President removes BOI Chairman and Board

• Executive action following criticism on the way BOI was run and underperformance
• Upul Jayasuriya says he was to resign anyway for personal reasons and decisions made at BOI were in best interests
• FDIs fell to a new low last year due to weak foreign investor sentiments on policy inconsistency
• Assures future outlook for FDIs promising as Govt. keen to create an enabling environment
• Insists incentives and tax holidays needed in the medium term to accelerate FDI

Friday, 14 July 2017

The entire Board of Directors of the country’s main investment promotion agency resigned yesterday following a directive from President Maithripala Sirisena.

Sources said the move was to facilitate an overhaul including the appointment of a new Board of Directors.

The BOI Board comprised Chairman Upul Jayasuriya PC, Buddhi Keerthi Athauda, Manoj Cooray, M.A. Neeth Udesha and Dumindra Ratnayaka.

Chairman Jayasuriya said he had already decided to tender his resignation for personal reasons though he had come under flak for underperformance and other issues, including approval of projects by promoters whose backgrounds or intentions were questionable.  However, Jayasuriya said he stands by all decisions made by him in the country’s best interests.

He said that throughout the two year plus tenure in BOI he acted with honesty and integrity. “I stand by all the decisions I made and have acted honestly,” he added.

Last year actual Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) hit a new low of $ 500 million while the Central Bank put it as $ 898 million, higher compared to the $ 680 million in 2015.

Jayasuriya attributed lacklustre FDI flows to the country to the pursuit of a policy of no tax holidays or incentives for FDIs. Others said overall sentiment of green-field foreign investors was low given policy uncertainties among other factors.

 At a public forum last month he also faulted some draconian measures of the previous regime for having a lasting negative impact on Sri Lanka.

Jayasuriya, who thanked President Sirisena, Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe and Minister Malik Samarawickrama for their support, said the future outlook to attract FDIs remained positive.

“The Government is committed to increase FDIs and is engaged in creating the right environment. However, I personally feel Sri Lanka will need to continue to offer some degree of incentives and tax holidays in the medium term to attract much higher FDIs,” Jayasuriya opined.

According to the Central Bank, total FDI inflows, inclusive of foreign loans to BOI companies, amounted to $ 1,079 million, while direct investments that exclude foreign borrowings of BOI companies amounted to $ 898 million in 2016. In 2015, total FDI inflows with foreign loans in 2015 amounted to $ 1,160 million, while the same excluding foreign loans amounted to $ 680 million.

The bank said while the low level of FDI inflows has been a chronic issue in the Sri Lankan economy, FDI inflows during 2016 were affected by the evolving global economic outlook, in the backdrop of the interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve.

In addition, the significant increase in wage rates and other costs of production compared to peer countries in the region would have been disadvantageous in attracting foreign investments to the country.

Of the total FDI inflows in 2016, $ 260 million was in the form of equity, $ 450 million was reinvested earnings, $ 276 million was shareholder advances and intra company loans, while repayment of shareholder advances and intra company debt amounted to $ 87 million. During the year, BOI companies received $ 181 million in foreign loans from non-related lenders.

The country’s investment promotion strategy has been up for a revamp with the Government proposing an agency for development as well as an agency for international trade.

The Central Bank said, as evidenced by realised inflows, Sri Lanka’s attractiveness for FDI has remained low in spite of continued efforts to facilitate such investments. A reversal of this trend is urgently required. Failure to attract satisfactory amounts of FDI contributed to the high reliance on foreign debt to finance the current account deficit, increasing the country’s already high level of indebtedness. The strategies that are being developed by the Government need to be implemented expeditiously with a view to attract higher levels of FDI to the country, particularly against the backdrop of relatively higher FDI inflows to emerging market economies such as Vietnam, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

“Consistent domestic policies that are aimed at improving Sri Lanka’s competitiveness, strong institutional support and targeted promotional campaigns highlighting the potential of Sri Lanka as an attractive destination for investment would be instrumental in creating an enabling environment for FDI,” the Central Bank added in its 2016 Annual Report.

Jayasuriya was appointed BOI Chairman in February 2015. Having joined the Bar in 1976, Jayasuriya joined the Attorney General’s Department as a State Counsel on 2 January 1978. On the same day there were several others who joined the department. Among them were Justice Shirani Thilakawardena Rtd., Justice Nimal Gamini Amaratunga Rtd, Justice Priyasath Dep and Justice Sathya Hettige Rtd., all present judges of the Supreme Court and Anil Silva (P.C.).

In 1978 he also served as the First Legal Advisor of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission (present Board of Investments of Sri Lanka) while serving the Attorney General’s Department as a State Counsel. During his time its first 70 agreements were executed when Upali Wijewardena was the Founder Chairman of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission.

He was appointed Chairman of the Sri Lanka State Trading Tractor Corporation in 1982. In 1983 he was awarded the Top Young Outstanding Professional Award by Jaycees Sri Lanka under the Entrepreneurship category for converting the corporation into a profit-making venture.

He was later appointed Chairman Ceylon Oils and Fats Corporation which again was turned into a profit-making venture. He was appointed Managing Director/CEO of Ceylon Chocolates Ltd. in 1997 and converted the same into a substantial profit centre.

He held several company directorates and was also a member of the Board of Directors of Upali Investments Holdings Ltd.

He founded Asian Finance Ltd. In 2014 he was elected the President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka and continued in office for two years.

