The Problem With Ukrainian Police Reform

Ukraine’s police are getting a much-praised makeover. But there could be trouble down the road.

BY ERICA MARAT-DECEMBER 29, 2015

Over the past year, thousands of newly recruited police officers have taken to the streets of Kiev, Odessa, Lviv, and other cities across Ukraine. In contrast to their predecessors in the old, post-Soviet militsia, these newcomers are polite, well-trained, and physically fit. Perhaps most importantly, they refuse to take bribes. Many of the new recruitssympathized with the 2013-2014 Euromaidan demonstrations that overthrew the corrupt political order of former President Yanukovych, and they are genuinely interested in building a new, more democratic Ukraine. Over a quarter of the new police force consists of women — one of the highest rates in the world. The new units enjoy high approval ratings in Kiev and are regarded as a symbol of a “civil” state.

International experts are thrilled, too. They tout the new patrol police as one of the brightest rays of hope in post-Euromaidan Ukraine. It’s been describedas a “force for change” and even the “cops who would save a country.” It’s no wonder the foreigners are happy — much of the new police reform has been funded through the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL), with additional help from Canada and Japan.

So far, so good. But this apparent success masks some important shortcomings that could undermine it in the months and years ahead.The police reform process has been opaque and top-down, led by a few powerful officials with little input from civil society. As a result, the international donors who have partnered with the Interior Ministry risk repeating a problem that has plagued similar efforts to clean up law enforcement in other parts of the world. All too often, donors tend togive their help to corrupt and autocratic political elites still mired in militarized and secretive systems.

What such an approach tends to miss is that the police aren’t responsible only to people at the top. Polices forces should also answer to the people they serve. For this reason, successful police reform depends on forging a consensus between the state and society on how and when the state may employ violence: consider, for example, the ongoing discussion in the United States on the relationship between the police and African-American communities. That debate is taking place in the wider democratic context of free media, frequent and fair elections, and impartial courts.

But Ukraine and other countries with a long history of authoritarianism lack such venues for an effective state-society dialogue. As in other post-Soviet states, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry (which oversees the police) was designedto support government policies, to punish dissent, and to demonstrate the government’s reach across the country. Despite several rounds of competitive elections, a diverse civil society, and numerous media outlets, Ukrainian officials continued to use the police to coerce the opposition right up until the Euromaidan uprising. International donors looking for quick results risk inadvertently supporting, or even strengthening, the state’s punitive apparatus, without ensuring more active participation of the citizenry in overseeing the police.

To date, Ukraine’s new police have been focused on a myriad of petty matters: smoking in public places, homeless people sleeping in tourist areas, and cars parking around bus stops. But the new policing model in Ukrainian cities does not explain how bigger and more violent crimes are prevented through policing small things. Meanwhile, top-level police offers, accustomed to deploying excessive force against peaceful demonstrations or operating criminal syndicates, remain unchallenged and unreformed. And while a shiny new police force might challenge small-scale corruption, there has still been no serious anti-corruption drive from the top.

Even more worrisome are the Interior Ministry’s plans to organize a new SWAT force supported by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Border Patrol, and the State Department’s Bureau for Narcotics and Law Enforcement. In a repeat of the patrol police project, only a closed circle of ministry officials and U.S. donors are involved in designing the new force, which is supposed toreplace former special operations police forces such as “Berkut,” infamous for its deadly violence against Euromaidan demonstrators. Activists worry that adopting the U.S. model for a militarized police force will allow Ukraine’s leaders to use brutal force against anti-government demonstrations in the future. A better fit might be found in neighboring Poland and the Czech Republic, where military police units are assigned exclusively to the armed forces or to carry out counterterrorism missions.

Since the ouster of Yanukovych, Ukraine has experienced an inflow of former government officials from Georgia, including former president Mikheil Saakashvili. Inspired by the reforms they carried out at home, these officials have sought to export their experience to Ukraine. The Georgian police reform eradicated petty corruption and gained international praise for its dramatic break with a repressive past.

