Have dirt that could impeach Trump? Larry Flynt will pay you $10 million.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt  took out a full-page ad in Sunday's Washington Post. (Katy Winn/Associated Press)

By Amy B Wang October 14 at 7:15 PM

Larry Flynt’s ad in the Sunday edition of The Washington Post is hard to miss.

For one, it takes up a full page. And there are no pictures — just bold, all-caps text dominating the top third of the page:

“$10 MILLION FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE IMPEACHMENT AND REMOVAL FROM OFFICE OF DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Flynt, best known as the publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, outlined numerous reasons he felt President Trump needed to be removed from office, charging him with everything from “compromising domestic and foreign policy with his massive conflicts-of-interest global business empire” to “telling hundreds of bald-faced lies” to “gross nepotism and appointment of unqualified persons to high office.”

That was why, Flynt wrote, he was seeking information from anyone who could provide a “smoking gun” — perhaps buried in Trump's tax returns or in some other investment records — that would lead to his impeachment.

“Did he make some financial quid pro quo with the Russians?” the ad states. “Has the business of the United States been compromised to protect the business of the Trump empire? We need to flush everything out into the open.”

An advertisement Larry Flynt placed in the Sunday October 15, 2017 edition of The Washington Post. (click to enlarge)

At the end of the ad, there is a toll-free number and an email address, along with a reassurance that Flynt fully intends to pay the full sum of $10 million for good information.

“Impeachment would be a messy, contentious affair, but the alternative — three more years of destabilizing dysfunction — is worse,” Flynt wrote. “ . . . I feel it is my patriotic duty, and the duty of all Americans, to dump Trump before it’s too late.”

Kris Coratti, a spokeswoman for The Post, declined to say how much a full-page ad costs or how far in advance one would have to notify the newspaper to run such an ad in a Sunday edition.

“We give advertisers wide latitude to have their say,” Coratti said. “Generally, if the ads are not illegal or advocating illegal actions, we try not to place limits on speech or content.”

On Saturday afternoon during a call to the hotline listed in the ad a man told The Post the number would be staffed on weekdays, between 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. PT, for the next two weeks.

The man declined to give his name but said he was not Flynt.

In a subsequent phone interview, Flynt told The Post that he expected to get information “within a few days” and said he would release any legitimate information right away. He also defended offering a cash reward for information.

“Just because you pay for it does not mean it’s not any good,” Flynt said. “I don’t think you can live as recklessly as Trump has for 30 years and not leave some baggage along the way . . . I can't think of something more patriotic to do than to try to get to get this moron out of office.”

It’s not the first time Flynt, who endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in last year’s presidential race, has offered a monetary reward with the aim of taking down a politician.

In 2007, he offered $1 million, also through a full-page ad in The Post, seeking evidence from anyone who had had an illicit sexual encounter with a member of Congress or other government official. He had done the same in 1998, and the information that emerged reportedly influenced the resignation of Republican Congressman Bob Livingston, who was in line to be speaker of the House.

In 2012, Flynt again dangled a $1 million reward in public, this time for then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

Professor Allan J. Lichtman of American University was one of the few professional prognosticators to get President Trump's election win right. In his new book, he says Trump could be impeached. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Mental Health Professionals March through New York to Demand Trump’s Removal from Office

They called for the presidential Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Photo Credit: Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com

By David Ferguson / Raw Story-October 15, 2017, 8:35 AM GMT

A group of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals marched through New York City on Saturday to call for President Donald Trump to be removed from office, said The New York Post.

More than 120 mental health professionals marched along Lower Broadway to publicly advocate for the presidential Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and end Trump’s presidency. The amendment allows for a cabinet to oust a president from office should they become “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the presidency.

“We can sense the power of Trump’s underlying fear that he is worthless and weak by how intensely he resists and retaliated against any criticism,” said Cornell University psychologist Harry Segal to the Post. “No matter how minor, he can’t let anything go.”

“We’re actually suffering from his narcissistic personality,” said clinical psychologist Michelle Golland. “He has no empathy. You can feel it, the way he spoke about the San Juan mayor… She has PTSD and our president mistreats her. She is re-victimized. That is a narcissist.”

The group is part of a national coalition of mental health professionals called “Duty to Warn,” who are sidestepping a half-century of tradition by speaking openly about the mental health of a public figure who they do not personally treat.

The so-called “Goldwater Rule” is actually Section 7 of The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Principles of Medical Ethics, which states that it’s unethical to publicly speculate about public figures’ mental health. After Fact magazine devoted a full issue in 1964 to dissecting the mental health of then-presidential candidate Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), Goldwater successfully sued the magazine’s editor for libel in the Goldwater v. Ginzburg case.

Sri Lanka: On our parliamentary democracy!

by Rajan Philips-Oct 15, 2017

( October 15, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Yesterday marked the seventieth anniversary of the first ceremonial sitting of Sri Lanka’s first parliament on 14 October 1947.The government has had its official celebration in parliament; editorials and commentaries have been written to mark the occasion. What was said in parliament differed from what has been written outside in their commemorative assessments. The speeches in parliament effused satisfaction about Lanka’s parliamentary glass being more than half-full and getting filled. The only counterpoint came from the JVP leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who reminded the House how, by its actions and inactions, parliament has contributed to some of the country’s predicaments. Those outside, on the other hand, saw the parliamentary glass less than half full, and getting dirty over seventy years.