Prime Minister must clean his stables at least now

 Jul 14, 2017

The President at last is in no mood to turn a blind eye to corruption, nepotism and under performing ministers. While the President has had the guts to clean up the government and infuse new people into the Administration, the Prime Minister has continued to provide cover for his corrupt or incompetent officials.

Starting with the Srilankan board, the CEO of Srilankan is the most incompetent person the airline has ever hired, but the Prime Minister despite many revelations has continued to give cover to him.

Ajith Dias the Chairman has also been a total failure. He is accused of doing business with the former CEO and giving cover to the previous board. Both the CEO and the Chairman however continues in office, despite being shamelessly humiliated by the Cabinet.

The President and many SLFP Ministers say the government has not got one development project off the ground because of people like Charitha Ratwatte and Paskaralingem a notorious wheeler-dealer who was found guilty by a Presidential Commission.

On many occasions he has been accused of favoring corrupt businesses on many public websites. The PM has continued undaunted. Minister Sagala Rathnayake has been accused of delaying tactics to favour the Rajapakses.

The President and Health Minister has openly accused him. Minister Kiriella is notoriously corrupt. Malik Samarawickrama’s shadow is all over the place. These are all very close associates of the PM.

When the Bond Report is out in a few months, the PMs image will further get tarnished. This could kill his last chance of becoming President of this country. Despite all this many people still say the Prime Minister is not corrupt.

At a time when he is about to celebrate 40 years as a parliamentarian he should take stock of his performance and take decisive steps to clean up his stables and get rid of the wasted and the corrupt to ensure he gives himself a reasonable chance to compete for the next Presidential Election. If not, the UNP once again for the third time, would shamelessly need to look for a common candidate.

Investigations into colossal frauds which gobbled up public funds completed ! Herein are details of those blocking punishment ….

(Lanka-e-News - 14.July.2017, 7.35 AM) The revelation that the files entrusted  to the Attorney General’s (A.G.)  department after the conclusion of investigations by the CID pertaining to a number of colossal frauds committed across the country are in cold storage at the A.G.’s department because of lack of staff is an absolute lie based on reports reaching Lanka e news inside information division. The truth and nothing but the truth supported by cogent  evidence is  AG.’s department is not filing cases because of the pressures brought to bear on the department by the government.

In confirmation of this shocking exposure let us reveal some of the copious and cogent evidence only for the moment …

1. The complaint regarding the monumental frauds involving purchase of lands running into billions of rupees committed by ex Ports chairman Priyath Bandu Wickrema the notorious blue brigand crook in association with the Rajapakses (Alibaba and countless thieves) was received by the CID on 2015-02-04.  On 2015 -05-05 , that is exactly three months later , the investigations were concluded and the file CR1/ 271/ 15 relating to Priyath Bandu ‘s illegal land purchases was sent to the AG’s department to file the case. Unbelievably , even after 2 years and 2 months  have elapsed , the AG has not filed action.

If the AG says this file was languishing for so long because of lack of staff , he must be assuming the public are two legged donkeys and not humans  to believe him.  It is now very obvious , the political bigwigs of the government that loudly describes  itself as ‘good governance’  have exerted pressures , and the AG has yielded to the pressures abjectly . 

2. The complaint against former monitoring M.P. Sajith Vaas Gunawardena who was the wheeler dealer for Mahinda Rajapakse’s  illicit deals,  based on charges of robbery of vehicles belonging to the presidential  secretariat ( ex president MR’s time) was received by the CID on 2015-02-14 – just six days after Maithripala Sirisena was appointed as president .

The CID  concluded its investigations and sent the relevant file CR 1/ 1/ 16 to the AG on 2016-01-06 . Now it is over one year and six months since the file was received by the AG , no case has been filed yet. If the CID took only one year to  conclude a lengthy investigation , the AG saying  filing the case  merely after  sorting and sifting the legal from the illegal aspects   could not be finalized even after the lapse of one and half years is a joke of the century. 

Another file of infamous Sajin Vaas Gunawardena in connection with another heinous crime – money laundering  too is in cold storage at the AG’s department. The CID received this complaint on 2015-02-04 . After a lengthy investigation the CID handed over its file CR 1/AML/ CFT/ 12/16 to the AG for filing legal action on 2016- 09  -13  . Believe  it or not the case has still not been filed.

It is abundantly clear the political  bigwigs of the so called good governance government have intervened to save the notorious culprit Sajin Vaas  who caused billions of rupees loss to the country via his massive robberies , and that  the AG too had bowed to their traitorous pressures . 

3. Similarly the file CR  1 /AMC/ CFT/65/2016 pertaining  to the land frauds committed by Mahindananda Aluthgamage following the conclusion of investigations was sent to the AG on 2016-07- 21 . Sadly the AG has still not filed action despite the fact over a year had elapsed.

Lanka e news reported recently that Isuru Devapriya the Western province chief minister met the president on behalf of Mahindananda the culprit to rescue the latter from the crimes.  Based on that revelation , it is very evident the  case against Mahindananda is  not being filed due to the pressures exerted by the so called good governance government .

4. When Mahinda Samarasinghe was the minister of plantation Industries , a valuable land belonging to the ministry was sold by him to a private company for a song . The file CR 1/ AML/CFT /04/ 2015 pertaining to the investigation into that fraud after conclusion was sent to the AG on 2016-02-12 . Now it is over one year 5 months , no case has been filed. This is because Mahinda Samarasinghe did a somersault to support Maithripala Sirisena,  and not due to any other reason. It is therefore  abundantly clear the AG is kowtowing to the pressures of the so called good governance government.