Yet Saakashvili’s reform also transformed the Interior Ministry into the single strongest government body, oneamply equipped to spy on the political opposition.Unfortunately, the methods used to direct top-down reform in Saakashvili’s Georgia are now being replicated in post-Euromaidan Ukraine. Only a narrow group of people are interacting with the external donors and making key decisions. Civil society activists are only invited tooversee procedures already in place, as opposed to generating ideas for the reform’s direction. The vision of change is transmitted directly from the deputy-minister level to specific projects on the ground, bypassing public discussion.

The only exception to this pattern of top-down reform occurred earlier this year, when civil society activists were allowed to influence the drafting of the new police law adopted in July 2015. The activists succeeded in redefining the police as an agency that “serves society by ensuring protection of rights and freedoms,” ordering the police to report instances of human rights abuse, and requiring the police to carry identification badges. Because of this substantial public input, the drafting the new law was a textbook example of a genuine police reform process. That’s a good sign for the future. But so far there’s little evidence that the authorities have learned from this example.

Though they often disagree among themselves about the course of the police reform, activists are united in their push for three major changes. First, they insist that the head of the police, designed as a professional, non-political post, should be recruited on a competitive basis, not appointed by the Minister of the Interior. Second, the deputies of local police chiefs should also be selected through fair competition. Both demands aim to break the long tradition of police units that owe their loyalty to respective governments rather than the public.

Third, there has so far been no discussion at all on the future of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), a key component of the internal security apparatus. The SBU’s surveillance reach inside the country is vast, and before the Euromaidan revolution, the government routinely used it to suppress political opponents. In Georgia, the powerful, unreformed intelligence agency became a highly controversial issue in the 2012 parliamentary elections, which dealt a severe blow to Saakashvili’s regime.

The Ukrainian and Georgian experiences with police reform reflect larger trends in the ex-Soviet Union and in other countries emerging from authoritarian rule. International efforts typically provide police with new uniforms, refurbish police stations, and train officials. Programs focus mostly on institutional objectives and formal legal structures; only a small fraction of funds goes to civil society groups who promote the rule of law.

Donors usually operate under the assumption that reformed police forces will, thanks to greater professionalism, assume a neutral role in the political landscape, thus safeguarding the democratization process. So far, however, there is little evidence that this is happening in the former USSR. Despite years of donor assistance in Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, the police in these countries still arbitrarily arrest political opponents during elections, curtail the work of the mass media, and brutally suppress anti-governmental mass protests. In worst-case scenarios, the police use skills acquired through donor training projects to carry out the political decisions of the incumbent elites.

Instead of cosmetic upgrades, donors must concentrate on promoting collaboration between the state and society. To be sure, a top-down process is likely to get results much more quickly than one involving the participation of civil society. Yet it is only through the latter that a post-Soviet police force can be transformed into one appropriate for the needs of a democratic society.It is not the speed of police cars or the availability of body cameras that define effective police reform. The rule of law can be upheld only by a police force that answers to the public – and that can only happen if the people have their say.

In the photo, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko poses with newly graduated police officers during an official ceremony in Kiev on July 4, 2015.

Photo credit: SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images

Economist Frederic Pryor Recounts Life as a 'Spy'

By Ryan Dougherty-October 21st, 2015

For more than half a century, Frederic Pryor has been doing his best to forget about his experiences in East Germany.

“Half a year of prison isn’t fun,” says the professor emeritus of economics and senior research scholar, whom the Stasi, the East German secret police, arrested in 1961 on suspicion of spying. He had written a doctoral dissertation on the foreign trade system of the Soviet bloc, which was misconstrued as intel for the U.S.

Economist Frederic Pryor Recounts Life as a 'Spy' by Thavam Ratna

Qatari royals rush to Switzerland in nine planes after emir breaks leg

A fleet of jets, including an Airbus, made emergency landings at Zurich-Kloten airport after Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani suffered a fracture

 Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, right, and his father Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Officials have reported planes belonging to the Qatari royals made emergency landings in Switzerland on 26 December.
Photograph: Karim Sahib/Mohammed al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images

Agence France-Presse-Tuesday 29 December 2015

Unidentified individuals travelling in as many as nine planes belonging to Qatar’s royal family made an emergency trip to Switzerland over the weekend for medical reasons, according to a Swiss official.