There are two startling differences between the first Ceylonese parliament and today’s Sri Lankan parliament. First, the quality of parliamentarians between then and now has plummeted pathetically. Second, a majority of the first generation MPs spent their money in campaigning for elections and sacrificed financially more rewarding careers to serve as people’s representatives in the national legislature. Now, for a majority of MPs parliament has become a money making den. A full third of the MPs were absent from the special anniversary sitting attended by dignitaries from neighbouring counties. You can bet on a full house of them attending any time to approve increases to their entitlements. Thanks, or no thanks, to proportional representation and party lists, politics now offers lifelong subscriptions to the unworthy and the underserving. No wonder so many in the country loath them so much after seeing them for so long.

There is something else to be said about the seventieth anniversary. The seventy years have not been a smooth trajectory, but one marked by sharp discontinuities and not always positive changes. There was a major discontinuity after the first thirty years. In fact, there have been not one but two distinct parliaments, physically and politically. For the first thirty years, it was the old parliament that stood stoically by the Beira Lake with open gates and scalable parapets. It was in every sense a people’s parliament, welcoming citizens to roam its precincts without fuss or fear. The next forty years (and continuing) have been staged in the opulent edifice in Kotte that (Geoffrey) Bawa designed and the Japanese built to the stipulations of President Jayewardene. Unlike the open gates and low parapets at Beira Lake, the new parliament, sited in Kotte, ancestrally renamed Sri Jayawardanapura, has its entrance barricaded and guarded round the clock.

Beyond the stark differences in appearance and fortification, there are also substantial differences in the politics and the constitutional processes of the first thirty years and the forty years that followed. Which way the current constitutional reforms will go depend, to a large extent, on which of the two sets of legacies – from the first thirty or the next forty years – will be dominant during the reform process and its conclusion. That is assuming that the current beleaguered government is capable of leading the reform process to a conclusion.

There is another period of about thirty years, which, as I have indicated in the title today, is also at play now. That period includes the country’s experience with the system of provincial governments. The role and function of provincial governments in the future is a separate matter that endlessly exercises the country’s professional keypad tappers (the new age version of the old pen pushers), constitutional lawyers and academic retirees. Some of the latter come out of their geographical corners from time to time, hectoring others about politics and the constitution, and posthumously taking on, through time and space, past giants – from Stalin to SWRD, who had in their time seen the better of greater adversaries. To paraphrase John Stuart Mill in a different context, political late comers in Sri Lanka derive their eminence from the plains of ethno-politics that have been surrounding them from the 1980s – fortuitously for them but tragically for the country.

The late arrivals to politics and their eminence are also an upshot of the degeneration of parliament from 1947 to 2017. The 1947 parliament included in its ranks some of the best minds and finest debaters in the country, and the proceedings in parliament set the frame and tone for political commentaries outside. The leading parliamentarians were men of great convictions, who not only debated among themselves but also took on others joining in from the outside with consummate relish. Contrast with the current state of affairs. Parliament no longer sets the frame or the tone for political discussion in the country. Parliament has abdicated its responsibility and politics has been thoroughly outsourced in real open-economy style. Political commentaries have taken multiple lives of their own, lacking serious convictions, but spinning furiously in their separate universes of tendentious truths.

Constitutional sophistry and legislative chicanery

The current debate over constitutional reform betrays all these and more – encompassing the government’s legislative chicanery and the sophistry of its constitutional detractors. And the debaters have been switching sides like changing sides in a football game. Yesterday’s opponents of the presidential system are now its proponents; and those who introduced the presidential system now want it rooted out. The debate over provincial elections has boiled down to a debate over franchise and its spatial universality. There is too much constitutional sophistry in this debate as opposed to worthwhile political substance. Those who will allow provincial devolution only over their dead bodies are also the defenders unto death of the provincial franchise.

The established constitutional (Article 4) interpretation appears to be insistent that the franchise dimension of “the Sovereignty of the People shall be exercised and enjoyed” at the national, provincial and local levels, but there is no companion consideration about the assignment of powers to governments so elected at any level other than the national level. Put another way, there shall be franchise-sovereignty at the provincial level, but there can be no legislative-sovereignty or executive-sovereignty devolved at the provincial level. This is one side of what is tantamount to a national misunderstanding about state, government(s) and representation.

On the other side is a government that professes commitment to writing maximum devolution on the constitutional paper, but provides not even the minimum to make devolution operational in practice. To wit, do a word-count in the government’s glossy Vision 2025 document, a wordy power-point at best: how few times the words – province(s) and provincial government(s) – appear in the entire document? The government vision penetrates every nook and corner of the country, but nary a word about engaging or partnering with provincial or local governments in implementing the 2025 vision. Too much visioning and too little seeing has become the hallmark of this government. Its ‘western megapolis’ approach bulldozes everything from the Colombo centre all round to the sea – everything from garbage, to water and sanitary services, to public transport, to schools and hospitals – with hardly a thought as to how this bulldozing approach could be compatible with its commitment to devolution and democracy.

