The Truth About Myanmar’s Rohingya Issue

It is much more complex than is often portrayed by some.

Image Credit: Flickr/European Commission DG ECHO

By Jasmine Chia-March 05, 2016

This article is part of “Southeast Asia: Refugees in Crisis,” an ongoing series by The Diplomat featuring exclusive articles from scholars and practitioners tackling Southeast Asia’s ongoing refugee crisis. All articles in the series can be found here.

After over 50 years of military rule, Myanmar is finally making the long-awaited transition to elected government. Its second liberation is brought about by Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) and the daughter of Aung San, the man who is known for engineering Myanmar’s first liberation from the British. Yet, as foreign media converges on the nation, coverage in recent months has been focused on one issue: the Rohingya.

Nicholas Kristoff’s recent article in The New York Times begins: “Soon the world will witness a remarkable sight: a beloved Nobel Peace Prize winner presiding over 21st-century concentration camps.” Tens of thousands of Rohingya have been forcibly confined in deplorable conditions in Sittwe, 

whilst there is evidence that the ethnic cleansing perpetrated under the military government amounts to genocide. In May 2015, stranded Rohingya off the coast of Thailand elicited humanitarian outrage from the international community. Ever since, foreign commentators have called for an end to what appears to be government inaction or lack of accountability for extreme human rights abuses in Rakhine state.

But international attention directed at the issue – meant to hold the government accountable –may have in fact inadvertently played a role in exacerbating tensions between the Rohingya and the Rakhine Burmese. Increasing resentment is bred within the Rakhine Buddhist community, who believe the situation has been mischaracterized.

In most cases the situation has been mischaracterized. Rakhine history expert Jacques P. Leider may have put it best in his analysis Rohingya: The Name, The Movement, The Quest for Identity. “By narrowing the debate on the Rohingyas to the legal and humanitarian aspects, editorialists around the world have taken an easy approach towards a complicated issue… where issues like ethnicity, history, and cultural identity are key ingredients of legitimacy,” Leider states.

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India to release results of nationwide TB survey by year-end

A patient suffering from Tuberculosis rests inside a hospital in Agartala, capital of India's northeastern state of Tripura, March 24, 2009.REUTERS/JAYANTA DEY/FILES

 BY ZEBA SIDDIQUI-Mon Mar 7, 2016

India, which has the world's largest number of tuberculosis patients, plans to release the results of its first-ever survey mapping the prevalence of drug-resistant TB by December, two senior government officials said.

The data is keenly awaited as it would show the extent to which patients in India have developed resistance to existing TB medicines.

Such resistance has been described by the World Health Organisation as a major global threat to the treatment of the lung disease, which spreads through coughs and sneezes. India is estimated to have the largest number of such drug-resistant TB cases after China.

The country has so far estimated the prevalence of drug-resistant TB only by conducting shorter, state-wide surveys. It started a nationwide survey in 2014 with the aim of tracking 5,214 patients under the country's TB-control program.

The survey results would help improve detection of drug-resistant TB cases by making clear where it preponderates and inform the country's future TB-control strategy, said Sunil Khaparde, deputy director general of the national program.

While India has an estimated 2.1 million TB patients, only half of them are under the national program. Many opt for private care over an overburdened public health system, which suffers from a lack of funding and poor infection control.

The survey would not cover those outside the national program. Yet, the results would be "incredibly important," said Erica Lessem, director of Treatment Action Group, a New York-based policy think tank working on TB treatment access in India.

Improvements in detecting drug-resistant TB in India would have a "huge global impact," Lessem said. 

"One of the major problems with drug-resistant TB worldwide is that we are not able to detect enough cases ... we are missing hundreds of thousands of patients who can transmit it to others."

(Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Complaining Is Terrible for You, According to Science

Steeping yourself in negativity has seriously terrible consequences for your mental and physical health.

