Sunday, December 18, 2016

Britain’s “50bn exit bill” from the EU

“Britain will be presented with a £50bn exit bill by the European Union as soon as Theresa May triggers Article 50, the chief negotiator for Brussels is warning.”

Daily Telegraph, 16 December 2016

Another week, another warning that UK taxpayers could be left paying into the EU for years after Brexit.

With a rate of inflation that would shame a Mafia loan shark, the latest sum to appear in the headlines is £50bn, attributed to the European Commission’s lead negotiator, Michel Barnier.

A couple of months ago, newspapers were talking about an “exit bill” of less than £20bn.

Some pro-Brexit politicians have dismissed all this as scaremongering. The Telegraph quotes Iain Duncan Smith as saying: “There are real questions about what we owe, it’s probably peanuts. (Mr Barnier) is deploying the tactics of project fear.”

Will Britain really have to carry on paying after leaving the EU? Why? How much will the final bill be?

The analysis

Several EU budget experts have long pointed out that Britain could well end up having to pay into Brussels coffers well after 2019, when we look likely to make our exit.

Why? Because David Cameron made a commitment to fund the whole current EU spending cycle, which runs from 2014 to 2020.

We signed up at the start, and the other member states might feel that we ought to honour that commitment to pay for the whole seven years, even if we bail out before the end.

The next issue is that EU spending works in a slightly odd way. The bloc sometimes makes commitments to fund projects, but the actual cash is not spent until later – often three years later, but sometimes longer.

This time lag, called “Reste à Liquider” (RAL), has been the source of many a scary news story over the years concerning enormous black holes in the EU budget.

The suggestion is that Britain could be called upon to stump up for commitments made during this spending cycle until at least 2023, or perhaps long after.

Professor Iain Begg from the London School of Economics, a leading EU budget expert, told Channel 4 News: “2030 could arise because “reste à liquider” can include very old commitments.

“The current RAL does show some lingering liabilities from 2006. They can still be there because either there has been a dispute about the validity of a claim or, simply, bills have been extremely slow to come through.”

Similarly, there is a suggestion that Britain could be asked to continue paying the pensions of retired Brussels officials and MEPs after 2019. (This often enrages eurosceptics, but remember that several thousand of those pensioners will be British.)

While pensions are paid out of the EU budget, article 83 of the EU’s staff regulations states that member States “jointly guarantee payment” if they cannot be covered by the budget.

The suggestion is that Britain could be called on to honour past pension commitments made while it was a member state.

Another complex area is Britain’s decision to underwrite loans made by EU institutions like the European Investment Bank. Could British taxpayers be on the hook years down the line if a debtor defaults?

All of these questions appear to be up for negotiation, and as Professor Begg puts it “the legal position is at best murky”.

How much?

A couple of months ago the Financial Times published an analysis of the possible “divorce bill” from these joint financial obligations and put it at 20bn euros, or around £17bn at time of writing.

The latest figure being quoted this week is £50bn. The number has been quoted in several news reports and attributed to Michel Barnier, but it’s not something he has said on the public record.

Quoting unnamed sources, Sky News reports that Mr Barnier has mentioned this sum to EU leaders, and that it has been mentioned separately to diplomats.

Giacomo Benedetto, Jean Monnet Chair at Royal Holloway, University of London, called £50bn “a back-envelope-figure at the very top end of what might be payable”.

Despite all this talk of a “bill”, it’s not clear whether Brussels expects Britain to hand over a lump sum as a severance payment, or whether negotiators are looking for a commitment about various payments Britain is prepared to make in the future.

Whatever the final sum, it could vary significantly as the exchange rate between the euro and the pound fluctuates.

And at this point we have to remember that there’s a whole other reason why Britain could carry on paying into EU coffers after Brexit that has nothing to do with these previous spending commitments.

If Britain wants to ensure continued access to the Single Market by remaining in the European Economic Area, we may have to pay significant amounts of money, like Norway and Iceland.

In other words, there could be a divorce settlement, then we could find ourselves renting an apartment from our ex-wife.

