Response to Article on “National Reconciliation Policy” by Laksiri Fernando

Featured image courtesy UNICEF 

DEVANESAN NESIAH on 05/27/2017

I enjoyed reading Laksiri Fernando’s article and endorse most of his comments under policy areas 1-7, but not those under policy area 8 for reasons that I will elaborate later on.

I am particularly appreciative of what Laksiri has to say on the need to eliminate caste discrimination; and to adopt a trilingual language policy. On Caste, the initiative needs to come from Sri Lankan Buddhists to eliminate the continuation of caste based Nikayas as well as other manifestations of caste consciousness within Buddhism; from Hindus to eliminate all caste based oppression including the vestiges of untouchability, especially in relation to temple entry and access to public places; and from Sinhalese and Tamils (including Christians) to eliminate even the most subtle public identification of the caste identity of individuals, notably in marriage advertisements.

In respect of a trilingual language policy, we have the advantage of a highly literate population that is also very responsive to financial and other incentives, whether for employment or for admission to educational or training institutions. What is needed is to work out appropriate schemes of incentives for such employment, education and training, backed by an island-wide trilingual school network supplemented by out of school language training institutions. It will not be many years before we have a nation that is predominantly trilingual.

The one issue on which I have clear differences of opinion is on affirmative action /reverse discrimination. This should be a device to provide a level playing field for those with unequal opportunities due to external factors beyond their control. Accordingly African Americans, Native Americans (Red Indians), women and certain minorities in the USA received quota benefits for nearly two decades. Similarly, in India, Untouchables (Dalits), Tribals and certain other “Backward Classes” continue to receive quota benefits in respect of employment or education in state sector institutions.

The confusion of affirmative action/reverse discrimination with area quotas (in relation to university admissions) is peculiar to Sri Lanka. The scheme of district quotas in university admissions in Sri Lanka is unrelated to affirmative action/reverse discrimination. District quotas, in design and in impact boost further the privileges of the children of the rural elite. They gain from good schooling (they invariably gain admission as day scholars to the best schools in the district or as boarders to good schools elsewhere) and are further privileged on account of affluence at home. There are privileged and under privileged populations and also schools of widely different quality in every district. The children of the elite everywhere have access to good schooling. On the other hand children of the underclass have difficulties in accessing good schooling anywhere.

For example, Royal College and Visakha Vidyalaya cater predominantly to the upper classes in preference to the underclass in their neighbourhood. This holds true of elite schools everywhere. In every district there are lesser schools to serve the underclass. The children of elite schools anywhere are not primarily from the neighbourhood, judging by the glut of cars and vans that converge on these schools at opening and closing times. Similarly, Trinity and Hillwood cater primarily to the elite of Kandy and elsewhere. These children are in no way handicapped by being surrounded by estate schools and depressed Sinhalese medium schools. However, the children of Trinity and Hillwood gain a boost in university admissions due to being surrounded by under privileged schools. In turn, schools for low income populations all over Colombo and Jaffna lose out in university admissions due to being surrounded by numerous elite schools. This is certainly not affirmative action/reverse discrimination.

Some factors that impact on performance in school are related to the quality of the school and others to the socio-economic and education levels of parents and family. The latter is difficult to quantify and therefore to compensate for. Yet schools can be graded objectively (they already are) and these grades, further refined periodically in relation to individual university faculties that the children qualify to enter each year can be objectively quantified and university admissions duly adjusted. Such a scheme would indeed be affirmative action/reverse discrimination, which disrtrict quotas are definitely not.

Further, as Laksiri points out, reconciliation requires attention to several other more contentious items such as dealing with killings, disappearances, physical disabilities, physiological trauma, displacement, loss of land, occupation as well as the overwhelming presence of the military among the population most affected by the war. These issues are more difficult to deal with. Healing in respect of issues listed 1-7 by Laksiri, and issue 8 as amended above, will go a long way towards reconciliation and make it easier to deal with the more controversial issues.

Readers who enjoyed this article might find “Dealing with Caste prejudice and inequalities in Sri Lanka” and “The Art of Connection: Two organisations take on reconciliation” enlightening.

Courses Offered By State Funded Universities: Suitability For The Times

By Siri Gamage –MAY 27, 2017

Dr. Siri Gamage

In an article published by Colombo Telegraph (26.5.2017) Sarath Jayasuriya raises an important question about the value of courses offered by state funded universities in Sri Lanka while commenting on the issues and politics around SAITM and the nature of graduates produced by private universities. He says, majority of these graduates from state universities are added to the unemployment queue and this requires the immediate attention of protestors against SAITM to get the authorities to open their eyes and ears. This is a timely reminder to all those concerned with the future of our graduates particularly large numbers of them being trained in the humanities and social sciences.