Paralleling the government’s administrative bulldozing is its legislative chicanery. For two and a half years, the government sat on its hands and did nothing about legislating for provincial elections to be held concurrently rather than staggering them in twos and threes, as has been the practice so far. It opted for the easy way of postponing local elections, and when it could not postpone elections due in three provinces, it tried the time tested route of constitutional amendment just to buy more time. The Supreme Court in its sovereign wisdom said – no postponement without a referendum. The government dutifully backed down, but used the backdoor of committee procedure to delay the elections anyway, using gender representation as the ostensible reason. This is legislative chicanery, and apparently there is nothing new about this. It has been alleged that for quite some time our parliamentarians have been using the committee stage of the legislative process as a backroom way to circumvent Supreme Court rulings on draft legislations.

Diminishing prospects for constitutional reform

The upshot of all of this for constitutional reform is frustrating and demoralizing. Neither the government nor the Joint-Opposition can claim to be having ‘clean hands’ for, respectively, championing or opposing the reform project. The government has run out of political capital for selling its reform proposals. Instead, it is calculating to use the constitutional process to gain much needed political mileage. One such calculation, according to floating commentaries, is to hold a constitutional referendum as a means of mobilizing support and creating momentum for local and provincial elections.

The Joint Opposition, on the other hand, is politically bankrupt and conventional thinking has been that it will seize on the government’s constitutional initiative and vigorously oppose it to make some political capital of its own. Some of its voluble supporters have been betting defeating the government in a constitutional referendum. But the JO seems more disjointed than united on the constitutional matter. The much ballyhooed Gotabhaya Rajapaksa efforts to launch a political movement against constitutional reform does not seem to have gained as much traction as the light and sound they created. The extended Rajapaksa family has its own internal parallelograms of competing political ambitions, so there is no telling which of them will resultantly pull ahead.

There is also no consensus among different parties in the JO on the constitution. There is consensus about participating in the constitutional process, or in regard to specific reform proposals: abolishing the presidency; power devolution; second chamber; electoral system. Except Wimal Weerawansa and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, other SLFP and non-SLFP political leaders in the JO appear to be realistic about the plurality of the Sri Lankan electorate. Basil Rajapaksa has been visiting the north to open SLPP branches. Branch offices will not automatically turn into votes, but the effort is noteworthy considering the ‘majority of the majority’ assertions one often hears from the Rajapaksa support circles.

The tragic-comedy in all this for nearly two years the government had a winning hand on a set of reform proposals that are eminently defensible. The long drawn out process has killed the initial momentum. The government’s declining credibility is now the real problem. The drafters must have been instructed to follow the TNA’s belated wisdom and prepare a package acceptable to the two major Sinhalese parties without touching Article 2 (Unitary State) and Chapter II (Buddhism) of the Constitution. Diving into the political etymology of the English word ‘unitary’ was an unnecessary diversion. Sri Lanka does not need the world’s best consulted and best written constitution, but only a good enough one to straighten out the imbalances and the sharp edges of the present system.

Dr. NM Perera was very critical of the current (1978) constitution for its “hasty, slip-shod and flabby draft that will provide a virtual El Dorado for lawyers in the years to come.” The latest instance of this constitutional flabbiness is the debate over provincial elections and franchise. It is not only flabby writing that is contributing to current misunderstandings and confusions, but also political machinations. Regardless of the words in the constitution, it is common sense and common decency that governments and political leaders provide for elections to be conducted at regular intervals without advancing or postponing them for partisan advantages.

The majority of the amendments to the 1978 constitution have been motivated by electoral considerations. Having a referendum to postpone an election is both mischievous and superfluous. But that seems to have become the norm over the last forty years of parliamentary democracy and after 86 years of universal franchise. The Courts cannot be blamed for this mess because they have been involuntarily drawn into settling political questions. It is the role of parliament to provide for elections at prescribed intervals without interference by incumbent governments or Presidents. While this principle was not meticulously honoured during the first thirty years of our parliamentary history, it has been totally violated during the last forty years. The government must demonstrate that it is firmly breaking with the latter legacy before it canvasses support for its reform proposals.

Lessons from the United Kingdom on Unitary State and Devolution

CONSTITUTION MAKING IN SRI LANKA

by M.L.Wickramasinghe-October 14, 2017, 6:02 pm 

The Interim Report of the Steering Committee (IRSC) offers a selection of options on some Articles of the Constitution and provides a view of plausible future directions that the Sri Lankan constitution drafters hope to take. This article is an attempt to analyze a few of the key contents of the Report for purposes of enhancing public discussion.

The English language version of the IRSC surprisingly uses ‘aekiya rajya/ orumiththa nadu’ to describe the nature of the State of Sri Lanka under the section titled ‘Articles 1 and 2’. The key word ‘unitary’ used as the opposite of ‘federal’ in constitutional terminology has been dropped in the English version. This is a clear departure from 1972 and 1978 Constitutions. Both contained the term unitary state."

