortunately, like in that Policeman’s case, there is no appeal against the Gillard government’s willful blindness, racism and disregard for Australia’s treaty obligations. Even as recently as the early 1970s, a qualified Tamil engineer was unable to get a visa to Australia from Singapore, even as a Greek sailor who had just come to port picked up his visa over the counter. A Tamil Christian accountant from London with a name like James David applied for a job with the black & white photograph that was required in those days. That photograph having been over-exposed, he got his job and visa. But when he reported in Australia he was told by his shocked employer that a mistake had been made. A mistake indeed!

The system may have changed but attitudes obviously have not. Even today Australia is a rare country where White folk become professors with few seminal publications because publications are outweighed by subjective metrics like “leadership” and “experience.” A useful exercise is to go through the resumes of academics on university websites. The White professors will in general (with a few exceptions of course) have a relatively low number of indexed journal papers compared to the lower ranked Asians at Senior Lecturer grade. Instead of improving the profiles of these universities, these websites badly expose their practices.

Australia stands redeemed only by Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal party, the Greens and a few others who accept our legacy of the twentieth century and agree that holding the CHOGM in Colombo is an endorsement of the evil that is Colombo.

India

And India? India is generally believed by analysts to have intervened in the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) on Sri Lanka’s behalf in the matter of Sri Lanka hosting CHOGM in November.

CMAG was set up in 1995 to, in the Commonwealth’s words, deal with “serious or persistent violations of the Harare Declaration, which contains [the] Commonwealth’s fundamental political values.” By escaping being placed on the agenda, Sri Lanka escaped suspension from the Commonwealth – for that automatically follows once a country is on the agenda. Currently the 9 CMAG members are Australia, Bangladesh (Chair), Canada, Jamaica, Maldives, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Trinidad, and Tobago and Vanuatu. Although India is not a member, it is said to have used pliant Bangladesh which holds the CMAG chairmanship as the Chairman of the last CHOGM, and India’s former High Commissioner to the UK and presently Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma.

It would appear that in a seeming quid pro quo, almost immediately after the CMAG meeting where Sri Lanka was let off, all of India’s Sri Lankan projects being hampered in Sri Lanka began moving again. It would seem to me that although Black and White folk are equally corrupt, people of our colour have no shame and do not even bother to hide our dirty deeds – my late mother’s student once came home to tell her the good news of his new job with so much in salary and at least so much in bribes. For dharma is caste duty, our only duty.Sharma seems to see no conflict in being India’s agent even as he is working for the Commonwealth. Sharma reminded me of Council of Jurists President Dr. Adish C. Aggarwala, also India’s Bar Association President, who issued a letter to Mahinda Rajapaksa that the Council considered the recent impeachment of our Chief Justice correct, only to be severely contradicted by others of that Council. Sharma at the Commonwealth Press Meet on April 26, 2013, spoke of

“the Commonwealth’s pivotal role in assisting Sri Lanka in practical ways through [my] Good Offices engagement. This includes the provision of technical support to enhance the independence of the Human Rights Commission; and the Electoral Commission. …In the spirit of a helping hand, which we give to all members, we have been engaging across a wide front in Sri Lanka with my Good Offices. … I am sure it will yield very good results in all the areas of human rights, of rule of law, of governance, and institution building and strengthening.” [quoting from Sri Lanka Brief, April 28, 2013].

Sharma should visit Jaffna to see all the ongoing preparations to rig the Northern Provincial Elections, including Tamils being beaten up. Was Sharma a fool to think the Sri Lankan government would change so easily, or is he a brazen manipulator of our minds? At the press conference after the CMAG meeting, we see Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr and Sharma joining forces to mislead the world. Sharma said, in answer to the question by Channel 4’s Jonathan Miller, “No member of government has indicated remotely that it wishes to change [the CHOGM] venue.” This was clearly untrue since Canada is a member of CMAG and thinks holding the meeting in Colombo is to reward Sri Lanka for its evil ways. Again when Canada’s  Foreign Minister John Baird asked Sharma at the Press Meet as if to verify what he heard, “So, the issue of the possible change of venue was not on for discussion today?,” Dipu Moni (Chair of CMAG and Foreign Minister of Bangladesh) answered, “As I told you before, the issue of CHOGM and its venue is not a matter of CMAG. It is a matter of the Heads.”  How clever! Without saying no, the impression of no is conveyed.