A spokesman for Switzerland’s federal office of civil aviation confirmed local media reports that multiple aircraft made unscheduled landings at the Zurich-Kloten airport overnight from 25 to 26 December and that the planes were part of the Qatari royal fleet.

He gave no details as to who was on board or who any of the potential patients may have been.

“The emergency landing clearance was given by the Swiss air force,” he told AFP, explaining that the civil aviation office was closed during the hours in question.

Qatari authorities later said that the country’s former ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, had been flown to Switzerland over the weekend for surgery after breaking a leg.

The Qatari government’s communications office said early on Tuesday that Sheihk Hamad suffered “a broken leg while on holiday” and was flown to Zurich on Saturday to receive treatment.

The office says the 63-year-old sheikh underwent a successful operation and was in Zurich “recovering and undergoing physiotherapy.”

The government declined to say how or where Sheikh Hamad broke his leg but the royal family had reportedly been on holiday in Morocco at a resort in the Atlas mountains.

Night landings and takeoffs are typically forbidden at Zurich-Kloten to avoid disturbing local residents.

Swiss foreign ministry spokesman Georg Farago told AFP in an email that the federation was informed about the “stay of members of Qatar’s royal family in Switzerland”, without giving further details.

According to Zurich’s Tages Anzeiger newspaper, the first Qatari plane, an Airbus, landed in Zurich from Marrakesh shortly after midnight on 26 December.

A second flight landed at Zurich-Kloten at 5am (0400 GMT) on 26 December, with a third plane coming 15 minutes later, both having originated in Doha, the paper reported.

According to Tages Anzeiger, the medical emergency in question was so significant that six more planes linked to the Qatari royal family and government landed in Zurich through the weekend.

Sheikh Hamad is believed to have been in poor health for years. He ruled the oil-and-gas-rich Qatar from 1995 until handing over power to his son, Sheikh Tamim, in 2013.

What Japan’s payments to Korean sex slaves say about putting a dollar figure on atrocity

Participants carry portrait of Korean women who were made sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II at a ceremony in Seoul on August 14, 2013. Reuters/ Kim Hong-ji

By Ana Swanson-December 28
Giving someone who has been raped, murdered, tortured or enslaved a lump sum of money hardly seems like compensation for their suffering. Yet it’s something that courts, governments and other groups occasionally must do.

On Monday, Japan and Korea announced a decision of this kind, as they reached a historic settlement for wartime atrocities committed more than 70 years ago.

Japan agreed to pay about $8.3 million dollars into a fund to help restore honor and dignity to so-called "comfort women"- women forced into prostitution for Japan's military brothels during World War II. The issue has long plagued ties between South Korea and Japan. (Reuters)

Japan agreed to set up a $8.3 million fund to support 46 surviving South Korean women whom the Japanese military had taken as sex slaves -- so-called “comfort women” -- during World War II. Historians estimate that the Japanese army coerced as many as 200,000 women and girls from occupied countries into sexual slavery, including in South Korea.

The countries described the agreement as a "final and irrevocable resolution" to a dispute that has tattered relations between the U.S. allies for decades. (Whether it actually will mark the end remains to be seen -- this isn't the first time Japan has offered official apologies or compensation.)

The agreement underscores how difficult it is for parties to find common ground over paying for historical injustices.

Monetary reparations are a common way to level the scales between two parties following a historic or moral injustice. Since World War II, Germanyhas paid nearly $90 billion of reparations to Israel and Jews for stolen property and other atrocities, and it has continued to face claims for payments into this decade. New Zealand paid its native Maori peoplehundreds of millions of dollars for colonial injustices.

And the United States has made various payments to native American tribes for atrocities and violated treaties, and it paid $20,000 each to around100,000 Americans of Japanese descent who were interned in camps during World War II. Some have argued -- most notably Ta-Nehisi Coates in a June 2014 cover story for the Atlantic -- that the failure to pay reparations to African Americans for slavery remains an injustice.

