State & Media Repression Against Tamil Political Activists

By Rajan Hoole –January 21, 2017

Dr. Rajan Hoole

“…Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be compassed. As, at the tramp of a horse’s hoof on the turf of prairies,
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa, So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad foreboding of evil, Shrinks & closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from Evangeline

Over the five years leading up to July 1983, as indicated in the last chapter, the Judi- ciary had been browbeaten and a clear message had gone down to judges who valued career advancement. After the Referendum, it meant waiting a further six years for a possible change of government. We now go into a few cases of how Tamil detainees under the PTA were faring at the hands of this combination of the Judiciary and the Attorney General’s depart- ment. This has a significant bearing on the gory fate that overtook 53 of the detainees.

The Marx Centenary Detainees

About 12 young persons including Mr. Varatharajaperumal, a member of the academic staff of the University of Jaffna, were produced before the Colombo Fort Magistrate S.I. Imam on 21st June 1983. They had been detained in the neighbourhood of Batticaloa on 1st April. On that occasion Varatharajaperumal who was not attached to any group then, had conducted classes on Marxist theory on the outskirts of Batticaloa for young members of the EPRLF as part of the Marx centenary observances. The exercise books on which the youth took notes were sent by the Police for translation as possible evidence of terrorist activity.

Also produced in Court was a calendar for 1983 bearing the slogan ‘Victory to the Struggle for Eelam.’ State Counsel Sarath Jayasinghe told the Court that some were caught while selling the book ‘Lanka Rani’, adding that the book and calendar had been sent for translation. More time was asked to prepare charges. The counsel representing the detainees demanded their release as no charges were forthcoming after 81 days. But order was reserved by the Magistrate for a further 7 days.

There is absolutely no doubt that the AG’s department knew that there could be no valid charges. ‘Lanka Rani’, a book published by Arular in 1978 had enjoyed a wide circulation. The story is based on Tamil refugees from the 1977 violence sailing to Jaffna from Colombo aboard the Lanka Rani and explores the theme of how the Tamils were led to the demand for separation. Even under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution which was not yet in existence, it is hard to see how promoting the book could have been an offence.

Evidently, it seemed the State had become so alien to the Tamil speaking people (25% of the populace), that it had no trusted officials in the AG’s department or the Police to assess what was being written in Tamil. To the State Counsel, mentioning the title of a Tamil book seemed the equivalent of proffering a criminal charge. One is reminded of how the university authorities at Peradeniya jumped to the conclusion that Balasooriyan was a Tiger (Sect. 4.7).

On 29th June, again the CID told the Court that they were unable to conclude investigations since the Department of Official Languages had not sent a translation of the printed matter. Magistrate S.I. Imam again refused bail for the detainees and put off hearings to 13th July. On 13th July the Magistrate put off hearings to 27th July for the same reason. This turned out to be the day of the 2nd Welikade prison massacre.

The game here was clear: use the PTA to detain indefinitely; whether there were valid charges or no did not matter.

Government Blitz against Gandhiyam in the ‘Independent’ Media

We mentioned in Chapter 6 that Ghandiam had already been targeted through the Press at the height of the McCarthyite frenzy. Then the Sunday Island of 28th November 1982 had as its lead item, “Red Barna, Gandhiyam Movement to be Probed”, by Peter Balasuriya. It said:

“Informed sources said that President J.R. Jayewardene will personally look into the activities of Red Barna, now involved in community work in the Batticaloa District. The investigation follows a request from Minister K.W. Devanayagam. The Minister, it is understood, referred to the work of Red Barna in the Batticaloa District and Ghandiam in the Jaffna District and wanted them investigated…Regarding Ghandiam, the Minister of Social Services has been asked to make inquiries and submit a report to the Government…”

This was pure innuendo, but nothing specific.

On the same day the Weekend carried a report titled “Probe on two foreign social groups here” by Ranil Weerasinghe and Jennifer Henricus, full of wild allegations very much in keeping with the spirit of the times. Some extracts from it follow:

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Towards a cultural critique of Sri Lankan politics

by Izeth Hussain-January 20, 2017, 9:22 pm 

My title is meant to indicate that what is being initiated in this article is something of a very tentative order. It is meant to include not conclusions on a cultural critique of Sri Lankan politics but notes, suggestions, pointers "towards" it. I have in mind an exercise of an exploratory and heuristic order: to learn by posing questions and thereby going some distance towards the reaching of conclusions. The reason for this is that the impact of culture on politics is, as far as I am aware, largely uncharted territory. The situation is rather different with the impact of culture on the economy, which has been recognized and explored in a systematic way since the last century, though it has not been given the kind of cardinal importance that it deserves.

I have in mind in particular Max Weber’s path-breaking monograph The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, which argued that Calvinism was peculiarly conducive to the growth of capitalism. A brief monograph of under two hundred pages, its thesis was much criticized in succeeding decades, but it has stood the test of time and is now firmly established as a classic of seminal importance. There followed later in Britain R.H. Tawney’s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism which has also acquired classic status. So the thesis that the economy is shaped by cultural factors has a respectable ancestry going back to well over a century. I recall John Ruskin reporting in the nineteenth century his impression that the economic performance of the Protestant countries of Europe was notably better than that of the Catholic ones.

After the Second World War the notion of the Confucian work ethic came into vogue, mainly because of the theorizing of American academics such as Edwin Reischauer, a specialist scholar on Japan, and Sinologists such as John Fairbanks: the idea was that the Confucian culture was particularly conducive to excellent economic performance. I recall Reischauer predicting decades ago that when countries such as China and Vietnam got free of their Communist shackles they would surprise the world by their economic performance. Today there is nothing to cavil over about that prediction. The thesis of the cultural determinants of economic performance figured prominently in the writings of leading economists such as Sir Arthur Lewis, the West Indian who won the Nobel Prize for Economics, and Gunnar Myrdal in his Asian Drama. But it was given central importance, as far as I am aware, only by Peter Bauer, now Lord Bauer (the son of a Hungarian émigré bookie). I greatly relished his Dissent on Development and a subsequent volume of essays, exhilarating iconoclastic performances, precisely puncturing the pretences of third world power elites who wrecked their economies while blaming it all on the predatory West.