The verdict

As with almost every aspect of the Brexit process, there’s a lot of uncertainty here.

Academics appear to agree that Britain has made EU funding commitments that could stretch beyond 2020, but no one has published a definitive figure of what the total liability is.

The £50bn figure that has cropped up in headlines this week is in excess of independent estimates that have already been published, but some commentators feel it’s at the top end of the plausible range.

And remember that Single Market access could come with a significant fee attached, so there are many reasons while it will be hard for the government to deliver the Vote Leave promise of reducing Britain’s payments to the EU to zero overnight after Brexit.

Lenin’s revolution was 99 years ago

Bringing Leninist concepts up to date

Lenin and Bolsheviks in Red Square on the second anniversary of the revolution

by Kumar David-December 17, 2016

It is not usual to write up someone’s 99-th birthday – last week I spoke of the LSSP’s 81-st, an even odder number – but the world is standing so much on its head that it’s ok in both cases. There is another reason for reviewing Lenin at this time, an essay that Ringa Ranga Raja, who keeps me posted with thoughtfully selected material, brought to my attention. I have met RRR only once with my late neighbour Silan, or was it twice, the two of them could hardly stand, so it’s all a bit blurred. One thing about RRR however stands out, that is his self-confessed proclivity to beat up his uncles. Enough of these happy reminiscences, let’s get back to Lenin and the state of the world 99 years after he set it ablaze.

The essay in question is The Real Vladimir Lenin by John Marot (www.jacobinmag.com) in which Marot offers a critical review of Lars T Lih’s 2011 book Lenin (Reaktion Books) which was described thus by another reader, Paul Le Blanc: "Lih made a major step in shattering myths about Lenin in his massive earlier work, . He continues that good work in this readable and informative biography". Marot is less charitable to Lih. My job is not to summarise these mighty tomes and long essays, but to draw out what is useful for today’s state of the political universe. I have to keep to the point, so I cannot afford a Lenin said this, Lih that and Marot something else, style, and so I pass over such attributions.

There are three cardinal issues today and I will denote each by the name of a well- known Lenin booklet. The first is about the concept of class alliances (should we conditionally support Ranil and Sirisena?), linked to Two Tactics of Social Democracy (2TSD); the second is political parties and the sectarianism of left groups which I denote by Lenin’s What is to be Done (WD) and the third is the future, the subject of State and Revolution (S&R). I do not intend to discuss these writings per se, this is not my brief today, but the titles are signposts to problem spaces.

Whither socialism?

Those who delight in the retreat of left and socialist influences in recent years may snarl ‘Wither Socialism!’ Let that pass. Politically there has been a shift to the right in Europe and the US. Most of these countries pursue implicit capitalist economics. Ideologically, the terrain is infested with ultra-nationalists, xenophobes and bigots, paradoxically, fired by the failure of this capitalist system to meet people’s expectations. One is often told socialism is passé, out of date and out of fashion. Behind the assertion is an absurd act of faith that capitalism will last forever, that it will survive in perpetuity. Apologists when posed with the absurdity of the proposition, back off since no social form will survive indefinitely. It is just 228 years since the Great Bourgeois Revolution in France; but European feudalism survived for a thousand, and in ancient China an unchanging society lasted for even longer though scores dynasties; ditto ancient Egypt. The eternal city held up for close upon a thousand years and Rome’s socio-economic structure did not change much for most of that time. So capitalism has a little more time before its funeral pyre is lit.

An intelligent but hostile interlocutor would say: "Yes, what we now call capitalism will pass away but it not as yet run its course. And what will take its place cannot be foreseen". The second point is hard to grant because the first shoots of whatever will take its place have to be visible. The stark choices are a less exploitative, more egalitarian society or a monstrous Orwellian dictatorship. The latter is near impossible in advanced societies given the power of the populace. In the US, for example, a military dictatorship is unthinkable; Chinese authoritarianism survives because it is accepted by most. Consumer welfare and political democracy are the requisites for survival of bourgeois democracy advanced societies. All advanced societies are in large measure social democratic – there is a ‘socialist’ bottom line that these governments cannot cross. Incensed, some of my business inclined relatives in the US swear: "It is all bloody socialism here!"

