The big bluff in asking for promises the 6.2 mn voted for

• Why the sizeable percentage of Sinhala votes now swinging Rajapaksa way

• Country slipping into chaos and crisis at all fronts

2017-08-18

An organised crowd of around thousand men and women met in the shadow of the Buddha statue in the Vihara Maha Devi Park in the vicinity of the Town Hall on Tuesday 15 August to demand this Government honour its election promise of “Good Governance”.   
This was also to mark the second anniversary of the Unity Government, which was voted into office by them to rid the country of huge corruption, the hallmark of Rajapaksa rule and to have freedom and democracy.   
The campaign was thus named 62 Lakhs on Alert. All 62 lakhs, who voted for Common Candidate Maithripala Sirisena, were requested to attend the rally that was to demand from the Government to honour its promises.  
Although with not so direct Governmental patronage the rally was a total failure with around thousand participating from the 62 lakhs, who opposed Rajapaksa.   
The very project funded probably by pro-UNP interests raise serious issues as to where the 62 lakh voters are now and what they now want.  
Though the Colombo leaders of this campaign want to balloon the January 2015 victory as the victory of 62 lakhs, who voted for President Sirisena, that does not remain so, after two years and eight months.   
Let’s be very frank about this. The totality of the Tamil and Muslim vote, at least those in the North, Vanni and the East, voted against Rajapaksa and not for Sirisena in political terms.   
In political terms, it was a very stubborn anti-Rajapaksa vote that totalled 1,956,222 votes from North-East.   

If one adds the Muslim vote from those in the Sinhala Districts, who lived under threat of BBS and other State patronised Sinhala Buddhist extremists, this would swell to about 22 lakhs in all that went stubbornly and with anger against Rajapaksa.  
These 22 lakh voters have not been respected in any way by this Yahapalana Government over the past 32 months.   
The threat of BBS and other extremist groups have not been removed from Southern politics during the 32 months.   
Justice and Buddha Sasana, a dangerously eccentric combination of portfolios presently held by Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe and he is openly in league with the leaders of these very crude Sinhala Buddhist extremist groups. They have in fact met President Sirisena too in the company of Minister Rajapakshe. He is now been found fault with and the call for his removal is for what he said about the Hambantota Port agreement as violating collective responsibility and not for his Sinhala racist stand and patronage of violent Sinhala Buddhist extremism. The Asgiriya Chapter of Buddhist monks has also come to his defence.  
He is not the only sympathiser and ally of Sinhala Buddhist racism in this Government. The Prime Minister a few days ago was reported to have said the Cultural Hub project he established would fund rehabilitation of 150 Buddhist temples, as if culture is all about Buddhist temples.   

In fact the Government is, perhaps excluding Minister Mangala Samaraweera and a few others. President is an ardent fan of “war heroes” and has vowed he would not allow any criminal investigations against any in the security forces over crimes committed during the war.   
With PM Wickremesinghe also compromising, Sri Lanka has now dropped the UNHRC Resolution it willingly and gladly co-sponsored in September 2015.  All those bills promised in the UNHRC Resolution and were accordingly adopted and were to be adopted have also been shelved without any hesitancy and guilt.   
So much so, the ITAK leader Sampanthan is now asking the US Government to pressurise Sri Lanka to expedite the UNHRC Resolution, while still believing the UNP leadership in the Government would give them a new Constitution with reasonable answers.  
Nothing has been offered to the war affected Tamil people in the North and the Vanni. Missing persons, the detained without charges, occupied land, search and arrest operations with serious break down of law and order in the peninsula remain major issues unsolved and not spoken loud in the South.  

• There is definitely a two-and-a-half year of heavy corruption surpassing the nine year Rajapaksa rule   

• In political terms, it was a very stubborn anti-Rajapaksa vote that totalled 1,956,222 votes from North-East.   

• If one adds the Muslim vote from those in the Sinhala Districts..this would swell to about 22 lakhs   

• These 22 lakh voters have not been respected in any way by this Yahapalana Government   

• The threat of BBS and other extremist groups have not been removed from Southern politics during the 32 months. 

It had been so even before the 2015 January 8 Presidential election. It was so from the time the much respected Rev. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thera was hyped as the leader of the “Movement for Social Justice” in late 2013.   
The first programme made public at the rally held at the Colombo Public Library Chaired by respected Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thera had nothing about the serious post-war problems and issues going unanswered in the North and East.   
All it said in a single sentence was that “LLRC recommendations would be implemented”, something that Rajapaksa by then had already told the UNHRC sessions he was planning to implement.  
So was the Presidential campaign that Rev. Sobhitha Thera’s movement and others, who now claim ownership for ousting Rajapaksa contributed to with the UNP in the lead and the JVP adding their rhetorical ‘tuppence’.   
From the very beginning in early December 2014, the Presidential Election campaign was one against mega-corruption in the nine year Rajapaksa rule hyped in the South, garnished by white-van issues also in the South and not in the North-East.   
The whole campaign thus remained a campaign that promised “democracy and good governance” to the Sinhala South and not for anyone else. The Sinhala South for these Colombo middle-class “democrats” was whole of Sri Lanka and it still remains that.  
This 62 lakh voters campaign to lobby the Government to honour its promises therefore was all about anti-corruption this Government can never get rid of.   
Bond scam is not about Ravi Karunanayake, but about the whole Government. Bond scam is also not the only major corruption of this Government.   

