Peace for the World
First democratic leader of Justice the Godfather of the Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Honourable Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Mahinda Rajapaksa: Sri Lanka's saviour or war criminal?
As host of next month's Commonwealth heads of state meeting, the president's human rights record is under close scrutiny. For some he's a robust leader dealing with the bitter legacy of civil war. For others he's a brutal despot
Sri Lanka's Mahinda Rajapaksa is the controversial host of the Commonwealth heads of state meeting in November 2013. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / R/Reuters
Jason Burke-Sunday 27 October 2013
Down in the deep south of Sri Lanka, where life usually moves at a leisurely pace, there is one small town that is less tranquil. Hambantota – population 20,000 – is expanding fast. There is a vast new deep-water port, built with $360m of borrowed Chinese cash; a new 35,000-seater cricket stadium; a huge convention centre; and a $200m international airport. A broad-gauge railway is under construction. Powerful people have ambitions for Hambantota. None is more powerful or more ambitious than President Mahinda Rajapaksa, born nearby in 1945.
White Van Stories To Air Across UK, US And Australia
October 28, 2013
White Van Stories, a documentary on enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka with never-seen-before footage, is set to be featured on Channel Four, UK
Leena Manimekalai
Leena Manimekalai, an independent Indian film-maker, is set to feature exclusive material from her documentary feature White Van Stories that highlights enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka.
The documentary will be aired on UK’s Channel Four in November 2013.
The special 12-minute cut will also be aired in the United States and through CNN and ABC broadcasting networks and in Australia via the multilingual broadcaster – SBS.
The global broadcast coincides with the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo that has been highly criticized in the face of Sri Lanka’s ever-increasing human rights abuse cases.
The cut is based on a 2-hour documentary feature produced and directed by Leena Manimekalai that follows seven characters, covering a gamut of provinces and ethnicities, and the tragic unexplained disappearances of their loved ones in post-war Sri Lanka. The characters will also give audiences a stark glimpse at the characters’ resilience to find the disappeared as part of their continued fight for justice.
“White Van Stories tracks Sri Lanka’s long history of unexplained disappearances in the 1980s during the armed revolt of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna(JVP), and later as the civil war intensified in the 1990s up to recent years,” said Leena Manimekalai. “The lives of the families of the disappeared across Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim ethnicities are portrayed,” she added.
The recent rally held in Jaffna and Colombo on 27th and 30th of August 2013 (International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances) during UNHRC High Commissioner, Ms. Navi Pillay’s visit to Sri Lanka is the centerpiece of the docu-feature as the characters were amongst the hundreds of families of the disappeared who had protested.
Celebrating Women’s History Month: Tamil Canadian Women as Agents of Change
Posted on: October 2nd, 2013
October is Women’s History Month in Canada. Kumukam.com joins fellow Canadians in celebrating and recognizing the contributions made by girls and women in Canada. This month, Kumukam.com will profile thirty amazing Tamil Canadian women who are actively engaged in community development, arts and sports development, civic engagement and social justice work in Canada. Kumukam.com will share a profile a day throughout the month of October. The theme for this year as determined by Status of Women Canada (Canadian Government) is Canadian Women Pioneers: Inspiring change through ongoing leadership. Therefore, it is fitting that Kumukam.com shines a spotlight on these thirty women who are engaged in pioneering work in our community.
Jessica Thyriar:
Jessica Thyriar is a graduate of York University with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminology-Honours. She became active in the Tamil community through her leadership role as the Vice-President Events & Vice-President Education of the York University Tamil Students Association. Working with Tamil students at York, she helped raise awareness with the greater community and began to get active within the students union, the York Federation of Students. Jessica currently serves as the President of the York Federation of Students, representing over 53,000 students, and has served previous positions as the Vice-President Campus Life and the Liberal Arts and Professional Studies Director. Jessica also currently serves as the Racialized Representative for the Canadian Federation of Students.
