Left-Democracy gains ground in the European periphery

Good news from Turkey, Spain and Greece 

by Kumar David-June 27, 2015

If democracy and the demand for clean government is gaining ground in parts of Europe, if authoritarianism is suffering setbacks and if working people and middle classes are fighting back against austerity imposed for the purpose of bailing out moribund capitalism, it is a good thing. It is even good for us in Lanka as a morale booster. Secondly, the clarity on principles and tactical wisdom which is guiding a variety of left movements to show initiative and originality is a lesson for the donkeys of the Lankan left. These barbs are not intended for the Dead Left alone, but in different ways and degrees also for the JVP and sectarian left microbes that proliferate in Lanka’s political crevices.

Left-Democracy Gains Ground in the European Periphery. Good News From Turkey, Spain and Greece by Thavam Ratna

Dalai Lama's visit to Buddhist centre met with 'sectarian' protests

Tibetan spiritual leader calls for religious tolerance as opponents accuse him of pursuing policy of apartheid within Buddhist community
The Dalai Lama visits a new Buddhist community centre in Aldershot, Hampshire. A breakaway Buddhist sect protested outside. Photograph: Ben Mitchell/PA

Mark Tran-Monday 29 June 2015
Even as the Dalai Lama pleaded from inside a new Buddhist centre for religious tolerance and harmony, the constant drumming and chanting of protesters from a breakaway sect could be heard outside.

Fresh from an appearance at the Glastonbury music festival, where he spoke about the need for action on climate change, the Tibetan spiritual leader strongly condemned those who justified killing by using religion.

In front of a small audience, who had pressed forward eagerly with cameraphones as he arrived, the Dalai Lama said all religions were sources of forgiveness and tolerance.

“Now that it is a factor for division and killing, we have a responsibility to promote religious harmony … killing in the name of religion is totally wrong,” he said, sitting cross legged in front of well-wishers.

He spoke following Friday’s deadly attacks in Kuwait, France and Tunisia, where as many as 30 British tourists were killed by an Islamist radical.

He suggested that praying for divine guidance to deal with practical political problems was not enough. “We pray to God as if it his problem but all these problems are our responsibilities, it is logical we take responsibility to solve these problems. God gave us free will,” he said.

The Dalai Lama, who turns 80 next month, also stressed the importance of modern sciences. Amid the constant chirruping of mobile phones, he described how he had valued his discussions with scientists and had particular praise for quantum physics.

“These discussions with scientists have been very useful and helpful,” he said, as he called for Buddhist centres to turn themselves into centres of learning. “Please study more. This temple should be used firstly for study.”

Throughout his remarks, the chants and drumming of hundreds of followers of the International Shugden Community , a breakaway sect, could be heard. “Stop lying,” chanted members of the ISC, some who had come from as far as Florida to protest against the Dalai Lama’s visit to Aldershot in Hampshire, which has a large Buddhist population.

Shugden members accuse the Dalai Lama of trying to ostracise those who follow the spirit known as Dolgyal or Shugden. ISC supporters have organised noisy demonstrations outside his speaking engagements across North America, Europe and Australia. Aldershot was no exception.

A leaflet distributed to people who arrived at the town’s train station criticised the Tibetan spiritual leader. “There is a vast body of well-documented evidence proving that away from the glare of the international media the Dalai Lama is a ruthless and corrupt politician who uses intimidation, humiliation and banishment to suppress those who do not abide by his authoritarian edicts.” said the ISC.

Nicholas Pitts, an ISC spokesman who lives in Hong Kong, explained a Tibetan government-in-exile decree in 1996 banning the practice of Shugden had laid sowed the seeds for the sectarian rift within the Buddhist community. “Until then he had advised against Shugden, but that was a bombshell,” said Pitts, who accused the Dalai Lama of pursuing a policy of apartheid within the Buddhist community. “Stop the segregation and the protests would stop,” he added.