The reason quoted by the authors of IRSC for not including the term ‘unitary state’ is that the "classical definition of the English term ‘unitary state’ has undergone change". The IRSC has cited the United Kingdom case as an example.

However, the United Kingdom so far has had no constraints in using the authority derived under its unitary constitution to thwart attempts at leaving the Union. Being a unitary state, the Parliament of the United Kingdom is the sole, sovereign and supreme constitutional (making) authority in the Union, and power is devolved to Scotland, Wales and the Northern Ireland by the constitutionally superior United Kingdom Parliament. In a unitary state such devolved power can be further increased, reduced or withdrawn by the sovereign centre, in this case the UK Parliament.

This is proved by the fact that the power devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly was withdrawn in October 2002. Devolution was restored to Northern Ireland in May 2007.

However, since 1997, an argumentative fog has begun to shroud the clarity of opinion regarding UK Parliament’s authority to withdraw devolved powers. Even if one were to accept this controversial view, that deficiency is certainly not rooted in the unitary system of governance, but in the irresponsible and short-sighted manner in which some United Kingdom Governments had awarded devolution to Scotland etc. If as opined, the unitary state of United Kingdom was bereft of such powers, the United Kingdom would have stood partially dissolved when the Scottish Parliament adopted a motion seeking separation from UK in 1999.

To understand this we need to backtrack in time. In the last few decades, it was the Conservative Party that was apprehensive of offering devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland while the Labour party had been more forthcoming on this issue. It is logical to argue that the ‘differentiation of views’ on devolution between the two main political parties in the UK had been used to leverage increasing devolution to constituent entities, to the detriment of the Union.

In May 1997, the Labour Party of Tony Blair was elected with a promise of creating devolved governing institutions in Scotland and Wales. This culminated in the creation of a Scottish Parliament and similar institutions in Wales and Northern Ireland. With that creation, United Kingdom became what can be called ‘a unitary state with devolved regions’.

Many liberal political scientists and constitutional experts theorize that when a province or a state (that mainly uses ethnic, language, or religious identity politics to achieve political goals) is offered comprehensive devolution, it would satiate the hunger for separation. But to the consternation of the Blair government and most pro- devolutionists, the Scottish Parliament adopted a motion in 1999, calling upon the UK Parliament to repeal the Act of Settlement that originally linked Scotland to the United Kingdom. That is, Scotland asked for separation from the United Kingdom. (And this call was made within about a year of winning comprehensive devolution) In this instance separatist tendencies had been fed on maximum devolution.

Basically, it was the unitary system of government that saved the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Blair invoked the powers of the sovereign United Kingdom Parliament, declaring the motion of the Scottish Parliament ultra vires.

Though some perceive this emerging situation in UK to be a crisis of a unitary constitution, it really is a pure and simple political trap that UK laid on itself by its own action of offering almost unlimited devolution, without any concern for its own stability. Theoretically, the United Kingdom can still withdraw all or part of devolution powers granted to Scotland, Wales etc. under powers vested under the unitary constitution. But the challenge is the political feasibility of instituting such suspension action because the UK government then in power would have to be ready to absorb the negative political repercussions and still strive to govern effectively, in a highly liberal western democratic environment. But this ‘political constraint’, too, is still pure conjecture, as in the 2014 Referendum the people of Scotland voted not to leave the Union. And the definition of the English term ‘unitary state’ still remains the same in English Language as well as in Constitution terminology. A Google search on ‘unitary system’ will prove this fact.

The House of Lords of the United Kingdom Parliament had conducted research on the politico-constitutional predicament facing the United Kingdom. The findings are published in the Report titled "The Union and Devolution" published in May 2016 www.parliament.uk/hlconstitution). The Report indicates that:

- Power had been devolved to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, mainly as reaction to particular events as they arose. There had been no consistent strategic thinking on devolving power as well as in instituting counter-balancing steps to protect the integrity of the Union in such eventualities. The main finding is that power had been devolved without a concern for the protection and integrity of the United Kingdom.

-Another finding is that Federalism does not provide a solution to the tensions in the UK Constitution

- A key suggestion is that while interest of the Regions should be taken into consideration in devolution that must not be at the expense of stability, coherence, and viability of the United Kingdom as a whole.

What can Sri Lanka learn from the UK experience? The key insights emerging from the above discussion, points strongly to the wisdom of maintaining the same wordings of Article 2 as found in the 1972 and 1978 Constitution, i.e. – "The republic of Sri Lanka is a unitary state."

The other advantage in adopting the universally accepted terminology "unitary state" is that it would not precipitate an unnecessary definitional and or legal tangle, as compared to the untested term ‘aekiya rajya /orumiththa nadu’. It is well known that all judicial interpretations on the term and concept ‘unitary state’ had been done in the English language even in Sri Lanka. As such it is an additional incentive to stay with the well defined and accepted terminology - ‘unitary state’. This could prevent Sri Lanka from being subjected to a long and divisive definitional controversy.