Throughout university, Jessica has worked with various Tamil community organizations to plan and execute events. Jessica worked as the Vice President Events for the Canadian Tamil Youth Alliance, and along with the board of directors, planned and executed Thaalam, an inter-university dance competition. Jessica, as a member of the Tamil Youth Organization is also committed to raising awareness and seeking justice for the human rights violations that Tamils have faced on the island of Sri Lanka, and continues to work in informing the greater community as to why an independent state of Tamil Eelam is necessary.
Currently at York, Jessica works on various campaigns of the students union that aim to combat forms of discrimination and violence on campus, and promote greater access to post-secondary education for all students. Jessica is committed to combatting all forms of oppression including but not limited to sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism. Jessica carries the principles of equity and social justice in her work both within the Tamil community and in solidarity with the struggles of marginalized groups in our society. Read more
CHOGM Sri Lanka: A victory for President Rajapaksa, but at some price paid and counting
Rajan Philips-October 26, 2013, 6:09 pm
There is no question, the November Commonwealth summit is a victory for President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government, internally and internationally. In collusion with the Commonwealth Secretariat, the government has pushed back detractors and nay sayers, concerned about the human rights situation and the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake and has managed to make sure that the Colombo summit goes ahead as planned. There could be distant and neighbourly PM-level boycotts by upstart Canada and hoary India, but the two Ashes rivals in cricket, Australia and England, will not let down their old port of call. And so the countdown is on for a weeklong summit extravaganza starting November 10. Colombo is spruced up and officially ready to cheer as the Commonwealth caravan rolls into town on the brand new highway from the airport to the City.
On BBS Claim, Minorities Have No Loyalty
Dr. Rifai Naleemi
Peace And Communal Harmony In Sri Lanka: Some Reflections
No doubt each one of us loves to see a prosperous and thriving Sri Lanka. Whether we come from Tamil community or Sinhalese community or for that matter from any other community each patriotic Sri Lankan wish to see a flourishing Sri Lankan economy and they hope for the rapid development and progress of our nation: This is the inner feeling of all Sri Lankans in SL and Abroad. No one wishes destructions and devastation for our nation. Every patriotic Lankan wishes that Sri Lankan should become one of the wonders of Asian countries. This is the expectation and hope of the majority of Sri Lankan people across all communities. This is indeed, the prayers of most communities in Sri Lanka. It is a natural instinct of people to love their motherlands. It is a human nature to have some patriotic feelings on birth places.
In this sense, each and every Lankan who are born in Sri Lanka love this Island. This is the general perception of all communities in Sri Lanka. Yet, to claim that only Sinhalese are true inhabitants of this land gives negative implications and impacts in our communal relationship between communities in Sri Lanka. All minority communities love this country as the majority community loves it. All minority communities manifest and show their loyalty to this country as does the majority community. BBS and its cohorts have made some deliberate attempts to say that minority communities have no loyalty to this nation. They have made some deliberate attempts to denounce the historical heritage and antiquities of minority communities in this country.
In fact BBS and its cohorts failed to recall that like all other community their ancestors too inhabited this Island sometime ago in history. Historical evidences indicate they hail from the Bengal region of India. In this sense all communities are new comers to this Island sometime in history. Some may have come early in history and some might have come later in history. But it can be argued that all are new arrivals to this Island except indigenous people of this Island. They live now in some part of Mahiyangane. They are the native Veddas of this Island.Read More
Khurshid will attend CHOGM
In a television interview, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid confirmed his participation in next month’s CHOGM meeting to be held in Colombo.
SANDEEP DIKSHIT-October 27, 2013
Question mark still over Manmohan’s participation
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will represent India at the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) summit, though the Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously passed a resolution urging boycott of the meeting because of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
In a television interview, Mr. Khurshid confirmed his participation in next month’s meeting; but there is still a question mark over who among the three VVIPs will attend the summit: President Pranab Mukherjee; Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; or Vice-President Hamid Ansari. Or whether Mr. Khurshid himself will lead the Indian delegation.