There is huge plunder talked of, at the Foreign Employment Bureau through registration money of migrant labour Minister Thalatha Atukorala is gleefully ignoring.   
There were Cabinet Papers approved for PR work awarded to a US company -the Sajin Vas way-that needs investigations.   
The renting of the multi-storey building in Rajagiriya for 21 million Rupees a month on a Cabinet Paper presented by PM Wickremesinghe that for over a year is still unoccupied is no less a corruption that can go unseen.   
The steel fabricated housing project that is arrogantly being dumped on the Vanni people despite their protests taking the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna District MP Sumanthiran to the SC with a petition, has not only to be stopped, but also investigated into.  
There is definitely a two-and-a-half year of heavy corruption surpassing the nine year Rajapaksa rule that cannot be covered by shouting hoarse about a single bond scam with Ravi Karunanayake given centre stage.  
All in all, complete breakdown of law and order, total mismanagement of the economy played around with empty numbers and growing corruption, unholy competition with Rajapaksa for Sinhala supremacy in the South completely ignoring the North accept as a factor to promote Sinhala sympathy, have dropped off the 22 lakh Tamil and Muslim voters from the 62 lakhs that voted against Rajapaksa, the Colombo Sinhala Yahapalana apologists don’t want to accept.   

There is also a sizeable percentage of Sinhala votes that in 2015 January went against Rajapaksa, now swinging his way, for lack of alternatives.  
These Montessori type poor Sinhala campaigns cannot now keep Rajapaksa as irrelevant for all the reasons this Government is considered incapable, inefficient and dishonest.   
The JVP proves themselves total dumb and incapable of understanding what this rut is about, shuttling between anti-corruption and anti-SAITM protests.   
The TNA leadership too provides no answers to its own voters, piggy backing a Government wholly incapable of moving with a new Constitution that can please them and is also not going to upset its Sinhala votes.  
Slipping into chaos and crisis at all fronts, this country as I have been stressing in most contributions to this Daily Mirror Opinion columns, demand alternate thinking to programme an alternate economic model that would define “development” for better quality of life with economic justice to all, aesthetically improved art and culture, democracy and freedom in a secular, plural society.   
It needs a dialogue that Tamil and Muslim people have an equal voice in developing an alternative to this corrupt free market economy that is nothing but a failure. 

AS RURAL SRI LANKA DRIES OUT, YOUNG FARMERS LOOK FOR JOB OPTIONS

Image: A Sri Lankan farmer inspects his dried rice field at Somapura, in eastern Trincomalee district ( File photo, Voice of America)

Abandoned fishing boats lay on the banks of the dried Siyambalankkatuwa reservoir in Sri Lanka’s Puttalam District, Aug. 10, 2017. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Amantha Perera-Farmer and cattle herder Rajakaruna Amaradasa, 55, stands on farmland abandoned to drought in Adigama, a village 170 km northwest of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Aug. 10, 2017. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Amantha Perera
18/08/2017

ADIGAMA, Sri Lanka, Aug 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Scorched by a 10-month drought that has killed crops and reduced residents to buying trucked-in water, Adigama’s young people are voting with their feet.

At least 150 youth have left this agricultural village 170 km northwest of Sri Lanka’s capital since the drought began, looking for jobs in the country’s cities, or overseas, village officials say.
Few are expected to come back, even when the rains end.

“If they get the lowest paying job overseas, or in a garment factory, they will not return,” said Sisira Kumara, the main government administrative officer in the village of 416 families.

“They will work at construction sites or as office helpers, anything they can get their hands on. The ambition is go aboard, to the Middle East or East Asia – but that takes time,” said Kumara, as he walked through a dried and long-abandoned maize plot.

W.M. Suranga, a 23-year-old who left his family’s withering paddy rice field six months ago for Colombo, said working for low wages in the city is at least preferable to struggling with no rain at home.

“At least I am sure of a pay check at the end of the month. This uncertainly of depending on the rains is too much of a risk,” he said.

“NO INCOME HERE”

As Sri Lanka struggles with its worst drought in 40 years, farmers in the hardest hit areas are migrating for work – with some wondering whether farming remains a viable career as climate change brings more frequent extreme weather.

“There is no income here. All the crops have failed in the last four seasons,” Kumara said.

Paddy rice and vegetables are usually the main source of income in Adigama. But since the last big rains in July 2016, there has been little to no harvest.

Older villagers like Rajakaruna Amaradasa, 55, say that at their age they don’t have the option of looking outside the village for a new life.

After four decades of harvesting rice and herding cattle, he abandoned his paddy fields earlier this year when his harvest failed, and now spends his days moving his cattle around looking for scarce water.

“It will take us another two to three harvests to recover our losses and pay off any debt. Even then it all depends on the rain,” Amaradasa said.

With average rains, Amaradasa said he used to make between 30,000 and 40,000 rupees a month ($200-$260). Now his income has fallen to a third of that, he said.

Sri Lanka’s drought, which by mid-August had affected 19 of the island’s 25 districts, has particularly devastated arid regions that lie outside the country’s wet western plains and mountains.

A joint report by the World Food Programme and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, released in mid-June, classified the drought as worst in 40 years.

It predicted rice production this year in Sri Lanka would be almost 40 percent less than last year, and 35 percent lower than the five-year average. That amounts to the lowest harvest since 2004, it said.
It also warned that Sri Lanka “is highly susceptible to climate change, and therefore the frequency of the weather hazards will likely increase as the earth warms.”