BY JESSICA STILLMAN-

FEB 29, 2016
Why do people complain? Not to torture others with their negativity, surely. When most of us indulge in a bit of a moan, the idea is to "vent." By getting our emotions out, we reason, we'll feel better.

But science suggests there are a few serious flaws in that reasoning. One, not only does expressing negativity tend not to make us feel better, it's also catching, making listeners feel worse. "People don't break wind in elevators more than they have to. Venting anger is...similar to emotional farting in a closed area. It sounds like a good idea, but it's dead wrong," psychologist Jeffrey Lohr, who has studied venting, memorably explained.

OK, so complaining is bad for your mood and the mood of your friends and colleagues, but that's not all that's wrong with frequent negativity. Apparently, it's also bad for your brain and your health. Yes, really.

On Psych Pedia, Steven Parton, an author and student of human nature, explains how complaining not only alters your brain for the worse but also has serious negative repercussions for your mental health. In fact, he goes so far as to say complaining can literally kill you. Here are three of the ways he claims that complaining harms your health:

1. "Synapses that fire together wire together."

This is one of the first lessons neuroscience students learn, according to Parton. "Throughout your brain there is a collection of synapses separated by empty space called the synaptic cleft. Whenever you have a thought, one synapse shoots a chemical across the cleft to another synapse, thus building a bridge over which an electric signal can cross, carrying along its charge the relevant information you're thinking about," Parton explains.

"Here's the kicker," he continues. "Every time this electrical charge is triggered, the synapses grow closer together in order to decrease the distance the electrical charge has to cross.... The brain is rewiring its own circuitry, physically changing itself, to make it easier and more likely that the proper synapses will share the chemical link and thus spark together--in essence, making it easier for the thought to trigger."  

  

So let's boil that down--having a thought makes it easier for you to have that thought again. That's not good news for the perpetually gloomy (though happily, it seems gratitude, can work the opposite way, building up your positivity muscles). It gets worse, too. Not only do repeated negative thoughts make it easier to think yet more negative thoughts, they also make it more likely that negative thoughts will occur to you just randomly walking down the street. (Another way to put this is that being consistently negative starts to push your personality towards the negative).

Parton explains how these closer synapses result in a generally more pessimistic outlook: "Through repetition of thought, you've brought the pair of synapses that represent your [negative] proclivities closer and closer together, and when the moment arises for you to form a thought...the thought that wins is the one that has less distance to travel, the one that will create a bridge between synapses fastest." Gloom soon outraces positivity.

2. You are whom you hang out with.

Not only does hanging out with your own negative thoughts rewire your brain for negativity, hanging out with negative people does much the same. Why?

"When we see someone experiencing an emotion (be it anger, sadness, happiness, etc), our brain 'tries out' that same emotion to imagine what the other person is going through. And it does this by attempting to fire the same synapses in your own brain so that you can attempt to relate to the emotion you're observing. This is basically empathy. It is how we get the mob mentality.... It is our shared bliss at music festivals," Parton writes. "But it is also your night at the bar with your friends who love love love to constantly bitch."

The takeaway lesson is, if you want to strengthen your capacity for positivity and weaken your reflex for gloom, "surround yourself with happy people who rewire your brain towards love." If you're looking to deflect others' negativity, here are a few tips.

3. Stress is terrible for your body, too.

All of which sounds like a good argument for staying away from negativity to protect your mental health, but Parton insists that quitting the complaining habit is essential for your physical health, too. "When your brain is firing off these synapses of anger, you're weakening your immune system; you're raising your blood pressure, increasing your risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, and a plethora of other negative ailments," he says.

The culprit is the stress hormone cortisol. When you're negative, you release it, and elevated levels of the stuff, "interfere with learning and memory, lower immune function and bone density, increase weight gain, blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease.... The list goes on and on," says Parton

Stop Complaining and Start Doing

Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of digital agency VaynerMedia, talks about the power of positivity, the formula of success, and more.

