Wednesday, December 7, 2016

After Trump episode, China tells US to block Taiwan president’s transit

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen. Pic: AP.

7th December 2016

CHINA called on U.S. officials on Tuesday not to let Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen pass through the United States en route to Guatemala next month, days after President-elect Donald Trump irked Beijing by speaking to Tsai in a break with decades of precedent.

The U.S. State Department appeared to reject the call, saying that such transits were based on “long-standing U.S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of (U.S.) relations with Taiwan.”

China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, whom it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing regards as a renegade province.

Her call with Trump on Friday was the first between a U.S. president-elect or president and a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979.

SEE ALSO: Donald Trump speaks to Taiwan’s leader in move that could anger China

Tsai is due to visit Guatemala, one of Taiwan’s small band of diplomatic allies, on Jan 11 to 12, its foreign minister, Carlos Raul Morales, told Reuters.

Taiwan’s Liberty Times, considered close to Tsai’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, reported on Monday that she was planning to go through New York early next month on her way to Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Taiwan has not formally confirmed Tsai’s trip but visits to its allies in the region are normally combined with transit stops in the United States and meetings with Taiwan-friendly officials.

The trip would take place before Trump is inaugurated on Jan 20 to replace Democrat Barack Obama and Tsai’s delegation would seek to meet Trump’s team, including his White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the Liberty Times said.

MEETING “UNLIKELY”

An adviser to Trump’s transition team said he considered it “very unlikely” there would be a meeting between Tsai and Trump if she were to go through New York.

China’s Foreign Ministry said the one-China principle, which states Taiwan is part of China, was commonly recognised by the international community and that Tsai’s real aim was “self-evident.”

China hopes the United States “does not allow her transit, and does not send any wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Monday he had no information whether Tsai would meet U.S. officials if she stopped in transit but said Taiwanese presidents did stop over periodically.

He said the transits were “based on long-standing U.S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of our relations with Taiwan.” A spokeswoman repeated the position on Tuesday when asked to comment on the Chinese call.

In a meeting with American reporters on Tuesday, Tsai played down the significance of her conversation with Trump, saying it was to congratulate the president-elect.

“I do not foresee major policy shifts in the near future because we all see the value of stability in the region,” she told the reporters.

SEE ALSO: US tries to reassure Beijing as Trump gets major thumping in China

U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence told the Fox News Channel on Tuesday that Trump did not regret taking the call.

“(The) president-elect was fully aware of the one-China policy,” Pence said. “He’s also very aware that the United States has sold billions of dollars in arms to Taiwan.

“We have a unique relationship with that country that’s been defined over the decades since we’ve reopened relations with the People’s Republic of China but I think he think he felt it would be rude not to take the call.”

Taiwan has been self governing since 1949 when Nationalist forces fled to the island after defeat by Mao Zedong’s communists in China’s civil war.

Taiwan’s Presidential Office said media reports about a January trip were “excessive speculation.”
El Salvador’s government said it was working with Taiwan on plans for a visit by Tsai in the second week of January but gave no specific dates.

The Nicaraguan government had no immediate comment. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is to be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Jan 10, however, so Tsai’s trip to Guatemala would dovetail with that ceremony.

The White House said on Monday it had sought to reassure China after Trump’s phone call with Tsai, which the Obama administration warned could undermine progress in relations with Beijing. – Reuters

Can Mexico Cope With Trump?

To weather the storms ahead, the Mexican government needs to get better at governing.

BY ROBERT LOONEY-DECEMBER 7, 2016

Donald Trump’s stunning electoral victory could very well transform the United States’ economic relations with the rest of the world. Perhaps the most dramatic changes will be felt by Mexico. During his election campaign, Trump proposed building a massive border wall, deporting millions of undocumented Mexican workers, renegotiating NAFTA, and imposing high tariffs of up to 35 percent on Mexican exports to the United States.

The wall may never be built because environmental groups will tie up the process in the courts. Large-scale deportations are also unlikely, given their cost and the likely vigorous litigation by advocacy groups. In time, any tariffs the new administration imposes on Mexican exports to the U.S. will probably be overturned by the World Trade Organization — assuming Trump doesn’t act on his threat to withdraw from this body as well.

In the short term, however, there is little to stop the Trump administration from renegotiating or abrogating NAFTA and imposing crippling trade restrictions on Mexico. Mexico’s ability to cope with the resulting shocks will largely depend whether it can implement urgently needed structural reforms. Unfortunately, the evidence to date suggests that progress has been minimal and is likely to remain so unless the country first addresses its problematic governance, particularly in the areas of corruption and rule of law.

At the start of his administration four years ago, President Enrique Peña Nieto announced an impressive set of reforms that aimed, among other things, to improve education and introduce competition into the telecommunications and oil sectors. The hope was that success in these areas would create the foundation for a virtuous circle, in which rising public trust and improved efficiency would boost economic growth and create momentum for additional reforms. To date, however, only the telecommunications reforms have been successfully implemented. The other efforts have stalled, and Peña Nieto’s disapproval rating has risen to 66 percent, the highest recorded for any Mexican president. This has much to do with allegations of widespread corruption in both his administration and his ruling PRI party.