The formally correct statement that Sri Lanka was not on the agenda was clearly to mislead and this became clear when the angry Canadian John Baird stormed out and let on that the matter had been discussed without giving details. Apparently there was an understanding not to speak of it outside. Immediate press reports pointed out the contradictions but a transcript released by the Commonwealth had Sharma admitting that Sri Lanka was discussed off the agenda.

Canada

Canada at this point seems to be the only Commonwealth country taking the Harare Declaration seriously without looking at how that would affect its finances or adversely affect its vote base at home. Perhaps for India the only value of the Harare Declarations is in getting projects. And for Australia it is in using Sri Lanka to keep the ruling party’s racist voters happy and saving all that money that would go into settling refugees.

What is happening in Sri Lanka

I do not think Mr. Sharma and Ms. Gillard are ignorant of what is happening to Tamils in Sri Lanka and why we keep running away for asylum. If Mr. Sharma and Ms. Gillard are truly ignorant of the problems that Tamils face even after the war, she has diplomats in Colombo and Sharma has his Indian Diplomatic Service colleagues. They are well informed and can tell him of news and personal reports of Tamil MPs being repeatedly asked to report at the Terrorist Intelligence Department; of TID officers tapping phone lines, and going to the homes of those who have to pay the next installment to smugglers who carried a member of the household to Australia to demand the money for themselves; of the recent press-meet in Jaffna by the TNA being overawed by police presence; and Colombo’s former Deputy Mayor Azath Salley being arrested for speaking out about the government’s ill-doings. If Azath Salley cannot talk about what Colombo is doing, who is the refugee returned to Colombo and tortured like Kumar who will?

It would seem that Australia is in collusion with Colombo – Australia backs Sri Lanka’s human rights records in all forums and in exchange Colombo interdicts the flow of “curry-slurping Abbo Blackfellas with curtain-wearing women” dirtying the Australian landscape with our ugly presence.

If Ms. Gillard and Mr. Sharma would look into the Vanni, they would see ongoing iniquities which would make any Tamil there want his children smuggled abroad for a better life. I will mention 4 such situations from around Kokilai which is a little southerly towards Trincomalee from Mullaitivu close to the coast:

1)      Thirty seven acres of private lands belonging to 12 Tamil families have been sold without their knowledge or consent to the Chinese for an ilmenite factory in Kokilai West. Following protests by NGOs who have taken up their cause, the possibility of the land being returned to its owners is not being talked about but compensation has been promised for more than a year with nothing offered so far.

2)      Nine acres of Tamil land in Kokilai West have been forcibly occupied by a Buddhist monk (5.25 acres is private and belongs to 7 Tamil families and the remaining 3.75 is crown land. Out of the 7 families three have land deeds but the others have lost their deeds. The monk claims to want it for a hostel for children but there is only one construction, of a Buddhist statue, and no signs of any orphanage or orphans.

3)      2500 acres of land have been occupied by Sinhalese in Kokilai West and the nearby Kokkuthoduvay Centre. The Tamil owners had been displaced when the Navy attacked them in 1984 or so and the rich paddy lands were surrounded by the navy which brought in unruly Sinhalese elements who were settled on the lands and armed to fight alongside them. The Tamil owners returned in April 2011 and have been unable so far to get their lands.

4)      Welioya has been expanded to gobble up Manal Aaru to extend into three districts, Trincomalee, Mullaitivu and Anuradhapura, so as to have more Sinhalese voters in them. A formal renaming happened recently.

Harare Declaration: Colombo Chairing CMAG

Come November 2013, Sri Lanka after chairing the CHOGM will take over the Chairmanship of CMAG until the next CHOGM in 2015. This effectively means the Commonwealth values of the Harare Declaration will never become an issue. And there goes the legacy of the twentieth century in 13 years of the twenty first century.  Thirteen truly seems an unlucky number.

Dew shoots from the hip at meeting with IMF delegation

PBJ asked senior minister to meet with the visitors

Dew Gunasekara meeting the visiting IMF delegation

By Shamindra Ferdinando-May 4, 2013, 6:01 pm 

The General Secretary of the Communist Party and Senior Minister Dew Gunasekara on Friday told a visiting IMF delegation that the country was in a dire financial crisis due to unprecedented decline in state income over the years and the failure on the part of those responsible for managing the economy to take remedial action.