In Rwanda, there is an ongoing debate about what compensation is due victims of the 1994 genocide. And over a decade ago, many criticized South Africa's government for approving only $3,900 for each family of apartheid victims.

One of the challenges is the lack of rules to govern reparations. There are few guidelines for how much societies should pay when we decide it’s right to use money to alleviate suffering, and how we set the price for a particular atrocity.

The legal basis for reparations goes back to the beginning of property rights. The philosopher John Locke discusses the right to seek reparations when one man “receives damage” by the transgression of another. And on a smaller scale, courts make these kinds of decisions all the time, awarding monetary settlements to victims who have suffered wrongs like personal injury or slander. 

The justification for giving a victim money is two-fold, says Robin Hanson, a professor who teaches economics and law at George Mason University: Compensating the victim in some way for their losses, and penalizing the perpetrator to try to prevent future crimes.

But the law typically requires identifying specific victims and clear evidence of how they have been harmed, says Hanson. And it has other restrictions, like statues of limitation that limit the period of time in which damages can be collected.

In the case of Japan and Korea, the dispute is more easily resolved because some of the women are still living. When the U.S. compensated Japanese-Americans who it had interned in the Second World War, the money was also given directly to the victim.

Cases where the victims have died and reparations would be given to their descendants – as in the case of American slavery – are much more controversial.

African-Americans have obviously been greatly harmed by the legacy of racial discrimination and slavery. Supporters of reparations argue that that history is still important to the present because wealth and inequality build up over time. This is why African-Americans make 77 cents on a white dollar, but the average black family has only ten cents of wealth for every dollar of wealth an average white family has, according to Dalton Conley, a sociologist at New York University.

But tracking exactly what effect any atrocity has had over generations is still extremely tricky. It requires evaluating a counterfactual that never existed, and it's not clear how the monetary value of reparations should change over decades and generations.

It might seem like more distant relations would be entitled to less compensation. But you could also argue that atrocities like slavery become more costly with time due to the miracle of compound interest. As the economist Tyler Cowen has written, a loss of a billion dollars two hundred years ago turns into $369.4 billion with just 3 percent compounding interest and $17.3 trillion with 5 percent compounding interest.

With slavery, reparations might require transfers of wealth from and to people who are only distantly related to the original perpetrators and victims. Such transfers “could only very crudely track the actual pattern of cause and harm,” writes Hanson.

(Coates points out that many African Americans living today have been directly harmed by Jim Crow laws or housing discrimination, an area in which the argument for reparations is clearer.)

Setting a monetary figure for reparations is also a challenge -- a product of calculating the cost to the victim, estimating any benefits the money is meant to provide, and a lot of negotiation. In Japan's case, the funds will finance and expand a state-run program that provides medical, welfare and other assistance to the victims. A Japanese spokesperson clarified that the money is not a legal settlement.

Many people feel that reparations are just and right in some situations – if only to lend more weight and symbolism to a formal apology, as in Japan and Korea. But the question is where to start, and to stop.

As Cowen writes, much property owned today was once acquired by theft, but it's often impractical and unjust to redistribute it. “Everyone living today, if they go back far enough, can find ancestors who were oppressed and victimized.”

You might also like: 

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Ana Swanson is a reporter for Wonkblog specializing in business, economics, data visualization and China. She also works on Know More, Wonkblog's social media channel.

How to Test Your Thyroid With a Thermometer

Womans Vibe-December 29-2015

The thyroid is a tiny, butterfly-shaped gland which plays an important role in your well-being and health. It is located in your neck, just above your collarbone and it’s one of your endocrine glands, which make hormones that control many activities in your body. The thyroid makes sure the body’s metabolism, temperature, vitality and development are in order.

Read on to find out how to check the condition of your thyroid using a thermometer.

The Functions of the Thyroid

The thyroid gland takes iodine from the food and converts it into thyroid hormones. Hence, in geographic areas where iodine supply is scarce (and is not supplemented), we can often see more people with thyroid problems.