Public trust in the Peña Nieto government has been undermined by a series of scandals. The first was its gross mishandling of the disappearance of 43 students at the hands of corrupt police in the state of Guerrero in September 2014. Next, there was a corruption scandal involving a conflict of interest when the first lady, Angélica Rivera, and Finance Minister Luis Videgarayreceived favors from a company bidding on government contracts. Most recently, the government has been rocked by links between organized crimeand the former governor of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, a PRI member. Two other outgoing PRI governors are facing fraud charges.

While the Peña Nieto administration recently announced new reforms aimed at curbing corruption, the World Bank’s Governance Indicators show that since he assumed office, Mexico’s ranking on the world corruption index has declined considerably. Although Mexico’s ranking on the global rule of law index has improved incrementally over this period, the country still lags Brazil by a wide margin. With worsening corruption and sub-standard rule of law,Mexico’s inadequate governance structures have undermined its reform efforts.

Education reforms are a case in point. In 2012, Mexico’s educational system ranked a dismal 53rd out of the 65 OECD members — though it spends more on education per capita than anyone else in the group. To address this deficiency, in 2013, Peña Nieto introduced reformsdesigned to curb corruption, establish teaching standards, and require teacher competency tests, which teachers would have three tries to pass before being removed from the classroom. As of July 2015, only about 80 percent of the country’s public school teachers had taken the exam for the first time, and 46.8 percent failed. Furthermore, a 2015 report by the Mexican Federal Auditor’s Office revealed teachers’ unions and local authorities had misappropriated nearly $700 million from the educational sector. The audits also revealed that 1,906 “ghost” schools were receiving federal funds to pay non-existent teachers.

The education reforms have prompted a series of strikes by teachers and students, who claim that teaching standards and competency exams infringe on labor rights. When the strikes turned violent, the government, which had steadfastly refused to compromise, entered into discussions with the national teachers’ union, and rollbacks of the reform efforts are widely anticipated. The education fiasco can be directly linked to public’s lack of trust in the government. This gave the teacher’s union an opportunity to mobilize against the reforms. Unfortunately, failure in this area will hinder Mexico’s transition to higher value-added exports, as these products require workers with higher levels of technical training. Until Mexico’s educational system is capable of producing these critical inputs on a large scale, the country’s ability to shift from the U.S. market to participate in rapidly growing Asia-Pacific markets will be very limited.

Nor are Peña Nieto’s energy reforms living up to early expectations. The reforms were supposed to effectively end the 75-year monopoly of the state oil company, Pemex, over the domestic oil and gas sector. For the first time since the 1930s, nearly all levels of the energy production sector would be open to both domestic and foreign private investment. The idea was to attract enough funds to facilitate a much-needed expansion in production and revenues, which cover a large percentage of Mexico’s government expenditures. While it was hoped that exposing Pemex to competition would force the company to become less corrupt, more efficient, and increasingly transparent, this doesn’t seem to have occurred. In fact, accusations against management wrongdoing are on the rise. Pemex has also made scant progress in dealing with its red tape and limited productivity.

The 2014 oil price collapse, which curbed hoped-for private investment, hasn’t helped. As a result, international firms showed little interest in the initial bidding rounds for exploration acreage. In subsequent rounds, the government has offered more attractive terms, and international firms have appeared to be more receptive. But many remain leery of committing to the Mexican energy sector because of the high reputational risk posed by collaboration with Pemex, whose poor ethical standards give it low standing within the industry. Given these concerns, despite the recent successful bidding round, the private sector’s ability to meaningfully increase Mexico’s oil production is at least five to ten years away. Delays in energy reform will prolong government revenue shortfalls, thus slowing down infrastructure investment that is needed to increase the country’s competitiveness in external markets.

In retrospect, the government made a mistake by viewing reforms as a quick fix that could be introduced without first addressing Mexico’s underlying governance problems. The country has no choice but to reduce corruption and improve rule of law if it wishes to escape the “middle income trap,” a stage of development in which countries that lack a solid institutional foundation face diminishing returns on investment and slowing economic growth.

Signs of the trap are apparent in the low growth rates that have plagued Peña Nieto’s time in office. In the October 2016, the IMF lowered its 2016 GDP growth forecast for Mexico to 2.4 percent from the 2.6 percent predicted the previous January. In August 2016, following an earlier downgrade by Moody’s, S&P Global Ratings revised Mexico’s outlook from stable to negative. S&P warned the country had a one-in-three chance of a rating cut within the next two years due to substandard growth and rising sovereign borrowings, which it attributed to weak governance, corruption, and a rebound in organized crime and violence.

Mexico’s best — and perhaps only — hope for coping with the threat of intensified U.S. protectionism under a Trump administration is to speed up governance reform. As matters now stand, inefficiencies associated with corruption and patronage add to the cost of many Mexican exports. By addressing these problems, Mexico would gain the flexibility it needs to complete in non-U.S. markets while creating the institutional foundation to allow the country to move to the next stage of development irrespective of possible U.S. actions.