Suitability of education and training received by graduates for employment locally and globally is a crucial issue in anybody’s language as the more immediate aim of any undergraduate is to find employment after graduation. Most students follow courses that are not suitable for employment by their choice. It is due to their inability to get admitted to professionally oriented courses such as medicine, engineering, law, accounting, commerce, business and management. According to the hierarchy of (false) values prevalent in the society, less value is placed by applicants for university places on courses such as nursing and teaching compared to professionally-oriented courses.

In the higher education field worldwide, there is ongoing debate and discussion about the purpose of university education. Some academics emphasise the need for producing graduates with a skills set suitable for the employment market in a given country, the broader region and global economy. What role universities play in such endeavor compared to the role played by vocationally oriented training institutions are debated? For example in Australia Technical and Further Education or TAFE Colleges offer vocationally oriented courses. Very often universities work closely with such Colleges to create easy pathways for students to move to university after completing their TAFE qualification in fields such as early childhood education.

However, among the community of academics, there is a broad consensus that university courses should play a much broader role in providing students with critical thinking and problem solving skills, knowledge of contemporary issues and global affairs, historical and cultural heritage of one’s country, communication skills including skills in foreign languages, rights and responsibilities of citizenship, ethics and spirit of community service etc. The idea is to produce future citizens with a sense of identity and community responsibility rather than self-interested individuals who aspire to climb the class ladder with the qualifications acquired as public money is used in education.

On both counts the higher education system in Sri Lanka seems to struggle and the reasons for this dire situation are well known. In a country that appoints Commissions of Inquiry for even trivial matters, authorities have not thought it necessary to initiate an inquiry into the issues of course suitability or the state of affairs in higher education institutions including governance and politicisation. The university sector is being treated as a sacred cow and billions of rupees are pumped into the system annually as if the system is perfect. Reform is not even in the terminology of policy makers and the higher education hierarchy.

One aspect that needs to be emphasised is the lack of ‘market sensitivity’ in most courses offered by Sri Lankan universities. In other countries authorities take actions to ensure the education provided through courses is suitable for the times, graduate needs and industry expectations. This of course does not apply to courses in philosophy, history, literature or similar areas of study. In other words, universities in countries like Australia ensure market sensitiveness in the degree courses offered. For each course offered, there is a list of ‘graduates attributes’. Lecturers develop course content, assessment tasks etc. to match these attributes. I am not aware of similar requirement for the courses offered by Sri Lankan Universities.

One reason for Sri Lankan universities to offer courses with less market sensitivity is due to the fact that 100% funding is guaranteed by the state. In Australia only a little more than 50% of funding is provided to universities.  In turn the universities are required to generate ‘additional income’ for operational purposes by way of entrepreneurial activities, research and consultancies. Government provides funding for research on the basis of highly competitive application vetting process annually. Such applications require well-developed team research proposals showing not only collaboration among researchers across institutions but also clearly identifiable outcomes in various fields plus rigorous methodologies.

In the cases of Sri Lanka, university academic and administrative staff receives their salaries irrespective of the quality or suitability of the courses offered, student satisfaction ratio or the nature /quality of research conducted. Elsewhere I have pointed out that the research conducted by social scientists is not grounded in the local social and cultural context. They rather imitate Western models or theories and often the aim is to prove or disprove a theory produced in Western capitals. The aim of such research is to generate empirical data to prove or disprove an outdated theory. Such research adds very little to generation of knowledge useful for policymaking or problem solving in the country. Academic dependency on Western theories, concepts and models as well as research methods is a serious issue in many Asian, Latin American and African universities.

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FILM BREAKS SILENCE ON ‘MADNESS’ OF SRI LANKA CIVIL WAR

27/05/2017

Demons in Paradise, which is premiering at the Cannes film festival, tells of the bloodbath that drove some Tamils to take up arms in the three decade-long insurgency that tore the island apart.

Jude Ratnam is worried how his film might go down with his fellow Sri Lankan Tamils. And he has a point.

Demons in Paradise, which is premiering at the Cannes film festival, tells of the bloodbath that drove some Tamils to take up arms in the three decade-long insurgency that tore the island apart.

But the documentary also shatters a taboo by insisting that some of most horrific violence the minority endured was at the hands of their supposed defenders, the Tamil Tigers.

And the “hard truth” comes from the mouths of former Tamil fighters themselves.