As UN Won't Answer on Protests in Sri Lanka, Testimony of UNprotected Staff

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, March 5 -- On February 19, Inner City Press was thrown out of the UN, on two hours notice, after having put critical questions to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

On March 3 Dujarric's Deputy Farhan Haq refused for a second day to comment on a protest of the ouster, held at the UN Compound in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka. English; English II; Tamil; UN Q&A Video. That is today's UN: UNaccountable.

Now the UN won't even allow the question to be asked - and speaks for USg Jeffrey Feltman, that he will have no comment on how this thuggish behavior by the UN in New York plays in Sri Lanka, which the UN purports to care about. March 2 video here and embedded below.

 Meanwhile Inner City Press has received more evidence of how UNprotected the UN left Sri Lankans, including its own UN staff in Sri Lanka. Inner City Press is exclusively publishing here a Witness Statement for the OISL, in which a staff member of UN OCHA describes being kidnapped in one of the notorious white vans and tortured by burning.

The witness also describes the horrendous conditions at the camps that Ban Ki-moon himself visited in May 2009. We'll have more on this.

  Triggered by UN Under Secretary General Cristina Gallach's no due process order, and use of UN Security to oust Inner City Press, Inner City Press has as when the UN Correspondents Association under Giampaolo Pioli did in 2012 begun to receive threats. Many, even most, of the same UNCA board members aware of the 2012 threats remain in place now.

The Northern Provincial Council letter to Ban Ki-moon on which Ban's Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq refused to answer Inner City Press on March 4 also noted that Inner City Press has "exposed the dealing between certain UN Press Corps officials and the Sri Lankan diplomats" - we'll have more on this too.

Ironically, one of the UN Security officials who in 2012 was providing assurances to Innr City Press - was among those who Banned Inner City Press from UN premises now in 2016. In which direction is the UN moving?          
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National Question Can Be Solved Only By Power Sharing

By Veluppillai Thangavelu –March 6, 2016

Veluppillai Thangavelu

On January 25 this year Opposition and Thamil National Alliance (TNA) Leader R. Sampanthan left for London and then to the Scottish capital Edinburgh accompanied by his trusted lieutenant Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran, MP. Sampanthan’s visit to Scotland coincided with the government taking steps to draft a new Constitution.

Scottish experience

Both Sampanthan and Sumanthiran participated at a constitutional workshop held to explore possible alternatives for political solution to the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka. It was held under the patronage of academics affiliated to Edinburgh University, with lessons to be learnt from Scottish experience in the United Kingdom and to study the devolution of power sharing by Scotland under Britain’s Westminster system.

Many mistakenly believe that Scotland is sharing power with United Kingdom (UK) under a federal system.  The constitution of UK is not federal but unitary. Scotland is a good example of  country that enjoys devolved powers within a ‘unitary’ constitution.  In fact, unlike many other countries, the UK has no single constitutional document, it has an unmodified or “unwritten” constitution. Much of the British constitution is embodied in written documents, in statutes, court judgments, works of authority and treaties. The core principles of the British constitution are (1) parliamentary supremacy, and (2) rule of law.

The UK comprises four countries: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, it is a unitary state, not a federation (like Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Russia or the United States), nor a confederation (like pre-1847 Switzerland, the former Serbia and Montenegro or Canada).

Although Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have legislatures and executives, England does not. The authority of all these bodies is dependent on Acts of Parliament and that they can in principle be abolished at the will of the Parliament of the UK. An example of a legislature that was created by Act of Parliament and later abolished is the Parliament of Northern Ireland, which was set up by the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and abolished, in response to political violence in Northern Ireland. However, Northern Ireland has since been given another legislative assembly under the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

Difference between Federal and Unitary

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The current exercise in Constitution-Making

by Dr A.C.Visvalingam
President CIMOGG-March 5, 2016, 5:44 pm 

To the best of our knowledge, a few key members of the Government and their advisors have spent one year on drafting a new Constitution for Sri Lanka. However, no firm details of its contents have been revealed. Instead, interested institutions and individual citizens were asked in January this year to send in, on or before 10 February, their preferred proposals for consideration and evaluation by a 20-person Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reforms (PRCCR). The question that immediately arises is whether PRCCR will accept only those suggestions that do not go counter to any of the mysterious provisions of the still-secret Government draft and ignore the others. If not, what are the objective criteria that the PRCCR will employ in accepting or rejecting a particular proposal?