Let me now mention the essential facts about the economic performance of the countries with a predominantly Confucian culture. After 1945 Japan quickly rose from atomic ash to a dazzling economic summit. The performances of South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong – the parts of China that were non-Communist – were also dazzling. There followed the success stories of the South East Asian countries – Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and now Vietnam. However there has also been an alternative theory that the economic performance of those countries was not due to their Confucian culture but to their close proximity – unlike the South Asian countries – to the Communist giant China and the other Communist countries, North Korea and North Vietnam. That was taken as signifying that those countries had either to perform or perish. It was a version of Toynbee’s challenge and response theory, and we must recall also that the domino theory, according to which if one country fell to Communism several others would follow like skittles, was part of orthodox Western political thinking for several decades.

It must be acknowledged that the challenge and response theory does seem plausible and perhaps was a factor in those success stories, but the evidence suggests that the Confucian cultural factor was far more potent. Of the South East Asian countries Vietnam has a wholly Confucian cultural background, and it is now regarded as an impressive economic performer. The two other Indo-Chinese countries, Laos and Kampuchea, have a Theravada Buddhist culture and we haven’t heard anything about their economic performance being particularly impressive. The other Theravada Buddhist country, Myanmar, has an economic record that is colossally unimpressive. The cases of the remaining South East Asian countries, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are particularly illuminating for my purpose: they show an obvious co-relation between economic performance and the proportion of Chinese in their populations. Singapore has a predominantly Chinese population and has put up a mind-boggling superlative economic performance. Malaysia with the next highest concentration of Chinese has an impressive economic record. But the record of Indonesia and the Philippines with less Chinese has not been particularly impressive.

The cultural factor as a determinant of economic performance has been under study among immigrant communities in the US. I recall books by Thomas Sowell on that subject that I read decades ago – there must be more sophisticated studies by now. Among European immigrants the Germans were far and away the most impressive performers while the Italians and the Irish were the least impressive. Among Asians the Chinese with their Confucian culture were the most impressive. Two facts emerged from the details given in those studies that are important for my purposes in this article. One is that the poor performers like the Italians and the Irish catch up eventually with the good performers and come to share in the achievement-oriented American culture. That means that cultural factors are not unchangeable like genes, and that would mean further that the poor performers of today are not condemned to perpetual inferiority. Another fact that seems to have emerged more recently is that the average Indian American earns twice as much as his average white American counterpart. That seems surprising as India’s economic performance had been poor over many decades. The inference is possible that cultural constraints had held back India’s economic performance. I don’t have the details but I have the impression, as do many others, that Sri Lankans who are mediocre achievers here shine brightly when they go abroad. Apparently there were cultural constraints that held back their achievement level here. Who knows, the future may show that we Sri Lankans are a very able people who are capable of achieving the first rate but whose achievement levels have been kept down to the third rate by our tenth rate politicians. Joke – but it has been said that nothing is more serious than a joke.

izethhussain@gmail.com

Raviraj appeal dismissed without a hearing : Court conspiracy !!

(Lanka-e-News -21.Jan.2017, 11.30PM) The dismissal of the appeals on the 19 th filed in the appeal court by the relatives of murdered  ex M.P. Nadaraja Raviraj ,against the judgment delivered in the case which acquitted  all the accused, and exonerated them of all charges after hearing the trial until late in the night (a most queer  unprecedented hearing in court history), is a court conspiracy ,and an erosion  of the sacrosanct judicial norms and values . Raviraj ex M.P was murdered in cold blood in broad daylight and on the main road during the nefarious decade of murderous Mahinda Rajapakse.

The judges of the appeal court , Deepali Wijesundara and Lalith Jayasuriya citing the grounds that there was no lawyer or anybody else in court representing the plaintiffs in the  case , dismissed the appeal as null and void when the case was  taken up. 

This dismissal is being described as a conspiracy of the court deserving of worst condemnation because , in the case list prior,  the date of the case to be heard must be notified. But in this relevant case list  ,Raviraj’s  case  was not mentioned , and all of a sudden the case was taken up.
 
The appeal was filed on January 11 th , and the file certified by the lower court that heard the case was given to the plaintiffs on the 16th , but  the case was taken up by the appeal court without prior notice (via the case list)  on the 19 th. This is not the usual court procedure because after the certified file is received , at least two weeks should be allowed , but in this instance this duly established practice was not followed.

The prime  cause for this grave suspicion is , without any mention of the case in the case list , and the lawyers for the plaintiff also being kept in the dark , the lawyers for the accused making their appearance  in court for the hearing on that day .  How could that happen ? It is crystal clear therefore this is the result of a calculated conspiracy. 

Anuja Premaratne who appeared on behalf of the accused while making his submissions pointed out, since nobody is appearing on behalf of the petitioners , to dismiss the appeal. 

It is true the judges have a right to dismiss a case if the lawyer for the plaintiff is absent , but when it is a  twin murder case that has triggered a storm of controversy across the whole country , a judge who respects justice certainly will not resort to that dastardly action. What he/she  would do is notify the lawyer for the plaintiff.

Deepali and Lalith the two judges without resorting to that proper course of action  , no sooner Anuja Premaratne requested to dismiss the appeal than they granted it.  Not only justice must be done but it should also be seen to be done in the best interests of the  public , is a common adage.  In the circumstances , by postponing the case in order  to summon the lawyers for the plaintiff was not going to do injustice or create a pernicious precedent . 

In any case the lawyers for the plaintiffs who faced the unfair and unjust court decision  filed a motion immediately on the same day in the afternoon.

The Attorney General (AG) and the relatives  of late Raviraj have earlier filed two appeals against the verdict. The two judges had only dismissed the appeal filed by the relatives of Raviraj, whereas the appeal filed by the AG  was not. Hence the appeal of the AG  has to be heard by the appeal court.

Usually in such instances both appeals are heard together because the appeal of the Attorney General (AG) must necessarily  be heard. In this case that procedure was not adhered to. The appeal filed by  the AG is to be heard in the future. 