Photo credit: PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images

Trump to name Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general suing EPA on climate change, to head the EPA

President-elect Donald Trump is nominating Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Here's what you need to know about him. (Video: Sarah Parnass, Osman Malik, Danielle Kunitz, Deirdra O'Regan, Adriana Usero/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

By Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis and Steven Mufson December 7 at 2:51 PM

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of the oil and gas-intensive state of Oklahoma, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a move signaling an assault on President Obama’s climate change and environmental legacy.

Pruitt has spent much of his energy as attorney general fighting the very agency he is being nominated to lead.

He is the third of Trump’s appointees who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run. Ben Carson, named to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has expressed a deep aversion to the social safety net programs and fair housing initiatives that have been central to that agency’s activities. Betsy DeVos, named education secretary, has a passion for private school vouchers that critics say undercut the public school systems at the core of the government’s mission.

The news about the choice of Pruitt was confirmed by a transition official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before the official announcement.

Pruitt, who has written that the debate on climate change is “far from settled,” joined a coalition of state attorneys general in suing the agency’s Clean Power Plan, the principal Obama-era policy aimed at reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector. He has also sued, with fellow state attorneys general, over the EPA’s recently announced regulations seeking to curtail the emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from the oil and gas sector.

On his Linked In page, Pruitt boasts of being “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.”

[Trump has vowed to kill the Clean Power Plan. Here’s how he might — and might not — succeed]

After he was elected attorney general in 2010, Pruitt established a “Federalism Unit” to “more effectively combat unwarranted regulation and systematic overreach by federal agencies, boards and offices,” according to his online biography.

And he has gone on to challenge the administration not just over the environment but over a host of other areas. He joined other Republican attorneys general in a lawsuit over Obama’s immigration policies. He has also sued the administration over the Affordable Care Act, saying the health-care mandate on religious employers to provide coverage including contraception was unconstitutional. He has sued over the Dodd-Frank financial reform.

An ally of the energy industry, Pruitt, along with Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, came to the defense of ExxonMobil when it fell under investigation by attorneys general from more liberal states seeking information about whether the oil giant failed to disclose material information about climate change.

“We do not doubt the sincerity of the beliefs of our fellow attorneys general about climate change and the role human activity plays in it,” they wrote at the conservative publication National Review. “But we call upon them to press those beliefs through debate, not through governmental intimidation of those who disagree with them.”

In an interview with The Post in September, as a D.C. federal appeals court was preparing to hear arguments over the Clean Power Plan, Pruitt detailed why he has remained a leading opponent of the EPA’s efforts to curb carbon emissions by regulating power plants.

[Over 2,000 scientists urge Trump to respect ‘scientific integrity and independence’]

“What concerns the states is the process, the procedures, the authority that the EPA is exerting that we think is entirely inconsistent with its constitutional and statutory authority,” he said at the time.

Agencies such as the EPA, he said, should not be trying to “pinch hit” for Congress.

“This is a unique approach by EPA, whether they want to acknowledge it or not,” he said of the provisions of the Clean Air Act that the agency had relied upon to write new regulations. “The overreach is the statutes do not permit [EPA officials] to act in the way they are. They tend to have this approach that the end justifies the means . . . They tend to justify it by saying this big issue, this is an important issue.”

But he added that’s where Congress should have authority, not EPA. “This is something from a constitutional and statutory perspective that causes great concern.”

Environmental groups reacted with alarm Wednesday at the nomination. And New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman vowed to “use the full power” of his office to wage a legal battle to “compel” enforcement of environmental laws under Trump.

“Scott Pruitt has a record of attacking the environmental protections that EPA is charged with enforcing.

He has built his political career by trying to undermine EPA’s mission of environmental protection,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “Our country needs — and deserves — an EPA administrator who is guided by science, who respects America’s environmental laws, and who values protecting the health and safety of all Americans ahead of the lobbying agenda of special interests.”

[Scientists and environmentalists are bracing for a clash with Trump]

Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that “over the past five years, Pruitt has used his position as Oklahoma’s top prosecutor to sue the EPA in a series of attempts to deny Americans the benefits of reducing mercury, arsenic, and other toxins from the air we breathe; cutting smog that can cause asthma attacks; and protecting our wetlands and streams.”

Pruitt has also fought to limit the scope of the federal government in regulating pollution of rivers under the Waters of the United States rule.

Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has been active on environmental issues, said, “Scott Pruitt would have EPA stand for Every Polluter’s Ally.”

In 2014, the New York Times reported that a letter ostensibly written by Pruitt alleging that the agency overestimated air pollution from natural gas drilling was actually written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of the state’s largest oil and gas companies.

Industry representatives expressed satisfaction with the choice Wednesday. “The office he headed was present and accounted for in the battle to keep EPA faithful to its statutory authority and respectful of the role of the states in our system of cooperative federalism,” said Scott Segal, head of the policy group at the lobbying and legal firm Bracewell. “Given that we are almost two decades overdue for an overhaul of the Clean Air Act, there is interest on both sides of the aisle to look at that statute.”