“By making this film I know that I will have to face harsh, perhaps even hateful criticism from both communities,” Ratnam said.

Jude Ratnam

“The Sinhalese will claim that I am betraying my country by stirring up the past that is best forgotten. The Tamils will insist that I betrayed our cause by revealing the atrocities committed by the Tamil Tigers.”

Ratnam was five when the anti-Tamil pogroms of “Black July” began in 1983, sending him and his family fleeing north from the massacres in the capital Colombo.

Tamil grievances and suffering were real, the director insisted.

The problem was “the Tamil liberation movement turned out to be complete madness” with many groups vying for control.

‘Sun God’ leader

As many as 20,000 civilians died as the Tigers — led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, whose supporters venerated him as the “Sun God” — imposed their will through a bloody reign of terror in the Tamil-dominated north.

Ratnam believes another 10,000 disappeared after being tortured or taken to camps.

“If you don’t recognise that madness and just keep saying we were the victims, you are not facing the truth,” he added.

By 1986, less than three years into the civil war, “people were more afraid of the Tigers than the army,” he told AFP. “People were terrified of them… they reigned supreme as the gods of revolutionary justice.”

In the film, witnesses talk of the almost daily public executions of “spies” and “traitors” in the Tigers’ stronghold of Jaffna. Opponents were also “necklaced” with burning car tyres.

In one electric scene Ratnam brings together rival former fighters to talk for the first time around a campfire about what they saw and did.

If the film has a hero, it is his uncle, a former fighter who grew disillusioned with the struggle and risked his life to smuggle civilians out of Jaffna.

He returned from Canada with Ratnam to the family’s ancestral village near Kandy for an emotional reunion with the Sinhalese neighbours who hid him during earlier anti-Tamil violence in 1977.

“He’s a great man,” Ratnam said. “When I was 16 and I saw my people dying I wanted to fight. But he was the first to return and say, ‘This wrong, it’s messed up. What is going on is madness’.”

‘Silence is imposed’

Ratnam, the son of an Anglican priest, said facing up to the “hard truth of what happened is essential” if Tamils and the majority Sinhalese are to move on.

“Seven years after the end of the war, the victors are celebrated, general amnesia is encouraged and silence is imposed,” he added.

“In a conflict that went on 30 years nobody is innocent.”

Because of the Tigers’ iron grip, “everybody got sucked into the ideology. The Tigers came to represent the Tamils, so if you are a Tamil you had to be a Tiger”.

Ratnam took a decade to complete the film. Given the new Sri Lankan government’s commitment to freedom of speech, he said he hoped “they will allow the film to be shown”.

“It is not going to be easy. Some of my close friends will be upset by it. It’s a big taboo. I don’t think I will be able to show my face in Tamil diaspora areas abroad (where support for the Tigers is still strong)… nor Tamil Nadu in India.

“I am a Tamil, I don’t deny my identity, but identity also gets us into some lunatic positions that deny the facts or inconvenient truths. ‘Our people can’t be wrong!’ is the attitude.”

Ratnam said he would be “much more comfortable back home” in Sri Lanka where people lived with the war to the bitter end in 2009.

“Fear destroyed the lives of three generations” in Sri Lanka since British colonial rule, Ratnam said, when ethnic differences were used to “divide and rule”.

“My uncle had a gun. I have a camera… I want to avoid a fourth generation being trapped in the snare.”

HT

New finance cum media minister kick starts campaign to put wayward and traitorous media on right track !

(Lanka-e-News - 26.May.2017, 11.30PM) The new minister of finance and mass media has as a first step taken measures at once  to upgrade  the  mass media of Sri Lanka which have  descended to the lowliest levels .

Accordingly , with a view to re-structure  the State media Institutions , he had informed the chiefs and the Director Boards of those Institutions to resign in order that new  comrades can replace them . Already the entire board of the Independent television service has resigned.  It is learnt , it is likely some of the members who were incompetent would be replaced and not the entire Director board.

In addition , the minister without wasting time on pomp and fuss,  in his characteristic competent  style has taken most vital decisions to put the wayward and crookedly  motivated  villainous private media Institutions on the right track .

It is the  primary aim of the minister to visit every private media Institution , and meet the owners or the chiefs of the divisions , and inform them of the needs and necessities of  the country  which are paramount.  The minister has decided first and foremost  to request them not to impede the reconciliation efforts , and to halt their backstreet media activities which foil the reconciliation process.