It is worthy of note Ms. Deepali Wijesundara is a judge who acquired a notoriety in the SL judicial sphere for delivering lop sided  judgments. Simply because journalist J.S. Tissanayagam wrote two lines , he was sentenced by her to 20 years imprisonment under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) . Later when he was granted  a president’s pardon that earned a bad repute for the country.   

The other case was the ‘white flag case’ which was   heard against Sarath Fonseka .While judge Waruwewa was insisting Sarath Fonseka was innocent , it is Deepali who sentenced  him to jail. 

Can you beat that ? It is this same Deepali despite being a judge who flagrantly violated judicial traditions and norms  by  inviting   Mahinda Rajapakse and Chamal Rajapakse the adversaries of Sarath Fonseka at that time to her daughter’s wedding  in order to bootlick and  toady to them while the case of Sarath Fonseka was being heard by her. Mahinda Rajapakse the great ‘philanthropist’ at state expense  at that time ( now proved a confirmed crook and scoundrel)  gifted a motor vehicle to Deepali  on that occasion.

Following the white flag verdict  delivered against Sarath Fonseka (after the gift collected  from Mahinda ) , Mahinda Rajapakse who was president then elevated her to the post of appeal court judge overlooking 7 other judges who were more suitable than her in seniority . Might we point out  Raviraj and his security officer of the police were murdered during the Mahinda Rajapakse corrupt and brutal era.

Post script :
Though one or two black coat cutthroat lawyers who are  stung by the truth are making a big din alleging that Lanka e news the frank , forthright and fearless news website is demeaning courts when we expose the raw truth and nothing but the truth , Lanka e news on the other hand wishes to clearly and boldly state , it will unflinchingly continue to expose to the public the injustice , corrupt practices and criminal erroneous judgments that are currently raging in the courts owing to a  few culprit judges  who are wholesale tarnishing the image of the judiciary .

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by     (2017-01-21 21:20:35)

CID Questions Fonseka Over Lasantha’s Murder Finally; Lasantha’s Brother Dismisses Allegations

January 21, 2017

In a dramatic turn of events the investigation into the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge, the CID questioned Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka yesterday. Colombo Telegraph recently commented as to why Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka and former Secretary of Defence have not been questioned in regard to the above mentioned murder. According to Field Marshal Fonseka, he was questioned for five hours by the CID yesterday into the Lasantha Wickrematunge murder.

Fonseka

Lal

Participating in the Sirasa Satana programme Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka confirmed that he was questioned by the CID into the Lasantha murder investigation. He went on to suggest that it was Gotabaya Rajapaksa who would have been behind the murder of Lasantha, as the journalist was about to reveal more into the corruption involved with the MiG aircraft purchase. Field Marshal Fonseka also stated in the programme which is available for viewing on Youtube that the security of Colombo was in the hands of Gotabaya Rajapaksa who used Gen. Hendawitharane for this purpose. Special emphasis was laid on the White Van Abduction culture in Colombo. Field Marshal Fonseka went on to say that late Lasantha’s brother Lal Wickrematunge was paid money by the Rajapaksa’s to lay the blame for the murder of his brother on him (Field Marshall Fonseka).

Colombo Telegraph contacted Lal Wickrematunge to respond to this allegation and we publish below the interview in full:

CT: Did you listen to the Youtube interview on Sirasa Satana programme where Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka spoke of your brothers murder?

LW: Yes I did.

CT: He accused you of taking money from Rajapaksa to blame him for your brothers murder.

LW: This is not the first time Field Marshal has said that I have accused him of Lasantha’s murder. He has said this many times before to local media persons and even the BBC.

CT: Did you accuse him of the murder of your brother and if so, what evidence do you have?

LW: I have never accused him.

CT: Then on what basis is he saying that you did? Why have you not said that you did not accuse him prior to this?

LW: Field Marshal Fonseka has not listened carefully to what I have said on many occasions. I have spoken at Lasantha’s memorials as well as in some of my articles written and published in newspapers as well as on TV stated that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa told me three times that it was Sarath Fonseka who killed my brother. I DID NOT SAY THAT. It was the FORMER PRESIDENT who told me that not once but three times. Field Marshal Fonseka is most welcome to go back to such interviews and articles to satisfy himself. There is a distinct difference in my saying and someone else saying such to me and my repeating it.

CT: Did you tell the CID this?

LW: Yes. When I was asked in the course of recording my statement.

CT: Field Marshal accuses you of taking money from the Rajapaksas to do so.

LW: ( Laughs) The Rajapaksas hated us. I won’t dignify such accusation with an answer. Perhaps Field Marshal Fonseka thinks that Rajapaksas bought The Sunday Leader and paid me additionally too to say such things. The sale of the newspaper was done three years after Lasantha’s murder and it was Asanga Seneviratne who bought it. That too the money has not been paid to complete it as yet. I have sent a letter of demand to him.

CT: Why did you not take these issues up before this?

LW: I did. You must not forget that it was the Rajapaksa regime that was in place when Lasantha was killed and thereon up to 2015. I had a lawyer representing the family in the Magistrate’s Court. We wanted the investigation transferred to the CID instead of the TID which was being used to deflect the direction. It took time to do so and in fact it was only after there was a regime change that it was done and the investigation pursued.

CT: Your newspaper supported Gen. Fonseka at the Presidential election. So, why does he accuse you now?

LW: It was a policy decision to support Fonseka at that election. The newspaper had been taken to Court by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, former President had also been abusive to Lasantha, me and others in the staff. In addition to the Press being burnt, the corruption that was prevalent at the time and finally the murder that made us decide. But I did ask Gen Fonseka also whether he knew who killed Lasantha before making that decision.

CT: What did he say?

LW: The first occasion was when he had made the decision to retire and was expected to be the common candidate. It was a press conference at the Taj Hotel. A Rotary organised one. He was on stage and I was in the audience. I sent him a scrawled note asking “Who Killed Lasantha?”. When it was his turn to speak, I think he was the keynote speaker, he said it was “kudukarayas masquerading as politicians who did it and he had no time as all his energy went to the war”. The second was when he had decided to run as the common candidate and the UNP lawyers held a meeting at Galadari Hotel where three lawyers who had passed away were garlanded. There too I sent a note to the stage and his response was the same. The third occasion was when the newspaper did an interview with him at his Reid Avenue political office just days before the election. His answer this time directly to me was the same as before.