However, government sources said India was unlikely to follow Canada, which has decided to go unrepresented at the meeting on the grounds that Sri Lanka has not done enough to address allegations of human rights abuses by its security forces during the war against the LTTE. “I can say I will be there. The issue of Sri Lankan Tamils remains important to us,” Mr. Khurshid told Times Now. Asked whether the Prime Minister would go to Colombo, Mr. Khurshid said a decision would be taken at the right time.
Mr. Khurshid indicated the thinking in South Block over India’s participation at the meeting, pointing out that it was not a bilateral meeting but a multilateral forum. India’s absence would be conspicuous. “By not engaging with Sri Lanka, India will be losing out. Even if it means raising…the Tamil fishermen issue. How can India do it without engaging?”
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris expressed his country’s preference for India to be represented by Dr. Singh when he visited New Delhi in August to hand over the invitation. He denied the charge that Sri Lanka lagged in rehabilitation and resettlement, arguing that Colombo’s record was far better than that of some post-conflict societies such as Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia.
The sources also dropped several other hints on India’s preference. The first is the recent election, with enthusiastic participation, in the Northern Province. New Delhi would like other interested parties to give the Tamil National Alliance Government (TNA) space to negotiate greater political autonomy with Colombo. This was hinted at by Mr. Khurshid too. “The TNA swept [the polls]. There needs to be an acknowledgement of that.”
The second is Mr. Khurshid’s visit to Jaffna earlier this month. There, he reviewed the work being done by Sri Lanka with considerable outside assistance, including India’s, in a host of areas to normalise the situation. An about-turn by India after Mr. Khurshid’s conditional endorsement of the resettlement being done might not appear consistent, the sources said, especially after he had said India would work with Sri Lanka for a lasting political solution.
British PM to make landmark trip to Jaffna
By Amal Jayasinghe-October 26, 2013,
Britain’s David Cameron is set to become the first foreign leader to visit Sri Lanka’s war-torn Tamil heartland during next month’s Commonwealth summit when he will press Colombo on human rights.
The British premier is under pressure at home and abroad to boycott the summit over the bloody end to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict but he vowed in a meeting with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to have some "very tough conversations" with President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government.
"My decision is the right thing for us to do... and have some very tough conversations with the Sri Lankan government," Cameron said after hosting Myanmar opposition leader Suu Kyi in London on Wednesday.
"I’m not happy with their human rights record. I’m not happy with what they’ve done following the conflict and we’ll have some very frank conversations to make those points," he said according to a transcript of his comments made available to AFP Friday.
Suu Kyi appeared to endorse Cameron’s decision, but noted that he should engage "all other stake holders and not just the government".
Added Cameron: "Very wise words. I’ll be going to the north of the country as well, and I think what Aung Sun Suu Kyi has said is absolutely true."
If the visit goes ahead, Cameron would become the first foreign head of government to visit Jaffna, the capital of the war-battered north, since Sri Lanka was granted independence from Britain in 1948.
Colombo has faced widespread criticism over its failure to probe allegations that 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed by its troops in the last stages of the war in 2009.
Britain’s opposition Labour party has urged Cameron to boycott the summit while Canada has said the decision to allow Colombo to host the gathering was like "accommodating evil".
A Tamil legislator from Jaffna, Suresh Premachandran, welcomed Cameron’s remarks and said his main opposition Tamil National Alliance was keen to host the British premier next month.
"I extended an open invitation to the British Prime Minister last week and I am happy that he has agreed to visit us and see for himself the plight of the Tamil people," Premachandran told AFP.
He said the unprecedented visit could send a strong message to the Sri Lankan government to clean up its act and demonstrate the international community’s solidarity with the island’s minority Tamils.
There was no immediate comment from the Sri Lankan government, but official sources said they noted a hardening of Cameron’s stance against Sri Lanka.
"He is obviously trying to placate his domestic opposition," an official said declining to be named.