The Dalai Lama turned to the Shugden controversy at the end of his talk in the ornate temple, with Buddha statues behind him. He said he worshipped the spirit Shugden until 1970 but stopped because he found it harmful. “I should complain because until I stopped worshipping Shugden, I did not have religious freedom,” said the Dalai Lama, who described the ISC as “very sectarian”.

Mainstream Buddhist groups dismiss Shugden claims of persecution as unfounded, accusing its followers of “aggressive, misleading and unethical behaviour”. An alliance of 10 UK Buddhist organisations has issued a statement formally dissociating themselves from Monday’s protests.

“The UK Buddhist organisations signed up to this statement express their respect and support for his holiness’s stance on promoting wider religious harmony between the religious traditions and on promoting mutual respect and admiration between the Buddhist traditions,” it said.

The International Campaign for Tibet believes that the Shugden group’s tactics play into the hands of the Chinese government and a couple of counter-demonstrators referred to the ISC supporters as “Chinese dogs”.

“The protesters are from an extremist religious group that is aligned with the political agenda of the Chinese government in Tibet to undermine the Dalai Lama and enforce allegiance to the Chinese Communist party,” said Kate Saunders, the communications director or the International Campaign for Tibet.

“This systematic campaign against the Dalai Lama and deepening oppression threatens the very survival of Tibetan religion and cultural identity.”

Our Energy Future

By Ranil Senanayake –June 28, 2015

Ranil Senanayake

Any development process that relies on fossil fuels cannot be justified as sustainable, worse; it compromises the responsibilities of that nation towards the rest of the world. Any discussion on energy that fails to take in the opportunity cost and real cost of the respective energy-generating device, must be seen as lopsided and partisan. As in politics, there are various lobbies for all energy generating technologies. Each lobby will sing the praises of and down play the weaknesses of, their industry. The process of lawmaking and enforcement of public accountability will tilt in favor of the successful lobby.

For many years Sri Lanka has kept increasing its reliance on fossil generated energy. Oil, Coal or Gas, it does not make much of a difference; they are all based on fossil carbon. It must be borne in mind that all talk on the relative merits or demerits of each, still has to recognize that fact that the origin of their carbon compounds are fossil. The identification of fossil carbon is very important because there is a fundamental difference in fossil carbon and biotic carbon (the carbon of the living world) and policymakers have either ignorantly or deliberately chosen to ignore this reality. First it is important to understand Carbon.

Carbon (C), the fourth most abundant element in the Universe, after hydrogen (H), helium (He), and oxygen (O), is the building block of life. It’s the element that anchors all organic substances, from fossil fuels to DNA. On Earth, carbon cycles through the land, ocean, atmosphere, and the Earth’s interior in a major biogeochemical cycle (the circulation of chemical components through the biosphere from or to the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere).

The global carbon cycle can be divided into two categories: the geological, which operates over large time scales (millions of years), and the biological/physical, which operates at shorter time scales (days to thousands of years).

The Global Carbon Stock

The Global Carbon Stock began Billions of years ago, as planetesimals (small bodies that formed from the solar nebula) and carbon-containing meteorites bombarded our planet’s surface, steadily increasing the planets Carbon content. Today such increments to the planets Carbon stock have ceased, but the stock has become more compartmentalized.

Since those times, carbonic acid (a weak acid derived from the reaction between atmospheric carbon dioxide [CO2] and water) has slowly but continuously combined with calcium and magnesium in the Earth’s crust to form insoluble carbonates (carbon-containing chemical compounds) through a process called weathering. Then, through the process of erosion, the carbonates are washed into the ocean and eventually settle to the bottom. The cycle continues as these materials are drawn into Earth’s mantle by subduction (a process in which one lithospheric plate descends beneath another, often as a result of folding or faulting) at the edges of continental plates. The carbon is then returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide during volcanic eruptions.

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What is fracking and what are its dangers

by Victor Cherubim

( June 27, 2015, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Fracking is a technique which frees natural gas by blasting underground rock with a mixture of millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking breaks apart gas bearing rock formations deep underground. Opponents say that it poses a threat, a danger to underground water and in fact blights the countryside. The Greens and environmentalist are against fracking and have vehemently opposed it over the years, as it industrialises swathes of beautiful countryside.