5. The corrupt Rajapakses who were defeated on 2015-01-08 hatched a conspiracy at the Temple Trees to stay back in power illegally  using the forces , thereby committing high treason. The file CR  1/08/ 2015 pertaining to this investigation  was handed over to the AG on 2016-01-27 . Now it is over one and half years since the file was handed over, yet no case has been filed so far  .  

6. Likewise so many investigations including  the ‘robbery of the elephant cub’ and ’ Rakna Lanka Co .’  fraud  were concluded and handed over to the AG , and now it is over a year since these files were sent to the AG . Yet no cases have been filed. There are  over 100 such files all of  which cannot be  revealed here and now.  

The pertinent question is , who has exerted such political pressures on the AG ‘s department which is clearly under justice minister Wijedasa Rajapakse  ? In these circumstances the president of the country the highest in the hierarchy , Maithripala Sirisena saying at the cabinet meeting  if the AG’s department is entrusted to me , ‘I will show how to apprehend the culprits, and file cases against them within three months’  is most ludicrous and ridiculous.

Should the president withdraw the State department which ought to function independently from under the fold of the notorious minister and take it under the executive powers which the whole country has rejected and wants to be  abolished   ? Or , using his executive powers divest the independent AG’s department of the political pressures brought to bear on it , and sack the individuals including the minister involved who are engaged in such traitorous activities who  are a bane to the entire country ?
 
Lanka e new shall expose to the public irrespective of rank and status , all the individuals who are exerting these evil pressures on the AG’s department and the officers within it  who are of their own accord indulging in these traitorous activities.

By an  LeN inside information division special reporter

---------------------------
by     (2017-07-14 02:23:17)

SRI LANKA: Drinking toddy which is not toddy

By Basil Fernando-July 14, 2017

“A large crowd of people gather here every day,” a social worker told me, pointing to a two-storey building that is now a toddy shop.

There was a banner with a familiar advertisement: Ra Bomu – lets drink toddy. People were going to and from the building. Pointing to the property annexed to the toddy shop, the social worker said it had also been purchased by the proprietor of the toddy business, indicating that this business was very lucrative.

“What they drink is of course not real toddy,” the social worker went on to say, “Some fresh toddy is mixed with lots of water and then some pills are mixed with the water which somehow give the taste of toddy, which is good enough for people to be buying it over and over again.”

He explained that arrack is no longer affordable as the prices have gone up significantly, so the ordinary folk have returned to a familiar alternative: toddy. The crowds that were going in and out were large enough to be seen from a distance.

The social worker said, “Drinking this kind of liquor is very harmful to the health of these people and it leads to untimely deaths”. That notwithstanding, he went on to say that the people take the alternative that is available to them and the hard working folk need some entertainment, and this is where they find it.

Then, pointing to nearby hospital, he said, “In one of the wards of this hospital itself, there are places which breed mosquitoes. The entire ward had to be closed for some time.” Dengue is one of the most common topics in private conversations. People are preoccupied with this problem and the official media itself has described as a ‘vyasanaya’, a disastrous situation. Just few days back there was a two hour programme aired at the same time on all the media channels in the island that was entirely devoted to giving various kinds of explanations and advice on how to prevent dengue and what to do if they discover that someone has already got the illness. It is rare, almost unheard of, for such a program to be aired in that way.

Explaining this situation, the social worker said, “There is a particular juice made of green apples and this juice has now gone out of sale in many places.” It is said that this juice is helpful in improving the blood count of the patients suffering from dengue. He went on to say, “Now a pharmacist receives orders in advance for this juice so when they get stocks they immediately distribute it to the people who have already ordered it, and those who come thereafter are told that the juice is not available.” Then he said that pengiri thel, which is used as an ointment to prevent mosquito bites, has also gone up in price. In almost all households people are using these kinds of ointments as a precautionary measure.

A friend of mine who has two young children said that the people who suffer the greatest anxiety on this issue are the parents of young children. They are always worried about their children being bitten by this dangerous mosquito. The fear is so much that even if a child catches a normal cold or gets a fever, blood tests are done immediately to ensure that they have not caught dengue. The price of the particular blood test has also gone up, and the government itself has intervened to introduce a controlled price, which is Rs. 1200 for a test.

One of the accompanying worries among the people are the heavy fines that are imposed if any mosquito breeding places are found in their premises. This is, of course, a precautionary measure that is being introduced by the government in order to impress upon the people the need to take care of their premises more carefully. While no one is opposed to such fines, they are at the same time very worried about any kind of situations in which the mosquitos may breed somewhere before they notice it.

While the overall efforts of the people to deal with the problem in the best way they can seem to have improved a lot, many people have found the efforts by the state to eradicate the illness inadequate. The workers who used to come to spray mosquito repellent – anti-dengue sprays – are not coming regularly and even when they come money they have to be paid bribes to get some work done. This is another common complaint. One lady said that she pays 300 rupees every month for these municipal workers to spray her premises, but she found out that the neighbouring premises, which is a home for the elderly, is not sprayed because there is no one there to pay the bribe. She has volunteered to pay that price so that these elderly people may also have a little protection.

The purpose of these little narratives is just to indicate the ways in which people think and express their personal perceptions. It is both interesting and useful to know how people perceive things and what people talk about, irrespective of whether their perceptions are absolutely accurate or not. My purpose here is not to analyse what they say but to record some of the things that I have heard.

Dengue: why I am distraught, but not destroyed, by a Govt.’s response to it

 

 Friday, 14 July 2017 

With all due respect to those who have been afflicted by it, of course I am. While the desolation of the loss of a loved one to the deadly disease cannot be quantified, my position can be qualified by an argument which one hopes would not be interpreted as sophistry.