British High Commissioner (ambassador) in Colombo, John Rankin, made it clear last week that London’s concern was not limited to war crimes, but also rule of law and judicial independence in the former colony.
Rankin said they expected Sri Lanka to demonstrate its willingness to respect Commonwealth values as Colombo takes over as the Chairperson-in-office of the 53-member bloc after the Colombo summit.
Rankin said Sri Lanka must probe allegations by Britain’s Channel 4, which accused the country’s forces of executing surrendering Tamil rebels and shelling civilians in no-fire zones during the civil war.
He said Queen Elizabeth II was staying away from the Colombo meeting because she was unable to undertake long trips, but she would be represented by her son Prince Charles. (AFP)
Genocide Replaces Separatism in Tamil Diaspora Vocabulary
This article is the second of a two-part series on the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora in the years since the civil war ended in 2009.
Tamils protest Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2013. Credit: Samuel Oakford/IPS
- Sri Lankan Tamil hopes for a separate state – Tamil Eelam – in the north and east of the island were dashed when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were summarily defeated in May 2009 by government forces.
Allegations of war crimes during the final months of the Sri Lankan Civil War have offered an agenda to a diaspora groups struggling to find their place in a post-separatist political scene.
But for a diaspora that was largely responsible for financing one side of a three-decade war, questions remain about what role these groups should play.
Excoriating their own lack of action during those months, a 2011 U.N. Panel of Experts Report found that the Sri Lankan government repeatedly attacked “No Fire Zones” where it had told civilians to congregate and “systematically shelled hospitals on the frontlines.”
The report concluded that most of the estimated at least 40,000 civilian deaths “in the final phase of the war were caused by government shelling.”
President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed a commission of inquiry in 2010 to investigate the war but it was heavily criticised by international human rights groups for lacking independence.
This September, the office of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, stated she had “detected no new or comprehensive effort to independently or credibly investigate the allegations which have been of concern to the Human Rights Council.”
Pillay will submit a full report with recommendations at the 25th session of the Human Rights Council in March 2014. She has given that month as a deadline for the Sri Lankan government to carry out a credible national enquiry. If they do not, she will recommend the international community establish its own.
Visvanathan Rudrakumaran, the prime minister of the Transnational Government of Tamil Elaam (TGTE), one of the groups most closely linked to the remnants of the LTTE, said what took place was genocide and alleged war crimes should be recognised as such.
“Our struggle is to demonstrate to the world that what happened in Sri Lanka is an act of genocide, so that will convince the international community that reconciliation is not possible,” Rudrakumaran said in an interview with IPS.
He believes the ill-treatment of Tamils under the current Sinhalese Buddhist government isn’t likely to stop and the only solution is a separate state.
“Rajapaksa is the latest manifestation of Sinhalese chauvinism” he told IPS. “Sinhalese oppression did not start with Rajapaksa… it’s been going on since independence.”
For Rudrakumaran, proving genocide is a natural evolution from a separatist ideology, and a means to an end. How that could come about is unclear.
Other groups, like the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC), have toned down their words.
“If you ask a Tamil person, they would love to see a separate state,” said David Poopalapillai, national spokesperson of the CTC. “But having said that, normalisation is our policy.”
The CTC and the umbrella Global Tamil Forum (GTF) have supported Northern Council Elections in September, which despite heavy voter intimidation, were won handily by the moderate Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
The TNA is seen as moderate, but many diaspora groups point to their late adoption of LTTE rhetoric and imagery as evidence a hardline is still necessary.
CTC press releases published before and after the election make no mention of war crimes or genocide.
“Any solution that the TNA comes up with, the diaspora should be happy with,” said Poopalapillai.
Without the leverage afforded by Tamil Eelam, the diaspora worries its voices will be relegated to the chorus of marginalised groups around the world. Refusing to let up pressure has had the effect of discouraging self-reflection.