CT: Who was he speaking of?

LW: At that time I thought he meant Mervyn Silva.

CT: What do you think now?

LW: I think he has spoken clearly as you can hear on the Satana show.

CT: Why did you not take it up in Courts through your Lawyer if the former President accused Gen Fonseka and said it to you?

LW: I asked the former President directly when he said such as to why he as Head of Defence does not go to Mt Lavinia Court where Lasantha’s murder was being heard and say that.

CT: So?

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Sri Lanka: The National Question

Can effective devolution resolve the grievances? We must recognize that the grievances though largely pertaining to the Tamil speaking people are not confined to them or one part of the country. There are other provinces in the South too which have not seen much economic development.

by Dr Nirmala Chandrahasan-Jan 21, 2017

( January 21, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In a recent article in the Daily mirror of 5th January 2017, titled “Let’s make Sampanthan’s New Year wish come true, the writer refers to the fact that Mr Sampanthan has pinned his hopes for a peaceful and prosperous country in 2017 on a resolution of the National Question. The Writer poses the question,’ What is the National Question’. He takes the view that it boils down to, what are the grievances of the Tamil people, which he says should be spelled out.

In this article I am attempting to list out some of the grievances, and would like to quote from the LLRC Report which states as follows. “The Commission takes the view that the root cause of the ethnic conflict lies in the failure of successive governments to address the genuine grievances of the Tamil people”-Chapter 9 para 184. This is the conclusion of a very eminent panel after an exhaustive examination of the subject, and has to be treated with due respect. The Commission’s statement hardly fits into the writer’s notion of “tired ethnocentric narratives typical of Tamil nationalists”.

If the leader of the oppositions wish is to come true, a prerequisite is that the citizens of the country belonging to all communities feel that they are equal and that the state provides services to all equally.

This would require;

• That the Official languages policy is implemented in full, and this includes the Central ministries, and that Tamil speaking citizens (and Sinhala speaking citizens living in North and East) are able to communicate with and receive communications from the State in their language in any part of the country. Although the Tamil language has been one of the official languages of the Country from 1987, and this is set out in the Constitution, this provision is still to be implemented fully. This fact is mentioned in the LLRC Report as a grievance to be rectified.
• That all citizens must have equal access to services and opportunities, and this includes employment in the government services. As of now the number of Tamil persons in the Central ministries, armed forces police etc is very low. Colombo the capital city which is 52% Tamil speaking, is a telling example where there are very few public officials (example Grama Niladaris or Police Officers) able to speak and provide services to the Tamil speaking public in Tamil. The long wait for a solitary Tamil speaking officer who is expected to double up as a translator is a familiar experience of most Tamil speaking public who cannot communicate in Sinhala or are unable to take someone with them to interpret.
• That justice is administered to all citizens equally, and that all citizens are equally subject to the law. At present the public perception is that certain categories of persons, are given immunity. It is an obligation of the State to investigate and take action on complaints made. In this context I refer to the crime of ‘enforced disappearance’ which is one of the most heinous crimes. Although numerous Commissions have been set up to hear such complaints there is little in the way of action taken. The Paranagama Commission which was the last such Commission, heard and recorded 23 thousand complainants the large majority of whom were Tamil civilians who had been caught up in the armed conflict in the northern and eastern provinces. Many of the complainants while repeating their sad stories were also able to give specific details of to whom and where they had handed over their loved ones, or who were the persons who took them away (being public officers of the armed forces, the police or the STF as well as Tamil para military groups associated with the armed forces). However no meaningful action has been taken apart from and I here quote from an article by Kishali Pinto Jayawardene, in the Sunday Times, 8th January 2017, “A stuttering office of Missing persons and a victim protection system which includes members accused with good reason of terrorizing witnesses in the previous regime”. The LLRC Report Chapter 9.146 states “The government is duty bound to direct the law enforcement officers to take immediate steps to ensure that these allegations are properly investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. It will be recalled that this report came out quite a few years ago, but evidently these recommendations have fallen on deaf ears.
• Furthermore a justice system requires that indictments should be duly filed in respect of those held in detention whether they be ex-combatants, terrorist suspects or ordinary criminals and they be tried for their crimes, and depending on the verdict either released, rehabilitated or further imprisoned. However so many years after the end of the armed conflict many ex-combatant and terrorist suspects remain in limbo without being brought to trial. Although the numbers of such persons have reduced the proper administration of justice and not the numbers affected is still the issue, and the perception of discrimination is still to be erased.
• Transitional justice requires that citizens adversely affected by war and ethnic conflict as in the case of those whose properties have been destroyed, or who have been disabled or have lost the support of their family members should in the aftermath of the war be given some form of reparations by the State. In the aftermath of the armed conflict there are in the Northern Province approximately 50,000 women who have been widowed and who are now the breadwinners for their families, i.e. Women headed households. Similarly in the eastern province. These persons need livelihood support, as also psychosocial support and counseling for the trauma hey have undergone. Government resources are not being adequately allocated towards alleviating the hardships of these people. As these women are subjected to exploitation and sexual harassment the observation made in the LLRC report that the women need to live in a safe environment is a pertinent one. This requires the provision of more police stations and Tamil speaking Police women. The absence of sufficient and adequately staffed Police stations in the north is also allowing free reign for criminals and gangsters.
• That the state returns to the rightful owners lands and properties taken over for the military or other purposes. Security concerns can be met by setting up such establishments in state land and releasing the people’s property. Although this process is taking place it remains extremely slow and there are still IDP camps across from Army camps or farms run by the army, where the original owners can see others making use of their property to which they themselves have no access?
• Ever since independence there has been little state sponsored economic development of the northern and eastern provinces. The exceptions such as the cement factory at KKS, Paranthan Chemical’s, the sugar factories in Kanthalai and Hingurana and the paper factory at Valaichennai (all now defunct) set up in the D.S Senanayake era among a few garment factories and the Trinco port are the only evidence of any State sponsored development, and even these need to be revived. . There have similarly been no major irrigation schemes for the development of agriculture in the Northern Province. In the Eastern province such schemes have been largely with a view to aiding colonization by persons from outside the province rather than looking to the interests of the farmers of the province. Similarly there has been no development of the fisheries sector in comparison with the rest of the country. Today the northern fishermen are struggling to make a livelihood, the farmers are doing likewise as so many small tanks destroyed during the war have still to be repaired. Development in the north has remained confined to a few sectors especially the service sector, hotels and promoting tourism in which the military and wealthy businesses from outside the province have the major share. This does not bring benefits to the ordinary people who are crippled by debt and unable to move forward with their lives because of an absence of employment opportunities.
• We now come to the issue of devolution. Non implementation in full of the 13th amendment to the constitution especially in its spirit is probably the most obvious example of how the state has failed in its commitment to respond to the demand for greater and more meaningful devolution.