As North Sea reserves ran down in 2004, Britain has become a net importer of natural gas. With Brent crude prices falling from almost $116 a barrel last June 2014 to about almost $65 earlier this year, fracking in Britain though delayed by landowners as well as a sluggish planning process, has suddenly come into focus. The issue now is whether “shale gas” is viable to extract.

Biggest hurdle

The biggest hurdle in exploitation of this gas is the fact that all mineral rights in Britain belong to the Crown, whereas in the U.S. it is in private hands. While we are informed that there are over 20,000 shale wells in operation in the U.S, Britain has only one well fracked particularly since the first licence was granted in 2008.

Over the past week two sites in Lancashire were awaiting appeal as planning permission was refused. They are one at Preston New Road, near Little Plumpton and the other at Roseacre Wood near Keswick. The Local Councils have rejected both applications in January 2015.The arguments against planning is that they would create too much noise and the lorry traffic at Roseacre would pose a danger to local residents. Both sites are backed by Centrica, the owner of British Gas. Centrica’s shares have steadied in recent days on the prospect of Preston New Road site getting the green light.

There is more to it than meets the eye

When you add up climate disruption, water poisoning through contamination, fracking isn’t a dirty word in Britain, it is considered by many a dirty “process” that pollutes the air and water as well as blights the countryside.

Some researchers maintain that it can cause earthquakes.

The locals are lobbying to stop fracking in Britain and state they are willing to pay a little more for gas, if it means they get clean air and water, essential for life.

Progress has a price

Like industrialisation, coal mining and other life pursuits there is always a price to pay.

We saw this in the diseases that accompanied the industrial revolution. Remember, the coal dust, the long hours of hard labour, child poverty.

We need to put shale in context. The sheer scale of the discovery of shale gas in Britain may dwarf American resources by ten times. It means Britain now has the equivalent of 236 billion barrels of oil. At current prices it could be worth £9.5 trillion. Even if Britain extracts 10%, it is still worth £1 trillion, enough to give every man, woman and child in Britain £16,000.

What Cameron said?

“International evidence shows there is no reason why the process should cause contamination of water supplies or other environmental damage, if properly regulated. The regulatory system in this country is one of the most stringent in the world. If any shale gas well were to pose a risk of pollution, then we have all the powers we need to close it down.”

What the people say:

Public opinion in Britain has always been environmentally conservative. The Industrial Revolution changed Britain for ever. It brought wealth, power and status. The Age of Shale is soon to begin and it would take a while before we change Britain, or allow the shale gas to be shipped overseas and the companies pay little or no taxes. Britain will not be duped by fracking, is still echoed, but things can change.

E. Coli In Spring Water? Don't Freak Out

Sarah Hedgecock-Forbes Staff-6/23/2015

This week, Niagara Bottling, a California-based manufacturer of bottled water, sports drinks and iced tea, issued a voluntary recall of some of its products because of concerns about possible bacterial contamination. The company, whose products include the store-brand bottled water for 7-11, Shoprite and Wegman’s, reports that the spring that provides water to its plants in Hamburg and Allentown, Pennsylvania, showed evidence of E. coli that wasn’t reported by the spring’s operator.

But relax. Bottled water isn’t as scary as it seems — at least compared to other potential sources of contamination.

Water is set to be the world’s best selling soft drink by health conscious consumers concerned about sugar and additives turning their backs on fizzy drinks. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

First off, the recall is pretty limited in scope, only covering spring water bottled June 10-18 at those two facilities — purified water and anything bottled at another facility is unaffected. Furthermore, the company claims that although the bacterium was detected in the source spring, none was found in the water at the actual bottling plant or even, says Niagara, in the water delivered to the plant before it was bottled. Still, the company temporarily shut down the plans, disinfected everything and issued a voluntary recall, predictably, “in an abundance of caution and in the interests of consumer safety.”