We ourselves sent in by courier 24 copies of a 35-page proposal on 9 February and an emailed reminder on 17 February but have had no response to date (Feb. 26), which gives cause for concern as to how seriously the public’s views will be taken.

Let us now look at a topical issue, viz. the number of MPs that Parliament should have. By comparison with countries which have much larger populations, we already have too many. There are 225 MPs for a population of about 21 Million giving an average representation of one MP for every 90,000 citizens or so. At this rate, India would have to have a Parliament of over 13,000 MPs!

Regarded from another point of view, fewer than one-half of our MPs attend Parliament with anything approaching an acceptable measure of regularity. In a recent exercise designed to train our MPs on the functioning of Sectoral Oversight Committees, only 55 or so MPs had attended these very important sessions. Guided by this attendance rate, and even after introducing a considerable measure of generosity, we see that there would appear to be little or no benefit in having a Parliament of more than about 110 members.

In 2007/2008, the Organisation of Professional Associations (OPA), with the voluntary participation of in-service and retired public servants who were then holding or had earlier held high office, worked out carefully that the number of Ministries could conveniently and efficiently be limited to 25 in all. If, therefore, Parliament were to have 25 Permanent Parliamentary Committees of five MPs each, a Speaker, a Deputy Speaker and an Assistant Speaker, the total number of MPs required would only be 128.

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Trincomalee’s long road from ethnic conflict to ethnic harmony

By Anthony David-Sunday, March 06, 2016

Where the deer roam: A common sight in Trincomalee. Pic by Amadoru Amarajeewa

Seven years after the war, the Trincomalee district, one of the biggest multi-ethnic regions in Sri Lanka, is rapidly returning to its pre-war glory, with the displaced people coming back to reclaim their lands, tourism business picking up and law-and-order situation improving.

In this eastern district, where the strategic port city of Trincomalee, the administrative capital, appears as an ideal ground for national reconciliation, more people now turn up at police stations to lodge complaints in a sign of increasing public confidence in the police and the judicial system.

“Earlier, the police did not have access to certain areas while the people also did not have much confidence in the police. Now even for minor disputes with neighbours, they rush to the police,” Murugesu Sathiyavel, a resident from Selvanagar, said.

He said that during the war period, the police had to seek the army’s assistance to visit some of the areas that were under the control of the Army when they wanted to investigate a crime.

A senior Police officer who did not wanted to be quoted — as he is not authorised to speak to the media — confirmed that the number of complaints to the police was on the increase, with most of them from the remote villages from where complaints were not received earlier.

Though the conflict has ended and normalcy is returning, the lack of a serious effort to build relations between ethnic and religious groups is visible.

The Amarapura Sri Dharmarakshitha Nikaya Mahanayake, the Most Ven. Thirikunamale Aananda Thera, who hails from the Trincomalee district, said he believed that much needed to be done to build relations between communities.

Prima jetty in Trincomalee. Pix by Indika Handuwala

“Instead of external solutions, we have to work out internal solutions to achieve reconciliation in the district,” said the Mahanayake Thera, who is also the chief incumbent of the Shri Vajiraramaya in Bambalapitiya. (See separate story on this page).

One of the reasons for the delay in achieving reconciliation is that almost all politicians in the district concentrate mostly on problems related to their respective communities.