Can effective devolution resolve the grievances? We must recognize that the grievances though largely pertaining to the Tamil speaking people are not confined to them or one part of the country. There are other provinces in the South too which have not seen much economic development. The manner in which justice is being administered and the culture of impunity are also adversely affecting people in all parts of the country. Poor urban dwellers in Colombo and farmers in Moneragala and Hambantota find themselves being dispossessed, just as the IDPs in the North.

Hence instead of confining the subject to an ethnic dimension the’ National Question’ could be viewed from a broader perspective. Will devolution be good for the country as a whole, and can the delivery of services be better provided by a decentralized system. Some guidelines on this was given by Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa when in 2006, in his opening address to the Experts Committee which he had constituted to advise the APRC (All Party Representative Committee) on the resolution of the National Question, he said that people in their own localities should be able to guide their own destinies. True democracy functions where there is sharing of power and empowerment of the people. However devolution must be subject to two riders. Devolution must not be confined to the Provincial Councils alone.

It must also result in empowering the local government institutions to ensure greater people’s participation. Furthermore as pointed out in the LLRC Report the shortcomings in the functioning of the Provincial Council system must be taken into account in devising an appropriate system of devolution, which addresses the needs of the people. The LLRC Report states “The effective functioning of the democratic system within the framework of devolution will also provide the answer to the grievances of the minorities”. However I would submit that some of the grievances cannot be addressed only at the Provincial level and this calls for power sharing at the Centre and the establishment of a second chamber comprising representatives from the Provinces so that they too have a voice in the legislative decision making process. So yes a new constitution which seeks to address these questions through greater sharing of power with citizens leading to a fairer distribution of resources and improved service provision will address not only the grievances of the Tamil speaking people but of a large majority of people of all communities and thus address what is truly a national question.

The tale of many New-Populisms

New Populism scuttles liberalism but will be wrecked on its own delusions 

A frosty event in Davos

by Kumar David-January 21, 2017, 4:49 pm 

I have frequently used the term New Populism (NP hereafter). It has not caught on yet outside Lanka, but give it time. I can’t think of a better collective noun for the phenomenon. Brexit, Rodrigo Duarte, Donald Trump, Modi’s sky-high personal popularity paradoxically contradicted by his much ostracised demonetisation, the Five Star Movement’s referendum victory forcing Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to resign, the only marginal defeat of far-right’s Norbert Hofer who polled 47% in December 2016 in Austria’s presidential election (he won with 50.4% in the annulled May election) and the likelihood of Marine Le Penn coming first in the first round of French presidential polls, mark a general trend, not a collection of accidents. Liberal democrats are at sea and wring their hands in dismay. For example Fareed Zakaria (Rise of Illiberal Democracy) in Foreign Affairs Nov/Dec 1997 (sic) wails for a dozen pages. The Economist, theoretical mouthpiece of global capitalism is flummoxed; its exhortations time after time have been ignored by electorates throughout 2016. More on the Economist anon.

This global drift is not without local resonance. Last week I said rumour had it that President Sirisena’s wing of the SLFP is backpedalling on the new constitution. John Seneviratne’s (JS) Sunday Leader (15 Jan) interview confirms and clarifies the game plan. JS, a Cabinet Minister, is a Sirisena minion and he makes bold to say the SLFP-Sirisena squad’s perspectives are: to retain the executive presidency intact and to promote a Sirisena-Gotabaya (President-PM) ticket. He canvasses these ideas as the best options and claims Sirisena will make a statement to this effect "soon". Would he dare suggest this unless he had a green light from the boss? All the ministers now conniving to retain the executive presidency (JS, SB, Nimal Siripala, AP Yapa and S Premajayantha) were hard-core Mahinda stalwarts up to 8 January. But afterwards greed for Cabinet posts was too much to resist. Now they conspire to smuggle in through the back door that which was rejected at the elections.

The ramifications of these machinations are not my topic today except to add that a Gotabaya PM-ship is the spear on which the Rajapaksa clan will impale pitiable Sirisena if this ticket were to come to power. A Sirisena-Gota axis, if it materialises, will be Lanka’s contribution to the global Trump-Duarte-Brexit phenomenon, and in power it will be religion-race inspired authoritarianism. I will have to return to the Lankan angle in the coming weeks as I have too much on my plate dealing with the international dimension today.

The intention of this piece is to censure liberals and their ideology; or to be exact, to flay liberal democratic values unless accompanied by radical social democracy and by wealth and income redistribution measures which do not occur naturally in capitalist economics.

Squeezed and angry

I am surprised that learned liberals can’t comprehend why most of the world is turning its back on the status quo. What else is one to expect when eight billionaires have the same amount of wealth as 50% of the world’s population (since 2015 the richest 1% owned has owned more than the rest of the planet); 57 billionaires in India have the same wealth as the lowest 70%; let alone the poor even the global middle class is squeezed and angry. These statistics are from a study issued by Oxfam ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland last week. The titles of some of the WEF sessions betray the summit’s desolation: "Politics of Fear or Rebellion of the Forgotten", "Tolerance at the Tipping Point" and "Squeezed and Angry".