But considering the recall notice doesn’t note what kind of E. coli was found, it’s unclear whether it was even a form of the bacteria that’s harmful to humans. (Stan Frompovicz, Niagara’s Pennsylvania supplier, explained after this post was published that he believes the contamination happened in the testing lab. “I got a bad test result. We don’t know how,” he said, explaining that he has had eight years of no contamination and that the tests showed an extremely low overall bacteria count. “If you’re going to tell me that you have a water sample that has E. coli in it and there are no bacteria, something isn’t right.”)

The recall was still a safe move, as some strains of the bacteria are quite dangerous and can cause diarrhea, vomiting and even kidney failure. But according to the CDC, there are six types of pathogenic E. coli — but there are many more varieties that won’t really affect you at all. Some types are generally present in very low levels in the average human gut, and cultivated strains are used all the time in biology research.

Bottled water recalls aren’t tremendously unusual: a quick Nexis search for “bottled water” under lists of food recalls pulls up more than 6,100 results (although search engines aren’t perfect, and some of these results referred to things like Hot Pockets and frozen pizza instead of bottled water). The CDC lists 14 disease outbreaks associated with bottled water between 1971 and 2010; while some instances were traced back to bacteria, others are listed as being caused by cleaning chemicals or an unknown contaminant. For comparison, from 2009 to 2010 the CDC reported 2,231 illnesses related to salmonella in eggs alone.

Searching for water of any kind on the FDA’s list ofrecalls, market withdrawals and safety alerts, however, yields nothing. Presumably that’s because of the FDA’s own guidelines for spreading the word about recalls: “FDA seeks publicity about a recall only when it believes the public needs to be alerted to a serious hazard,” the agency’s FDA 101 page reads. I’ve contacted the FDA for further details.

To prevent foodborne illnesses, use common sense: check with the manufacturer regularly about product recalls, make sure you don’t have any recalled water sitting around in your pantry and report any suspected contamination. You can also save money by drinking water from the tap — just make sure the bottle you’re using is clean.

Shattered, but Unbroken: Survivors of torture in Sri Lanka

(The United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture is  observed annually on the 26th of June.)

BY FRANCES HARRISON-28 JUNE 2015 

Perhaps it would have been better to have died that day,” she said, “and yet I have a desire to live”. Surprisingly perhaps, this comes from a woman whose struggle is by no means over. Any day now she could be rounded up in the country where she lives in hiding. She would be returned to Sri Lanka, for what she fears will be more degradation and pain. Multiple gang rapes by military officers, an illegal village abortion, rape while signing in at army camps while her father waited outside, a white van abduction, torture, a botched suicide attempt and now a life of hiding. The list of what one human being can endure seems endless. Sometimes despair does seem a more logical response but the human ability to triumph over even the unimaginable, is extraordinary. I’d call it a miracle but that would take away the hard work it involves, the strength of character, the tenaciousness. This woman deserves a chance of a future. She’s holding on for dear life. Someone needs to grab hold of her before she slips into the abyss yet again.

It is constantly shocking to hear their tales but it is also a remarkable privilege to come into contact with survivors of torture, to witness them slowly transform themselves from hunted dazed creatures into people confident and trusting enough to go out again into the world. The power of the human desire to live should not be underestimated.

We talk a great deal about victims but I think of several young Tamil women who’ve recently married and had babies. Nothing special you might say, unless you glimpsed a fraction of the tsunami of barbarity they’d withstood – and that too without drowning in hatred. Months of being locked up, raped by more men than they can recall, left naked in the dirty cell, branding with hot metal rods all over their flesh.  Most people treat animals better than this, not beautiful intelligent young women. To overcome the social stigma, the shame, the need to hide the crime, the emotional trauma and physical wounds and dare to be happy again, to trust enough to love. That is indeed a triumph against the evil men – and a few evil women too – who perpetrate these crimes of personal destruction.

Erasing violent past

When I first started meeting Sri Lankan torture survivors, a doctor told me the story of one of her earlier patients. She had survived repeated rape in detention by the security forces and was badly traumatised but she’d met a good Tamil man, married and had children. Years later they were happy but sometimes the patient still visited the doctor with complaints of strange aches and pains – symptoms for which there was no medical explanation. It was the past catching up with her.