After the country was devastated and ravaged  by a 30 years old war , if the owners of media Institutions are still expecting to stoke conflicts and racial tensions through their media activities , then this country forever will be facing a bloodbath.  As a civilized government that cannot be permitted.  Hence the new minister said, he has taken crucial decisions to put a stop to this once and for all by issuing  stern instructions to the private media chiefs.

The minister also said , he has decided to urge the media owners and chiefs not to conduct the media activities in a manner  that would militate against racial and religious reconciliation , although nothing will be done  to  obstruct   their political affiliations and expressions.

Mangala who is taking expeditious measures in regard to the media ministry has not been able to take such swift action  as a finance minister .

Based on reports reaching Lanka e news , the former finance minister Ravi Karunanayake has made a bizarre unwelcome  request from the president and the prime minister. That is , to bring the Lotteries Board , and Development Lotteries which were under him when he was the Finance minister within the purview  of his new ministry of foreign affairs. It is to be noted after a ministerial portfolio is given , the gazette should notify the Institutions that are coming within the ambit of the various  portfolios.

In any event , nowhere in the world Lotteries boards  have come  within the purview of a  foreign ministry . In a country like Sri Lanka where  exists a finance ministry which is sans the Central bank and Commercial banks ,there is a foreign ministry with    Lotteries board under it  , Minister in charge of Buddha sasana has  powers to deliver  death sentences , and Field marshals are digging  cultivation fields , even anything crazier  can take place.

In a strange Island like this , worse buffoonery and tomfoolery are to be  expected naturally ,  when  there are  mad morons  unable to do  anything  worthwhile for the country are holding sway , who after resigning their  own political  party and  propelled  themselves to victory riding on the shoulders of  the people’s forces, are now somersaulting  back in a vain  effort  to make their  defeated discarded  political party win again without showing any gratitude to the People’s forces who truly  helped .   

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by     (2017-05-27 03:09:23)

Why Has SAITM Become A Spike In The Progress Of Sri Lanka?

By Sarath Jayasuriya –MAY 26, 2017

Sarath Jayasuriya

Recently I was invited to attend a forum organised by a group of professionals in Melbourne. In fact I was invited as a panel speaker. There were three others in the panel totalling four including myself. The topic was quite appropriate and was addressing one of the burning issues in Sri Lanka.

The “SAITM” The South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine

I must confess at the offset that I am not an agent nor shareholder of SAITM. I am a keen follower of issues that are of controversial nature that prop up from time to time in Sri Lanka where politicians vigorously use them to their advantage. In this article I would like to address a few points that were discussed at the forum.

Business Name “SAITM”

As far as I have read and also understood from the participants, was that SAITM was initially established under a different name where M stood for Management rather than Medicine. This was a sticky point for two speakers who spoke strongly against the mere existence of SAITM. As far as I understand I see no issue with a Management outfit conducting various courses that they are competent of. It is just a matter of establishing a department or a faculty to conduct courses? Their business structure is their business.

On the contrary KDA (Kotelawala Defence Academy) now renamed as KDU or Kotelawala Defence University which is a direct investment of the Government through the defence establishment, conducts fee paying degrees, Post Graduate courses, Diplomas and offer Professional Courses. The courses include Medical, Engineering, Allied Health, computing, Architectures and Law to name a few. This is the first university that I am aware of offering diplomas and certificate courses in networking – (CCNA) Cisco certified Network associate. By the way all these courses are fee paying and not free of charge to students who are not children of the defence personnel.

I am yet to comprehend as to how and why the politicians who agitate about SAITM has failed to see the functioning of KDU. Kotelawala Defence Academy was established primarily to train defence personnel in defence related courses. It is quite in order for the Academy now KDU to award degrees to those who excel in studies while being attached to a defence establishment.

Private Universities 

The basic argument on the table is that SAITM being a private Medical College or School should not and cannot award Medical degrees. Looking at the past we find that SAITM had been established in 2008 with the permission from the Ministry of Higher Education who had the power to do so. Initially an application had been lodged to obtain UGC approval. However during the process the line ministry had vested the power to the Minster on cabinet approval to grant permission by way of a Gazette notification. Approval had been granted to conduct Medical degree programs and to offer degrees on completion. There were no protests made at the time by the parties who are opposing today. Probably due to fear of being persecuted at the time or virtually strongly reprimanded by the then regime. Today we see protests by an array of organisations, University students, Trade Unions and the GMOA in particular. The same collective had refrained from opposing the commencement of Medical degree programs at the KDA now KDU. I am sure the majority public would like to know the turn of thought or the back flips by these bodies.
Adding insult to the injury is that the very same then President, Ministers and secretaries who approved the establishment of SAITM and KDU are now opposing SAITM quite vigorously.