The impact on Sri Lanka’s economy is also likely to be substantial, with more than a quarter of the country’s labour force working in agriculture, a sector that contributes 8 percent of GDP, the report said.

The situation is worst in villages like Adigama that rely almost entirely on rain to grow crops.
Suranga, the Adigama youth now working in Colombo, said he has no plans to return home. Instead he dreams of traveling to the Middle East as a construction worker.

“What is the guarantee there will be no more droughts or floods?” he asks. “When my father was my age, maybe the rains were much more predictable. Now only a fool will bet on the rains.”
Reporting by Amantha Perera; editing by Laurie Goering.

The Politics Of Persuasion – An Evaluation

By Ana Pararajasingham –AUGUST 16, 2017

Ana Pararajasingham

“Politics is about power. Power is about people” ~ James Margach, The Anatomy of Power (1979)

Although, it is just over eight years since the armed conflict between the Sri Lankan state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was brought to an end, the root cause that gave rise to the brutal war remains unresolved. Nor has been there any progress in addressing the consequences of the armed conflict. Significant parts of the Tamil homeland are under army occupation; an investigation to identify the perpetrators of war crimes is yet to commence and Tamil political prisoners continue to languish in jails where torture is routine. Meanwhile, the spectre of ‘disappearances’ haunt the Tamil people as former LTTE fighters and those suspected to have had links to the organisation are systemically hunted down.

Background

Not surprisingly, the demise of the LTTE resulted in Tamil leadership coming to reside with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which, since its inception in 2001, had worked in tandem with the LTTE. In the wake of the LTTE’s defeat, the TNA adopted what has been described as a ‘pragmatic approach’ to deal with the Sri Lankan Government by basing its demand on the premise that the Government is likely to concede ‘little’ rather than more. The party therefore sought to frame its demand within the concept of shared sovereignty coupled with a gradualist approach to improve on its initital  demands. These demands were based on the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution introduced under the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord of 1987. As this amendment included a clause that called for certain powers to be devolved to a single entity dominated by Tamil speakers, it required the merger of the Tamil dominated Northern and Eastern Provinces into a single unit-the Northeast Province. However, in 2006, this particular clause was deemed ultra vires by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court which ordered that the Northeast Province be demerged into a Northern and Eastern Province.

More to the point, the 13th amendment is inherently incapable of devolving any real power to the Provincial Council because it contains a provision that ensures ultimate political power resides not with the Chief Minister or the Provincial Councillors but with the Governor of the Province-an appointee of the President. The role of the Chief Minister is limited ‘to ‘aid and advice’ the Provincial Governor in the exercise of his functions. Hence, the characterisation of the 13th amendment as ‘a constitutional sleight of hand.’ Other inadequacies of the 13th amendment stem from several subjects being kept out of even the Provincial Governor’s powers, let alone the Provincial Council.

Well aware of the limitations of the 13th amendment, the TNA sought to rely on the goodwill of the Sri Lankan state, India and the US-led-West to realise its goals by improving on the 13th amendment. Presumably, these included addressing the matter of political power being exercised by Colombo via the Governor and expanding the subjects coming under the purview of the Provincial Council. 

In early 2010, some members of the TNA broke away from the party arguing that the party was not being true to its ideals and had forfeited its principles.  The breakaway group called itself the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) and rejected the 13th amendment as a starting point for any negotiations. The terminology used by the TNA and TNPF were similar, they both emphasised self-determination. However, the TNPF did not compromise on earlier positions taken by Tamil political parties within the confines of the sixth amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution precluding Tamil independence. TNPF’s demand therefore was for a new constitution on the basis that Sri Lanka comprises two nations.  More importantly, TNPF subscribed to the view that since the Tamil people’s struggle for self-determination had been exploited by the international actors (the US-led West, India and China) to further their own interests, Sri Lanka’s Tamils should take advantage of this to secure a truly federalist constitution.  In an interview, the leader of the TNPF, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, went on to expand on this theme by suggesting that the Tamil people need to formulate a foreign policy of their own to deal with the international actors.

Not surprisingly, the international actors (India and the West) found TNA’s stand helpful because it made it easier for them to manage Colombo, their primary objective. Although TNPF’s grasp of the international dimensions underpinning the conflict was accurate, the party was ineffective in communicating its policies.

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Govt. doles out pre-Budget bonanza

• ‘Relief’ measures to cost Rs. 4.4 billion per year
• Mangala says the package will be followed by more in the 2018 Budget 
• Confident of maintaining target growth rate of 4.5%-5% despite drought  
• Concessions aim to boost SME sector and create 50,000 jobs

By Chathuri Dissanayake -Friday, 18 August 2017 

In an unprecedented move the Government announced a “pre-budget relief package” promising more in the upcoming budget, billing a total of Rs. 4.4 billion per annum.

The concessions, which included a host of low-interest loans offered to small and medium enterprises and the slashing of the telecommunication levy effective from September, are aimed at giving impetus to the country’s economy and are expected to create 50,000 new jobs, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said while announcing the concessions.

“We want to make Sri Lanka an entrepreneur’s paradise. The concessions are aimed at encouraging youth to take up entrepreneurship. Two of the most important things in small-scale industries are communication and transport and we have taken steps to give concessions in both areas,” he said.