As described earlier one of the main reasons for the current constitutional predicament faced by the United Kingdom had been the haphazard way that power had been devolved to Scotland etc., without methodically and realistically assessing the negative effect on the integrity of the Union, and taking commensurate balancing action to off-set such negativity. The House of Lords has done a comprehensive analysis on this aspect.

John Curtice, Professor of Political Science at University of Strathclyde, in his submissions to the House of Lords panel observed that "in so far as one of the purposes of introducing devolution was to cement Scotland’s place in the Union it has not clearly succeeded".

The findings related to UK also raise genuine concerns about the IRSC recommendation for Sri Lanka included in the section titled Article 1 and 2. namely "Maximum devolution should also be granted".

The United Kingdom gave maximum devolution in the hope that Scotland would stay within the Union, but the opposite happened. UK union was saved by the skin of its teeth, thanks to the unitary Constitution. Currently Spain finds itself in a more serious predicament with Catalonia’s illegal referendum.

Both the United Kingdom and Spain are two good examples for illustrating the truism that ‘giving maximum devolution’ and ‘protecting the integrity and the stability of the whole State’ are irreconcilable constitutional actions. This is vitally and desperately applicable to countries that include sub-national units using ‘ethnic identity politics’ as the main platform of their territory-based agitation for greater devolution.

The question then is - Should the Republic of Sri Lanka too take the same road and commit the same mistakes? President J.R. Jayewardene who introduced devolution to Sri Lanka had already answered this question for us. He clearly showed us where the limits of devolution should lie. The risks to the Republic remain. We should, still, abide by his wisdom. In the meantime, we certainly should and can move on proposals such as the creation of a second chamber etc that symbolizes our genuine intentions regarding inclusivity while simultaneously protecting the State of Sri Lanka. This approach would be in the best interest of all Sri Lankans of all communities (irrespective of political affiliations) who are genuinely and rationally interested in the stability of the unit called ‘whole Sri Lanka’.

Development support is also vital at this stage. The central government in genuine consultation with the northern provincial council and eastern provincial council should help accelerate practical and workable livelihood stabilizing programmes for the disadvantaged families as well as support programmes such as drinking water supplementation in the Jaffna peninsula etc., identified through a local needs assessment, which are the most vital from a people’s perspective.

(The writer is an ex-Journalist, Communication Researcher, and a retired Officer of the International Civil Service of the United Nations system.)

Maithri gets first slap in the face from Tamil MPs for his double speaks and double deals : Boycott his Jaffna tour !

(Lanka-e-News - 14.Oct.2017, 11.30PM)  The TNA M.P.s decided yesterday (13) to boycott president Maithripala ‘s tour of Jaffna and Kilinochchi  today (14) . 

The decision to boycott was necessitated because  the president failed  to take action to release the political prisoners,   and the sudden transfer  of three cases pertaining to LTTE suspects heard in the Vavuniya High court to Anuradhapura High court . 

The president is scheduled to travel to Jaffna following an invitation extended to him by R. Sampanthan TNA M.P. to attend the Tamil National conference.

The TNA leaders of Jaffna and Kilinochchi taking this decision without the consent of Samapanthan has caused immense embarrassment to the latter. He is in a dire predicament thereby. 

The Jaffna district politicians told the media that they have notified the presidential secretariat about their boycott .However the secretary to Sampanthan revealed the latter is holding discussions with the district leaders to suspend the boycott .

It is worthy of note about 80 % of the people of North cast their votes for Maithripala Sirisena  to elect him as president .

Dinasena Rathugamage
Translated by Jeff

---------------------------
by     (2017-10-14 20:56:26)

Sri Lanka police push back Tamils protesting against president's Jaffna visit

14Oct 2017

Sri Lankan police officers clashed with Tamils protesters against the president's visit to Jaffna on Saturday. 

Protesters held black flags and photographs of their missing loved ones. Anger and frustration has been rising within Tamils in the North-East at the government's failure to deliver on its pledged commitments.

Today's protest follows a demonstration yesterday in Jaffna, which called for the release of Tamil political prisoners. 

Armed STF officers escorted the president as he made his way past the protest. He later stopped to speak to the protesters. 

Related Articles: 

13 October 2017 : Hartal shuts down Jaffna in protest over Tamil political prisoners

13 October 2017 : Tamils protest in Jaffna against detention of political prisoners amid STF intimidation

13 October 2017 : UN Rapporteur visits Mullivaikkaal and Tamil protestors in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu

09 October 2017 : Vavuniya protestors call for release of Tamil political prisoners

04 October 2017 : Jaffna University students and lecturers protest for release of Tamil political prisoners

Mangala assumes Chairmanship of G-24

Oct 14, 2017

The ninety-eighth meeting of Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development (G-24), was held in Washington, D.C. on 12 October 2017.

 

Minister of Finance and Media Mr. Mangala Samaraweera assumed the Chairmanship of the G-24 on behalf of Sri Lanka. The last occasion Sri Lanka held Chairmanship was in 1999 during HE President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s tenure as Finance Minister.