Trincomalee businessman Nishantha Abeywickrema said: “All communities lived in harmony in this district before the war, but now we see that communities live in isolation, confined to their respective villages. The interaction is not the same as it used to be.”

Though life is gradually returning to normality, there are many socio-economic problems such as unemployment.

Although seven years have elapsed since the end of the war, hardly have any new factories been set up or major projects come up in the district for youths to find jobs.

Most of the jobs in the tourism and hotel industry are snapped up by skilled people from outside the district. (See side story on this page.)

Additional reporting: Amadoru Amarajeewa, S. Rubatheesan and Damith Wickremasekara

Dealing with the elephant next door Economic and Technical Collaboration with foreign countries

Etcetera friends

by Kumar David-March 5,  

The Economic & Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India has still to be published and it seems the government, unfortunately but understandably, has been forced by lobbies and vested interests to back down on crucial aspects. Nevertheless I spent last week discussing international, not just Indian, collaboration and I will mention the participants at three of these gatherings. A three hour session was with five highly regarded engineers with decades of local and foreign experience in government and/or private sectors. Their expertise was in construction, hydrology, environmental engineering, water-supply and telecoms. The sixth less notable participant with an electrical supply systems background was yours faithfully. In addition to practical experience three of them had PhDs and the other three solid MSc degrees – not dime-a-dozen MBAs.

The second was a gathering of 90 engineers, 70 from overseas, who were here for a reunion. I spent a weekend with them in Kandy. A third discussion was with a Left parliamentarian, a democratic activist and a journalist who runs a website and edits a magazine in Sinhala. There is much merit in reflecting on all these conversations. Two conclusions summarise the gist of it.

1. There is no doubt Lanka must reach economic and technical arrangements with other countries, mainly but not only Asian. First the Indian dish on the table must be dealt with.

2. There is no doubt that the devil will be in the details. Hence skill is needed in formulating the protocols. Keep our fingers crossed that our ETCA negotiators are up to the task.

Why Lanka needs this deal

Leaving for later essential precautions and caveats, the bottom line is this: Correctly structured economic and technical collaboration agreements are desirable – Why? Face it; we need the bucks! Medium and long-term growth is predicated on, if not large, at least moderately large levels of investment. We cannot generate adequate resources in the domestic sector alone; hence overseas investment is a sine qua non. FDI from the West is lacklustre - local economic commentators show little understanding of why. They don’t see that it is not anything to do with Lanka that is keeping investors away – if anything the new government and its political dispensation are darlings of Western capitalism.

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Call A Spade A Spade: Anarchy & Lawlessness

By Nagananda Kodituwakku –March 6, 2016

Nagananda Kodituwakku

The Minister for Local Government and Provincial Councils, Faizer Mustapha, at a media conference has admitted that the removal of the Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake from office was unlawful, but he along with the other Cabinet of Ministers of the Rajapakse government were helpless, had no option but to agree with the Party Leader in approving the despicable act. The Minister pleads an apology from the people of Sri Lanka for the serious wrong committed by him to please the then Executive President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Sri Lanka, simply a pseudo democracy

This statement of admission of guilt should be taken seriously and dealt with appropriately by the people, if this country is to install at least an iota of democracy in governance. After all, this shall not be construed as a petty offence but a grave criminal offence committed collectively by the Rajapaksa regime. The democracy requires that the Judiciary shall be respected and not encroached by the other two organs, ensuring due observance of the notion of separation of power, which is integral to any functioning democracy.

Abuse of office for vengeance is a punishable offence

The Report filed by the Director General of Bribery and Corruption in the Chief Magistrate’s Court, Colombo on 26th July 2013, against the Chief Justice, sets out two offences alleged to have committed under Section 9(1) of the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Act No 01 of 1975, which provides for a jail term of one year or a fine of one thousand rupees or both fine and imprisonment.