How can something so brutal and violent ever be completely erased? The fact that human beings can for the most part conquer such memories of torment is surely an incredible achievement we should honour. I think of the Tamil woman who had a baby conceived of rape. Yes, rape in custody. Somewhere along the line she decided the baby was a blessing, a new start, something to love and cherish. She’s rushed headlong into the disaster and embraced it, transforming it into something positive. Of course she has moments of panic, of despair, but there are two strangers who’ve made it their business to try and calm her.

Sometimes you just know that someone is a survivor. Like the Tamil single mother to whom I sent a small sum of money donated by a friend who couldn’t bear to hear her story without doing something for her. The mother, a white van abduction and sexual violence survivor, wrote a thank you note to my friend, which said there were moments when she was in detention when she didn’t know if she’d survive to see her child again. Now she would use the money to buy her daughter socks and warm clothes she needed in England but she hoped one day she would be in a position to help others in the way that she’d just been helped. To be able to look forward to a day when you will assist others speaks of a strong vision of recovery. 

Gaining confidence

I don’t want to make reconstruction of a broken human being sound easy, but it is important to remember it is possible, at least partially and with a supreme effort. I think of a young torture survivor from Sri Lanka, who still has moments of darkness, but has now started to plan a future, enrol for a training course and dream of a career. Last summer though he was alone and sick and desperate. I hadn’t realised how hard it is to be a torture survivor and have flu. His body badly needed sleep but every time he slept he’d have nightmares.

The first day he moved into asylum accommodation, someone hammered loudly on the door of his room at midnight and then the house caught fire. He was so terrified by the intrusion and the noise of the fire alarm that he just sat frozen on the bed in his room on the top floor until someone remembered he was there and came back to save him, dragging him out through the smoke. Having lived through torture and sexual violence, how ironic to die in a house fire in London. He told me he’d lost all his meagre possessions. I hurriedly packed a box of clothes and things for his new room and stuffed in a not too depressing book I’d just read. Of course it was the book  - The one hundred year old man who climbed out of the window - that delighted him more than anything and inspired him to go and find the local library. But he told me he still slept at night with the light on because he was now so terrified of the dark and if something happened again he wouldn’t be able to scream. I bought him a personal attack alarm on amazon – the kind women carry in their handbags at night. It worked a treat. I ended up giving them to other people too as reassurance – an electronic gadget to voice their terror and anguish.

This young man has benefited from meeting people who’ve offered him a vision of a future, like a Tamil designer his age who invited him to his house, a well-known international human rights activist who calls him regularly on the phone, and a Tamil family who have shown him kindness. There are moments of terror, mostly over his asylum case, which is by no means resolved yet, but he’s gradually gained in confidence. There’s been a lot of yoga, meditation and counselling too along the way.

Absence of hatred

I think if it were me I would be consumed with bitterness and anger at the world – more so that the perpetrators go free and the vast majority will likely never pay a price for their terrible crimes. The absence of justice is further compounded by the dirty smog of denial that blankets the truth. Every time I write about Sri Lankan torture survivors somebody in the country makes a sneering remark. Perhaps they don’t realise how tasteless that is. The victims are Tamils, but there are also Sinhalese and Muslims. The victims are male but there are also women and children. But mainly they are fellow human beings. 

What’s strangely absent is any desire for revenge among survivors. Frankly I find it difficult to understand. When I hear a particularly disgusting story of depravity, I can’t help feeling angry that people can do this cruelty to each other. And yet I’ve never heard hatred expressed by those who have survived torture. They have not lost their humanity. That is of course how they triumph over their torturers.

Lead photo: YG (pseudonym), an ethnic Tamil who is a survivor of torture at the hands of Sri Lankan security forces, poses for a photograph in London, the United Kingdom, October 16, 2012. (Image courtesy: Will Baxter / willbaxter.photoshelter.com)

© JDS

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The former BBC Correspondent in Sri Lanka, Frances Harrison is the author of Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka's Hidden War, published by Portobello Books (UK), House of Anansi (Canada) and Penguin ( India).