In his address, Minister Samaraweera stated that the G-24 will focus on "continuing our collective and shared efforts to achieve our broad objective of improving living standards of the people in our countries."

Minister Samaraweera also stressed on the need to focus our efforts on enhancing inclusive, equitable and climate resilience growth and create employment opportunities.

"Experience has shown that growth in output alone is not enough to improve the welfare of the people. It is widely agreed that transformation of the economy from a fundamentally agrarian, subsistence one to an urbanized, integrated, enterprise-dominated one is important for sustainable economic development", the Minister added.

He further reiterated that the continued engagement of the Group on inclusive growth and productivity improvement to create employment opportunities will be one of the key priorities.
Minister Samaraweera underscored the importance of finding financing for development initiatives.

"Financing for development remains an urgent priority. Finding ways and means to fulfill this need is another key area that we must focus on at various fora. The promotion of international trade, innovation and private sector investments will also require our continued attention", the Minister added.

Following is the full text of speech
Thank you very much, Minister Tekeste.

It is a great honor and privilege for me to assume the Chairmanship of the G-24 today on behalf of Sri Lanka.

I believe the last occasion was in 1999 during HE President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s tenure as Finance Minister.

At the outset, please allow me to express our sincere thanks and appreciation to Minister Tekeste and the Government of Ethiopia for the excellent coordination and concerted efforts made during the last year to take G-24 activities forward.

I would also like to warmly welcome Ecuador and Kenya as incoming members to the G-24.
During Sri Lanka’s tenure, I will do my best to ensure that the Group operates capably, articulates the views of its members effectively and represents its interests on international monetary matters adequately.

We will focus on continuing our collective and shared efforts to achieve our broad objective of improving living standards of the people in our countries.

The theme of this years’ meeting, “Growth, Employment and Structural Transformation”, provides us an excellent opportunity to put our thoughts together in achieving this objective.

We will continue to focus on our efforts on enhancing inclusive, equitable and climate resilience growth and create employment opportunities.

Experience has shown that growth in output alone is not enough to improve the welfare of the people. It is widely agreed that transformation of the economy from a fundamentally agrarian, subsistence one to an urbanized, integrated, enterprise-dominated one is important for sustainable economic development.

This would certainly pose challenges for which we must work as a Group to find effective responses.
In the above context, we will continue to align our work agenda with the priorities of G-24, including the following:

The continued engagement of the Group on inclusive growth and productivity improvement to create employment opportunities will be one of the key priorities.

Financing for development remains an urgent priority. Finding ways and means to fulfill this need is another key area that we must focus on at various fora.

The promotion of international trade, innovation and private sector investments will also require our continued attention.

We will continue to work to bring independent perspectives to the debate on debt sustainability. This particularly is important for some of our members in the Group.

Obviously, the active role of the G-24 in the reform and governance agenda of international financial institutions will be continued while stressing the collective view of the Group.

 I look forward to hear the views of all our members for a meaningful and pragmatic South – South dialog, which is extremely important in our collective efforts going forward.

 With that, I wish to once again express our strong appreciation to you, Minister Tekeste, for your considerable efforts on behalf of the G-24 during the past year.

A land of poverty, sleaze, drugs and lawlessness

Usvatte-aratchi-October 14, 2017, 6:03 pm 

Turn on the news programme on television. There is a burly ASP delivering a blow with full force on the right ear of a skimpy young man. Doctors have diagnosed severe damage to his inner ear. A week earlier there was an attack by a group of people on a small group seeking refuge from mayhem in Myanmar, no matter what religion they professed, who had done us no wrong but accidentally sought temporary shelter until they found a land where they would be welcome. They were the equivalent of a family stepping on to your verandah to escape a deluge of rain. You don’t open with a blast from a double barreled gun, whatever the form in other parts of the world. Many people from our country, rightly or wrongly, sought refuge in other lands in the same way, and for the most part, were treated humanely. Refugees from disasters of various sorts are a common feature all over the world now and decency should have dictated a response entirely different from what we saw in a land where it would be hard to miss, day in day out, the admonition ‘mettankarothamanusiyapajaya’.

A few days ago, a book was published which laid down in gruesome detail, the murder in mid-November 2012 of 27 prisoners in Welikada jail, in central Colombo. The latter two groups are people (the last, citizens) under the care of government, which, Hobbes claimed came into existence to ensure that life is not ‘nasty, brutish and short’. It turns out that ours was a government that excelled in ensuring the law of the jungle where life is violent, tortured and whimsical. Worse, the Minister now in charge of the Police Department, a few days ago, got up in Parliament to say, that under his government the law is supreme and will be administered without fear or favour. This, the same man as who intervened, as revealed in a careless telephone call between him and the Head of the Police Department, to save the former’s kinsman from imminent arrest according to law. The minister was not booed in Parliament. I thought if MPs were good at anything, it was at that. The Head of Police was not reprimanded for his indiscretion and lack of professionalism. The minister who was in charge of prisons in 2012 is back in Parliament, his constituency endorsing his behavior during that massacre. Ministers in the Rajapaksa administration who had said nary a word about the mid-November 2012 massacre shamelessly rose to challenge lawlessness in 2017 in the conduct of the police in the Hambantota incident.