The five Nordic countries, Belgium, Switzerland and France, spend 22% to over 30% of GDP on health, education, social and maternity benefits, generous pensions and paid leave, public transport and unemployment payments. A few months ago Switzerland conducted a referendum on a Universal Basic Income scheme (every adult citizen to receive a guaranteed handout of, if I remember correctly, $500 a month) which won 27% support. It is clear in which direction the wind is blowing. It is pretty inconsistent to say socialism is dead when left parties lose elections when all parties under pressure from the people are implementing an ever expanding "socialist" economic agenda.

A debate today about 2TSD would be about whether in modern times a democratic state could stop short of extensive socialism or be compelled to go the whole hog. Historically, the Yes answer to this poser was of course Trotsky’s famous 1905 Permanent Revolution (Results and Prospects) thesis. Lenin hedged his bets till 1917 when he completely embraced the idea in his April Thesis. This was his theoretical justification for the seizure of power, and is still the rational for Chinese and Cuban communism – straight away to socialism with minimal stepping through interim capitalism. The historical record 99 years on shows it has always been "combined and uneven development" where global and domestic factors make, in each case, an original mix. Marx was right about both the universality of historical materialism and its mediation by complexity of the dialectic and the novelty of individuals. "Men make their own history but do so under circumstances inherited from the past".

What should the Left do?

Lenin’s most quoted booklet, the party building bible, is WD. last week I dealt with the LSSP at eighty-one and the incontestable need for merging into a single left party. Here I discuss the misuse of What is to be Done by ultra-left fringe movements and sectarians to damage left unity.

It is asserted by the silly-left that WD glorified the role of the practical and professional revolutionary and that it was a "technical manual about building an underground organisation trained in the art of eluding the police", selling the paper, making false bottom suitcases to hide passports and squabbling with other sects. It is true that creating a radical political movement under the glare of Tsarist autocracy did require a dedicated and disciplined cadre and an undercover component. But there is no reason to believe that in an open society with democratic space Lenin would have stayed with this design, referring to each other by coded names and meeting in dimly lit attics rather than comfortable pubs? No, of course not! Remember he took the Bolsheviks into a period of open politics when the Tsar was forced into permitting Duma elections post-1905.

As Marot points out Lenin devoted a many pages to an analysis of ‘economism’, a revisionist trend in international social-democracy whose ideologue was Eduard Bernstein, a German social-democrat. ‘Economism’ advocated a reformist path for improving capitalism instead of pursuing revolutionary aims. Rosa Luxemburg was the principal opponent of ‘economism’; her booklet Reform or Revolution is a classic. These debates are relevant again today and is the subject of my next section, but there is no sense in treating the outdated party building portions of WD (other than its demand for unconditional serious mindedness) as a technical manual for Lanka today.

The twenty-first century state

Why not end this essay with a bit of crystal ball gazing? Firstly capitalism like all –isms will pass away; second its gravedigger will not be the old working class but a new educated, technically savvy, socially responsible working class, and thirdly in the as-yet less developed world corrupt state-capitalism (which state form is not corrupt?) will display some longevity.

And these state-capitalist examples (China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, even Russia and certain military dictatorships like former Burma, Assad’s Syria) without exception range from the harshly authoritarian to the downright dictatorial. What then becomes of Lenin’s, borrowed from a brief Marx comment in the Gotha Programme, concept of the withering away of the state? "State" in this usage does not refer to the administration of things; railway timetables, management of hospitals, garbage disposal and courts. That is all simply the management of things. The real state in Lenin’s lexicon is the manager of people, the oppressor of classes, and the guarantor of property relations.

In China for example the ultimate purpose of the monopoly of state power is to uphold the rule of thousands of party elite. In the US the role of the Constitution is to fortify capitalist property relations; that is to say guarantee corporate, financial and upper-one-percent America its elevated place. True the state be it China, America, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and dozens more and proto-states ISIS, Boko Haram etc., shows little sign of withering away. But it is challenged by fractal symmetric movements of left and right-wing populisms which are gaining the upper-hand at least for now. The countries where people count more and the instruments of state power are tamed is the Nordic countries, Canada, Switzerland and to a degree mature bourgeois democracies. So Lenin is right, the state is withering away but not where he expected it. That wouldn’t surprise Marx.