In days of yore, our citizenry had a plethora of issues over which to take up cudgels against government – if, in fact, it was possible to mount any kind of opposition or dissent to an authoritarian antidemocratic regime grown fat on the spoils of corruption and corpulent by dint of sitting on its war-won laurels and not lose one’s sense of peace – or one’s life. Chilaw, Katunayake, Rathupaswela, Lasantha, Ekneligoda – need I say it?

But today the least – the most – we can do is grumble and grouse (and, in the case of dengue deaths, grieve) that this Government is sitting on its garbage heap and expecting praise for its economic prowess (or, for the moment, simply its acumen – until actual dividends are reaped). No white van is going to drive silently by your neighbourhood as you nag any powerful bureaucrat grown bigger than his boots – although one wishes that reps of the State would actually drive by dengue-breeding grounds more systematically … and with no face-masks on. You know what I mean.

There are governments, and then there are governments. Some are bungling bureaucratic administrations hamstrung by inefficiency and ineffectuality, strangely contrasted at times by the strength of their technocratic approach to governance – if only in theory. Others are (in parts at least, especially key spheres as in the recent past such as defence and urban development – a chimerical machine) a potent concoction of power, authority, and arrogance.

In times of war or natural disaster, one may wish for the latter. On the converse, in times of peace, perhaps bureaucratic bungling is par for the course for a generation of people used to state apathy and government ignorance. However it is in the in-between times – the type of national crisis caused by municipal disasters and seasonal exigencies – that one wishes for a sensible hybrid between the iron fist and the velvet glove.

If this Government can’t get the job done – garbage collection and disposal, a contingency plan for entirely predictable big-picture weather patterns, far more proactive measures to curb and stymie the spread of dengue with a devastating death toll – that other kind of government (warts and all) may well be seen as assertive enough to be attractive again.    

Paradox

The State sector has squarely pinned the responsibility of curbing the spiralling epidemic on the Government that drives its policies. In an irony not lost on members of the public struck a body blow by striking medicos, the GMOA has urged the incumbent administration to bolster the strength of medicos at Government hospitals in dengue-stricken areas.

The GMOA’s claim that a shortage of doctors has exacerbated the crisis is not in any way ameliorated by its protests, demos, and striking work in opposition to the Government’s stance on the SAITM (privatising of medical education and health-care) issue. This is adding insult to injury, and paradoxically perhaps, the protestations of the GMOA and ongoing strike action boost the pro-SAITM lobby’s case while further alienating the public vis-à-vis State-sector health-care.

The political party with arguably the closest affiliations with these very strikers has not been soft on the Government’s ostensible lack of concrete action. The JVP leadership has been at pains to point out that if not for its ‘relief-service brigade’ – which has apparently an island-wide scope of operations – the people of the country would be far worse off under the Health Ministry’s alleged bungling. The President – a former health minister – is perceived as more deceived by his officials than deceiving, while the Minister of Health has been lampooned as more deceitful than deceived. The ‘Red Star’ brigade’s champions have labelled the Head of State a lame leader and his Health Minister a lackadaisical liar.

Faced with the reality that the promised importation of a dengue-killing bacteria from Australia has demonstrably failed to deliver the land ‘Down Under’ from dengue’s deadly ravages, both national leader and his health-care mandarin have suffered loss of face with an attendant loss of confidence in the probity as much as proactivity of the State as well as the Government.

Strategy

In a milieu where State hospitals are inundated by those afflicted and morgues recording an alarming rate of fatalities – of the hundred thousand reported cases to date, half a percent have succumbed – the onus on the State and the concomitant indictment of Government bear down heavily on this coalition Government’s credibility.

Several critics of the State sector’s approach to controlling (let alone eradicating) dengue have suggested in no uncertain terms that the Government has tipped the people from the frying pan into the fire. Lumping this republican administration with that previous authoritarian regime, the likes of firebrand revolutionaries turned peacetime media leaders have critiqued the coalition Government’s national programme of dengue on the grounds that it, like that of its predecessors, only takes baby-steps to eliminate dangerous mosquito-breeding grounds. Likely arriving at a reasonably logical conclusion, they have adduced that the State sector’s strategy to contain the proliferation of breeding grounds – over and above a proactive strategy to identify and destroy the larvae of dengue-infected mosquitoes is fated to inevitably worsen the crisis.

Looks like the President and his Health Minister will continue to take the brunt of critical engagement, with the latter’s much-hyped proposals – especially the bacteria from Oz, as well as a previous proposal: the introduction of a breed of mosquito to eliminate the dengue strain – becoming grim jokes in the public and social media domains.  

Politics aside, isolated pockets of nationally-minded sentiments have resonated with the public in select media. The incumbency of State agency and Government instrumentality to address the rapidly-burgeoning crisis sans recourse to petty or partisan politics has fallen on deaf ears as far as those who thump their respective tubs in the House and on street corner or online soapboxes go. That the epidemic is a national issue – in which the hypertension and haemorrhagic fever spare no citizen or their offspring with respect to creed, social status, economic power – is past proving. As with the tsunami of 13 years ago or the civil war of 30 years running, dengue is potentially a great unifier of people, while on the flipside a great divider of the politically minded. An imperative for collective action rather than apportioning selective blame has struggled to coalesce in the body politic as much as in public appointed political bodies.