The concession schemes rolled out will help generate 50,000 more jobs in the country, the Finance Minister forecast.

Samaraweera was also upbeat about maintaining a 4.5-5.0% target growth rate for the year despite the severe impact from the drought which is affecting over 1 million people in the country.

The short-term measures announced by the ministry as a pre-budget relieve package will be followed by long-term measures in the 2018 Budget, Samaraweera revealed.

State Minister of Finance Eran Wickremaratne, speaking on the relief package, said it will encourage the female labour force to move towards entrepreneurship. The Ministry has decided to remove the much-debated telecom data levy of 10% from 1 September. A 2017 Budget proposal was to increase the levy to 25%, State Minister of Finance Eran Wickremaratne said.

“We have slashed this amount and service providers have agreed to add data worth 10% on top of the reduction in taxes.”

Samaraweera stressed that the SME sector should take the lead in economic growth in the country, targeting external markets as well.

“Small and medium enterprises must be responsive to changes in the economy and lay the foundation for economic development,” he said, adding that the announced concessions will help boost the sector.

The relief package also includes eight concessionary loan schemes aimed at facilitating SMEs and boosting export-oriented businesses. The loan schemes rolled out by the ministry were proposed in the 2017 Budget, the Minister said.

Under one of the eight loan schemes, Jaya Issura, aimed at boosting the SME sector, businesses engaged in agriculture, fisheries, poultry, horticulture, home gardening, engineering, printing, tourism, handicrafts, garments and ICT, with an annual revenue between Rs. 25 million and Rs. 250 million and employing 10-50 employees, will be able to obtain loans up to Rs. 50 million at an annual interest rate of 6.54%, while the upper limit of the loan amount is double for ventures focused on export markets. Under the scheme, businesses with annual revenue of Rs. 250 million-Rs. 750 million will be eligible for a loan facility up to Rs. 200 million while the amount will double for export-oriented businesses. The annual interest charged on the loan will be 9.81%. The Government has allocated Rs. 750 million for interest subsidies, the Minister announced.

Further, import levies charged on motorcycles, single cabs and mini trucks have also been revised. Accordingly, customs duty on mini-trucks and single cabs has been reduced by Rs. 300,000 while ad-valorem excise duty on motorcycles with an engine capacity of 50cc-150 cc has been reduced by 90% from midnight yesterday, the Finance Ministry said.

Tax cut on trucks, motorbikes; 10% telecom levy on data removed

Aug 18, 2017

The 10% telecommunications levy imposed on data will be removed from September 1.

Customs duty on small trucks have been reduced by Rs.300,000 while the duty on motorcycles (less than 150 cc) has been reduced by 90% from midnight today, the Finance Ministry announced.

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera told the media that the data capacity would be increased by 10 per cent.

The Rights of Tea

From Tamil Nadu to Badulla: A Century in the Tea Estates of Sri Lanka

INDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM on 08/18/2017

The tea’s words explode, hot water
turns into red and gold. Pekoe picked
on Nuwareliya slopes. burnt in kilns,
sorted then for the nose of a dapper
merchant in a silk suit come tooting
along in his convertible from the Colombo
coast, a white cap sailing on his hair.

He glances discreetly on the way
at villagers bathing in a thousand streams
under bright green fronds bordering
thick woods. The planter, sarongued,
steps from his high verandah surveying
the bushes below, speckled by his bands
of magenta-sareed pickers, to meet

the merchant. They sit down for tea
before going down to the factory
to assess bushels ready for market,
sniffing and sipping in the taster’s room
elegant in sepia tones. No close inspection
of plantation workers’ modest dwellings,
their lot, after hours ground and tarred

by the sun, subject for a human rights report,
not a colonial romance. There were decent
planters, who assured workers’ content,
but the latter organized, needs represented
in parliament. Yet, at day’s end a wage based
on leaves picked does not make wealth.
The capitalist drives down the hills to the coast.

April 10, 2015

###

Photography courtesy Maatram.org, taken by Rajesh Segar.

2017 marks 150 years of tea production in Sri Lanka. To mark this anniversary, there have been several celebratory events and activities, including a Global Tea Party, an International Tea Convention and a charity auction organised by a variety of stakeholders including the Ceylon Tea Traders Association, the Sri Lanka Tea Board, the Tourist Board and tea companies. While these events have received wide coverage, there is little mention of the tea plantation workers, without whose contribution the industry would not exist.

With this in mind, Groundviews launched a series of audiovisual stories aimed at raising awareness on the difficulties faced by estate workers and the changes in the industry (or lack thereof) over the past 150 years.

To view the rest of the series, click here.

Celebrating 150 years of Ceylon Tea by importing tea

By C. A. Chandraprema-August 17, 2017, 9:50 pm 

Strange pronouncements are being made as Sri Lanka celebrates 150 years of the tea industry. Prominent economists are referring to "The obsessive love for a non-existent Ceylon Tea in the world market" and leading tea exporters are saying at events held to mark the 150 years of the industry, that the tea industry has now to be funded by the taxpayers for fertiliser, replanting and price guarantees ‘to pacify the large voter base of smallholder farmers’ which now produce over 70% of the tea crop. Such intellectuals and traders argue that the importation of tea should be liberalised so that exporters in this country could import cheap tea from overseas to re-export from Sri Lanka. Thus the discussion in this 150th year of Ceylon tea seems to be about the contribution that Sri Lankan tea exporters can make to develop for example, the Vietnamese tea industry and to finish off Ceylon tea. After celebrating the 150th year, the idea seems to be not to have a 151st year of Ceylon tea.