This brings us full circle to class collaborationist politics in the context of Lanka and the Critical Support currently extended by the LSSP Majority and a sizable CP faction to the Maithri-Ranil contraption. So folks, relax for now and await next year’s thrilling instalments!

5 of the worst atrocities carried out by the British Empire

A YouGov poll found 43 per cent of Brits thought the British Empire was a good thing, while 44 per cent were proud of Britain's history of colonialism

Samuel Osborne-Tuesday 19 January 2016

A new YouGov poll has found the British public are generally proud of the British Empire and its colonial past.

YouGov found 44 per cent were proud of Britain's history of colonialism, with 21 per cent regretting it happened and 23 per cent holding neither view.

The same poll also found 43 per cent believed the British Empire was a good thing, 19 per cent said it was bad and 25 per cent said it was "neither".

Although the proponents of Empire say it brought various economic developments to parts of the world it controlled, critics point to massacres, famines and the use of concentration camps by the British Empire.

1. Boer concentration camps

During the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the British rounded up around a sixth of the Boer population - mainly women and children - and detained them in camps, which were overcrowded and prone to outbreaks of disease, with scant food rations.

Of the 107,000 people interned in the camps, 27,927 Boers died, along with an unknown number of black Africans.

2. Amritsar massacre

When peaceful protesters defied a government order and demonstrated against British colonial rule in Amritsar, India, on 13 April 1919, they were blocked inside the walled Jallianwala Gardens and fired upon by Gurkha soldiers.

The soldiers, under the orders of Brigadier Reginald Dyer, kept firing until they ran out of ammunition, killing between 379 and 1,000 protesters and injuring another 1,100 within 10 minutes.

Brigadier Dyer was later lauded a hero by the British public, who raised £26,000 for him as a thank you.

3. Partitioning of India

In 1947, Cyril Radcliffe was tasked with drawing the border between India and the newly created state of Pakistan over the course of a single lunch.

After Cyril Radcliffe split the subcontinent along religious lines, uprooting over 10 million people, Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India were forced to escape their homes as the situation quickly descended into violence.

Some estimates suggest up to one million people lost their lives in sectarian killings.

4. Mau Mau Uprising

Thousands of elderly Kenyans, who claim British colonial forces mistreated, raped and tortured them during the Mau Mau Uprising (1951-1960), have launched a £200m damages claim against the UK Government.

Members of the Kikuyu tribe were detained in camps, since described as "Britain's gulags" or concentration camps, where they allege they were systematically tortured and suffered serious sexual assault.

Estimates of the deaths vary widely: historian David Anderson estimates there were 20,000, whereas Caroline Elkins believes up to 100,000 could have died.

5. Famines in India

Starving children in India, 1945

Between 12 and 29 million Indians died of starvation while it was under the control of the British Empire, as millions of tons of wheat were exported to Britain as famine raged in India.

In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Winston Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal.

Talking about the Bengal famine in 1943, Churchill said: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.”

China: Flights grounded, highways shut as smog chokes Tianjin

Apartment blocks are pictured on a hazy day in Wuqing district of Tianjin, China, Dec 10, 2016. Source: Reuters/Jason Lee

18th December 2016

AUTHORITIES in Tianjin grounded dozens of flights and closed most highways on Sunday after severe smog blanketed the city, one of more than more than 40 in China’s northeast to issue pollution warnings in the past 48 hours.

Air quality index (AQI) readings at some monitoring stations in Tianjin, a port and industrial city southeast of Beijing, peaked above 400, state-run news agency Xinhua said. Anything above 300 is considered hazardous by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

China’s environmental watchdog issued a five-day warning on Friday about choking smog spreading across the northeast and ordered factories to shut, recommended residents stay indoors and curbed traffic and construction work.