CPSL is a constituent of the SLFP-led ruling coalition in power since August 1994 except for Dec. 2001-April 2004 period when a UNP-led coalition ruled the country.

Surprised delegates, including IMF’s Colombo based Representative Dr. Koshy Mathai, listened intently as senior minister explained that circumstances leading to the catastrophe situation in the power sector. The delegation included senior economist Teresa Curristine.

The veteran politician didn’t mince his words when he asserted that the Treasury no longer had the wherewithal to intervene hence the poor were further burdened. Referring to the crisis in the debt ridden Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), the minister urged the IMF delegation not to view it in isolation but to examine the full picture. The minister stressed the primary cause for the current crisis was nothing but pitiable state income estimated at 12 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GRP) last year. In 1978 the state income had been 24 per cent of the GDP, the minister said, while pushing for far reaching tax reforms to streamline tax collection.

In a brief interview with The Sunday Island, Gunasekera, a National List MP, said that unless tangible measures were taken promptly the economic front could further deteriorate. In fact, it could escalate to an unmanageable level, therefore it could be fatal.

When told that his opinion was drastically different from that of other ministers and officials, Minister emphasized that his only intention was to prompt those running the economy to take remedial measures without further delay. Timely action would be a necessity and strengthen the government in the long run, he said. It would be important to realize the government could no longer ignore the need to enhance its income, the minister stressed.

Gunasekera warned that the SLFP-led alliance could become a victim of its own propaganda unless tough corrective measures were taken instead of boasting of unprecedented growth in the post-war era. The country was in peril due to economic mismanagement rather than international conspiracy, he said.

He hoped the IMF would play a positive role in a process aimed at helping the country.

The current income was barely enough to pay salaries of some 1.4 mn public sector workers, pay 510,000 pensioners, pay interest on loans and provide subsidies, the minister said.

Asked whether he had sought a meeting with the IMF delegation, Minister Gunaseka said that it was Treasury Chief Dr. P. B. Jayasundera who queried whether he could meet the delegation consequent to the IMF request for a meeting with the senior minister.

"I met the delegation in my capacity as the Chairman of the watchdog Committee of Public Enterprises. I expressed my opinion on the basis of COPE investigations as well as Central Bank findings," the minister said.

The IMF recently requested Dr. Jayasundera to make arrangements for a meeting with COPE chief.

During the almost one and half hour discussion, the minister asked IMF delegates whether they could explain why the increase in the GDP as well as the per capita income didn’t reflect in state income.

The minister said that the IMF delegation agreed with his assessment and was therefore likely to closely examine the economic situation here.

When pointed out that the Opposition could capitalize on his public statements, CPSL chief alleged that some Opposition lawmakers were waiting till the economy collapsed believing it would help them. Having failed in their attempts to bring down the government, they would now hope and pray for the ruling coalition to ignore the crisis until it was too late.

The minister said that during his discussion on Friday, the IMF noted the undue delay on the part of the government in releasing the Tax Commission report.

The minister pointed out that his colleague Vasudeva Nanayakkara, too, recently called for the urgent implementation of Tax Commission recommendations. It was a crime to spend taxpayers’ money on a commission then ignore it. The draft National Audit Bill too was gathering dust for many years.

The minister also drew the attention of the IMF team to what he called a thriving black economy in which those who couldn’t explain their wealth invested here on the pretext of bringing in foreign investors. The minister said that there was another category of super rich which didn’t invest, pay taxes or save.

Gunasekera expressed the belief that those responsible for the economy would act now and his colleagues, too, take an interest in the issue without being silent onlookers. It was unfortunate the government was failing on the economic front after eradicating terrorism four years ago, though many believed the LTTE invincible.

The minister called for doubling of direct taxes from the present 20 per cent and decrease of indirect taxes from 80 per cent to 60 to bring immediate relief to those struggling on the economic front.

The minister also pointed out to the IMF delegation that the economy was in peril due to massive losses experienced by the CPC, CEB, Sri Lankan and Mihin Air. According to him almost 95 per cent of 185 billion losses suffered by state enterprises were at these four enterprises - a cause for serious concern.