And it’s not the economy alone. At no time in history has there been such a pronouncedly complex and toxic intermingling of people, migrants, refugees and faiths. This is creating a deep sense of anxiet6y and animosity; vide Trumps vicious populist-racism, the humiliation of Angela Merkel by large numbers of her own countrymen, the big cheer for Brexit for slamming the door on immigrants and inter-Islamic Sunni-Shia bloodletting in the Middle East. And unless I am wrong by a long chalk at no time in history has terrorism been so globally pervasive. The global system is broken!

Stated plainly there is something unprecedented and enormous happening, politically and socially. Public trust in leaders and institutions has collapsed (Trump’s approval rating has plunged from 45% to below 35% even before his inauguration) and free-market capitalism is rated a failure by a majority even in Europe and America. The state of global politics is worse than it has been at any time since WW2 and more depressing than even in the heyday of Regan-Thatcher neo-liberalism.

The sorry state of liberal aspirations

I will summarise and quote from the leader article of the December 24, 2016-January 6, 2017 double issue of The Economist. "For liberals this has been a bad year . . . globalisation has become a slur, nationalism and even authoritarianism have flourished". The piece mentions all the cases I have spotlighted and adds that "illiberal democracy" has widespread support in Hungary, Poland and Turkey and notes that in the Philippines voters have chosen a president who deploys death squads. The editor laments "faced with this litany, many liberals of the free-market sort have lost their nerve and some have gone on to write epitaphs for the liberal order".

The editorial goes on to say that liberalism has had it too easy for the last quarter century and "decayed into laziness and complacency". Amid growing inequality the winners told themselves that they lived in a meritocracy and their success was deserved. Those running the economy marvelled at their own brilliance until the house of cards collapsed – which is now. Well one can go along with most of this except that it seeks purely subjective rationalisations. It is all a ‘they did this, they didn’t do that so the process unravelled’ kind of explanation. It is not false, but in laying out the superficial causal forces that drive economic and social processes it could not have been otherwise. If it is to be free and untrammelled, or largely untrammelled capitalism, then it could not have been otherwise. Any and every economic arrangement has certain basic mores, rules, laws, conventions or what you will by which it functions and for capitalism to be capitalism the drive to profit, competition, surplus value extraction and reinvestment, accumulation and growth are all sine qua non.

But if that’s the way it HAS to work, then all the stuff that Oxfam laments and the folks at Davos shed crocodile tears about is as inevitable as night follows day. It is the inevitability of the hard logic of capitalism that the liberals delude themselves about. The very meaning of market capitalism is that it is allowed to develop in consonance with this logic. Regulation must be with a light touch. The unending refrain of the market is that regulation and state interference shackles the economy and undermines growth. Isn’t "reform" (wage and benefit restraint) the chorus of the liberal bourgeoisie? Only the most essential rights for protection of person, property and society must be allowed to interfere with the free-market, this is the creed of liberal capitalism. There is no denying that the obscene wealth and income gap, the anger of the mass of people at being left out in the cold and the roots of New Populism itself are squarely anchored in the prevailing economic order and how it (how it has to) function.

The con-solutions offered by the Economist

The "solutions" proposed editorially are pathetic; it must have been obvious to the author that he/she was clutching at straws; the style betrays it. But my intention is not to take a shot at a magazine much venerated by my liberal friends, but rather to heckle these friends and interlocutors themselves; the Economist is a surrogate target. Can you ease the problems of a "world that is disintegrating and polarising" (WEC founder Klaus Schweb’s words) by dilettante frolics of run-of-the-mill liberals and their intellectual standard bearers such as The Economist? The great magazine proposes as follows and though abbreviated I quote nearly verbatim:-

(a) Explore avenues that technology and social needs will open.

(b) Devolve power from state to cities.

(c) Politics should escape sterile partnerships using new forms of local democracy.

(d) The labyrinth of taxation and regulation should be rationalised.

(e) Education must be transformed to suit brand new industries.

(f) And I can’t resist this riposte: "We must all fiddle while Rome burns".

"The possibilities are as yet unimagined" The Economist proclaims but in truth what is incredible is the pointlessness which misses the mark by leagues. I say: You creeps the problem lies a not in (a) to (e) but in a massive inequality of wealth, an orders of magnitude disparity in incomes, a sense of hopelessness alienation in a modern market-driven economics, and a petty consumerist value system that is the moral side of a society so organised.

Let me be blunt about it. The liberal prayer (a) to (e) and much else trivia that the liberal press and economists invoke the gods to grant (they don’t smash coconuts in those countries) are beside the point. The priority has nothing to do with any of this and at the price of annoying you please permit me to repeat: Its about inequality of wealth, gross disparity of income, alienation of people and the absence of power to influence social life since all power is usurped by the uppermost, and about escaping from the inanity of a value system and crass consumerism whose raison d’être is the supremacy and dominance of a wholly market-driven order.

The moral foundations of liberalism are decent, tolerant, open-mindedness, secularism in public life and the free exchange of goods and people. It is when liberalism does not correspond to the material conditions of social life, when liberalism is not at the same time social democracy, that it becomes impotent. That is when a good intentioned but narrow in socio-economic perspectives political programme goes belly-up. Social democracy in a sense is the attempt to integrate the best and open values of liberalism with socially fair economic practices.

DEAR MR. SIRISENA, I’M GAY, AND I WANT MY VOTE BACK.

Jan 21, 2017

There was a time when we were too ashamed to admit that we voted for Mahinda Rajapaksa. Even though we believed in all he stood for and the path he wanted to create toward a new Sri Lanka when we did vote for him. Just over a month ago a General Physician, whom I had the pleasure of getting into political discourse with, said the same has become true of Maithripala Sirisena. “No one wants to admit they voted for him.” He said. “They’re too ashamed.”