Pollution alerts have become increasingly common in China’s northern industrial heartland, especially during winter when energy demand – much of it met by coal – skyrockets.

In addition, heavy winds force pollution from nearby provinces to the Beijing-Tianjin area where it remains suspended over the cities.

People wearing masks stand in smog during a heavily polluted day in Beijing, China, Dec 17, 2016. Source: China Daily/via Reuters.

By 10am on Sunday in Tianjin, 35 international flights had been delayed or cancelled and all highways in and out of the city, with one exception, were shut, Xinhua said.

With the density of pollutants expected to peak on Sunday and Monday, Tianjin’s environmental protection department had strengthened inspections to control sources of pollution including factories.

The Environmental Protection Ministry said on Sunday evening that the country’s latest bout of air pollution had so far been less serious than expected, thanks to counter-measures, according to Xinhua.

SEE ALSO: Beijing orders 1,200 factories shut as smog triggers red alert

Beijing’s city government ordered 1,200 factories near the Chinese capital, including a major oil refinery run by state oil giant Sinopec, to shut or cut output on Saturday.

On Saturday, 22 cities issued red alerts including top steelmaking city Tangshan in Hebei province around Beijing, and Jinan in coal-rich Shandong province.

Red alerts are issued when the AQI is forecast to exceed 200 for more than four days in succession, 300 for more than two days or 500 for at least 24 hours.

Tianjin was placed on orange alert – the second highest level – on Sunday.

In Beijing, the city’s Municipal Environmental Monitoring Centre showed air quality readings of above 300 in some parts Sunday afternoon, but in most the index was below 200.

“When I went out yesterday I didn’t wear a mask and my throat really hurt and I felt dizzy. It was hard to breathe through my nose,” Chen Xiaochong, a hotel manager in the capital, told Reuters.

“This pollution really is quite dangerous for people, so it’s important to protect the environment.” – Reuters

No Need to Delay Getting Pregnant After Miscarriage, Study Suggests

Credit: JPC-PROD/Shutterstock.com

By Stephanie Pappas- December 12, 2016

A new study suggests that becoming pregnant again soon after a miscarriage is no more risky for the mom or the fetus than waiting six months to conceive.

The new research contradicts the current World Health Organization advice on the subject, which suggests that a six-month wait might be beneficial for the baby. However, that advice was based on a single study. The new research, a statistical evaluation of data from 10 earlier studies on the topic, finds no additional risks for women who wait less than six months to become pregnant again after a miscarriage, and even finds that some risks may be lower with shorter intervals.

"Women who get pregnant after less than six months between the pregnancy and the loss should not be worried about adverse pregnancy outcomes, and if nothing else actually they should be encouraged," said Enrique Schisterman, a senior investigator in epidemiology at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Schisterman was not involved in the new study, known as a meta-analysis, although he did co-author one of the earlier studies that the new study re-evaluated. [6 Myths About Miscarriage]

Pregnancy intervals

Researchers have found that conceiving shortly after a full-term pregnancy can raise the risk of complications, such as premature birth and low birth weight (around 18 and 23 months between pregnancies was least risky, according to a 2006 meta-analysis published in the journal JAMA). But there was very little data on pregnancy spacing after miscarriage, and the study upon which the WHO based its recommendations was based in Latin America and couldn't distinguish between spontaneous losses and abortions.

In the new analysis, researchers led by Sohinee Bhattacharya at the University of Aberdeen combed the literature for studies that compared outcomes for women who conceived either within six months of a miscarriage, or more than six months after. They found a total of 10 studies in which researchers looked at pregnancies with those timeframes and recorded data on the complications, such as having another miscarriage (defined as a loss of the fetus before 24 weeks gestation), suffering a stillbirth (a loss after 24 weeks gestation), having a premature birth, having a baby born with low birth weight and having preeclampsia, a condition in which a pregnant woman's blood pressure increases to dangerous levels. [9 Conditions Pregnancy May Bring]

Pooling the data from the studies and re-evaluating the statistics, the researchers found no evidence that getting pregnant soon after a miscarriage is dangerous. The data on stillbirths and preeclampsia showed no difference in the risk of these conditions regardless of pregnancy spacing. And some complications appeared less likely with quicker conceptions: The rate of having another miscarriage with a pregnancy spacing of less than six months was only 82 percent of the rate of having another miscarriage with a spacing of more than six months. The risk of preterm birth was also less for shorter intervals, too, at 79 percent of the rate seen in women with intervals longer than six months.