War & Domination By Other Means: Postwar Tourism In The East Coast

By Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham –June 28, 2015 

Dr. Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham

In one of the images that showcase the luxury and splendor that Anilana Hotel in Passikuda has to offer, we see a woman in a bikini. She could be a light skinned Sri Lankan or South Asian, or a well-tanned foreigner. Her cosmopolitan globalness makes her a universal sexual figure. She is lying back on a lounge chair, sun-glasses on, sex appeal on full blast, soaking it all in and looking in the direction of the camera. What caught my attention about this image is that her chair is not just by the beach, but actually in the water, so it looks like she is floating. Secondly, there is a Sri Lankan in the image (his identity seems another version of the global “local server”), in sarong and shirt, walking away after having served her. While many of the other images advertising the splendor of Passikuda show you only empty, pristine beaches, where all local populations have been cleansed from the landscape, in this image, he is allowed in as a visual fantasy of all that is on offer. We only see his back and a tray on his shoulder. He is diminished in size compared to the focus of the image on her. The message conveyed by these two bodies is telling of post-war development and tourism inPassikuda. Besides the simple fact that walking in the water with a sarong all the way down, having to hold on to a tray may be an arduous task, his retreating body suggests many other things. Perhaps he has offered her sex as one of the services he provides along with the drink? Perhaps this is the fantasy of the tourist industry there, to make all working class and poor Sri Lankans serve the local and global wealthy? Either way, his complete “upright” (pun intended) servicing of her and her post-serviced, on her back, ecstasy tells us a lot about neoliberal development in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka.

Post-war Sri Lanka advertised “development” as a means to a lasting peace for minorities of the North and East. Such promises of peace and rights through development began as the GoSL allied with the break awayLTTE group, the Karuna faction, to regain control of the East from the LTTE. The push to consolidate the East for development, called “Eastern Re-Awakening” can only be a euphemism that hides the extra-ordinary violence that was necessary to consolidate the East under state control. Literally hundreds of Tamils died as the LTTE and the State fought to control the East. Peace in the East then has been delivered through violence and oppression, and is synonymous with violence rather than its opposite.

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PCICMP resumes public sittings amidst protests against domestic commissions

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 June 2015, 19:21 GMT]
Rajapaksa-appointed and Maithiripala-extended ‘Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints regarding Missing Persons’ (PCICMP) resumed its public sittings on Saturday at Moothoor Divisional Secretariat in the Trincomalee district. Around 300 relatives of the missing people and civil activists protested outside the venue, while 159 people who had been invited by the PCICMP for hearings took part in the sittings. The protesters were demanding international investigations. Even those who attended the sittings had no trust in the commission, said Mannaar Citizens' Committee vice chairman A. Sagayam. His committee had urged the people to take part in the sittings. 

“The Tamil victims say they can only trust international investigations,” Mr Sagayam told TamilNet after witnessing the proceedings. 

Almost all the Tamils, who appeared for the hearings witnessed against the Sri Lankan military, he said adding that some Muslims and Sinhalese were present there with the intention of witnessing against the LTTE. 

However, there were Tamil-speaking Muslims, who also expressed solidarity with the Tamil protesters from Champoor outside the venue. 

In the meantime, those among the uprooted Tamil families in Champoor, who are searching for their loved ones, blamed that the PCICMP had failed to trace even one of the hundreds of missing persons in Champoor. 

Ms Chandrakala Mathiyalakan from Champoor, who is residing at Kaddaipa'richchaan refugee camp for 10 years, has been searching for four of her family members who were reported missing on their way to Verukal to Champoor. She took part in the protest demanding international investigations. 

Chandrakala said she had lost all hopes in the local commissions. “But, when we have no choice, what are we supposed to do,” she asked. 

On Saturday, she was taking part in the protest. On Sunday, she would also be handing over the details once again to the PCICMP even though she had no trust in the commission, Chandrakala said. 