Now, with these utterances made in public by a person, holding not less than a office of a Cabinet Minister, it is patently clear that an absolutely false charge had been framed to punish the Chief Justice for not complying with the commands of the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

This admission of guilt by the Minister Mustapha is amplified by the Attorney General’s submissions made to Court on 19th Feb 2016 for the withdrawal of the charges leveled against the Chief Justice Shirani Bandranayake and to exonerate her.

The Court then made an order, exonerating the Chief Justice from all the charges, whilst removing all restrictions imposed on her, including the seizure of her travel document.

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Finally Rathupaswala struggle triumphs ! Good governance president agrees to grant all their demands

(Lanka-e-News- 06.March.2016, 11.30PM) The residents of Rathupaswala who were subjected to the worst injustice, torment , torture and inhuman treatment by the murderous inhuman Rajapakses simply because those residents   legitimately asked for pure water for drinking  , are to be  granted all their demands through the intervention of  the incumbent president of the government of good governance, Maithripala Sirisena. We are happy to break this most sensational welcome news , as revealed by the   secretary to the president who has consented .

The 39 residents of Rathupaswala including the journalists who fell victims in the Rathupaswala attack are to be paid compensation . In addition under the map presented  by the villagers , a minimum quantity of pure drinking water to the value of Rs. 3000.00 per village is to be provided to 27 villages. The 2 bogus cases filed by the previous regime against groups of 24 , and 6 villagers are also to be withdrawn. The secretary to the president who agreed with  all  the above terms and conditions  has stated that by the 5 th of April those will be implemented.  

The Sri Lanka (SL) young journalists association and , the Rathupaswala Siyane environment protection joint organization  were agitating for some time to win these  demands .

The president’s secretary and the relevant officials had a special discussion yesterday (04)   at the presidential secretariat , when the president’s secretary on behalf of the president concurred  to grant all the requests.

It is well to recall , when the Rathupaswala residents made a justifiable and reasonable demand for pure drinking water because toxic wastes (acid) were being released to the water of the region by Hayleys Dip product gloves manufacturing factory at Rathupaswala thereby contaminating the entire environment, the Medamulana brutal corrupt Rajapakse family regime at that time during its oppressive and repressive reign , without paying heed to that most reasonable request , sent its war tanks to attack the people who were wilting under thirst  instead of sending water bowsers to quench their thirst. It is most significant to note it was most Ven. Theripehe Sirdhamma Thera who came forward on behalf of the oppressed and thirsty residents then  to stage a fast – not hooligan  Gnanassara who is desecrating the saffron robe and  disgracing his own faith only to  eagerly and shamelessly   tie  pirith thread around the wrists of murderers and heroin peddlers .For this disservice done by this monk to society, nation  and  religion , even posterity will remember him as a ‘unique’ monk from the junk.
 
On the 1 st of August 2013 , the ruthless  Rajapakses who were also rudderless at that time sent the army to shoot and kill the residents of Rathupaswala who were staging protests as a last resort to win their demand - a ‘drop’ of pure drinking water . It was on that day , Daya Ratnayake took up appointment as the army commander then. Unbelievably, the first task he undertook  was sending the murderer Brigadier Deshapriya Gunawardena to Rathupaswala and shoot down the unarmed Rathupaswala residents. The criminal result  or rather the brutal ‘achievement’ of the army commander immediately after his appointment through his killer brigadier was the killing of two innocent students, Akila and Ravishan, while the other victim was a father of a child who was doing a job. In addition because of the ruthless shooting and asault launched by the army , 39 innocents including journalists sustained injuries. All of them were hospitalized.

Today , what remains to be done is meting out exemplary punishment to these murderous rascals and scoundrels who committed those crimes , so that it will deter and daunt others of their ilk  in the future.

---------------------------
by     (2016-03-06 19:58:05)

Some Thoughts on Our Cultural Values and National Harmony – Lionel Bopage

Culture of Sri Lanka?