The researchers also found that for several of the birth complications, the Latin American study that was used as the basis for the WHO recommendations was an outlier. For example, when that study was included in the analysis, the statistics showed no difference between a spacing of less than six months versus a spacing more than six months in the risk for having a low-birth-weight baby (defined as a term baby weighing less than 5.5 pounds, or 2,500 grams). But when that one study was excluded, the risk of having a low-birth-weight baby appeared to be lower for more closely spaced pregnancies, at 74 percent the rate of longer-spaced pregnancies.

Try when ready

Undergoing full-term pregnancies back-to-back may diminish a mother's supply of folate, a B vitamin important for the developing nervous system, Schisterman said. But a pregnancy lost before full-term will likely not diminish a woman's folate supply for future pregnancies, he said. Meanwhile, waiting longer to conceive, especially for women later in their fertile years, might increase the risk of complications.

The lack of information on how far along the pregnancies were when miscarriages occurred is one limitation of the new study, Schisterman said. It may be that early miscarriages do not tax a pregnant woman's reserves, while a later loss may make a short spacing riskier.

"I think we need a little bit more data on the different underlying reasons for a pregnancy loss and see what the optimal interval is," Schisterman said.

The new research also looked at when women conceived — not when they actually started trying. But couples can only control when they start trying for a baby, Schisterman said, and not the timing of the actual pregnancy. Some of the seeming beneficial effects of a short pregnancy interval may be because the women who became pregnant again sooner were more fertile, Bhattacharya and her team wrote, and thus both became pregnant with more ease and had fewer complications in those pregnancies. [7 Ways Pregnant Women Affect Babies]

Nevertheless, the study might inform how doctors discuss the risks and benefits of future pregnancies with their patients.

"There is now ample evidence to suggest that delaying a pregnancy following a miscarriage is not beneficial and unless there are specific reasons for delay couples should be advised to try for another pregnancy as soon as they feel ready," Bhattacharya and her colleagues wrote.

The researchers published their findings Nov. 17 in the journal Human Reproduction Update.

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Right to Information Act to Redefine Sri Lanka’s Media Landscape

Media experts and government officials say that the new Right to Information Act will change the way media works in Sri Lanka. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera-Saturday, December 17, 2016

COLOMBO, Dec 14 2016 (IPS) - Sri Lanka’s upcoming 69th Independence Commemorations will be of special value to the island’s media – that is, if everything works as planned.

The newly minted Right to Information (RTI) act will take effect on Feb. 4, 2017, according to officials at the Ministry of Mass Media and the Department of Information. Sri Lanka’s beleaguered media – by some estimates over 20 journalists and media workers have been killed in the last decade – has been breathing more easily since January 2015 when a new government headed by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe took power. The RTI act was one of their election pledges.

“It is like putting the government in a glass box." --Media Minister Gayantha Karunathilaka

The act itself dates back to over two decades and has traveled a long and arduous road. Its first imprint was in the 1998 Colombo Declaration of Media Freedom and Social Responsibility. In 2004, Wickremasinghe, who briefly headed the government, initiated the drafting of the Freedom of Information Bill. It was tabled in parliament but could not be taken up for a vote since the government was ousted.

In 2010, current speaker Karu Jayasuriya introduced the 2004 draft as a private member’s motion, but that too was defeated. On June 24 this year, the RTI bill was finally passed by parliament. But there is still a long way to go.

The RTI Commission of five members is yet to be appointed. President Sirisena has ratified three names but is yet to fill the other two. Officials close to him say that the two final nominees have shown some reluctance, others say that the president is dragging his feet.