“It’s sort of a human truism, Tigers don’t change their stripes,” said Gordon Weiss, the U.N. spokesperson in Sri Lanka at the war’s end.
“It really requires a big leap for people to completely drop the things people have believed and repeated and lived among groups of people who have repeated as well and suddenly turn around and say a separate state won’t work.”
But claims of genocide are difficult to prove to an international community hesitant to become embroiled in the moral prerogatives that accompany the term.
And because such a massive element of the diaspora was in some way linked to the LTTE – a group that pioneered suicide bombings and conscripted children to fight the state – it is potentially weakened by the very organisational unity it once boasted.
“I think that the issue of accountability for what happened during the war has not been helped by the past associations with the Tamil Tigers or the ongoing goals of some Tamil groups for a separate state and raising allegations of genocide,” said Weiss. “Combined, they have not necessarily advanced Tamil aspirations.”
Focusing so greatly on genocide puts a full reckoning of the war at risk and muddies chances for reconciliation, said Alan Keenan, a Sri Lanka analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“It is certainly possible that one might someday be able to prove in a court of law what happened in Sri Lanka was genocide,” Keenan told IPS.
“But the current use of the genocide framework makes it harder for Tamils to have a discussion about the various ways that the LTTE contributed to their community’s catastrophe. And by painting things in such a black and white fashion, it also makes it harder for Sinhalese to accept their own community’s responsibility for atrocities.”
Weiss, whose book, “The Cage,” lays out a detailed case for charging the Sri Lankan government with war crimes, believes no lasting solution can be reached without an investigation and eventually a truth and reconciliation process that puts the crimes of both sides out in the open.
Yet the current political set-up, fueled in no small part by the diaspora, gives the Rajapaksa government little incentive to cooperate.
“Part of the problem is their culpability is intimately entwined with allegations of war crimes,” said Weiss. “It makes it very unlikely that the current government will be going down the path [of a true investigation] unless they can sell an amnesty package.”
This leaves diaspora groups in a painful bind. Do they prioritise engagement via the TNA and national politics or focus their attention on a distant and slow-moving international system, beholden to the whim of unfriendly U.N. Security Council members?
The diaspora and Tamils in Sri Lanka can postpone self-reflection in part because the government has continued with land grabs and human rights abuses and exhibited a general intransigence when it comes to reconciliation, said Keenan.
“If the Sri Lankan government gave reforms that would treat Tamils as equal citizens, that would give Tamils more space to criticise their own past leadership,” said Keenan. “As long as the government is being so harsh, it’s hard for Tamils to look at their own leaders’ mistakes.”
Part One of this series can be found here.
Northern Provincial Council: Openings And Democratisation
Ahilan Kadirgamar
The first time I spoke at the Faculty of Arts Seminar Series was in January 2008. It was at a very different moment, at the height of the civil war. My talk was titled “Third World Sovereignty, Conflicts and Democratisation” and was primarily a critique of law, particularly international law. At the time, I highlighted the importance of domestic political processes in seeking a viable political solution. I want to emphasise that four and a half years after the war, little progress has been made towards a political solution. Next, the debates on Sri Lanka, both within Sri Lanka and without, continue to focus on international law, sovereignty and the right to self-determination. I believe it is important to challenge the terms of such discourse, particularly given their currency in international and statist interventions. Furthermore, the limited politics circumscribed by law fall far short of the much need progressive politics of social justice and democratisation.
The Provincial Council elections in the Northern Province took place after twenty five years. The Government took over four years after the war ended to hold the NPC elections, losing valuable time, leading to further ethnic polarisation. The post-war North approaching the elections was characterised by militarisation, a polarising Tamil nationalist discourse on the ascendance, and a development programme that had failed the ordinary people. Indeed, the results of the elections were but an overwhelming protest vote against the Government’s post-war policies in the North. However, it is important to realise that the outcome of the elections and the NPC has created openings. These openings are fragile, but are perhaps the most significant for the North in the post-war years.