07/03/2016
I recognise, respect, appreciate and congratulate the valuable work done by many including those of Sri Lanka Invites. Several other organisations that promote rights, freedoms and development efforts needed for building social cohesion and harmony, have been supportive of this event. National Harmony Day in Melbourne is an occasion for celebration. At the same time, it needs to be a serious time to reflect, to remember. Why? Because this harmony day celebration itself is a response to the discord that is rooted among us, both in Sri Lanka and in the Diaspora. We need to ask ourselves the question, if we wish to continue with this discord that led to periods of our infamy.

Each of us has been brought up in a certain socio-economic and political environment. Each of us has a certain cultural identity, of which we are proud. Yet, this proudness should be not enjoyed at the expense of the other. We need to recognise, respect and appreciate the fact that others also have their own proud cultural identities. Each person needs space to claim his or her identity without being subject to discrimination. That is why fundamental rights and freedoms are necessary. Each of us needs to become aware that irrespective of ethnicity, language, gender and faith, we are all citizens of a larger community, Sri Lankan or Australian.

A civilised society cannot and should not celebrate barbarian values. We need to be able to respect the ethnicity, language and faith of others, even if we may disagree with their beliefs. At the same time, certain beliefs or practices may not be immune from scrutiny. If certain beliefs and practices breach our common values and laws, then such beliefs and practices need to be repudiated and criticised. However, this is totally different from vilification of or inflamed animosity towards an ethnicity, language and faith of another person or community group.

Yet, our own upbringing has inculcated in us, bias and prejudice against ‘the other’ in one form or another. Racism not only diminishes the freedom of the other, but also diminishes our own freedoms. It also diminishes the social cohesion and harmony in a diverse society like Australia or Sri Lanka. We need to work towards building harmony amongst ourselves both in Sri Lanka and in the diaspora. In any good musical composition, the musical instrumentalists and singers harmonise diverse pitch ranges of sound. This is broadly analogous to the multicultural harmony we enjoy here in Australia. Despite the colonial past of massacres in Australia, we have been able to live together in relative harmony. We, from many diverse cultures around the world, peacefully coexist with one of the oldest cultures of the world, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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The ‘rainbow revolution’s ‘Satakaya’ infiltration

Ranil Wickremesinghe-Minister Kiriella

Sunday, March 06, 2016

In a typical twist of Sri Lankan humor, there is a sardonic caricature doing the rounds of Ministers in the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition government sporting a ‘satakaya’, the habitual wear closely associated with the Rajapaksa brand of political leadership.

Changing shades of crimson

Initially signifying an earthy affiliation with the village, the ‘kurahan satakaya’ (a shawl in the colour of finger millet) underwent an unfortunate metamorphosis during the second term of the Rajapaksa Presidency. Its colour variation from brown to ominous shades of crimson came to signify a plethora of sins, ranging from corruption to killings.

Some may protest that draping ministerial types of the ‘rainbow revolution’ in this (symbolically) deadly raiment is unfair at the least and grossly exaggerated at the worst. But there is more than a morsel of truth in this satirical characterization when assessed against the outrageous conduct of ruling party politicians elected to power just a few months ago.

This particular caricature was occasioned by Higher Education Minister Lakshman Kiriella’s ‘recommending’ in a letter sent to the University of Kelaniya that a party supporter be considered for appointment as a Temporary Assistant Lecturer. Later it transpired that this was not the only instance; another such ‘recommendation’ had allegedly been sent to the Rajarata University regarding recruitment of a minor worker.

Degeneration of academic standards

No doubt, Minister Kiriella would have been immensely puzzled as to what the furor was all about. He was simply following in the (dis)honorable traditions of the past. Indeed some academics have publicly explained away the controversy on the casual basis that ‘well, it is always done.’ This is the same reasoning which justified excesses of the previous regime. I recall one academic responding to a call in these column spaces on the need to foster institutional democracy at the time by arguing that the people need a strong ‘monarchical’ ruler, not democratic institutions.