Celebrating 150 years of Ceylon Tea by importing tea.docx by Thavam on Scribd

Sri Lanka faulty in approach to protecting religious freedom, says US report

Picture of extremist Buddhist monk Gnanasara Thera General Secretary of Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Force Army)

Published: 2017-08-17 

Blemishes in Sri Lanka’s approach towards religious freedom have been pointed out in a US State Department report that lists various government decisions to provide Buddhism a “foremost place” among religions.

The Supreme Court in 2003 determined that the state was constitutionally required to protect only Buddhism, denying the fundamental right to other religions, said the report for the year 2016. 
“Non-Buddhist religious groups reported an increase in discriminatory restrictions imposed by local government officials on religious minorities. This included a requirement that evangelical Christian churches register places of worship although no law or regulation specifically requires such registration.”

“The government continued to permit the construction of Buddhist statues in non-Buddhist areas despite strong objections from members of the Hindu, Muslim, and Christian communities. And it had not yet prosecuted Buddhist monks involved in attacks against Muslims and Christians in 2014,” the report pointed out.

Listing the main events, the report said that the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL) documented 85 incidents of attacks on churches, intimidation and violence against pastors and their congregations, and obstruction of worship services during the year compared to 87 such incidents in 2015.

The UK-based Minority Rights Group International or MRG, reported 60

Incidents involving hate speech, acts of discrimination, or attempts to desecrate or destroy Muslim religious buildings in the first half of the year.

Buddhist groups – including the Bodu Bala Sena or BBS, Ravana Balava, Sinhala Ravana, and the Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa, which claims ownership of the Sinha-Le (Sinhala Blood) campaign, continued to promote the supremacy of the country’s ethnic Sinhalese Buddhist population and propagated views hostile to members of religious and ethnic minorities.

Govt restrictions

Sri Lanka’s parliament had limited the ability of minority groups to proselytise, basing its decision on the top court’s 2003 ruling which stated that the right to propagate a religion through proselytisation is not a fundamental right under the constitution.

On Sept 23 of 2016, the Court of Appeal reinforced the 2003 ruling that determined the state was constitutionally required to protect only Buddhism by dismissing an appeal by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which had sought police assistance in conducting investigations and criminal prosecutions in cases of attacks and harassment targeting its members.

The court also decided that Sri Lanka’s constitution did not guarantee the right to propagate religion, thus the police could not be compelled to investigate these incidents.

The law allows incorporation of minority religious organisations. But church leaders said they faced opposition from local authorities in land and property matters, but the Ministry of Christian Religious Affairs was of little help.

Evangelical Christian churches continued to report harassment by local government officials who have suspended worship activities, classifying them as ‘unauthorised gatherings’. Places of worship have also been shut down for not being registered with the government.

Buddhist temples in Hindu Areas

The construction of Buddhist shrines by Buddhist groups or the military have become contentious symbols of a “perceived Buddhist Sinhalese religious and cultural imperialism,” the report said, quoting civil society groups and politicians in the predominantly Tamil-Muslim northern and eastern provinces.
To politicians in the north, the Sri Lankan military has sometimes acted outside its official capacity to aid in the construction of these statues.

The official position

On Sept 12, President Maithripala Sirisena announced that 2017 would be dedicated to propagating a Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

In October, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe stated the leaders of all faiths and political parties in the country supported keeping the special protection accorded to Buddhism in the constitution.
Arrested and bailed

The authorities arrested the leaders of militant Buddhist and Muslim organisations in November for hate speech and threats of violence. On Nov 15, police arrested Dan Priyasad, the leader of the Savior of Sinhalese organisation, for publicly inciting hate speech against Muslims.

On Nov 16, police arrested Abdul Razik, secretary of the Muslim organisation Sri Lanka Thawheed Jamath (SLTJ) for “inciting religious disharmony” by speaking against other religions in an offensive manner during a protest on Nov 3.
But the courts released Razik on bail on Dec 9.

But cases against monks accused in the 2014 attacks on Muslims and Christians have progressed slowly. Muslim lawyers stated that 42 cases related to anti-Muslim riots in Aluthgama in 2014 remained pending at the end of the year.

GROBR – ‘Wijedasa , please go…’ Resolution against Dealdasa..! - Culprit pays Rs. 5 million to each monk to issue communiques in his favor

(Lanka-e-News - 17.Aug.2017, 10.35AM) It is not only Lanka e news that are now saying ’For God’s sake , please go Wijedasa’ . Even the working committee  members who want a clean up are to take up this issue at today’s (17)  UNP Executive committee  meeting , and get that resolution passed. Not only the members of the UNP executive committee but even UNP parliamentarian group  has  said they have no confidence at all on Wijedasa the turncoat, cut throat racketeer.

The text of  the resolution is hereunder….

 ‘The resolution that is to be adopted against  minister Wijedasa Rajapakse  by the UNP Executive  committee and UNP group of parliamentary members within the government at their joint meeting ’ …..

The  minister of justice Wijedasa Rajapakse has failed to discharge his official duties and responsibilities duly…

Failed to bring forth new laws to curb and control bribery and corruption which are in the United National Front  manifesto 

Failed to bring forth laws to  recover the wealth earned by culprits via illicit methods , and return those back  to the people. 