Myopia

The less than salutary response of former national leaders perhaps best (or worst) exemplifies this myopia and mediocre battle-axe-manship. With a marked tendency to omit mentioning his own administration’s failure to curb the dengue menace during its tenure – despite its remarkable success in eliminating far greater flying terrors in its time – an ex-president has opted to take his political opponents to task in no uncertain terms. Maybe only his pointed remark that State mechanisms geared to provide health-care services have been hampered by the Government’s alleged vendetta against its enemies via the FCID betrays the true tenor of the former Head of State’s laments. Perhaps the remainder of his lopsided critique – the inactivity and incompetence of the Government in general and the lack of instrumentality of the local Government institutions in particular – bear some examination by the powers that be.

However lopsided and lamentable politics may be, the tone and timbre of a civilisation are often tested not by policies but by a whole people’s resolution. With even far more advanced technologically-oriented countries reportedly struggling with dengue raising its ugly head after a hiatus of decades, our tiny island nation – under-resourced and ill-equipped – is no worse (or better) off. Therefore a clearer, sharper, lighter, approach – heightened public and official awareness, coupled with heavier fines for offenders whose negligence is tantamount to culpable homicide – may be the requisite modus operandi.

A more stringent and systematic identification and elimination of dengue-mosquito breeding sites in tandem with strategic control (policy) and tactical containment (street-level) of infected parasites may well be the desired twin helix to deliver us from the plague, which has all the DNA of a nation-crippling pandemic.

Rubbish

No one needs to remind common or garden citizens that the vexed issue of garbage collection and disposal is closely related to the dengue crisis. Yet no less than our plebeian President – a former health minister, to boot – has opted to remind us that everyone under his aegis should engage with body, mind, soul, all our heart and strength, to control if not end this devastator of national resources and public morale. Well may he recall the words of a far more controversial president in a richer healthier nation-state, who essayed the lamentable truth that a national leader’s job is like that of a cemetery-keeper: lots of folks under one, but nobody’s listening!

Maybe the people it represents need to begin doing the job that Government was elected to do. Rather than raise laments over petty human beings’ partisan politics, it is time past for a powerful combine of street-level citizenry and corporate bodies in the private sector to form a chain-gang of sorts to pass solutions along. Perhaps by the time Government gets its act together or science and technology kick in, it will be time to elect another set of clowns and suddenly a shadier circus than the current lot might look like it’s breeding nefarious plagues all over again?

What’s Right? What’s Left?

2017-07-15

It goes back to the French revolution of 1789. At the Revolutionary Convention the most radical of the insurgents decided to seat themselves on the left side. “Why not on the other side, the right side, the place of rectitude, where law and the higher rights resided, when man’s best hand could be raised in righteous honour?” wrote Melvin Lasky in what was then Britain’s most influential intellectual monthly, Encounter. “Anyway they went left, and man’s political passions have never been the same since.”  

When Oskar Lafontaine, the German finance minister, broke with Chancellor Gerhard Schroder in the early days of the last Social Democratic government, he explained it was “because my heart beats on the left.” The right could never say that, even the liberal-inclined, ex-prime minister of the UK, David Cameron. When Humpty-Dumpty insisted on his own “master-meanings” he reassured Alice, “When I make a word do a lot of work like that, I always pay it extra.”  

Idealism is the reactionary philosophy of the bourgeoisie, as opposed to revolutionary materialism. Chomsky mentioned, his research had been financed by Office of Naval Research

British Leftists sometimes stretch their minds to work out if Prospect, today´s most influential monthly, is left or right. I tell them that it is hard to tell most of the time which is how an intellectual magazine should be. They shouldn’t be asking the question.  

Perhaps if they and the rest of us want to study the ambiguities and contradictions of intellectual leftists they should be informed that once upon a time – a hundred and seventy years ago – there was a writer, a philosopher, who spent most of his time in the British Museum and who moved his family from down-at-heel Soho to elegant Primrose Hill. He wanted his maturing daughters to have the chance of meeting a better class of men. His wife too was pleased because she could now invite ladies to tea. A suitor of one his daughters was given the door as he seemed unstable with his revolutionary opinions. He wrote soon after that he thought the “historical” process had already started to undermine “bourgeois society”.  

One of the most important disciples of the above lived in 1916 as an émigré in Zurich. According to acquaintances he lived an exemplary bourgeois life. Each morning he would clean his room in the fastidious Swiss way. In the evening, his writing finished, he refused to listen to classical music, which he enjoyed, because it might excite his emotions. He would complain about the noisy behaviour of fellow émigrés who lived down the hall, especially one who constantly smoked and spent much of his time going to the cinema, which our bourgeois character refused to do. In fact friends called them the cineastes and the non-cineastes, and some of the sly among them sometimes translated this as the Semites and anti-Semites.  

British Leftists sometimes stretch their minds to work out if Prospect, today´s most influential monthly, is left or right. I tell them that it is hard to tell most of the time which is how an intellectual magazine should be. They shouldn’t be asking the question.  

Our three characters were all ardent leftists, the first Karl Marx, the second V.I. Lenin and the third Julius Martov (the Menshevik leader).  

Who’s left? Who’s right? Mao Zedong thought he had solved the problem by unmasking in the Communist Party what he called “capitalist-roaders”. They were people like fellow Long Marchers and apparent backbones of the party, Liu Shao Chi, the head of state, Lin Pao, the minister of defence, Deng Xiaoping, at that time a convinced Marxist, but later a capitalist convert, who became the supreme boss of China, and the Shanghai Four.  

How does one describe the political leanings of Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India or the former President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf or President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria? Or, reaching backwards a couple of decades, southern Democrats in the U.S. Senate, Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike (the first woman Prime Minister to be elected in the world) or, come to that, Charles de Gaulle?  