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Weather gods are showing no mercy and a shuffling government has no answers

by Rajan Philips-May 27, 2017, 7:50 pm 

May is Sri Lanka’s cruellest month insofar as flood disasters go. I looked over my past articles and practically every May I have been writing on the annual flood event and every year it has been getting worse. With alternating droughts and floods,weather disasters are no longer seasonal and are not limited geographically. The intensity and geographical reach of the current floods are quite unusual just as was the drought disaster that preceded it. The death toll has passed the 100 mark, an equal number are missing, and alarmingly the worst may not be over. Rainfall exceeding 500 mm has been registered at a number of locations in the five wet zone provinces. As in 2010, quite a few earth slips have been reported in the three Southern Province districts. Expressways, interchanges and normal roads everywhere are under water. Evacuation warnings have been given by Divisional Secretariats along the Kelani River from Kolonnawa to Avisawella.

In 2010, several UPFA ministers ganged up on the UDA, targeting it as a UNP creation. Now the UDA, no longer a ‘UNP baby’, is taking the attack to everyone else. Who does what, when and where is always a question in Sri Lanka’s unnecessarily complicated governance system, but the question hits home hard in disaster situations. The government that staged a sham of a cabinet shuffle last Monday was in deep water by the end of the week. Not that a different shuffle would have made any difference, but if the political effect of the shuffle was bewilderment on Monday, by Friday its practical effect was proved to be zero, if not negative.

No one can blame a government for no rain or too much rain, but as droughts and floods have become a recurring cycle well over a decade, it is fair to expect governments to have at least some preventative measures in place to minimize loss of life and property damage. At the least, governments should avoid doing things that magnify and aggravate the impacts of weather disasters. Instead, Ministers blame the poor shanty dwellers for the floods in Colombo. If their ‘illegal dwellings’ do not block runoff to ditches and canals, there will be no floods in Colombo. That is the political assertion, but it is nonsense.

The intensity of rainfall is the main factor determining overland runoff. The human contributor to urban flooding in Sri Lanka are not shanties but the so called ‘legal developments’ – both real estate and infrastructure, which are undertaken with little or no regard to dealing with their drainage implications. It is not that there is no technical expertise in Sri Lanka for doing this, but there is no routine requirement for assessing and addressing drainage (as well as servicing, traffic, parking and, yes, garbage) ‘impacts’ associated with new developments, as part of reviewing and approving new developments. This ‘requirement’, along with environmental impact assessment, should apply not only to private developments but also to public infrastructure development. The collapse of embankments and the flooding of roads, highways and interchanges would suggest inadequate attention to drainage in their design and construction. The existing drainage system in Colombo is grossly under capacity and flood protection measures in vulnerable areas across the country are next to nothing.

In May 2010, in similar circumstances in Colombo, I quoted the then Chief Administrator of the City, Omar Kamil, bemoaning the inadequacy of Colombo’s drainage system that has not changed much since it was built in 1938 when Colombo’s population was 80,000.Last year, I referred to an article by Justice PHK Kulatilaka, where he indicates that 17 of Sri Lanka’s 103 rivers are known flood risks, the Kelani River and Kalu Ganga among them. The British built flood protecting bunds in 1925 along the Kelani River and nothing much has happened since, except landless people becoming squatters between the bunds. Flood protection plans were developed for the Kalu Ganga basin in the 1960s and nothing has been implemented. Ratnapura goes under water year after year. It is the same story everywhere and every year.

The consequences of recurring floods and droughts will be even harder if the country’s hard infrastructure facilities start falling as they seem to have already. Cost of living and unemployment have been with us from the time of independence. Deteriorations in education and health services, chaotic roads, and the steady erosion of law and order came in later years. Now we are on to other levels of collapses. If Meetotamulla was not enough, a six storey building in Colombo came crashing down last week, and there is now admission that there are thousands of illegal buildings in Colombo and in the country. Sections of the newly built expressways are under water, and a section on the Southern Expressway has been closed for some time due to an embankment collapse. The consequences of institutional collapse are no less significant.

Too incompetent

to collapse

Talking about institutional collapse, The Economist has described the state of the opposition Labour Party in Britain as being "Unfit to lose" in the upcoming June 8 British elections. By that token, Sri Lanka has a government that is too incompetent even to collapse, and a Joint Opposition that is too motley to matter. An arguably saving grace of such mutual incompetence could be that it lowers the risk of new harms being done. But there are old harms that need to be addressed and new problems independent of government action are arising almost daily that require concerted government efforts to deal with them. Add to this list of woes flood and drought disasters and the prospects are not pleasing.