• T3 and T4 are two of the hormones the thyroid secretes and they control the metabolism.
• The other thyroid hormone is calcitonin, which regulates calcium levels in the blood and bones.
• The thyroid makes sure we have sufficient energy – the first symptom telling you that something is wrong is often tiredness.
• The thyroid is responsible for growth and development. If children don’t get enough thyroid hormones when they’re growing up, this can result in brain abnormalities and lower IQ.

Normally, the thyroid is not visible or palpable. When its function is disturbed, the gland can become abnormally enlarged – this is known as goiter.

According to the American Thyroid Association more than 12% of the U.S. population will develop a thyroid condition during their lifetime, and these are many millions of people.

Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism is a condition where the thyroid gland is under-active and doesn’t produce enough of its hormones.

A person can already be born with a gland deficiency, or the condition can develop later due to autoimmune causes (such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis), radiation therapy and certain medications, or too little iodine in the diet.

Limited production of thyroid hormones can limit the full function of almost every part of your body.

Richard L.Shames,MD, and Karilee Shames RN, Phd authors of the Thyroid Mind Power estimate that 50 million Americans may have low level of thyroid hormones.

The main symptoms of hypothyroidism include:

• Unexplained weight gain
• Constipation
• Depression
• Fatigue
• Pale dry skin
• Baldness
• Increased sensitivity to cold

For a detailed list of symptoms, read my post about the top 13 signs you have a thyroid disorder.

Why it’s Hard to Detect Hypothyroidism

According to Jacob Teitelbaum MD and Bill Gotlib CHC authors of the Real Cause Real Cure, most doctors don’t know about research showing that the TSH test (a test for evaluating thyroid function and/or symptoms of a thyroid disorder) is unreliable.

Dr. Teitelbaum adds that over the decades these tests have been continually updated with ever expanding definitions of who is and isn’t hypothyroid. He says that there is no reason to believe that the current test effectively detects every case of hypothyroidism.

In 2002 the American Association of Clinical endocrinologists (AACE) revised the normal range for TSH test (0.5 to 5.0) stating that anyone with a TSH of over 3.0 is hypothyroid. This means that approximately 13 million Americans with ranges from 3.1 to 5.0 had not been treated for hypothyroidism because their lab results regarded as normal.

The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists estimated that the new guidelines actually double the number of people who have abnormal thyroid function.

The Thyroid Armpit Test

This test is recommended by Dr. Teitelbaum for anyone who suffers from several of the symptoms of hypothyroidism. Because the thyroid gland reflects the body’s metabolic rate and heat is generated during metabolism, your body temperature can give clues regarding the function of the thyroid gland.
If you suspect that you suffer from hypothyroidism then a self test using a thermometer can provide more evidence.

How to Test Your Thyroid with a Thermometer

In order to do this test you will need to have a basal thermometer (like this one). A basal thermometer is a very sensitive thermometer that measures temperature changes more closely than a regular thermometer. You can purchase a basal thermometer at almost any drugstore or online.

• Keep a basal thermometer beside your bed.
• Check your armpit (axilla) temperature for several days in the morning when you wake up. Before getting out of bed put the thermometer in your armpit.
• Lie quietly for 10 minutes

According to Dr. Teitelbaum, if your temperature is under 97.4 degrees Fahrenheit (36.33 degrees Celsius) on two repeat measurements, you and your doctor should consider treatment with thyroid hormone.

In his own practice, Dr. Teitelbaum asks patients with thyroid symptoms to take oral temperature between 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. on two different days. If it’s regularly below 98.1 degrees Fahrenheit (36.72 degrees Celsius) he treats the person for hypothyroidism.

For women, who are still menstruating, the test should be done on the second, third, and fourth days of the menstrual cycle. The reason is because a considerable temperature rise may occur around the time of ovulation and give incorrect results. Post-menopausal women or men can conduct the tests any days of the month.

The test is not to be used as a replacement for a proper medical assessment.  Instead it can help you determine whether you may have a thyroid imbalance and a low functioning thyroid gland in particular.