David Rivkin, a constitutional litigator who represented Pruitt and Oklahoma in challenging the Clean Power Plan, said he believed Pruitt would be able to make sure the EPA lives up to its mission of protecting air and water while avoiding federal overreach.

[Obama administration will keep tough fuel standards in place]

“General Pruitt has been the leader among the AGs in defending federalism, the key feature of our constitutional architecture,” said Rivkin, a partner at Baker Hostetler, adding that he believed Pruitt would “ensure both environmental protection and constitutional fidelity.”

Pruitt’s outlook reflects his home state: Oklahoma ranked fifth in the nation in onshore crude oil output in 2014, has five oil refineries, and is home to the giant Cushing oil storage and trading hub, where the price for the benchmark West Texas Intermediate grade is set every day. Although oil and natural gas production sagged in the 1990s and early 2000s, the surge in horizontal fracturing, or fracking, has boosted output.

The state’s natural gas output accounts for 10 percent of the nation’s overall total. For the week ended Oct. 28, there were 73 drilling rigs in operation in Oklahoma.

Pruitt has served as head of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a group that has relied heavily on funds from ultraconservative groups and the oil industry. The biggest contributors this year included the Judicial Crisis Network, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute of Legal Reform, Sheldon Adelson, oil conglomerate Koch Industries and Murray Energy, a leading coal mining company.

Pruitt, a Kentucky native who moved to Oklahoma to attend the University of Tulsa law school, has also been active in religious groups. He serves as deacon of the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow. In 2012, Pruitt was named a trustee of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Before serving as attorney general, he was a member of the state legislature.

Dallas investor Doug Deason, a friend of Pruitt, said he expects the Oklahoma attorney general to immediately get to work rolling back the EPA’s “silly overreach” and to let states handle environmental oversight.

[Scientists have long feared this ‘feedback’ to the climate system. Now they say it’s happening]

“Just like most Republican attorney generals, especially in energy-producing states, he has been really frustrated with the government and the EPA’s overreach into everything,” Deason said.

But Deason said liberals will be happily surprised by Pruitt’s “open-minded” attitude, adding that he is “willing to look at things.”

“He will bring a more balanced, logical look” at environmental regulation,” he said.

Pruitt’s selection was strongly supported by Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm.

The nomination suggests an extraordinarily tough road ahead for the Clean Power Plan, president Obama’s signature climate policy. However, the precise fate of the regulation most immediately turns on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has not yet ruled in the lawsuit brought by Pruitt and his fellow attorneys general against the agency Pruitt is now named to lead.

“Some have suggested that Pruitt’s hands might be tied because he participated in litigation against the agency,” Segal said in an email. “This is a silly position. There is no conflict in representing your state on litigation dealing with rules of general applicability and then serving your nation as a federal official.”

Dismantling the regulation if it survives the courts would not be simple, because the agency has already finalized it — meaning that to undo and replace it would require a public notice and comment process. Environmental groups would likely sue the agency over such a move.

However, some of the Clean Power Plan’s objectives appear to have been already realized long before it came into effect. The United States is already burning less coal and more natural gas, meaning fewer carbon dioxide emissions.

In 2030, the EPA projected in its final Clean Power Plan rule, coal would be reduced to providing 27 percent of U.S. electricity, with natural gas at 33 percent. Yet this very year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas will provide 34 percent of U.S. electricity, and coal 30 percent.

Matea Gold contributed to this report.

'They killed my father and husband there, then tied my mother to a tree and eventually shot her': Girl, 16, reveals how her family were slaughtered by insurgents in Nigeria who forced her to marry one of them

- Halima, 16, saw Islamist extremists slaughter her parents and husband
- She was then captured and forced into marriage and became pregnant
- The teenager was eventually freed and is now in a large refugee camp
- Now charities are warning of an unfolding humanitarian disaster in Nigeria
- They saw there are thousands of starving children forced to live in the camps
By DAVID WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE-4 December 2016

Halima, 16, who already has a young son called Ali, was seized from her family’s farm after the extremists killed her father and husband before shooting dead her mother.

After fleeing her captors, she now lives in a large refugee camp with her young son and her newborn baby in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno.

Halima, 16, who was snatched by insurgents and forced to marry one of them after they slaughtered her family -The teenager is currently living in a refugee camp with her two children. She is provided with help by support workers from Save the Children

A malnourished baby cries out after being brought to the nutrition site at the camp in Nigeria -The little boy is given some therapeutic milk at the camp to try and treat his severe hunger

It comes as award winning actor David Oyelowo and U2 frontman Bono warn of an unfolding humanitarian disaster in the heart of Africa with tens of thousands of children facing starvation as they flee the Islamist militants behind the kidnap of Nigerian schoolgirls.

In an unusual move, the stars have joined international agencies in highlighting the plight of children and their families trapped in North East Nigeria as donors meet in Switzerland to try and agree emergency funding for what agencies say is a ‘forgotten crisis’.

And speaking of her plight, Halima said: ‘They killed my father and husband, then tied my mother to a tree and eventually shot her.