According to some observers, Sri Lanka has a four-level system of government: the president, parliament, provinces and local bodies. One would have thought the president and parliament are separate but equal, but let us not go there. The defenders of the executive presidency insist that without it Sri Lanka cannot deal with extreme situations or calamities, especially wars. Their preoccupation is with keeping Sri Lanka permanently war-ready rather than permanently avoiding wars. But between wars, how does a civilian society function? How does it deal with more recurring disasters like floods and droughts? How does it ensure that garbage piles don’t collapse, buildings don’t crash, and roads don’t slide with earth slips?

The answer is not only in the executive presidency but also in the co-ordination and functioning of all levels of government – national, provincial and local. Such co-ordination and multi-level functioning is fundamentally necessary regardless of whether the executive presidency stays or goes. Obviously, in disaster situations the national government must step in with its greater resources, but it cannot leverage much if the lower tier governments are not working well. After independence, the local bodies that were Sri Lanka’s first experience with representative, and limitedly executive, democracy have been on a path of steady decline. The provincial governments, we can keep arguing for ever the reason for their being, have never been able find their footing. The non-functioning of these two levels of government is at the root of much of our current problems – from garbage, to collapsing buildings, to traffic chaos, water and sanitary services, and flooding due to inadequate drainage.

The only institution, in my view, that stood the test of textbook expectations for the longest time after independence has been the cabinet. By itself, the cabinet could not have compensated for the non-functioning of the lower levels of government. But over the last decade and more, the practice of cabinet government in Sri Lanka has been turned on its head and made utterly oversized and inoperable. Whether it is the result of executive presidency or not is debatable and is beside the point. The current dualism at the apex of power between the President and the Prime Minister created the best chance to restore cabinet government to what it used to be. But between them, they have botched it even more irreparably. Last week’s cabinet shuffle is the most bizarre in the island’s more than eighty year old experience of cabinet government. It is a raw deal for the country even as it weathers a now cyclical flood disaster.

According to some

When nothing is working, even those who are supposed to be working want to go on strike.

Doctors are now leaders in staging phony strikes. A profession that produced the likes of MVP Peiris and Senaka Bibile on either side of the political divide, in an earlier era, is now literally on the streets for nothing and it appears to be held in contempt not just by the courts but even the country at large. It is difficult to come across a single show of support or solidarity for an organization that goes by the name GMOA. We hear no accolades for them but only accusations, true or false, that government doctors are doing private practice while officially on strike and that they are also doubling as medical tuition masters to foreign-qualified doctors desperate to get through the Act 16 exam.

The bigger problem is the government that has been sitting on its hands without decisively addressing the SAITM issue and allowing it snowball into what it has become today.

Help line introduced to inform disaster situations

May 27, 2017

Ministry of Home Affairs has introduced the following telephone numbers to inform in the event of a disaster due to the prevailing heavy rains.

The contact numbers of the District Secretariats and the District Secretaries are as follows-

 

Ratnapura District                - 0452222235 / 0714423760

Kalutara District                   - 034 2222235 / 0716814813

Galle District                        - 0912234235 / 0714415377

Matara District                     - 0412222235 / 0776864397

Hambantota District             - 0472256235 / 0714441612

Colombo District                  - 0112369134 / 0773184910

Gampaha District                 - 0332222235 / 0773273507

Kegalle District                     - 0352222235 / 0773633293

Home Affairs Minister Wajira Abeywardhane     - 0777007070

Update: 122 killed in weather calamity

2017-05-26

The number of deaths reported in floods and landslides was increased to 122 while 97 people had gone missing, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said Saturday evening. 

In its latest situation report, the DMC said the adverse weather condition had left 49 people injured. In total, 415,618 people of 105,956 families had been affected by the weather calamity.

The South-West monsoon unleashed torrential rains, which ravaged fourteen districts in the western and southern parts of the country on Friday and Thursday.

The disaster is described as one of the worst-ever calamities since the 2003 floods. 

The Disaster Management Center issued an urgent evacuation warning last evening instructing residents living along the Kelani River and within the Divisional Secretariats of Kollonnawa, Kaduwela, Wellampitiya, Kelaniya, Biyagama, Sedawatte, Dompe, Hanwella, Padukka and Avissawella to move to safer areas.