Giving priority to constitutional reform

By Jehan Perera-December 28, 2015

The dawn of the New Year will see Parliament convening as a parliamentary committee of the whole to start the process of constitutional reform. This will be only the second time since the last constitution was made in 1978 that there will be a dedicated effort at constitutional reform. The previous occasion was in 2000 when former President Chandrika Kumaratunga presented a constitutional bill to Parliament which was literally burnt by the opposition. The promise to amend the constitution was made by government leaders at both the last presidential and general elections that took place in January and August of this year. Their main pledge was to abolish the executive presidency and to change the electoral system from one based on proportional representation to a mixed system of proportional representation and first-past-the-post voting in which parliamentary seats would be apportioned in proportion to the total number of votes obtained by each of the political parties.

There is a general consensus in society about the need to reduce the power of individuals elected to power and to ensure their accountability. This is an outcome of the people’s experience of politics and governance over the past four decades after the constitution of 1972 made parliament supreme. However, today’s consensus in society about limiting the power of elected politicians does not necessarily carry over into a consensus within political parties and the politicians themselves. Even though President Maithripala Sirisena made a determined attempt after his election victory in January to achieve the goals of abolishing the executive presidency and changing the electoral system, he was only partially successful. He succeeded in reducing the power of the presidency and making it more accountable to other institutions through the 19th Amendment, but he did not succeed in pushing through reforms to the electoral system through the 20th Amendment which had to be discarded.

The lesson from the failure to enact constitutional reforms to the full extent desired earlier this year is that the partisan and personal interests of political actors have to be considered despite the general consensus that might exist in society regarding the need for change. There is a need for those who are guiding the process of change to be able to keep the different political parties and their members together in the task of achieving constitutional reform. The formation of a government of national unity at the present time has presented an unprecedented and unique opportunity for the entire Parliament to work together as one parliamentary committee. It is in this context that President Sirisena’s decision to extend the term of the local government authorities for a further six months instead of going for elections in March of next year needs to be seen. The president has justified the postponement of elections on the grounds that the delimitation of electorates is still not finalized and that over 2000 objections have to be dealt with first.

ABYSMAL FAILURE

Any revision of the constitution is going to affect different sections of the polity differently. Therefore there is a need for mutual accommodation and compromise in getting agreement on contentious issues. This implies that whatever is divisive should be minimized in order to give the constitutional reform process the best chance to succeed. Elections in Sri Lanka, especially in recent decades, have invariably been bitterly contested and divisive events in which much is at stake for the contesting political parties and the contestants. Many political parties and politicians have adopted a no-holds barred approach to winning elections in the past. On this occasion, it will not be possible for those who wish to engage in violence and thuggery to get away with it due to the empowerment of the Election Commissioner under the 19th Amendment. But a highly competitive election, even if conducted within the boundaries of the law, would lead to rivalry and one-upmanship between the political parties that must necessarily compete against each other. This would have adverse consequences for the spirit of mutual accommodation and compromise necessary for the constitutional reform process to be successful.

As the two dominant political parties at the local and national levels, the UNP and SLFP are going to be the main rivals at any election. But they are the two parties which form the core of today’s National Unity Government. It is their unity that makes constitutional reform possible, as together they have a 2/3 majority in Parliament. It is also necessary to recognize that constitutional reform will be more than dealing with the executive presidency and the electoral system. It will also have to involve the issues of devolution of power to the provinces, accountability for human rights violations, and a mutually agreeable political solution to the ethnic conflict which has been the most divisive political issues in the country for the past several decades. The failure of the polity to achieve bipartisan political cooperation to address this issue has been abysmal over a long period. Whichever party was in power faced an earthquake of political opposition when it tried to resolve the ethnic conflict through constitutional reform.

The alliance of President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe presents an unprecedented and unique opportunity for the polity to address the issue of the ethnic conflict in a more successful manner than in the past. The non-racist and statesmanlike behaviors of both these leaders have won the confidence of the ethnic and religious minorities and also of the more liberal segment of the ethnic majority community. It is noteworthy that virtually all of the small political parties, whether ideology-based or ethnic and religious-based, are broadly supportive of the National Unity Government. This was seen in the recent budget debate and vote in parliament, and also in their constructive responses to the recent trade union actions.