I’m not.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I voted for Sirisena, or that I believed enough in the potential of his government to convince others to do so. I spoke very openly on social media and I shared perspective with those who were unable to fathom the inner machinations of the political beast of Sri Lanka. I was a champion of the change they were calling “Yahapaalanaya” at the time. And now, this man, whom I take full responsibility for putting into power, is refusing to acknowledge my existence, my rights, my being as a gay man and citizen of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

He is saying that I was born a criminal. He is saying that I do not matter. And so I must ask him, if that is true, then does my vote still matter? Does it even count? Are you legally allowed to count the vote of someone you refuse to recognize as an individual? Is that different to being called a non-person? Because that is what he is saying I am. That is what he is saying of all the gay men and women who voted for him. That we don’t count. If that is true then I demand a recount. Tell us, if you don’t have our numbers, are you quite certain that you’re still our President?

The Media describes the attempts to decriminalize homosexuality as being brought about ‘surreptitiously’. Really? Must we resort to such clandestine measures to discuss the basic rights of a human being? Especially in this Buddhist Nation where threats of violence and eloquent speeches on intolerance are spoken so boldly, so loudly, so openly by men who aspire to imitate the Buddha.

Mr. Sirisena is a true son of the soil, they say, from the very heart of Raja Rata. His ancestors, the Kings of our great island, engaged in homosexual behavior to the point that made my ancestors afraid. Me, I’m a descendent of the white man that the “true” Sri Lankans fought so hard to chase out of here 69 years ago. It’s a pity that only the men themselves have departed. Their attire, their bureaucracy, their language, and (it now appears) their culture have all stayed behind. In this regard it seems Mr. Sirisena is being culturally inappropriate to his own heritage and doesn’t even know it. And so he sits there, in that place of power that my power put him in, telling me that he doesn’t recognize me.
Well, sir, let me be the first to tell you that I do not recognize you. Not as my fellow countryman. Not as my President.

https://brandoningramsblog.wordpress.com/blog/

Over one million people affected by severe drought in Sri Lanka



January 21, 2017

Over 1 million people have been affected by severe drought in Sri Lanka with authorities warning the numbers could rise in the coming weeks due to less rainfall. 

Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management Center said that 18 districts have been affected by the drought and rescue teams were distributing drinking and clean water for the victims.

 According to statistics, 1,041,690 people and 251,310 families have been affected by the drought. 

President Maithripala Sirisena, on Friday requested all private institutions to limit the use of power by switching off lights that are used for the advertising and decoration purposes of their respective institutions.

 The president pointed out that the country has to face a power crisis in the future due to the drought situation in the country and therefore it is the responsibility of all to use the power in an economical manner from now. 

A huge amount of power will be utilized for the advertising boards and other decorative electrical systems used by the private institutions at nights, for their advertising purposes and through limitation of this usage, a significant amount of power consumption of the country could be saved, the president pointed out. 

He requested everyone to support the initiative of frugal use of power until the effects of the drought are over. 

The National Water Supply and Drainage Board also recently warned the general public to refrain from using the water from the Kalu Ganga, one of the largest rivers in Sri Lanka, for drinking water purposes citing that sea water had mixed with the river water due to the prevalent drought.

 Sri Lanka’s former war torn north has also been severely affected by the drought, Disaster Management officials said. Enditem Source: Xinhua

Drought, power cuts and more

Friday, 20 January 2017

Some days back Minister for Disaster Management Anura Priyadharshana Yapa announced that Sri Lanka would face a shortage of water, food, power and energy based on the current drought. Rains are only expected in mid-March.

The public was urged to use water and power sparingly and be prepared for these shortages: “The Government has decided to import 250,000 metric tons of rice to offset any possible food shortage. We will do our best to soften the impact of the prolonged drought. The Irrigation Department has already curtailed the supply of water for agricultural purposes in certain areas so as to provide drinking water. Our main concern is the welfare of the people”.

This statement might be sincere by the Minister, however it does not reflect the decisions taken in the country. And therefore: no, you do not do your best and no, your main concern is not the welfare of the people. And the question is really, why does the general public constantly have to bear the cost for the weak decisions others make?

In a country like Sri Lanka where distribution of decision power is highly unequal, how can an average person balance out the unsustainable decisions of leaders? This might be corporate or political or societal leaders – in times like these all of those who play a leading role are accountable. How can we face climate change which affects the country each year more and more and at the same time talk about resorts spending gallons of water for golf courses, development projects which eradicate forests and wetlands, harm oceans and other natural sanctuaries?

So the answer is NO, your priority is not the welfare of the people. If it was, you would first concentrate on fixing things in the country before starting large-scale high investment projects which have nothing to do with the current challenges, rather some of them might as well aggravate them.

However high the ambition and motivation of those who try to facilitate large, positive change in the country, even if they make it for one or two years… latest then they give up when having to deal with challenges linked with power generation, power supply, import and tax regulations which give much freedom to those who degrade the country, however increase the barriers and hurdles for those who want to create sustainable change.

In December the Daily Mirror reported: “The prevailing drought had resulted in dwindling water levels fast dwindling in several reservoirs that feed the Kotmale, Upper Kotmale, Laxapana, New Laxapana, Canyon, Wimalasurendra and Polpitiya hydro-power plants due to the prevailing drought. A senior official of the Ceylon Electricity Board said the water level in the Mausakelle reservoir was 30 feet below spill level and that at the Castlereagh reservoir was 16 feet below spillover level. Residents of the area said the ruins of old buildings were to be seen now that the water levels had dropped. Electrical Engineers said power generation would be affected in case the drought prolongs.”

Who will suffer the most?

And again, who is going to be the one suffering the most? The ones without private generators, the ones without wells, the ones dependent on power and water supply – the general public. What happened since the 2016 floods? Or even, what happened after the tsunami 2004?

Latest then, the country should have established appropriate systems of warning, mitigation and also of help in the case the disaster repeats. Currently we do not have rain, it can be expected that once the rains come, they will come heavily and again parts of the country will be flooded, landslides will go down, city drains will be blocked and houses will be under water.

Some of the solutions are paying compensations to victims of natural disasters, continue running a coal power plant which is known to fail and which is known for its high risk and unreliability, import food to balance out the food shortages, and in addition cutting down forests to give land to some who might have, or might not have been displaced. It must be evident that such measures are either highly controversial and are not even scraping of the tip of the iceberg and are far from sorting out the root causes.

The first step would be to understand the causes and best mitigation methods for climate change. There are plenty of experts in the country itself who can guide decision makers. In addition conferences and workshops are featuring foreign experts as well. But what can all the experts do if decisions are not taken accordingly.