Recently, representatives of citizens committees and religious leaders were invited to Colombo by certain ‘human rights defenders’. These ‘defenders’ who were earlier active in Geneva are now in favour of PCICMP, informed Tamil human rights activists said. 

Mr R. Sampanthan of the Tamil National Alliance, who is the only Tamil member claiming to represent the TNA in the ‘National Executive Council’ with the ruling regime, has also been instructing the TNA politicians in Trincomalee to promote Tamils participation in the public sittings of the PCICMP, the activists further said. 

Rendering unto Caesar: the pathetic state of Sri Lanka’s university administration 
What the University Grants Commission has done so far is not to promote competition among universities. It has developed a system where all universities have become uniform institutions – Pic by Sameera Wijesinghe

 Monday, 29 June 2015

Passing the responsibility onto masters
‘Rendering unto Caesar’ has been the title of the acclaimed autobiography of the top civil servant Bradman Weerakoon who had served nine Prime Ministers during his long career. The message delivered by the title is that the bureaucracy which wields so much of administrative powers has a tendency to pass the responsibility for all mishaps unto Caesar, a collective title used for their political masters.
The political masters too have created a situation to get the full blame by openly displaying their mastery on everything, including the adverse changes in or the oncoming of favourable weather. Thus, at elections, politicians change but the bureaucracy continues just like in ancient Rome, Caesar had been gone but Rome had continued at least for some time.

Rendering Unto Caesar the Pathetic State of Sri Lanka’s University Administration by Thavam Ratna

The August 17 Election Countdown 

by Rajan Philips-June 27, 2015

In the end the dissolution of the current parliament came rather swiftly, though not unexpectedly. The actual timing of the dissolution and the dates for nominations, polling and the opening of the new parliament may have come as a surprise, and speculations are afloat about the dissolution timing. Even an early opinion poll results are doing the rounds, indicating that the UNP would come on top with the largest number of seats, followed by the still un-named group supporting former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the official SLFP alliance led by President Sirisena coming third. What will matter more than the ranking of parties will be the actual number of seats that each group will win, as well as the number of seats that other political parties will win, and what alliances will be forged in order to form the next government (with the desired 113 seats or more) and enable its leader to be nominated as Prime Minister.

Already, Kabir Hashim, the (new) Secretary of the UNP, has predicted 119 seats for the UNP based on the distribution of the 6.2 million votes garnered by President Sirisena in winning the January 8 presidential election. He might have meant a UNP-led alliance (perhaps the old UNA, or a new version of it) securing 119 seats, but even so a prediction of 119 seats seems a bit too optimistic. Besides, the UNP Working Committee is said to have decided to contest alone under its patented ‘elephant’ symbol, rather than as part of an alliance. That would mean that the UNP is not planning on an electoral alliance before the election, but is looking to form a governing alliance after the election with the UNP contingent, hopefully, being the largest and giving its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe much more power in parliament than he was able to wield leading the minority yahapalanaya government that has just been put out of its misery.

By their own actions in that short lived government, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and the United National Party have lost much credibility as agents of good governance and will not have complete justification to campaign on that basis in the upcoming election. They could change all of that by coming clean with the people and sincerely laying out how they will do things differently from what they have been doing as government for the last six months, if they were to form a new government for the next six (or five) years. The albatross on their shoulders is of course the Central Bank scandal and it defies any and all political common sense that such an experienced political leader like Wickremesinghe would be so pettily obstinate in sticking with a manifestly wrong decision he made in regard to both the timing and the manner of the appointment of Arjuna Mahendran as Central Bank Governor. Not to mention the almost surreptitious manner in which the Prime Minister transferred the responsibility for the Bank from the Finance Ministry to his own ministry.