We can add the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, who has shown that one can sweep to power without any left/right affiliation, and Barack Obama, who was left in his books and later as president was a sometimes confusing and ambiguous mixture of left and right in foreign policy.  
Thinkers can also have their problems of identity. As Daniel Bell once pointed out, Noam Chomsky has been hoisted by the Marxist petard. 

We can add the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, who has shown that one can sweep to power without any left/right affiliation

“Some years ago he was accused by a Canadian Maoist revolutionary periodical of being an “agent of American imperialism”. It stood to reason. Chomsky’s theories that language capacities are innate, and that mankind generates rules through the properties of mind, were characterised, quite correctly, as philosophical idealism.  

As every Marxist knows, idealism is the reactionary philosophy of the bourgeoisie, as opposed to revolutionary materialism. More than that Chomsky had mentioned, in the publication of his early work, that his research had been financed by the Office of Naval Research. Why should the American military finance such research if it did not realize that idealistic philosophy would serve to confuse the masses?  

Who’s left? What’s right?  
(For 17 years the writer was a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune and over 20 years a contributor to Encounter and Prospect magazines.)

Deadly attack at Jerusalem holy site in Old City

July 14, 2017

JERUSALEM -- Three Palestinians opened fire on Israelis near a major Jerusalem holy site Friday, wounding three before fleeing into the sacred compound where they were killed in a gunfight with security forces, police said.

Two police officers were killed in the attack, Israel's police chief said later Friday.

The rare gunfight took place inside a sacred hilltop compound in Jerusalem, known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary. The compound is the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Ruptly TV

The site has been a flashpoint for violence in the past, with friction there sparking major rounds of Israeli-Palestinian violence, including a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that lasted several years.

Police said the site was cleared of people after the attack and would be closed for prayers Friday -- the highlight of the Muslim religious week. It typically draws tens of thousands of worshippers who flock to the compound from Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

It marked only the third time since Israel's capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war that authorities ordered the Muslim-administered compound closed, said Ikrema Sabri, a prayer leader at the holy site.

Israel's prime minister promised later Friday to preserve long-standing access arrangements at the contested holy site, in an apparent attempt to allay Muslim fears after Israel ordered the volatile shrine closed for the day.

Israeli border policemen secure the area near the scene of the shooting attack, in Jerusalem's Old City, July 14, 2017.

 REUTERS

Benjamin Netanyahu said the Muslim-administered sacred compound would remain shut Friday for security reasons, to make sure there are no weapons there, but he said the status quo governing the site "will be preserved."

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the incident began early Friday, near Lion's Gate, one of the entrances into Jerusalem's walled Old City. The mosque compound is only a few yards from Lion's Gate.

Samri said the attackers opened fire on Israelis and then fled into the compound. Police gave chase and killed the assailants, she said.

Amateur video broadcast on Israeli TV stations showed a few seconds of what appeared to be confrontation between Israeli security forces and the attackers.

In the video, several people -- only visible as dark figures in the footage shot from a distance -- were running inside the compound. At one point, one of the figures dropped to the ground. In another moment, a puff of smoke, possibly from gunfire, was visible.

Two rifles, a handgun and a knife were found on the bodies of the attackers.

Police were probing how the assailants were able to approach the Old City with weapons. Heavy security is in place in the area, particularly on Fridays, and young Palestinian men are frequently stopped and checked by police.

It was the latest bloodshed in a wave of Palestinian attacks that erupted in 2015, in part over the Jerusalem holy site.

In that time, Palestinian attackers have killed 43 Israelis, two visiting Americansand a British tourist in stabbings, shootings and attacks using cars to ram into troops or civilians.

During that period, Israeli forces have killed more than 254 Palestinians, most of them said by Israel to be attackers while others were killed in clashes.

© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Gaza and the failure of the national project

Fatah, currently headed by Mahmoud Abbas, has failed to achieve liberation for the Palestinian people and has transformed into a bantustan organization.Thaer GanaimAPA images\

Haidar Eid-14 July 2017

In order to understand the draconian measures taken by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority against the Gaza Strip, which has already been enduring a suffocating, decade-long Israeli siege, one has to scrutinize the Fatah movement’s diminished ideological and national agenda.

There is already a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, documented by international, local and Israeli human rights organizations. To add insult to injury, Israel has imposed severe restrictions on the import of construction materials needed for rebuilding the thousands of homes and institutions destroyed during the 2014 Israeli onslaught.

Palestinians of Gaza do understand that the Israeli siege is rooted in the history of Zionist settler-colonialism where the native is completely dehumanized and her death is not counted.

The Gaza Strip is itself a large refugee camp – 70 percent of its 2 million residents are refugees – a reminder of the original sin committed in 1948, when Zionist militias and later the Israeli army expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from their original homes.

Israel is motivated to finish the job, to make sure that the unwanted surplus population are kept in a large prison, but without naming it as such.

And at the same time, those ungrateful “Arabs” of Gaza must understand that the siege is their fate since it is supported by a complicit international community, Arab regimes, and – most importantly – some of their own leaders. Hence comes the idea that Gaza is a place of infinite darkness, figuratively and literally.

Immoral decision

This unbearable humanitarian situation in Gaza is further compounded by the Palestinian Authority’s decisionin April to suspend payments to Israel for electricity for Gaza, and its decision to reinstate taxes on fuel destined for Gaza.