The legal fraternity, professors of law, lawyers and some others claim time and again, at times with vehemence, that we possess a system of judicial administration completely satisfactory and adequate to investigate, prosecute and try any kind of crime or other wrong doing. That system includes the police who investigate wrong doing, government lawyers who prosecute, lawyers who represent those prosecuted and judges who try the cases and deliver judgment. Deputy Minister Ajith Perera informed Parliament a few weeks ago the data gathered by an Oversight Committee of Parliament. ‘The average length of time from the date of commission of a serious criminal offence, prosecution at high court till the conclusion of the prosecution in the High Court is ten years and two months. It takes seven years for the completion of two appeals in the courts of appeal and the Supreme Court subsequent to the hearing of a case in high court. Thus the entire process takes about 17 years.’ You call that system efficient! The Deputy Minister detailed reforms proposed by government to increase the number of courts and judges. Government seems to have forgotten the behavior of the police and the private bar.

Barely a week later, lawyers appeared in court on behalf of two criminals who had been sentenced by Judge Gihan Kulatunga to three and a half years of imprisonment each and hefty fines. They pleaded that the appeals would take seven years to be heard and concluded and it was wrong to keep his clients in prison when their sentences ran for only half that time. Lawyers for the government made no plea and the prisoners were set free. This seemed fair enough. But it raised several important questions to be answered. What about other prisoners suffering the same fate? Based on this judgment is it right (and how) to keep them imprisoned because of delays in court? Does the government want every one of them to file a case seeking redress? Would each appeal take seven years to be heard? Would some convicted criminals stay imprisoned because they lack funds and sophistication to file an appeal? Would the gavravaniya, pujaniya, and vandaniya and most reverend members of the maha sangha (I want to be certain that I don’t commit lese majeste against them) go begging for funds for them? Is that fair and just? There is a second and more complicated but no less important issue. These two convicted criminals were sentenced go pay Rs.50 million or so each as reparation. The successful appeal against the judgment withholds that payment for at least seven years. At current rates of interest, Rs.50 million will double to Rs.100 million in seven years. The probable beneficiaries from the award would lose Rs. 50 million (the interest they would earn) when payment is delayed by seven years and the criminals could pay in sesven years that fine entirely out of interest earned from investing Rs. 50 million now. The criminal gains and the victim loses! How fair and just is that? One solution is to place that sum in interest bearing escrow accounts administered by court to be distributed after the Supreme Court will have expressed itself on the matter. That also provides incentive for both parties to hasten with the case to lay its hands on the pot of money. The lawyers and judges must think hard. Because of delays in the judicial system, justice is denied grossly.

A report in The Island of October 10, 2017 ran as follows: ‘…. Nimal Siripala de Silva told Parliament yesterday that he and other SLFP leaders had remained silent, out of fear, when former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was giving away the Port City and Shangri La to Chinese companies during the previous regime’. Do you believe your ears? Powerful ministers who went about campaigning for the election of Mahinda Rajapaksa for President in 2015 now claim that they behaved in the Cabinet of Ministers out of fear! Did they seek the re-election of Mahinda Rajapakse in 2015 for the same reasons? Who and what were they afraid of? Do they still harbor such fears that they would not tell the public about them? Are those craven leaders of the SLFP still in Parliament and how can we trust that they vote on issues freed of such fears? How can democracy prevail in a society governed by such fear? How careless were we, ordinary folks, to imagine that with LTTE vanquished, we could move about without care?

Narcotic drugs

I once wrote a report on the international problems of drugs control. In what little of it that I can recall, it classified the problem fourfold: production (both growth and manufacture), transport, street distribution and consumption. All four aspects were attacked by governments and voluntary association, yet the problem remained impermeable. We do not produce plant narcotic drugs on any sizeable scale nor do we produce synthetic varieties. The marihuana (ganja) that we grow is quite small in quantity. The growing demand for drugs is satisfied with imports. Huge amounts of narcotics from the main producing countries pass through Colombo. South America is a long way from Sri Lanka but container loads of cocaine pass through Colombo and the Customs Department occasionally catches a container in transit. Supplies (heroin) from Afghanistan and other neighbouring countries pass through Colombo regularly. I am not sure whether much from the Golden Triangle makes the same trip. There is a growing local demand but that accounts for a small fraction of what is distributed through Colombo. Since we are a not so large island, it might be thought that if we have good surveillance of our sea borders and air transport to close supplies routes, that we could prevent invasion by narcotics. You did not factor in the sleaze that pervades this society. Those who engage in this trade are immensely rich, powerfully armed, politicians on their own and highly connected to politicians even more powerful. They have established a narcotic drugs hub in Colombo. It provides a veritable example of a hub for a commodity arising from objective factors in societies. Fanciful talk by senior bureaucrats and politicians about establishing an education hub, a financial hub and transport hub is shown clearly to be rubbish, when a hub in the narcotics trade has emerged, no matter how much government apparently tried to prevent it.