Based on the inordinate delays experienced in courts when trials of criminal cases are heard , the citizens of Sri Lanka have mounted fierce criticisms against the minister of justice for not taking action to remedy the situation .

Owing to  the attitude  and conduct of the minister , the government and the UNP party have been rendered most unpopular among the masses.

The UNP working Committee and the UNP group of parliamentarians within the government therefore by this resolution express that  they have no confidence in the minister of justice Wijedasa Rajapakse. 

Based on reports reaching Lanka e news inside information division , Wijedasa in order to issue communiques in his favor , has paid colossal sums of money to chiefs of the monks  . Some monks have been paid bribes as high as Rs. 5 million each ! The vehicle numbers of the two vehicles that were used to  make those payments to the monks are as follows :
WP CAT – 3332 BMW 7411 Motor Car and WP PF -6791 Toyota double  Cab .

Based on reports , Wijedasa the sly and slimy fox is moving heaven and earth to continue in his post by asking for pardon from the executive committee at today’s meeting not with any honest intention in the best interests of the country but rather in order to  go ahead again  with his selfish hidden agendas and  traitorous programs aimed at saving and safeguarding the crooks and the corrupt. 

In the circumstances , the anti corrupt members of the UNP executive committee shall  be warned and reminded of an old adage ,  ‘a fool does not notice a venomous snake however vicious ’ 

---------------------------
by     (2017-08-17 05:14:27)

How we got to where we are

This Government has those leftover hurrah-boys who still think that what transpired on January 8, 2015 was a revolution

2017-08-18

The democratic process is premised on the idea that we don’t owe our representatives anything, except the “gratitude” that we must pay through taxes and other levies to maintain public services. It’s a two-way street; you pay to keep those services and they run the country through what we pay. Nothing that goes beyond this can be considered as gratitude. What goes beyond can hence only be considered as servility. Servility of the most nauseating, ridiculous sort. The kind that adorns politicians whose pasts have been tarnished thanks to allegations of graft, abuse, and misappropriation. I am not singling out the present regime here, incidentally.
I know this government has those leftover hurrah-boys who still think that what transpired on January 8, 2015 was a revolution, never mind that revolutions can’t be sustained if those who were part of the status quo that worked against the “revolutionaries” are hired by the latter as their lackeys (as this government has done). Expedience is sometimes considered the better part of imperative, sadly, which is why we have to sacrifice principles, but even adjusting for that the government has failed to deliver on the brief we gave them. Anyone who bats for this regime using revolutionary rhetoric, then, clearly needs to look up the word in the dictionary.


But these revolutionaries are just part of the crowd that keeps on batting for the Government. Consider the other elements, i.e. those who applaud its representatives on the basis of their arbitrary conceptions of democracy, elitism, and meritocracy. It’s these conceptions that demarcate the Old Boys Club in the Government as well-intentioned technocrats, while the likes of Palitha Thewarapperuma and even Mahinda Rajapaksa are disparaged as backward. They will go to any lengths to defend even someone like Ravi Karunanayake on the premise that those they defend are worthy of eloquent praise. These claims wouldn’t stand the test of scrutiny, since the educated, as history has taught us, have not been better and indeed have been worse than the “uneducated” in resolving several compelling national issues.
We’ve messed up our notions of decency and education so much that we look for the wrong indicators thereof when assessing our politicians. We will consider Dayasiri Jayasekara’s momentary gaffe at pronouncing Latin phrases as something to laugh and poke at. We will disregard the horrendous mispronunciations in Sinhala (yes, the mother tongue) being made every day in parliament. Some would say this is a symptom of our colonial hangover, but for me the problem goes deeper. Fact is, we’ve screwed up the fine line between being uneducated and indecent so much that we pick and choose politicians based on the image they project of their status.

"Given our political culture it’s no surprise that there were people who sobbed at Ravi Karunanayake’s departure. Whether or not these people were “paid” to do what they did is beside the point. What’s important is that they were there, some of them even worshipping the man"

A recent Facebook comment compelled my interest in this: “Why we’re in this rut as a country is because your generation was preoccupied with correcting ‘e’s and ‘a’s instead of doing anything constructive.” The comment was aimed at those who were more interested in grammar and pronunciation than in the spirit in which something was written or spoken. Reminds me of a certain Prime Minister who, in a heated argument in parliament with Robert Gunawardena, chastised him over a grammatical faux pas or slip of the tongue the latter made, with his own classic slip of the tongue: “Why don’t you speak a language you understand? Speak Sinhalese?” “His tones left no doubt that this [Sinhalese] was a language fit only for the lower orders,” Regi Siriwardena later wrote. That Prime Minister, incidentally, was not a rightwing elitist. He was S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. Telling, I should think.
Given our political culture it’s no surprise that there were people who sobbed at Ravi Karunanayake’s departure. Whether or not these people were “paid” to do what they did is beside the point. What’s important is that they were there, some of them even worshipping the man. What’s as important is that those who were hell-bent on ridiculing Mahinda Rajapaksa over his habit of holding up babies and consoling emotional, if not hysterical, supporters (right after he was defeated) are speechless and selective when it comes to this display of emotion and hysterics. To be sure, the fact of his departure, more forced than willingly conceded to by the alleged wrongdoer, speaks volumes about the political culture we are witnessing. But that political culture is still predicated on that timeless excuse for incompetency, relative merits.