‘When they had killed everyone else they told me to come with them. I resisted so they threatened me with a gun. They tied my hands and tied me to a tree.

‘They told me I would get married to one of them. I told them I never would after they had killed my family. They told me I had no choice. I was married two days later. I didn’t even know who he was. I didn’t even see him during the ceremony.

'From when I was married all of the other men turned their backs on me as it is forbidden for them to look at another man’s wife.

‘The houses were like tents made with thatch. Ali and I were left alone in the house for one week. They gave me food but I didn’t speak to anyone apart from Ali the whole time.

'All I could think was that my family was dead and I had no-one. The women were all kept in their tents and no-one was allowed to see each other.’

She continued: ‘Eventually I became pregnant. When I was eight months pregnant came the news that my husband had been killed in the fighting, and they brought his clothes to me. Soon after, I heard the sounds of war and I knew it was the military. Others ran to the bush, but I ran towards them.

900 women have been killed by men in England and Wales over the past 6 years

The Femicide Census has been published (posed by models) CREDIT: ALAMY

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Ten Years: Remembering the Past, Planning for the Future

Photograph courtesy Joanna Eckersley

TISARANEE GUNASEKARA on 12/06/201

2006: The
Seeding Year

Sri Lanka entered 2006 on the cusp between a failed peace process and a looming war. The year began with a murder. The killing of five Tamil students in Trincomalee and the subsequent attempt by the government to deny the existence of the crime by depicting the victims as ‘Tiger terrorists’ were dress rehearsals for war as ‘Humanitarian Operation,’ in which no civilian Tamil would die because every dead Tamil was, ipso facto, a Tiger,

Two and a half months previously, in November 2005, Mahinda Rajapaksa had won the presidential election by the thinnest of margins. Rajapaksa, contesting at the head of a motley coalition which included the JVP and the JHU, had paraded in the politico-ideological garb of a child of ’56. His platform included pledges to retain the unitary status of Sri Lanka and to demerge the North-East. This sundering of the post-Accord/post-Insurgency Southern consensus towards greater devolution was not a response to a popular demand. It was a sop to the Sinhala-supremacist fringe which Rajapaksa was aiming to co-opt as subordinate partner and shock troops of his power project.

The other main presidential-contender, Ranil Wickremesinghe, strove to recast himself as the champion of Buddhism. His platform was vague on devolution and focused on restoring the lost-Buddhist glory, such as a promise to build the tallest dagaba in the world.

The South was evenly divided. The casting vote belonged to the North-East. The LTTE, with its election boycott, decided the outcome in Rajapaksa’s favour. Rajapaksa’s unexpected victory propelled Sinhala-Buddhist supremacism on to the political centre-stage, a preeminent position it would occupy for close to a decade.

2006 set the tone for the next nine years. The events of that year cast a long shadow which menaces us still in 2016.

The Fourth Eelam War began in 2006. Vellupillai Pirapaharan started it in Mavilaru and Mahinda Rajapaksa ended it in Nandikadal. The intervening time and space became a living hell for civilian Tamils. The murder of five students on January 2^nd had been an important first step on the part of the Lankan state towards a strategy of total war. Other seminal events of 2006, from Muttur and Vallipunam to Colombo’s complicity in child conscription[i] and political assassinations, demonstrated the new government’s willingness to fight the Tigers the Tiger way. As Rajan Hoole pointed out, “From 2006 the government began to do what would have been unthinkable after 1987. Intense shelling and deliberate displacement of Tamil populations became integral to its military strategy… This scorched-earth policy towards Tamil civilians was later to be repeated in the Vanni.”[ii]

The pro-devolution wave which began with the Accord came to an end in 2006. That wave had reached its zenith in December 2002 with the Oslo Declaration. For the first and only time, the two major Southern parties supported a federal settlement within an undivided Sri Lanka. Even the JVP gave the deal cautious backing. Pirapaharan strangulated that historic opportunity when he denied ever having agreed to the Oslo Accord. With Rajapaksa’s victory on an explicitly revanchist platform, the devolutionary ebb-tide began. Before 2006 was over, federalism would be a dirty word again and the North-East de-merged sans a referendum.

2006 also saw the resurgence of the spirit of Black July, with the Trinco mini-riot. In April, a bomb exploded in the town’s main vegetable market. In a very short time, well-organised Sinhala mobs were attacking Tamils in a horrendous replay of 1983. The security forces provided security to the mobs; the Rajapaksa administration looked the other way. It took a telephone call from Delhi to make the government order the security forces to quell the riot. The belief that the majority community had the right to administer violent-lessons to the minorities, whenever it deemed fit, had regained currency and would pave the way for the anti-Muslim riot of 2014.

Sri Lanka’s march from a flawed democracy to a familial autocracy commenced in 2006. Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa emerged as his presidential brother’s main trouble- shooter, both nationally and internationally, cementing the edifice of Rajapaksa rule. On January 11^th of that year, President Rajapaksa made a profanity-laden threatening call to Lasantha Wickremetunga. “I will rest only once I’ve destroyed you,” was reportedly how Rajapaksa ended that call[iii]. Wickremetunga would be murdered three years later in a high security zone. The white-vans, which were to become a key feature of Rajapaksa rule, made their appearance that year. In November, the first journalist to write about this frightening new development, Parameswari Munasami, was incarcerated under the PTA. The controversial MIG deal, Sri Lanka’s largest military deal up to that point, took place in July, creating a trend of humongous-scale corruption with members of the ruling-clan as key players and major beneficiaries.