REAL POLITIK

There is also another possible reason why the government may not to wish to rush into the local government elections. This has to do with the split within the SLFP headed by President Sirisena. A longer period of waiting prior to elections is likely to strengthen President Sirisena’s hand in relation to former president Rajapaksa who still commands the support of a substantial section of parliamentarians, local level party cadres and voters of the SLFP. The split within the SLFP was evident at the recent vote on the budget when about half of the SLFP parliamentarians cast their votes against the budget proposed by the National Unity Government. There have been indications that this disgruntled faction of the SLFP under the leadership of the former president might contest the forthcoming local government elections as a third force.

The local government elections would offer the pro-Rajapaksa faction of the SLFP a platform to campaign against the sensitive aspects in the constitutional reform process. The former president continues to champion ethnic majority nationalism in the name of protecting the sovereignty and unity of the country. The local government elections would offer him an ideal platform to get his message across to the people regarding the dangers of the constitutional reform process. At the same time it would also offer a platform to Tamil nationalists in the North and East to contest the moderate TNA which has been supportive of the National Unity Government. Last week several of these parties and individuals formed a new organisation which observers see as the first step towards opposing the TNA called the Tamil People’s Council. As in the case of the pro-Rajapaksa faction they too could use the local government elections as a platform to oppose the mutual accommodations and compromises necessary to arrive at a political solution to the ethnic conflict.

It is significant that the time frames set by the government for constitutional reform and local government elections are the same. Parliament is set to convene as a constitutional assembly on January 9. Government sources have let it be known that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe will present a resolution to Parliament to continue parliamentary proceedings as a constitutional assembly to promulgate Sri Lanka’s third republican constitution to coincide with the first anniversary of President Sirisena’s swearing in as the president. The time frame for drafting the new constitution and getting it approved is six months. The local government elections are also being postponed by six months. Finalising the constitutional reform process in six months, which includes consultations with the general public, forming of parliamentary sub-committees and processing all the reports and obtaining consensus on them is going to be an uphill task. Having elections in this situation can disturb the smooth flow of the constitutional reform process, which justifies the postponement of the local government elections.

A practical approach to peace through schools

What appears to be needed in the present context is a practical approach to the problem by aligning the school curricula to remove the existing compartmentalisation of students by race and religion.

By Somapala Gunadheera-2015-12-28

I was happy to read the news item captioned, “Peace, a subject in school soon”, appearing in the Daily Mirror of the December 17.
It read:

“The Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR), headed by former-President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, had proposed to introduce a new subject called ‘Peace Education and Conflict Resolution’ to the school curricular.”

The purpose of the move was said to be “to bring about better understanding among different ethnic and religious groups of Sri Lanka”. Although the proposal had been taken up with the Ministry of Education, they had not given the green light for the Project, up to the time of reporting. The reason for the delay may be inferred from the reporter’s observation that currently the subject is taught at graduate and post graduate level at some Universities.

What appears to be needed in the present context is a practical approach to the problem by aligning the school curricula to remove the existing compartmentalisation of students by race and religion.

Students of all ethnic groups and religions should be provided with the widest opportunities to eschew, through a process of mutual realisation, the prejudices that have been ingrained into them by prophets of doom.

I tried to do this at my level, when I was working in the North as Chairman, RRAN, soon after “Rivirâsa”. I organised a tour for the girls and boys who had obtained top marks at that years Advanced Level exam. In those dark days of terror, it was a highly risky operation. There was no knowing how the Tigers would react to the move. Nor was there a guarantee on the reaction in the South on seeing a tour group from the North which symbolised for them a region that had caused destruction in their own areas.

The children were brought to Trincomalee by ship and thereafter taken around the South by bus.

Their first stop was at Anuradhapura. When I met them personally at their rest, their faces betrayed the tension that was created by the looming double danger. They were taken to places where decisions were not taken on ethnicity or faith.