Officials at Ministry of Mass Media and the Department of Information, who are spearheading the changes in the public sector for the implementation of the Act, have chosen to stay quiet on this subject, though a few admit privately that there is a snag.

Despite the obstacles, officials at the two institutions are moving ahead, with the aim of announcing soon that by Feb. 4 next year, Sri Lankans can for the first time submit RTI requests.

Media Minister Gayantha Karunathilaka says that the RTI act will change the way the country is governed. “It is like putting the government in a glass box,” he recently told a gathering in southern Galle on the act.

The minister admits that the act will be a watershed in Sri Lanka media culture. “Now journalists can rely on verified, authenticated information from the government, rather than on hearsay.”

But he says that the larger effect will be on the country as a whole. “People don’t know about this that much. But with this act, politicians will have to think not twice, but thrice before they act, because the general public now has the right to seek and obtain information legally and the government is duty bound to give such information.”

Sri Lanka’s media faced repeated attacks like this burning of The Sunday Leader press on the outskirts of the capital Colombo in November 2007, but has breathed more easily since the new government took office in January 2015. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

Director General of Information Ranga Kalansooriya, a former journalist and a media trainer, puts Sri Lanka’s new act on a par with its Indian counterpart or even above it.

While the Indian act does not allow for overruling of RTI request denials based on national security once all the appeals are exhausted, the Sri Lanka version includes clauses where the commission can overrule some denials.

“For example, if there was a case of military corruption, like in an arms deal, this is a case of national defence. But if the public interest in corruption is heavier, then the commission can release this information,” Kalansooriya told IPS.

The Information Department has already begun to appoint and train public officials on handling RTI requests. Kalansooriya said that over 1,000 have so far been appointed. The government is also going to set up set up a special unit that will handle RTI requests relating to private companies and contractors working with government agencies.

RTI experts say that for the act to function efficiently, an attitude shift is required in the way public officials work, from being opaque to being transparent.

“The law itself requires a paradigm shift in governance because until the RTI Act was brought in, the understanding about how government business should be conducted is that information will be shared with people on a need-to-know basis,” said Indian expert Venkatesh Nayak.

“The RTI Act turns that on its head by saying that people have the right to seek information of any kind that they would want to get access to and the law provides for that access with the exception of certain circumstances when the disclosure may not be in the public interest.”

Nayak, who has been working with Sri Lankan non-governmental organsiations on building awareness, also feels the act needs to be promoted widely and is still largely unknown outside of urban areas, a fact even Media Minister Karunathilaka admits.

“Unlike other laws, the RTI law is perhaps the only law of its kind which is not going to get implemented unless there is a demand from the people to implement it,” Nayak said.

Sri Lanka At A Crossroads – A Tamil Perspective

By Suren Surendiran –December 18, 2016

Suren Surendiran

January 2015 saw one of the worst tyrannies in the history of Sri Lanka come to an abrupt end. The unexpected was realised through the ballot and not through bullet.

President Maithripala Sirisena swept to power with 51.2% of the vote compared with his rival who mustered 47.6%. Although there were pockets in the South where Maithripala managed to edge over Rajapaksa, the minorities, particularly the Tamils, in their areas of domination overwhelmingly rejected Rajapaksa, in some districts voting for Maithripala by 4 to 5 times more, which ultimately gave him, the win.

August 2015 yet again saw extremism within the Sinhalese and Tamils being out rightly rejected to form a coalition government and an opposition, both with majority of moderate voices.

Military governors were removed and civilian governors were appointed to the predominantly Tamil Northern and Eastern Provinces. At the Independence Day celebrations on 4 February 2015, a declaration for peace was readout in all three languages and the President and Prime Minister presided over paying respect to all who perished during the war. The 18thamendment to the constitution, which by and large politicised all independent democratic institutions, was reversed by passing the 19th amendment.

Democratic space was created for freedom of expression without fear of reprisals. Unlike during the Rajapaksa reign, not a single journalist got killed or abducted during 2015. No serious threat to religious freedom was realised unlike during the preceding years. Some private lands were released with President publicly promising to release all the private lands occupied by the military within six months. There was an initial release of small number of political prisoners with a public commitment to the Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that the remainder will be released soon after.