This ultimately caused a shutdown of Gaza’s only power plant, which was already operating at reduced capacity due to damage sustained in repeated Israeli bombardments over the years, reducing electricity available to the Gaza Strip to the lowest levels ever.

Going even further, the PA has reduced funding to Gaza’s hospitals and clinics as well as put into effect drastic pay cuts to public sector employees whose salaries have provided a vital stream of revenue in the besieged coastal strip. For example, the salaries of Al-Aqsa University employees have been slashed by 80-90 percent for the fourth month in a row.

The latest immoral decision taken by the PA was to force 6,000 Gaza civil servants, most of whom work in education and health, into early retirement.

All of these deadly measures have been taken in a bid to pressure Hamas, the de facto ruling party in Gaza, into relinquishing its control and “reconciling” with the PA.

Some Fatah apologists have gone even further and claimed that all of these measures have been taken in defense of the “national project” which has supposedly been under tremendous threat by Hamas.
They, however, fail to explain how an academic’s salary ended up being a “threat” to the national project.

Fatah’s self-pitying analysis

In order to understand the PA’s measures against Gaza, one has to examine the weaknesses of Fatah – whose name is an acronym for “Palestinian Liberation Movement” – and its failure to achieve any of its declared goals, including its inability to accept its own defeat in the 2006 democratic elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council.

I would also argue that the latest Palestinian Authority strangulation of Gaza reflects not only the demise of Fatah – the faction that dominated the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) for decades – but the demise of contemporary Palestinian nationalism in general.

Fatah started as a national liberation movement aiming to “liberate Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, through the barrel of the gun,” but it has moved into the postcolonial condition without achieving a single gain in democracy, justice or liberation for the Palestinian people.

It transformed into a bantustan organization bearing the trappings of a nonexistent “state.”
Through a mechanical and self-pitying analysis of the outcome of the 2006 elections and subsequent events in the Gaza Strip, Fatah has made its position clear: the dire humanitarian and political situation in the Gaza Strip has been caused by Hamas. And since most Gazans voted for Hamas, they have to pay this heavy price.

Fatah was the driving political force behind the Oslo accords that the PLO signed with Israel in 1993, and which have been associated with corruption and the selling-out of principles of self-determination as defined by international law, and of liberation.

Loss of faith

As a right-wing party, Fatah has been unable to understand the enormous changes and paradigm shift in politics in the Gaza Strip as a result of the three massacres Israel carried out between 2008 and 2014. These include a loss of faith in the ability of the current leadership to come up with any solution that guarantees justice, the dwindling support for the two-state solution and the rise of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. So Fatah leaders continue to reiterate the long-held misbelief that the Oslo accords are the only political route to a Palestinian state.

This remains a stark indication of their loss of faith in the power of the Palestinian people to reclaim their land and rights. Their approach is a repudiation of the undeniable, unprecedented steadfastness shown by the people of Gaza, the growing forms of popular resistance in the West Bank and the success of the global BDS movement.

Interestingly, the worst and most inaccurate comment made by Oslo supporters currently is that Oslo has nothing do with the situation and events in the Gaza Strip these days.

On the other hand, one wonders whether the de facto government in Gaza seriously believes that its new alliance of convenience with its political nemesis, former Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, can provide a solution to Gaza’s unending politically created challenges.

Dahlan was a mortal enemy of Hamas, but fell out with Fatah boss and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, meaning that Dahlan and Hamas are now making common cause.

Through the alliance with Dahlan, who is backed by the United Arab Emirates and close to the Egyptian regime, Hamas was able to secure a few days supply of fuel for Gaza’s power plant.

But allowing in a few liters of fuel through the Rafah crossing is pressure valve politics, nothing more.

Window of hope

In an article for Al-Shabaka, I argued that Palestinians must consider “dis-participation” in the current political system which has become illegitimate and ineffective.

The Gaza blockade comes in the context of Israel’s intrinsic genocidal tendency as a settler-colonial project that is characterized by a multitiered system of oppression.

In order to address the “Gaza crisis,” Israel, like apartheid South Africa before it, has to pay a heavy price.

This is what the BDS movement is doing. It is the only window of hope that we Gazans think will make an impact.

The Syrian war crime suspects who could be brought to justice

UN tasks Catherine Marchi-Uhel with securing justice for Syrian war crimes victims amid mounting evidence of abuse

A Syrian man shows marks of torture on his back, after he was released from government forces, in Aleppo, 23 August 2012 (AFP)

James Reinl-Friday 14 July 2017

NEW YORK, United States – From a government torture and execution programme to poison gas attacks and the Islamic State (IS) group’s inter-ethnic killing spree, there are widespread allegations of crimes committed during Syria’s civil war and the conflict in neighbouring Iraq.

But thanks to a lack of jurisdiction by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Russian efforts to stymie probes of its ally, the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the chances of seeing mass-murderers in the dock any time soon is remote.

Advocates of justice, however, are not giving up. Moscow could not stop 105 United Nations members from voting in the UN General Assembly in December to create an office to gather evidence and lay the groundwork for future prosecutions.

This month, the UN appointed Catherine Marchi-Uhel, a French jurist, to run the so-called International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), which is currently building up to a 50-strong staff in Geneva, Switzerland.

Balkees Jarrah, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch (HRW), lauded Marchi-Uhel’s posting as “part of a push” to ensure the “horrendous atrocities committed in Syria these past six years cannot be swept away with a veto”.

Down the road, Jarrah said the IIIM would “catalyse and coordinate global efforts” to try Syrians at the ICC, a permanent war crimes tribunal in The Hague, or form a bespoke court akin to those used against atrocities in Rwanda or Cambodia.