Relative merits, ladies and gentlemen. The we’re-better-than-them argument, which has become too old and outpaced to be taken seriously. The problem with that argument, of course, is that it works both ways; the Mahinda Rajapaksa Cabal can use it just as effectively as this regime can. And in case you’re wondering, they are. The recent tirade against the Attorney General’s Department over what is alleged to be their partiality against members of the present government is symptomatic of a political culture that operates on such arguments. That’s not to say the Attorney General is to be absolved everywhere and with respect to every allegation, but then there’s a fine line to be drawn between constructive and baseless criticism.
What strengthens the relative merits argument is that the government is partly correct. They are better procedurally than the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime. What weakens it, on the other hand, is the point that it depends on whether the Government has been better than Rajapaksa’s regime at improving the democratic machine. There’s a difference between procedural and substantive democracy, after all. A careful perusal of every antidemocratic act taken by the government, any government, in the last three decades will prove that nearly all of them have been absolved by the argument that the state is the ultimate arbiter of political action, since it derives legitimacy from the fact of being elected by the people. The paradox of modern democracy is that it shields inequalities and deplorable state action under a facade of procedural correctness.

"Had Rajapaksa stalled any election, presidential, general, or provincial, he would probably have raised flak not just from the UNP, but probably also from the American, British, French, and even Indian Embassies. Delaying an election, any election, no matter how much one justifies it, is a serious transgression of the democratic process"

But consider this. We haven’t seen a repeat of Rathupaswala, at least not yet. Protestors were beaten up and continue to be beaten up and/or tear-gassed, but that is not as coercive as being killed or shot. There’s been a definite improvement in the way political dissidents are being accommodated (Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe being a good example), though that’s less a sign of political correctness than one of political lethargy. Allegations of graft and misappropriation do abound, but they are less than what we saw during the previous regime. Putting all these together, is our present political culture better than what it used to be?
I would be tempted to say yes, with some reservations. Political sycophancy still continues. Those who raised hell over Mahinda Rajapaksa’s supporters now stay shut over how they themselves are covering up the alleged wrongdoings of this government. Had Rajapaksa stalled any election, presidential, general, or provincial, he would probably have raised flak not just from the UNP, but probably also from the American, British, French, and even Indian Embassies. Delaying an election, any election, no matter how much one justifies it, is a serious transgression of the democratic process. Those who came to power in 2015 did so with the intent of transforming a culture in which expedience flourished into one where imperative and necessity would reign. Neither of the latter two has. Not yet.
Better than the rest, clearly, is an argument that endorses wrongdoing as long as it’s seen as better than what used to be. The problem with such an argument is that its parameters are arbitrarily set: just what is better, and just where is one to draw the line between them and us? Let’s not forget that we as a country are prone to political amnesia. Mahinda Rajapaksa and his cohorts can be, and probably are, behind the recent spate of strikes and the AG Department’s sway against the current regime. But even if we concede that they are, the relative merits thesis loses water when considering that no government elected on a platform of liberal democracy can sacrifice certain norms to get back at the opponent’s attempts to undermine them. And why? Because we simply don’t give a damn about that opponent.

This government’s slip is showing. Rather tellingly. It used to be said that political elitists were independent enough to not be swayed by the allure of power and wealth. Not true. If the recent past and the horde of allegations this regime has attracted are anything to go by, our political culture has improved only marginally, and that because of the demands for betterment that we, the people, and certain outfits we’ve organised for ourselves have made. The truth is that the same people who cried foul over Mahinda Rajapaksa and his cronies and supporters now write, say, or do anything and everything they can to justify what is being written, said, and done by their representatives. The trouble with that is that their representatives happen to be ours as well. The 5.8 million are, effectively, in the hands of the 6.2 million.

Cleanse those ‘Augean Stables’ – don’t just bolt the barn doors!

Friday, 18 August 2017

I am amazed – and amused – by the spate of “ministerial responses” to Ravi’s exit last week. The Prime Minister has promised to expedite the backlog of anticorruption cases his administration appears to have shelved for the nonce. The provincial council and local government minister has undertaken to take down the ‘foreigners only’ signs that bedevil tourism and give Sri Lankan hospitality a bad name in the south of our blessed isle. The technocratic Megapolis Minister or some tech-savvy underling has made sure buses on the Galle Road at least observe lane discipline beginning day before yesterday – and that the public knows about it via tweets and text messages. (Only the Police Chief does not seem to have received the governmental memo how it needs demonstrating that there’s someone minding the Good Governance store – and still blithely proceeds to ‘bend’ but not ‘break’ the law – his watchword in his own words. See social media or the headlines these days for the gist of it.)

These ministerial responses are – to all intents and purposes – made of the right stuff. After all, was it not to critically engage and efficiently contain (if not comprehensively eradicate) corruption that we – well, half of us, at least – gave the premier-led coalition a mandate? About time too, my dear sir! And has not the blatant bigotry of local establishments that prefer to cater to white and yellow skins over and above brown skins been the bane of the travel trade, to say nothing of being a chimera composed of equal parts chauvinism and cupidity? So hats off to any ministerial initiative that will put the biased entrepreneurs in their proper place. Also less said about lane discipline the better – because it is mostly the lawmakers (legislators in our curiously long-lived ‘convoy culture’) and law-enforcers (California Highway Patrol-type flashy coppers on posh bikes crossing the doubles lines with impunity) who break the law of the road… but buses on the left lane is the right idea, no doubt. I’ll leave the IGP and his high-handed slapping of support staff to the good offices of the Police Commission and the wrath of civil society – IF the PC is still functioning (even/especially) under Good Governance, and IF civil society is not too ‘PC’ to put the chief PC in his proper place, as a servant of law and order, not its unruly master.