Political Economy of Openings
I begin by articulating two aspects of these openings, which are both in and of the North. First, in temporal terms, these openings are historical opportunities. Second, in spatial terms, these openings are about transforming the geography including the borders of the North. Furthermore, any understanding of these historical and geographical openings should contextualise them in relation to barriers that closed the North in the past. Militarisation, the market, financialisation, nationalist ideology and the reduction of politics to law are characteristic of such barriers.
What is then the political economic context of these historical and geographical openings? Opportunities for capital accumulation were limited in the North as production stagnated with production facilities far behind the rest of the country. This is also true of Jaffna despite having remained relatively unscathed by major battles during the last decade of war. The situation in the Vanni was dismal with the region being razed to the ground during the last phase of the war. Read More
So now we know the truth about eu gsp plus
Sunday, October 27, 2013
This week, the Government of Sri Lanka admitted for the first time, the financial losses that the country has been subjected to as a result of losing the European Union (EU) GSP Plus facility in 2010. At the time that we bartered away this facility, what was told to us was quite a different story. Shrugging off prophecies of severe impact on the apparel industry, ministerial spokesmen boasted that Sri Lanka did not actually need this facility and that its removal would not cause major financial impact.
A curious question
Now we hear the truth, albeit dragged out unwillingly from none other than the proverbial horse’s mouth or in other words, from Minister of Investment Promotion Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena in Parliament in response to an opposition question. In brief, the loss of this facility ‘has caused the closure of 25 apparel factories, forcing almost 10,000 people out of work, with the total loss to the country exceeding Rs. 782 million from apparel exports’ (Daily Financial Times, 24th October 2013).
To a casual observer, it may be a curious question as to why the government would dig in its heels in refusing to honour preconditions laid down by the EU which were applicable to all interested countries, not only Sri Lanka. Was this part of a grand Western plan to subordinate the country to vested interests, one could ask? Was Sri Lanka being asked to perform to impossible standards, to satisfy unreachable goals as part of a scheme designed to humiliate the country for having won the war against the Tamil Tigers so as to speak?
Forsaking a sensible approach
The reality was very far from this case. At that time, talk of international conspiracies and a Tiger hiding behind every bush had, true enough, not been rubbished so thoroughly as now. These games became particularly ridiculous after the impeachment of the country’s 43rd Chief Justice when even the Chief Prelates, senior clergy of the Congress of Religions and industry leaders were accused of being conspirators when they rightly voiced their perturbation.
This is not to deny that the propaganda network operated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or its remnants after the 2009 military defeat is certainly highly skilled in its functioning. Yet the best way to meet that propaganda would have been through reasoned debate. Rather than this most eminently sensible approach, every dissenter was labeled an international conspirator to the extent that government propaganda backfired, making its progenitors look remarkably silly. Such counterproductive rantings were evidenced in respect of all critiques made of government action, national or international, constructive or abrasive. To make matters worse, this was complimented (if one may call it that) by uncouth and abusive government supporters traipsing the halls of the United Nations tasked with the sole objective of harassing and humiliating critical voices. This crude behaviour got to be so problematic that even those United Nations diplomats who tended to be partial towards Sri Lanka on the basis that the country needed more time to recover from a decades-long conflict, stood back appalled. It is encouraging to see that in the past year, such asinine behavior in international fora has changed to some extent though much of the damage has already been done.
Uncanny foreshadowing of the LLRC
But when the EU GSP facility was under reconsideration three years ago, this propaganda attack was on in full throated fury, regardless of anxious interviews to the newspapers by EU representatives who almost imploringly yet vainly called upon the government to yield a little. And what exactly were these preconditions for the GSP Plus facility? Did they involve the country’s national security or the integrity of the State?
The converse was the case. In fact, in an almost uncanny foreshadowing of later events, much of what the EU said reflected what this government’s proudly homegrown Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) itself said a few years later. And in an aside, it is vastly amusing to recall that, true to form, the lunatic fringe Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) went so far as to allege that the LLRC had betrayed the country.