Update 122 killed in weather calamity.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

A saffron tinge

by Sanjana Hattotuwa-May 27, 2017, 5:06 pm 

I was down with a high-fever when I created Sri Lanka’s first online response against Islamophobia, back in April 2012. News reports of a violent mob in Dambulla, led by the then Mahanayaka of the Rangiri Dambulu chapter Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, proceeded to deface and destroy a mosque they deemed illegal. The basis of the illegality was highly questionable, but this didn’t stop the monks who were part of the mob engaging in a violence that beggared belief. As flagged on a hastily setup site I created to gather signatures against the violence and the very real threat, at the time, of its spread and escalation, there was a member of the sangha who disrobed and exposed himself, in public, in front of the mosque. In one video, still online, Ven. Inamaluwe Sumangala thero suggested that the maniacal mob was actually a shramadaanaya, and that destroying the mosque was something that they should in fact be helped by the (then) government.

In a video broadcast in a television news segment at the time, there is a particularly chilling exchange between the erstwhile Chief Prelate of the Dambulla Temple and a Hindu resident of the area. The female, who is not once disrespectful in her submissions to the Prelate, says that from when she was small, she had worshipped at a Kovil in the area. In a menacing Sinhala idiom that loses a lot of its original venom and violence in translation, the Chief Prelate threatens to either remove the Kovil, or have it removed along with the homes of the Hindu residents, noting that they are all there illegally. The Chief Prelate goes on to note, through a Sinhala adage, that not only are the crows attempting to fly over their heads, they are now attempting to enter the nest as well – a clear reference to the Hindus and Muslims in the areas. The woman assures the Chief Prelate, with great deference even in light of an incendiary expression, that there is nothing for him to fear about their worship. However, the Prelate’s answer is again menacing in Sinhala, noting that she can take her gods wherever they want to, but away from the sacred ground of the Temple.

At the time, the petition generated around one thousand six hundred responses from a wide section of society. All of the comments and signatures, coming to around two hundred pages, were printed, bound and delivered to all relevant line ministries, the Dambulla Temple and the President’s Office with a covering note expressing the need for the State to respond to the violent extremism. The only response from the President’s Office was a letter acknowledging the receipt of the petition. Other initiatives followed by those concerned around the growing fascism including the Rally for Unity, a collective of young individuals who created a platform that attracted, at the time, a diverse group of people to champion diversity, tolerance and co-existence. The late. Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero was one of the movement’s first supporters, against what at the time was the heady rise of BBS violence, and with near total impunity. The tragic 2014 anti-Muslim riots in Aluthgama cemented the perception that the government at the time was closely linked to the BBS, which instigated the violence, if only because for an incredible length of time – around three days – no mainstream newspaper in Sri Lanka dared to report on the scale or the full import of the violence.

Much was expected from the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government in holding the fascism of the BBS at bay, at least, soon after being elected to power. The erosion of that optimism has been steady, and not all that slow. In 2014, leading up to and as a platform to mount opposition against the incumbents in power, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge launched a public appeal for tolerance, pluralism and diversity, which at the time, the UNP signed up to and very publicly committed to uphold. The document was also placed in the public domain for comments, and was one which the former government was also approached with. The many collectives on Facebook in particular in support of the BBS at the height of its frothing hate campaigns transformed into anti-Sirisena, anti-Wickremesinghe groups at the Presidential and Parliamentary elections respectively. The votes of those who are partial to extremism were never those courted by, or given to the current government.

This adds to the tragedy around the degree to which it has pandered to the likes of the BBS. Justice and Buddha Sasana Minister Wijedasa Rajapaksa became the new champion of extremism in government, enjoying a degree of impunity as he openly championed, courted and coordinated statements and actions with the BBS that clearly suggested he was supported by others, and by powerful, covert power blocs deeply embedded in a government that was overtly still opposed to racism.

Three key studies around dangerous speech online, and in particular on Facebook in Sinhala, conducted from 2014 to 2016 by the Centre for Policy Alternatives suggest that proponents of extremism – from the BBS to the Sinha-Le movement remained active online, with targets of their campaign focussing on leaders of the present government, as well as minority faith and ethnic groups. The calls to violence aren’t just against brick and mortar structures like mosques. They are thinly veiled calls to maim, kill and destroy individuals, groups and communities the campaigns clearly identify as being existentialist threats to the country, and its card-carrying Sinhala-Buddhist credentials. The continuous manufacture of this dangerous speech online generates a high-level of engagement through ‘likes’ on Facebook, sharing and commenting. The inability of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration to give political leadership to stem extremism has strengthened a fringe lunacy online into a more mainstream discourse that appeals to, and first reaches, a politically active demographic.