2006 was also a year of redefinitions. It shaped the nature of the war and marked the contours of post-war order. By the time the year ended, the war was reduced to a terrorist problem, the existence of an ethnic issue was being questioned at the highest levels, Sinhala-supremacism had become coterminous with patriotism and Sri Lanka was being perceived as a hierarchically pluralist state – a country where the ethno-religious majority had a right, mandated not just by numbers but also by history, to dominate the minorities.

This was the year in which Groundviews came into being.

2007-2015: Reaping the Harvest

The direction was set in 2006. In the next eight years, Sri Lanka raced back to the past, both real and imaginary.

The war raged as a murderous conflict between two self-anointed sole-representatives. The old myth about Tamils not having any problems as Tamils became the dominant view within the regime. The various commissions appointed to propose a political solution were eyewash, a way of keeping the West and India quiescent until the LTTE was defeated.

The war ended in May 2009, with the resounding defeat of the LTTE. The stripped corpses of Tiger leaders and the faces of the wretched men, women and children, coming out of the war zone, on their way to internment camps constituted a morality tale about the dangers of ignoring limits. Vellupillai Pirapaharan didn’t know when to stop, and that inability dragged him and the people he claimed to represent into an unleavened defeat.

With the war won and the LTTE out of the way, the Rajapaksas felt free to turn their attention to the task of politically transforming Sri Lanka into a familial state. Presidential astrologer Sumanadasa Abeygunawardane was outlining the Rajapaksa plan for Sri Lanka when he predicted, “President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Rajapaksas will rule this country for a long time…The Rajapaksas will become beloved leaders of this country… The next chapter in Sri Lanka is reserved for the Rajapaksas…”[iv]

In the next five and a half years, political, constitutional and legal limits to absolute rule were dismantled one by one. The incarceration of defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, the 18^th Amendment and the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayaka were colossal landmarks in a journey of retrogression which gathered energy, ambition and pace from each backward-advance.

But the Rajapaksa economic strategy was failing to deliver the peace dividend the Sinhala-South waited for. Its three axes of indirect taxation, inordinate borrowing and spending on spectacular physical infrastructure projects dazzled the South in the first three years. But by 2013, personal economic pain was beginning to bit and the hope of a better economic future was fading, as the Frontline Surveys of the CPA demonstrated. Predictably, the Rajapaksas turned to various minority bogies to fill the growing gap between Southern expectations and Southern reality.

Logically, survival-uncertainties should be the province of racial, ethnic, religious or tribal minorities. But from East to West, from the Third World to the First World, majority communities allow imagined threats to drag them into virulent and violent insecurity. For many decades, Sinhala-Buddhists, though a growing numerical majority, felt assailed by existential anxieties. The Rajapaksas mined these deeply-entrenched phobias about minorities gaining in wealth, numbers and power to create an ethno-religious populist cover for their anti-popular economics.

In 2013, the BBS shot into national prominence, with a well-organised and well-funded campaign against Muslims. There was a direct line of cause-and-effect between the anti-Halal campaign 2013 and the Aluthgama riot of 2014. Like in Trinco in 2006, the police nodded and the government winked as monk-led mobs attacked Muslim houses and shops. The Rajapaksa willingness to risk another civil conflict to buttress the raison d’ȇtre for their dynastic project became undeniable.

Had the Rajapaksas won in January 2015, Sri Lanka would be in the throes of another round of blood-letting by now. The country could have survived the waves of repression against political opponents a victorious Rajapaksa regime would have unleashed. But the damages inflicted by ethno-religious confrontations (Buddhists against Muslims being the most likely one) would have been an entirely different matter.

2015 Onwards: Hoping for a Future Less-imperfect

In the run up to the American presidential election, comedian Bill Maher raged against the cardinal error of false equivalency. The one-time supporter of Bernie Sanders had turned into a fierce proponent of a Hillary-presidency because it was the only way to prevent a Trump triumph. Maher – like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky – did not deny Clinton’s flaws. His argument was that there could be no comparison between Hillary and The Donald. One was a bad candidate, the other a disaster, nationally and globally.

Maher’s diatribe against false equivalency is valid for Sri Lanka of today, as those of us who supported the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government try to deal with a growing litany of broken promises.

The disappointment is most acute on the economic front where the new government is continuing with many Rajapaksa policies and projects. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration too seems to equate development with building costly expressways. Politico-environmental disasters like the Colombo Port City continue. Namini Wijedasa’s must-read expose in The Sunday Times reveals how some of the corruption big-guns of the Rajapaksa years continue to commit financial crimes under the new dispensation. The shenanigans of Daham Sirisena, the duty-free vehicle bonanza and the creation of the ‘world’s tallest Christmas Tree’ demonstrate that some abuses and inanities are not exclusive to the Rajapaksas but common to the entire political class.