We have never seen a situation as well documented as the conflict in Syria

-Balkees Jarrah, HRW

The obstacles are political, not the lack of evidence, she emphasised.

The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), an independent group of lawyers based at a secret European office, has collected some 700,000 pages of intelligence and security archives from war-ravaged Syria.

They have access to 55,000 photos of detainees’ bodies – some with gouged-out eyes – smuggled out by a former forensic photographer code-named Caesar who worked at Tishreen military hospital, between 2011 and mid-2013.

In February, Amnesty International, a rights group, reported that some 13,000 people were hanged over five years at the state-run Saydnaya prison near Damascus. In May, the United States said the government had built a crematorium there.

Investigators from the UN Human Rights Council's commission of inquiry on Syria saidgovernment forces dropped chlorine bombs and hit an aid convoy in the battle for Aleppo in 2016, while rebels fired on civilian areas and used human shields.

A probe by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN blamed Syrian government forces for three chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 and IS for using mustard gas. Use of the banned nerve agent sarin has also been documented.

“We have never seen a situation as well documented as the conflict in Syria,” Jarrah told Middle East Eye.

Meanwhile, the US-based Syria Justice and Accountability Center has built a database that facilitates the cross-referencing of evidence found in some 500,000 pages of official documents and thousands of online videos.

The centre’s director, Mohammad Al Abdallah said the ubiquity of cellphone cameras and the ease of file-sharing gave rise to an abundance of evidence against everyone from the president all the way down to foot soldiers.

“There’s thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people who engaged in committing violations from the government and the rebel sides – and you can’t put everybody on trial,” Abdallah told MEE.

Read more ►

Bringing up baby in jail: I covered his ears to block out the screams

According to Stephen Rapp, a war crimes prosecutor, the regime’s detention scheme is especially interesting to lawyers because of its “paper trail” from Caesar’s photos of tortured inmates’ corpses to documented orders leading all the way to Damascus.

Evidence is already proving its worth. Prosecutors in France, Germany, Spain and other European countries are processing investigations on alleged war crimes in Syria using so-called “universal jurisdiction” laws.

Damascus denies the allegations, Russia says international prosecutions can be politicised.

Against this backdrop, MEE talked through the evidence with Rapp, Abdallah, Jarrah and others and drew up a list of some likely indictees should Marchi-Uhel’s IIIM ever get a Nuremberg-style war crimes tribunal off the ground.

President Bashar al-Assad

With his slight lisp and meek demeanour, Assad makes for an unlikely war criminal. He trained as a doctor and eye specialist, only succeeding his father as president in July 2000 after his brother, Bassel, the heir apparent, died in a car crash.

In January, the 51-year-old dad-of-three was named on an ICC list of 15 people “to be scrutinized in relation to use of” chemical weapons by government forces in the 2014 and 2015 attacks identified in the joint UN-OPCW probe.

According to Rapp, “there’s no problem with the paper trail to Assad”. Documents that link him to the arrest, detention, torture and execution of dissidents are filed away in cabinets in Europe, just waiting for a green light to prosecute.

A file picture dated 13 June 2000 shows President Bashar al-Assad and his younger brother Maher (AFP)

Maher al-Assad, military commander

Bashar’s younger brother Maher had a reputation as a brute that grew at the start of anti-government rallies, when he was rumoured to be the unidentified gunman taking pot-shots at protestors in a viral video from 2011.

He was also named on the ICC chemical weapons list. As commander of the elite 4th Armoured Division, he has been linked to the 2013 chemical attack on Ghouta as well as sarin-filled rocket attacks.

Ali Mamlouk, head of the National Security Bureau

In March, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed a criminal complaint in Germany against Mamlouk and five other top military intelligence chiefs.

Lawyers said he ran all four Syrian intelligence services that were behind the “systematic and widespread torture” of regime opponents and activists. His deputy, Abdelfattah Qudsiyeh, is also named.

HRW linked Mamlouk directly to atrocities in Daraa governorate.

Other 'Crisis Cell' officials

As anti-government protests spiralled into violence, Assad reportedly created a “Crisis Cell” to suppress the uprising. He leads the group, through which he delegates day-to-day decisions to such officials as Maj Gen Muhammad Mahmud Mahalla, military intelligence chief; and Maj Gen Jamil Hassan, head of Air Force Intelligence, and others.

US and European Union officials link these men to ordering chemical weapons attacks and have slapped sanctions on them.

Islamic State ringleaders

The militants do little to hide their atrocities. They have even advertised roundups and executions of gays, Shia and other groups via gory videos. The UN blames IS for a “staggering” array of crimes, including the murder of Yezidis in Iraq and enslaving women.

Putting IS leaders in the dock will be tough, however. Multiple reports suggest the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is already dead. As Iraqi forces liberated the IS stronghold of Mosul this week, videos emerged of militiaman being tossed off a cliff and shot. Efforts are underway to prosecute captured IS fighters, but many will not live to see their day in court.

Rebel leaders

UN reports indicate that all sides – rebel and regime – have committed crimes during Syria’s brutal conflict.

In one well-publicised incident, Jaish al-Islam rebels drove caged prisoners from Assad’s Alawite sect on pick-up trucks through Douma and Eastern Ghouta to deter government air strikes.

According to Rapp, it was a clear-cut war crime. But judges look for something else, he added. “A variety of rebel groups have abused people on an occasional basis. A court doesn’t prosecute occasional acts of abuse, it needs to deal with organized abuse as a matter of policy,” Rapp told MEE.