Certainly it is no secret that under the Rajapaksas, the Universities faced the brunt of extreme politicization extending to the highest levels of academia. Academic standards fell to brutally unimaginable depths with higher degrees being awarded on the basis of a single phone call by a politician. Senior academics scrambled over themselves in slavishly urging the gratuitous bestowing of academic honors not only on the former President and his brother but also on sundry others. Indeed, an exploration of the issuance of these degrees may be useful as a learning experience.

For those of us proud to have studied at Sri Lankan Universities, the proliferation of mediocrity in disciplines as diverse from history to law to languages was difficult to witness. This distasteful process of political favoritism was fully encouraged and supported by the University Grants Commission (UGC) at the time. Ironically, after having virtually destroyed the university system, some of these very individuals have become veritable shining lights of the present administration.

Understanding the reason for political change

So it would be naive to expect reforms overnight. However, considerable disquiet arises as a result of several other factors. The Higher Education Minister’s fury when a journalist routinely queried regarding the impugned ‘recommendation’ was plain to see. But Minister Kiriella’s anger is not singular. Rather, this is reflective of a collective angst which lies at the heart of this Government’s basic incapacity to understand what the people of Sri Lanka expected from the change in power last year. Assuredly this was not to continue pervasive practices of politicization in Universities or elsewhere. It was also not to justify such practices by lashing out at the media in response. Yet this is the overriding pattern that we see.

Last week, this newspaper’s publication of a gazette notification issued by the Central Bank requiring banks to observe due diligence safeguards in regard to monetary transactions over two hundred thousand rupees was ferociously castigated by the Minister of Finance. This was later admitted to be a ‘bona fide’ error on the part of the Bank itself. But in the meantime, journalists following up on the story were labeled as ‘catchers of the previous regime.’ This is the same choleric accusation leveled against the Federation of University Teachers’ Association (FUTA) by the Higher Education Minister over his ‘recommendation’ controversy.

Meanwhile Prime Ministerial tirades against the media and professionals disturbed at secretiveness over the proposed Economic and Technology Cooperative Agreement (ECTA) with India had been discussed previously in these column spaces. The terminology was uncannily Rajapaksa-like, with dissenters being sweepingly labeled as ‘traitors.’ Demonizing critics appear to be a trait that Sri Lankan politicians are simply unable to free themselves of.

Need for a reconciliation agenda

Let it be clearly said. The sooner that this Government displays some maturity in responding to critiques of its performance, the better it will be for its own health. It is no excuse to say that academics or journalists are not ‘white-vanned’ (‘disappeared’) as before. That is an unacceptable process of reasoning. It must be rejected outright.

At another level, the Higher Education Minister’s formal response to the controversy in issue was monumentally ill-advised. First, his defence was that he had merely asked for the ‘recommendation’ to be considered. Secondly and far more disingenuously, he asserted that this was covered under his statutory power to issue ‘directions’ to academic institutions. This position is contrary to law. One wonders if these Ministries have no Legal Department to go through such responses before being released to the media.

The scheme of the Universities Act is expressly designed to reduce politicization as repeatedly observed by the Supreme Court. More than a decade ago, the Court struck down amendments to the Universities Act radically revising the structure of appointments of Vice Chancellors to Universities, opining that academic freedom must be safeguarded. These are norms that were discarded thereafter even while our judicial institution was subverted. Presently, the need for legal competence in regard to the functioning of government is obvious. This week’s issuing and abrupt withdrawing of an (unlawful) notice by the Ministry of Media calling upon all websites to register is another example.

It seems that, quite apart from a reconciliation process for the North and the East, this Government needs to set a reconciliation agenda for itself in regard to Sri Lanka’s citizenry, including the media, the professional sectors and apparently the farmers protesting over the withdrawal of the fertilizer subsidy. Difficult times lie ahead.