But on the political front and the judicial front, there is a discernible improvement. A new democratic constitution may happen or not, but at least the 19^th Amendment is in place. A political solution to the ethnic problem may take years, but at least the government accepts the existence of an ethnic problem and reiterates its commitment to come up with a solution which addresses the grievances of the Tamils. Impunity and abuses continue but not at pandemic levels. Judicial independence and media freedom have improved qualitatively. Some ministers flirt with extremists, but the police on December 3^rd prevented a Rath Yathra led by the notorious Galagoda-atte Gnanasara from reaching Batticaloa. Politicians still dream of muzzling the media as the attempt to arrest the editor of Lanka e News proves. But there is a safe-space for criticism and dissension, something which was non-existent during the Rajapaksa years. It is not perfect, and it needs constant defending, but its existence is a fact.

The Rajapaksas are defeated but not gone. And their determination to regain power is playing a decisive role in shaping the political trajectory of Sri Lanka. Their inability to see a path to power which does not involve inciting minority-phobia/hatred is a serious obstacle to the task of building a Sri Lankan future. And the emerging zeitgeist is in their favour.

Is hope possible? I think yes and offer as evidence the trajectory of Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhita Thero, from Sinhala-Buddhist supremacism to an acceptance of a Sri Lanka as a pluralist country, the equal home of all her people. An event he witnessed during the post-tsunami days might have played a critical role in this amazing transformation. The story of a displaced mother, her own baby lost to the tsunami, nursing an orphaned baby who survived the tsunami was carried on TV. The mother was Muslim. No one knew the ethnicity or the religion of the baby. But to the mother who had lost her own baby, the only thing that mattered was the baby’s need for a mother. Barriers of ethnicity and religion which had caused (and will cause) the violent death of innumerable such mothers and babies collapsed in the face of a common human need. Ven. Sobhitha Thero retold this story at the seventh day dhamma preaching organised by the Sri Lanka Rupavnihi Corporation, calling the Muslim mother ‘a goddess’ in human form.

Bertrand Russell in his essay ‘The Ancestry of Fascism’ highlights the correlation between changes of ‘intellectual temper’ and changes in the ‘tone of politics’. This, in my opinion, is the task of all of us who are politically engaged without being politicians, to discredit and defeat the ‘intellectual temper’ of the Rajapaksa years and replace it with a democratic and progressive commonsense. This doesn’t mean giving a carte blanche to the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration. On the contrary. It merely means understanding the still-existing difference between the Rajapaksas and the current dispensation.

Groundviews has its work cut out, not just for the next decade but beyond, protecting and expanding the safe space without which no meaningful political engagement is possible. That space needs to be defended not just from power-hungry politicians of every hue, but also from societal extremists, especially of the religious variety, be it the fanatical Buddhist monks or the fundamentalist Muslims who deny the right of other Muslims to struggle for social change (the threatening of women activists demanding the reform of the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act being a case in point). A Sri Lankan future cannot be build without a moderate centre where equality and tolerance are the reigning values. And a moderate centre cannot be created and defended without moderates.

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[i] In his 2006 report on Child Soldiers in Sri Lanka and Nepal, Ban ki Moon said, “A particularly disconcerting development during the reporting period was the increase in abductions and recruitment of children in the east by the Karuna faction… Reports have also been received in Batticaloa District that on 14 and 26 June, Sri Lankan Army personnel carrying weapons, accompanied Karuna faction members who forcibly abducted and recruited nine children aged 14 (two children), 15 (one child) and 17 years (six children).”

[ii]Himal – February 2009

[iii] http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20071125/spotlight-1.htm

[iv] Silumina – 7.6.2009

We respect Buddhism & monks

BY MIRUDHULA THAMBIAH-2016-12-06

Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian Sathasivam Viyalendran said that the hate speech occurring in the Eastern Province against the minority communities is a pre-planned agenda by the representatives of the former regime.
"We respect Buddhism and we respect Buddhist monks but a small number of them are trying to tarnish the reputation of the whole. We know that the majority are quite clear and aware of the planned agenda. Also the minority communities must be quite aware of such agendas, which will ruin the good cause in this country," he said.
Following are excerpts of the interview:

?: Given the current context where various attempts have been made to bring about reconciliation in Sri Lanka, but a series of hate speech incidents have taken place in the Eastern Province in the recent past. As a parliamentarian representing the Batticaloa District, how do you view the situation?

A: We all should take into consideration that the former government got the assistance of Bodu Bala Sena and Ravana Balaya to spread hate speech against the minority communities of this country. The minority communities along with some parts of the majority community (who oppose racism) rejected the former government and elected the current government – the government of good governance.

In the current context we feel this is a planned agenda by the previous government to derail and destabilize all attempts at reconciliation in order for them to regain power.