The Rajapaksa-opposition is of course not picking on these glaring irregularities in process, but on the technicalities of the bond auction and the Singaporean citizenship of Mr. Mahendran (which is really a ‘code’ for calling him a Tamil). The bigger issue is how unwittingly Mr. Wickremesinghe has created a distraction for the project of good governance and how wittingly insistent he is in standing by his creation. While there is much disdain among the traditional UNP supporters over the Central Bank scandal, there has been very little evidence of any internal questioning of the leader within the hierarchy of the UNP itself. Such a lack of internal questioning is not at all dissimilar to the manner in which the Rajapaksas governed the country. So where is the difference?

As for the former President, he is still floating speculative balloons – one day saying that he would form his own group to contest the election if he is not given an ‘SLFP ticket’ by the current President; and the next day insisting that he would contest only on a SLFP/UPFA ticket. The latter insistence could be a way out for him to stay out of the contest while letting his followers do the leg work of contesting either as part of the SLFP/UPFA alliance, or as a new third group of breakaway SLFPers and the smaller UPFA partners. The continuing efforts by the SLFP parliamentary old guard to get President Sirisena to allow his predecessor contest on the SLFP ticket are not likely to succeed. That would be to negate the results of the January 8 election, which President Sirisena cannot simply afford to do. A better strategy for the SLFP old guard would be to try to persuade Mahinda Rajapaksa to accept Mr. Sirisena’s offer to make him an eminent former President and provide advice and service to the Party and the country like the late Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and Bill Clinton in the US. That should be a win-win for both men and the Party they belong to.

The good, the bad and the ugly

While the former President may not want to be accused in history of causing an irreparable split in the SLFP just to become Prime Minister, there are also other intrigues at play. President Sirisena has reportedly told the SLFP old guard that he was aware that the former President was keeping his connections to the UNP leadership alive and open. And that could only mean that Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe are back at their old game that only they can play to perfection. It also means that President Rajapaksa is more concerned about the legal troubles that encircle him and the members of his old regime on account of their alleged malpractices, and that they are a major consideration in his political calculations.

At one level the upcoming parliamentary election could be a political version of the old Clint Eastwood western: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, respectively representing, from the standpoint of good governance, the official SLFP alliance led by President Sirisena, the potential rebel-SLFP alliance with allegiance to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the same old UNP alliance led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. But the reality is that the qualities of being good, bad and/or ugly are unevenly distributed among all the political parties, and there are others besides the three main political groups. And they have their own priorities and differences. The ensuing alliance formation will be critical to the future of good governance inasmuch as one particular alliance might be more reliable for delivering on the promises of good governance than others.

Further, comparing electoral politics to a western movie, or horse racing for that matter, plays into the political pastime of looking for winners and losers, rather than analysing politics as the organization of alternative responses to emerging situations. Viewed from the latter standpoint, unlike the movie and its passive audience, the electoral process involves active participants who could and do pressurize political competitors looking for votes to bring out their best, or in certain circumstances even their worst, and everything in between, into contention for consideration by the voting public. Indeed, it is up to the electorate and the politically organized civil society groups to make the forthcoming parliamentary election a uniquely watershed event, unlike any of the 13 previous elections the country has seen over a span of 68 years. It is up to them to heed the poignant warning of Mr. Ariyawansa Ranaweera (The Island, June 24) and prevent the current slogan of ‘yahapalanya’ falling into the same fate of ridicule and dismissal that befell the term "dharmista", when it became the political slogan in 1977.

Pre-election political opinion poll: People upbeat under Maithri- Ranil rule

• Country now more free
• Media more free
• Rule of Law better
• Sinhalese least upbeat
• Minorities satisfied
• Most know little of 19th Amendment

( June 28, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) As the country moves towards parliamentary elections in August, the latest political opinion poll shows a broadly upbeat public mood although the economy remains the irritant. In a survey taken earlier this month across the island from Jaffna to Hambantota and Colombo to Batticaloa, over 90 per cent of those surveyed from among all ethnic communities felt that ethnic harmony measures are important and also that the security of ethnic communities has improved when compared with last year.

Pre-election Political Opinion Poll People Upbeat Under Maithri- Ranil Rule by Thavam Ratna

Read the full report here;

The Political Weather Analysis 2015 by Sri Lanka Guardian