Capitalism and climate change

This week I have been watching the documentary of Avi Lews and Naomi Klein which is called ‘This changes everything’; it takes on the relationship between capitalism and climate change. It highlights that climate change is highly related to inequalities where the negative consequences of the decisions of a minority affect society at large, especially the poor among society.

The movie showcases examples of exploitation of natural habitats in the name of energy demand eradicating the substance of life from various communities. It also highlights how communities and societies start fighting against injustice and the destruction of habitats and how humanity is moving close to each other in fighting this common threat of environmental destruction in the name of capitalism. Despite the awareness raising and motivational character of the movie, it in my opinion fails to highlight the individual responsibility of each and every one.

As it mostly focuses on non-renewable energy projects on the one side and communities which are largely dependent on natural resources on the other side, it misses out on highlighting the fact that we are all in the same boat – even if we are not farmers or indigenous communities. It is not “good and bad humans” which are fighting each other, protests and fighting will achieve awareness and maybe the halt of unsustainable projects however we need solutions –we need practical solutions.

Not only that the unsustainable practices have to stop – consciousness about each and everyone’s responsibility in whatever role someone might be in has to rise – that can be a farmer, banker, investor, politician, laborer or professor – we are all consumers of goods, we are all consumers of energy, we are all wasting – we all need air, water and food. Even if the rich can run away from climate change consequences longer than the poor, one day they will also need to face them. Therefore, end of the day, we all sit in the same boat.

We must find new systems, new ways of living

Sole focus on capitalism and unlimited growth does not work! We have to accept that. However holding on to ancient societal concepts and glorifying the past and “middle ages” might neither work as well. Not many will be willing to give up their phones, laptops, cars and other goods to live with candles and as farmers. This is similarly not realistic as continuing the destruction of the planet as we do currently.

We must find new systems, new ways of living where different types of lifestyles can exist besides each other. In that way, decrease of inequality must go hand in hand with renewable energy systems, circular economies where waste is minimised and innovative production systems are set up using by products and waste as resource, resource extraction at the current scale to fit fashion demands and our throwaway society have to change – we have to find a balance in what we take out from nature and what we give back. The good news is, we already have practical solutions at hand and humanity offers sufficient smart minds to come up with even greater innovations than so far.

However, first an understanding needs to be created among all levels of society – what do we consider wealth? We say “health is wealth”. But is it really true? Are we really prioritising accordingly? When being asked what is most important to them, most people mention their family members, partners and friends.

The UK Guardian last year featured and article summarising the five biggest regrets of humans in the face of death. Those were: “I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself”, “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard”, “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings”, “I wish I’d had stayed in touch with my friends” and “I wish that I had let myself be happier”. Once the health is gone, once loved ones die, wishes change. No one said “I wished I bought that red dress some years ago” or “I wished I had made more money”.

The way we are currently treating our planet we endanger our health in many ways. Still our life systems are tiered towards accumulation of material belongings. However we do that at a cost of our most basic resource needs such as air, water, food, land. There is nothing wrong in enjoying material things, however the scale at which we currently do that will end of the day backfire at us. We are caught in an illusion about what is worth living for – and in this all countries are the same.

Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka we look at other more “developed” nations and want to be like them, at the same time destroying the precious resources Sri Lanka has, increasing climate change challenges, conflict potential amongst communities and inequality. Some people say “humans destroy the planet”; I’d rather say “humans destroy themselves”. The planet has been in existence 4.5 billion years, therefore I doubt a species like the human can destroy it. It will survive, but we won’t.

Aristotle already taught what wealth means: “Wealth can lead to a corruption of virtue. Wealth and its maintenance is properly an attribute of household management, its purpose being to give the male head of the household the freedom to act virtuously—not only via liberality but also via participation in the affairs of the community (the polis), an activity that is natural since man is by nature a political animal. Wealth is limited to this instrumental function. However, it is liable to transgress those limits. Some exchange is permissible, when it serves to meet the naturally limited consumption needs of the household, but once it is undertaken for its own sake, and not as a means to an end of consumption, then it becomes moneymaking. This activity can be engaged upon without limit. There is a natural limit, for example, to how much food can be consumed but not to how much money is possessed. A transgression of the proper purpose or end of activity represents a corruption, a perversion of virtue.”

The question is not about how to do it, the question is ‘Do we really want to do it?’ And to change anything in Sri Lanka which regards to climate change and its consequences, if there is no clear YES here, the issues will prevail and increase.

As the UN SDG 13 mentions: “People are experiencing the significant impacts of climate change, which include changing weather patterns, rising sea level, and more extreme weather events. The greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are driving climate change and continue to rise. They are now at their highest levels in history. Without action, the world’s average surface temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century and is likely to surpass 3 degrees Celsius this century—with some areas of the world expected to warm even more. The poorest and most vulnerable people are being affected the most.”

Sri Lanka has signed the Paris Agreement on 22 April 2016 at the COP 21, it has established climate change departments and related institutions, it has the resources in house and available via the SDG network. Sri Lanka is blessed, compared to countries such as small island nations where sea level rise will be detrimental or desert countries which anyways face water shortages. I cannot decide if it’s a blessing or a curse that Sri Lanka is so rich in resources – where the country could establish itself sustainably, it is taken for granted and exploited. Those countries which already face detrimental issues were forced to come up with innovative systems.

In that case it will be of benefit to take other countries as examples which build integrated solar pathways, smart renewable energy systems, rain water harvesting systems, protected natural habitats and wetlands, have laws which facilitate those companies and individuals who put efforts to benefit the country sustainably, execute laws which punish those who abuse and exploit the country. To establish a country which offers clean air, fresh water, healthy food, sustainable transport and housing systems and so on … should be in the interest of everyone – rich and poor. Further it should be in the responsibility of those in leading roles to facilitate such development as they have more means (educational, social as well as financial) to do so.

In the world there are no absolutely poor countries, there are only poorly managed countries. Poorly managed by those who focus on aggregating unlimited material wealth at the cost of the society and nature at large.