Government of Sri Lanka co-sponsored the UNHRC resolution A/HRC/30/L.29 in Oct 2015, which acknowledged that terrible crimes were committed by both parties during the armed conflict and wanted an independent credible accountability mechanism with international participation be set up by the Government. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera in his speech said “Don’t judge us by the broken promises, experiences and U-turns of the past…. My plea to you Ladies and Gentlemen, is trust us and join us to work together and create the momentum required to move forward and take progressive, meaningful and transformative steps to create a new Sri Lanka.”

Foreign Minister further stated that the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) will be repealed and a more appropriate legislation be introduced conforming to international standards.
2015 also saw some of the Tamil diaspora organisations and individuals being de-proscribed by the present government.

Further, the scene was set to pass a resolution to convert parliament into a constitutional assembly.

Therefore, by end of 2015 although things were not progressing and/or progressing fast enough as promised in the 100 point plan of the newly elected President or in the manifesto commitments made by the new government, the general trajectory of democratisation, social justice and economy were treading marginally upward compared to the previous years of Rajapaksa reign. The expectations of the Tamil people too were on the same trajectory.

As we reach the end of 2016, a critical analysis of the past 12 months in Sri Lanka paints a more subdued and relatively disappointing picture, although all’s not lost.

As they say, old habits die hard. Dilly dallying on some of the commitments made by the government and the President has become a more frequent feature during 2016. Most Sri Lankans feel generally let down by this government as several of their manifesto commitments haven’t been implemented.

This government came to power claiming to clean up corruption and mismanagement that prevailed during the previous regime and bring to justice those who abused their authority in various ways. Unfortunately, neither have they been able to prosecute anyone successfully nor have they been able to run a government without various major corruption charges being levelled against them.

In a recent incident, a senior cabinet minister was caught on camera allegedly interfering and perverting the course of justice through the most senior policeman in the land.

Although thousands of combatants and civilians surrendered or captured at the end of the war, only 296 were publicly accepted as prisoners detained either under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) or held without charges being brought at a court of law, by this new government. The current information is that, of these 296 detainees, 96 are still under detention. 23 of these 96 were granted bail, recently. However, there is no public acknowledgement as to how many of the 23 actually accepted the bail.

Releasing the entire 296 immediately or soon after coming to power by the executive President, would have been seen by the Tamil people as a great reconciliatory step. This would have helped in a small way to bridge the trust deficiency that remains within the Sinhala and Tamil communities.

The inability to accomplish even that in the past several months after promising at the end of 2015, possibly demonstrates the lack of will and courage. This in turn creates genuine doubts in the minds of even the moderates who helped this President and the government to succeed in respective elections last year, the possibility of any deeper reforms.

President Maithripala Sirisena publicly states that there won’t be any international judges in the judicial mechanism to address accountability for the alleged crimes committed during the war. Recently in a speech in Maharagama, the President said that in his speech at the UN General Assembly he has stated this very clearly and the international community has now accepted that there won’t be any international judges. Since 8 November, the President has also suggested that he will write to the President Elect Donald Trump to seek help to relieve Sri Lanka from having to fully comply with the UNHRC resolution, which by the way was co-sponsored by his own government.

The Prime Minister too said in an interview to an Indian media outlet recently, that there won’t be any international judges.

To remind readers, the High Commissioner of the UNHRC said in September 2015, “The levels of mistrust in State authorities and institutions by broad segments of Sri Lankan society should not be underestimated. It is for this reason that the establishment of a hybrid special court, integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators, is so essential. A purely domestic court procedure will have no chance of overcoming widespread and justifiable suspicions fuelled by decades of violations, malpractice and broken promises.”

Although President made a public pronouncement of zero tolerance of sexual violence and torture, the police and military intelligence are constantly being accused by victims of abuse and torture.

Although primarily contained within their barracks, the levels of military presence in the North and East are not even in any serious discussions as yet. PTA is yet to be repealed. Government funded Buddhistisation of North and East where the majority are Hindus, Muslims and Christians, continues.