Brushing this aside, detailed examination of commonalities between the EU’s recommendations and what the LLRC recommended would be an interesting effort for another occasion. Suffice to say for the moment that the politicization of the police investigative function, the need for an independent National Police Commission and the separation of the military command structure from the Department of the Police were important common points. Needless to say, this demand cannot be met by a farcical Ministry of Law and Order operating under a political authority which remains linked to the military.
The practical manifestation of the absurdities that arise consequently was seen very well this week when the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence severely castigated the North’s Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran for asking that police powers be effectively devolved. It may well be asked as to how the Defence Secretary can make these statements when the Department of the Police (or so we are informed) has been moved to a new Ministry. This clearly shows the command responsibility still exercised by the Ministry of Defence over the Police.
Losses to the country due to braggadocio
Let us be very clear on this in the final result. The EU GSP Plus facility was not extended to Sri Lanka in 2010 because the government refused to take certain steps for the betterment of its own people. This call was not part of a grand international design to humiliate Sri Lanka. If the country had a Minister of Foreign Affairs who was less cravenly servile to the Rajapaksa administration, this would have been apparent at that time itself.
Instead, what we saw unseemly braggadocio. Years later, the government now admits the negative impact of the loss of this facility on apparel industry workers who form part of our society’s underprivileged. These matters are however inconsequential for the politically privileged who luxuriate in their expressways and mushrooming five star hotels. Unfortunately, this continues to be the common tale of woe of post war Sri Lanka’s poorest sectors, majority and minorities alike.
Casino Circus
By M. A. Sumanthiran -October 27, 2013
M A Sumanthiran
It was with great relief that I noted that the Government had decided to put on hold the decision to approve regulations governing gazette notifications for the establishment of casinos in Colombo. Amidst protest by key government allies SLMC and JVP and opposition party UNP, the powers that be had little choice but to re-think an act that could well turn out to be a disaster for our society and economy.
However, there is no guarantee that this decision will not be brought up again as soon as the heat subsides, as has been the case with other government proposals that have not been received well at the outset and have been passed later with little resistance from us! The casino circus could continue!
As such I would like to assess this issue further. Gambling, as a form of entertainment, can be described simply as playing a game to make a quick buck. To some perhaps the fun is in the game itself. However, to others it is in the risk of gain or loss that comes with one ‘pitch or toss’! To yet others it is in the ‘quick buck’ that can be won so easily – the fact that the chances of losing that ‘quick buck’ are as high is dismissed as negligible! For addiction blinds you to risk, to harm, and before you know it you are caught in its trap. And so the wise man in the Book of Proverbs of the Holy Bible warns us that ‘wealth gained hastily will dwindle…” Here is an indication that money habitually gained without effort, without work may not last.
Make no mistake gambling can become addictive and as such gambling along with smoking and drinking is denounced by most religions as a form of social evil. Some would consider this intolerant. Yet, most people no matter their religion would consider any of the above harmful when indulged in to an extreme.
Not many will attempt to justify chain smoking, drunkenness and protracted gambling, except in that the individual should be free to make their own choice. And yet, leaving cigarettes and alcohol aside, it is noteworthy that research indicates an increase in gambling addiction in areas close to gaming zones.
For example, a 2010 report by Ohio based research firm Community Research Partners (CRP) states that,
“The University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC 1999) estimates that 1.2%of U.S. adults are lifetime pathological gamblers and 1.5% are lifetime problem gamblers.The literature shows a connection between casinos and increased rates of compulsive gamblingproblems. Reith et al (2006) cite a variety of research (NORC 1999, Welte et al 2004, Emersonand Laundegran 1996, Volberg 1995) to show that the location of a casino within 50 miles of anindividual’s home is associated with approximately double the likelihood of problem gambling.Based on this, opening a casino could potentially double the existing prevalence and socialimpacts of problem gambling in a community.”Read More
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)