Ampitiye Sumanarathana Thera belonging to Sri Mangalarama Vihara in Batticaloa had his misbehaviour within the temple. However, right after former President Mahinda Rajapaksa recently visited Batticaloa, the Buddhist monk has begun to campaign that Buddha statues should be erected near every place that has a Bo-tree and he also insisted that people from the Sinhala community must be settled in those areas.

However, there had been a situation in past where the security forces in the East had small Buddha statues in every area they stationed yet the current situation is totally different.
It is clear that organizations like Bodu Bala Sena and Ravana Balaya are making use of this Buddhist monk according to their agenda.

Therefore, I would like to emphasize that such agendas have been created to ruin the attempts taken to set up a new Constitution and bring about a suitable political solution.

However, in the current context the majority of the Sinhala community is in favour of a suitable political solution, they wanted peace. They have rejected racist ideas when they elected the government of good governance on 8 January 2015.
As I said earlier this is a planned agenda by the members of the previous regime to recapture power and thus they are creating turmoil. I feel people are quite aware of this situation and they have a clear mindset of the actual situation.
We respect Buddhism and we respect Buddhist monks but a small number of them are trying to tarnish the reputation of the whole. We know that the majority are quite clear and aware of the planned agenda. Also the minority communities must be quite aware of such agendas, which will ruin the good cause in this country.

?: Representatives from the East have continuously brought up in Parliament regarding illegal colonizations from nearest parts of the eastern borders. What is your view on this?

A: Planned settlements are taking place not only in the North but in the East too. These settlements are being carried out in two ways, one is through trespassing claiming of ancestral lands and the second is settlements taking place under the name of development.

Settlements and civilizations under the name of development are always carried out with the support of political influence. These settlements are carried out to create instability in the demography and this will severely affect the representation of communities in the said area.

It is quite sad to say that Sinhala politicians have influenced these settlers to trespass into these lands. The people are not to be blamed but the politicians who have influenced them. I feel from the days of independence, politicians, racists and religious extremists have ruined the peace in this country.

?: You represent the Eastern Province, currently Muslim representatives from the East claim that the North-East merger is impractical. If so how far do you view the possibility of a North-East re-merger?

A: It is quite clear that North-East merger is impossible without the support of the Muslim community. Before discussing on the North-East merger with the government it is essential to begin a dialogue with the Muslim representatives.
Most Muslims are worried that they will have to survive under the Tamils if there is a possibility of a North-East merger. But I would assure that there will not be such situations. A proper and healthy dialogue between Tamil and Muslim representatives will fairly solve the confusions. Essential power sharing and rights will be ensured to the Muslim community in a merged North-East. However, political representatives should refrain from confusing people.

?: Tamil People's Council (TPC) has decided to organize a procession in the East, similar to the one that was held in the North. Being a part of the Council, tell us how far it is practical to win over the demands?

A: Resettlement, land issues, livelihood facilities provided to those who have undergone rehabilitation, war affected disabled persons, war widows and unemployment are issues yet to be addressed. At this juncture when preparing for a constitutional change, the TPC is trying its best to address the above said issues that is yet be fulfilled in the post war period.
When the TNA is taking forward its political move in finding a suitable solution, the assistance of the TPC will help to reach a quick solution. It is important for the President to consider the issues faced by Tamils and Muslims; they have played a pivotal role in electing the government of good governance. Nobody can deny it and they should be in a position to accept it.

?: How do you view the grievances of the families of political prisoners and missing persons from the East?

A: We have to accept that among the 217 political prisoners; around 100 prisoners have been released on the basis of rehabilitation or on bail.

However, in the issue of missing persons there is set back in the action taken to solve their grievances, yet we have continued to pressurize the government.

?: Why do you think recently people have begun to protest against the TNA? Does that mean TNA had lost its popularity?

A: After the end of war in 2009, the TNA became the representative of the Tamil people. There are uncountable problems faced by the Tamil community in the North and East.

We should always remember that politics is not only to obtain rights but for the development of a particular community as well. Therefore, it is essential to look into the development aspects of the Tamil people, from education to health related issues must be addressed properly.

Also livelihood is an essential part that should be given special priority. We have to also take into consideration that those who participated in the struggle and families those have been affected by the war are living a difficult lifestyle, their issues must be addressed.

Currently, we are on a stand to find a suitable solution to the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka. In such a situation we must not neglect the development of the Tamil people, talking about rights alone shall not solve the ethnic issue of this country.
If we do not manage to address the issues of the Tamil people apart from their rights, there will be a situation where they will begin to reject us. Therefore, it is essential to understand their current needs.

Let it be TNA or any other party, the people will definitely reject them and it is possible in the East. Everyone should essentially understand that the Tamil community in the East is currently facing uncountable issues.

?: As you know most Tamil representatives of the North and East are on the stand that the new Constitution of Sri Lanka should have similar features to the Indian Constitution especially on the parts of federalism and secular state. How far is it practical?

A: Of course, there are certain features as you mentioned secular state must be included to our Constitution that will be a positive stance in finding a suitable political solution. However, we must consider that it is impossible to entirely adopt the Indian Constitution to our new Constitution except the suitable features. It is more suitable to make our own Constitution that will suit our needs.

Email: che.myhero@gmail.com