Scepticism

However, the cynic in me sees a subterranean vein of venial subversion in all the right moves and noises that come in the aftermath of the former Finance Minister’s resignation. The Attorney-General’s Department and the veritable panoply of agencies and instrumentalities mandated with critically engaging and efficiently containing (if not comprehensively eradicating) corruption is legion (TID, CID, FCID, FCU, COPE, CIABOC) after all. It had enjoyed enough and more time to overcome the law’s delay’s in prosecuting the ungodly of the previous regime – such that we’re not impressed by prime ministerial pushing and shoving now, in the immediate aftermath of Ravi’s ransack and self-sack. That their name is Legion – that is, that the anticorruption agencies are possessed by a legion of demons (Inefficiency, Political Patronage, Wait And See, Ride It Out, We Have No Idea – to name but a few) is another matter altogether. Besides which the law must work at its best whether or not push comes to shove in and from the upper echelons of the political establishment. As to buses in the right lane and bigoted businesses down south being set right, it is left to be seen how long the prime directives in this regard will last and if they will have any beneficial impact at all in the interim while government has its back to the wall vis-à-vis an angry public incensed over the fink’s (sorry, I mean former finance minister’s) exit… abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit – he is gone, he is fled, he has absconded, he is absent. GROBR, say some! While some maudlin pundits have pontificated on Ravi’s falling on his sword as the height of altruism – a suicide that will give Good Governance, to say nothing of the Crumbling Coalition, a shot in the arm.

(Speaking of a shot in the arm, the only ‘Ministerial Response’ – well, ex-presidential one – that had me truly smiling was MR’s promise to expedite the Thajudeen murder case… if, and/or when, he comes back into power. Wait, what’s that… it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a flying pig? My smiling at this bit of puffery or buffoonery, of course, is the kind of sardonic rictus that hemlock induces… Really, there is no limit to the shameful opportunism of bygones who cannot let bygones be bygones and be gone themselves!)

Devil’s advocate

Back to the res. Be the conventional wisdom as it may, there seems to be a bloc of business-minded thinkers who are not only willing to characterise the Foreign Minister’s resignation in terms of altruism but also defend what the rest of the business unsavvy country thinks indefensible. This may be because the rot – or royalty or loyalty or whatever ties that bind business with politics – runs deep and strong and true… Or it may simply be that charity (like cupidity) begins at home? Be that as it may, the deafening silence of virtually all those who bayed for the blood of that fink’s portly bulk is amazing if not amusing. It is almost as if civil society – that amorphous agglomeration of professionals and academics in civic-minded garb (or sitting in clover, as the case may be with certain NGOs and INGOs) did not expect that the man would go, in the end. But in the end, for whatever reason, the fallen mandarin did go – flawed or failed or frustrated (or a combination of all these) may remain to be seem. And as with the way of all corrupt flesh, it went… towards the kitchen cabinet that comprises the sinkhole of our political culture: the waiting room or water closet. In which ministering angels fallen from grace await the mercy of the amnesiac public and the peace that passes all understanding whereby the electorate forgets, and the Prime Minister or the President forgives and restores the ruined servant of the people to a position more befitting a ruler of the masses. God – and Good Governance (what’s left of it) forbid that the man be snuck in from the back door again. Let bygones be truly bygones this time round, and those “by-God-I’m clean” corrupt bureaucrats and crooked businessmen and their political patrons be gone.

Speaking of which, another ministerial response – coming as it did in the immediate aftermath of the finc’s fiasco or imbroglio (I can’t make up my mind which word better fits) – amazes and amuses me. And that is the law and order minister’s determined declaration of war against the drug and mafia culture. One hopes that the drug barons and mafia mobsters are trembling on the mean streets of Colombo or Negombo or wherever it is that the minister thinks they do business. But hope also springs eternal that the minister’s foresight – and the long arm of the law – will not be blind to, or blindsided by, that other business-politics nexus whereby the drug barons go by another name and nomenclature in the House by the Diyawanna. There are not only skeletons in any government’s closet, but if the powers that be will bravely undertake to look closely at the dirt that is not only brushed under the carpet – but stands and serves by opening doors for the Grand Panjandrums at ceremonies to mark the nation’s independence not too many moons ago – they will see that the drug and mafia barons may not have to be hunted down too far and wide. Cupidity – or, the charitable turning of a blind eye on mafia mobsters who have undergone a sea-change into something rich strange: such as a cabinet minister – begins at home… or in the House.

True new culture

The bottom line is that we’ve seen and heard it all before, and the bitter truth is that there isn’t a right-thinking thoroughly fed-up citizen who doesn’t believe these days that it’s all part of some blithe game played by both or all sides. The reality – or the perception of the reality which prevails – is that the so-called new political culture is the old political culture in new garb. The coalition government led by an occasionally choleric president and a usually sanguine prime minister is looking increasingly like mutton dressed as lamb… and signals that it is willing to be hung for a sheep. The Trojan horse in the ranks of Tuscany has bolted; one hopes government will cleanse the stables now, not bolt doors.