One such place was the Supreme Court. President Kumaratunga entertained the group personally at Temple Trees and had a friendly chat with them. The then Minister of Education was waiting in the queue to meet the President at the time.  I went up to him and asked him to meet the children. But he declined my invitation summarily, as his approval had not been obtained for the tour. He failed to see that there was no room for such niceties under the pressures I was facing up in the North. Perhaps, he was not willing to share responsibility, if the project misfired.

As the tour advanced, the children were received so cordially wherever they were taken that their tension relaxed and they progressively mixed up with the environment freely.

One of them had confided in my Tamil secretary, “The Sinhalese are not such nasty people that we have been made to believe at home”.

My PA told me later, that they were so sad to leave that some of them were in tears when they bade farewell to our facilitation team. The school children’s tour was followed by a tour of govi-rajas. At Moneragala the Jaffna farmers had a meeting with their counterparts where they imparted their native methods of banana cultivation. Unfortunately, before I could get down to organising more goodwill missions from the North, I had to come down South to take over the ailing Southern Development Authority. As far as I am aware, no such missions were organised thereafter.

My experiment with the tours is a devise that is bound to create much rapport among school children on both sides. Now that the atmosphere in the North has come to normal, the tours need not be confined to fleeting sightseeing events.

The ideal would be to make arrangements for student exchanges under which children on both sides could stay with hosts on the opposite side. I trust many peace loving citizens who could afford it, would be pleased to accommodate children from the opposite side during school holidays. The association of the ONUR with such a project should go a long way to maximize ethnic integration.

Sports is another sector that can generate integration unobtrusively with effect and pleasure. Even at present newspapers occasionally carry reports about such engagements. The need is to increase them to the level of inter-school matches played between leading schools in the southern cities during the season.

Creating a tradition of annual matches between schools on both sides, played both in the North and the South, would bring the two sides faster together.
Language which has become the bone of contention can itself be used to link the two cultures. Regular debates between schools on both sides would be an asset in this direction. May be that initially the debates would have to be conducted in the common English language. But debates between those who are offering a second native language for the A Level exam or a University Degree is likely to increase as the two peoples come closer together. As the healing process matures, mixed matches and debates should help to break down polarisation effectively.

The above are only a few of the ways in which our schools can participate practically in the Nation’s healing process. The ONUR can directly engage in research into such ways and means and make provision to implement the projects found to be relevant and effective. I have no doubt that it has the resources, both financial and personnel and the necessary clout for the purpose. National banks and business houses have a social obligation to facilitate the integration initiatives. 

Acute Shortage of Medicos in Jaffna

28/12/2015 

Recent statistics issued by the Jaffna District Secretariat shows that there is a shortage of specialists and doctors in hospitals in the entire Jaffna Peninsula. Apparently the hospitals need 104 specialists and 890 doctors. However, there are only 76 specialists and 388 doctors to serve at the hospitals in the Jaffna District.

Proposals and the needs for 2016 have been assessed in the statistical report. The report points out the needs in the health sector of the Jaffna District and a proposal has been made recommending a framework for 2016-2018.

If hospitals in the Jaffna District are to provide adequate services, there is a need for a reasonable health sector work force. Thus the health sector needs 104 specialists, 890 doctors, 37 dentists, 1,817 nurses, 180 medical assistants, 345 midwives, 1,017 minor staff members and 417 technicians.

However, only 76 specialists, 388 doctors, 26 dentists, 633 nurses, 95 medical assistants, 222 midwives, 631 minor staff members and 331 technicians are currently serving in the health sector in the entire Jaffna District.

Therefore some 28 specialists, 502 doctors, 11 dentists, 1,184 nurses, 85 medical assistants, 123 midwives, 386 minor staff members and 84 technicians will be needed to meet the estimated demand for the entire Jaffna District.
Apart from the above,

Rs 1,200 M to develop the maternity wards, Rs 448 M for cardiology wards, Rs 600 M for the nurses’ hostel and Rs 110 M for the expansion of laboratories are required to be allocated to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, the report said.

BY S. S. SAKTHI
CT