In just the past weeks, the documented violence against business establishments and mosques resulted in unequivocal statements from the Canadian, US, UK, EU and UN representatives in Sri Lanka around the need to secure Sri Lanka’s democratic potential against extremism. Sadly, strong political leadership in 2017 seems to clearly come from the diplomatic community and multi-lateral organisations more than Parliament, the President or Prime Minister. Despite an arrest order and a ban on travel last week, the leader of the BBS remains at large, with rumours openly published in the media – to date uncontested by government – which suggest he has sought refuge in a safe house belonging to a powerful member of the Cabinet.

And so, the farce continues. In the North, Tamils and hapless families of former combatants, as well as those who have no clue about the fate of their loved ones who were forcibly abducted or disappeared, are denied the space to mourn, and worse, treated as suspects. The simple act of a name carved in stone as a way to remember is enough to raise national security fears. In the South, however, the violence instigated by the BBS and the continued support for this extremism from within government passes muster. There is a clear, real problem.

We have a President, Prime Minister and IGP, who with the full weight of State apparatus, still cannot arrest a fascist monk. This is a script that allows extremism to seed, spread and succeed, through the theatre of the absurd. And we are all hopeless spectators in it.

Mayday! Mayhem in the making?

Friday, 26 May 2017

By the time you read this, you would have perused many pieces, no doubt, on the precarious state of the nation of late. The painful memories of April-May – Meethotamulla pitfall and the proposed appointment of a military panjandrum to curb, inter alia, a rising spate of civil unrest in our country, among other imbroglios – have been overshadowed by more recent events of alarming proportions.

Mayday! Mayhem in the making.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Sumudu Sudu Mutu Thalawe: I Came To Worship Siri Gunasinghe & Found Dhammi

By Renuka Satchithananthan (Mendis) –MAY 27, 2017

Renuka Satchithananthan (Mendis)

Siri Gunasinghe passed away this week. I have never met the man but knew him through his work Sath Samudura. Denawake Hamine, Cyril Wickramage. They inhabited my conscience through the years. If not for horrible sites like You Tube that flout copyright rules or un-rules these memories would die with folks like me.

It’s not every day, while living in a Western metropolis, albeit one that is arguably the most mixed culturally given its state as a beach of sorts where people from everywhere wash up like dead cats, rusty tokens or debris, that you go – let me go look for an old Lester James Peiris film on You Tube or Siri Gunasinghe’s work. The rough and tumble, the silences and rusty noises of living in a purportedly Western metropolis on stolen lands soaked in blood and lies and the day to day grind and survival keep us away from the truths resident in these hidden works although they are out on full view on You Tube. Except for Sath Samudura.

Sath Samudura is not available on You Tube. I remember vignettes of the film well from the etchings on my heart. I was but a child and my parents did not miss a Lester James film in those days except this was not him. We all went. Often for the late film – the childhood beginnings of my late night inhabitations. The fearsome ocean where brave men plunge on sea craft made of wood or coconut trunks. So strong and wiry like the men themselves. Even the women. In search of fish to make a small living on the edge of a precipice of abject poverty. Waiting to be gobbled by the monster that is the sea. The waiting, the storms the hungers and wild madnesses of the ocean that is a devil and a giver of bounty. Lives tied to the sea and the stories of those lives tended like torn nets on the beach under the burning sun or the moon’s light.

Prof. Siri Gunasinghe

Mahagama Sekara‘s words and music in Amaradeva’s voice. Speaking and painting the truths in our hearts. Truths created by a culture fed to us through the cinema and music so resonant of the sensibilities many of us grew under. The desperation of the poor that many looked the other way from. These are some of the things I remember but mostly what Denawake Hamine told us. What Cyril Wickramage portrayed. I was hungry last night to see them again. Except for song clips on You Tube, there’s no film. This is not a manifesto for incursion into copyright laws (or not) however a cry out for the hunger of a few hours in time at Elphinstone cinema in the sixties.

Scene from Sath Samudura. Director, Siri Gunasinghe

I have this bad habit of emoting memories when you hear when someone in the arts has died. More rarely in politics. Regretting why we did not value the person and his/her works while they were still on earth. What point in going on when they’re dead I said in arrogant cynicism. But isn’t that the whole point that their works will live for ever. Death a time of celebration of what one single human life can achieve. Isn’t that it?

First seen when about ten or eleven at the Elphinstone, if my memory serves right. Then and now. Here I am sitting at home on an off day in early summer/ late Spring in Toronto with bits of the film reel flashing across my brain and heart in celluloid. Isn’t that the point? Especially in cinema. The unsung cinema of Ceylon then, Sri Lanka now.

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