How can an education hub develop in a community that has not a single high grade university, no academic press putting out books and journals of any quality or a bustling academic community? China alone sent out 500,000 students to academic institutions overseas and 385,000 of them to universities in the United Sates in 2015. India and other countries must have sent in at least as much. So there is no deficiency in effective demand for study in foreign universities. A hub cannot develop without suppliers. Similarly a transport hub cannot develop in Sri Lanka simply because there is massively growing trade among countries in South and East Asia on the one side and Africa and Europe on the other. It is simply poppy cock to crow about a transport hub without physical facilities to carry it on. I think any hope of a financial a hub in Colombo has died of severe infection, almost a plague, as revealed by recent developments in local financial markets. To that horror story, I now turn.

Sleaze

Last week, news broke out that out of $60 million electronically hacked from a bank in Taiwan (China) some large quantity of money ended up for credit to account holders in a state owned bank in Colombo. It turned out that one of the account holders was a chairman of a government controlled corporation! A few years back, an account held by the central bank of Bangladesh with the New York Federal Reserve Bank was similarly hacked and some of the proceeds ended up in a bank in Colombo. Why does this happen so frequently? Because we have rightfully earned notoriety for a society where sleaze is pervasive, indulged in by those in high office and that lawlessness ensures impunity from prosecution and thieves walk away with the loot. The supervision of financial institutions (bank and non-bank) is the responsibility here of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. It is manifest that that institution has done a lousy job. Whether it does so because of sleaze or shear incompetence, one cannot say without deep inquiry.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) was an institution of unquestioned integrity and competence until two governors ago. In 1958 when Minister Ilangaratne established the Employees’ Provident Fund by law it was the Cabinet’s decision to entrust its management to an independent Board, appointed by government. Trade Union leaders and their members protested that they wanted the Central Bank to manage it because they had the highest confidence in its integrity and competence and it was so decided. In 2002 the Bank was of the persuasion that agency functions that the Bank did for government in managing EPF and the Public Debt conflicted with the principal objectives of the Central Bank in maintaining economic stability through monetary policy and maintaining financial system stability. Besides, these Departments were very large in staff strength and imposed an unwelcome burden on the management of that large staff, distracting the attention of the Bank from its principal tasks. The service departments swelled in numbers to service these two departments. Again Trade Unions intervened to insist that the Central Bank continue to manage EPF and the government did not agree to hive off the Public Debt Department from the Bank. Events since 2005 and to date have demonstrated that the Central Bank of Sri Lanka is now not the bastion of integrity and competence that it was prior to that.

The Public Debt Department has been manipulated to impose a much heavier burden of interest on debt to benefit a bond dealer with close ties to the top management. It has transpired that senior officials of the Bank, except a few, did not feel compelled to defy instructions to perform these improper activities and indeed connived with their superiors to give effect to them. It is doubly difficult to understand that the Monetary Board watched with equanimity this ugly scenario being enacted. We learnt earlier that ministers of government agreed to certain decisions driven by fear. But what motives drove members of the Monetary Board to act as if they were babes in the woods when all these improprieties were inflicted on the public? They cannot plead that they were unaware of what went on without being charged with dereliction of duty. The minimum that they can do is to hasten to resign from membership of the Board. Now that the Teflon cover that protected the Central Bank is in tatters, it is timely for the Public Debt Management Office to move to its natural home, the Ministry of Finance and for the Employees’ Fund Management Office to move to its legitimate home, the Ministry of Labour. Trade Unions must have grown in maturity during the last 60 years to look after their members’ precious savings. The Central Bank will then turn into a much smaller institution focusing its attention on the fundamental responsibilities entrusted to it by law. The need for a good economist to lead the Bank will then be clearer than obvious.

In 2002 and there about, the Bank examined the need to develop a market for bonds, both government and corporate. The market for government bonds was incipient and the Bank studied the problem and sought the opinion of scholars and practitioners the world over, one of whom happened to be our own Nihal Kappagoda, who had advised the governments of both Thailand and the Philippines and some other countries on the problem. The Bank decided that one of the steps towards a market for bonds was to establish a scheme of Primary Dealers who would bid competitively for bonds when issued. They would then sell them to other dealers and retail investors. And so it was expected that there would emerge a competitive market for bonds both government and corporate. As the price of a bond gives the rate of interest, it was expected that rates of interest and its time structure would emerge from the market. There has been loose talk about the superiority of administratively decided price of government bonds without realizing the difficulties of arriving at such estimates. The most sophisticated models for guessing interest rates in the New York bond market went awry to destroy Lehman Brothers, a highly respected bond dealer in the market and that set off the panic that triggered the financialcrisisof2007-08. In Colombo the decision makers who espoused the cause of private sector primary dealers had not factored sleaze as a way of life in Sri Lanka. It is now evident that those in the in the public sector were conniving at venality that brought about the debacle we call the bond scam. It is greater the pity that the Central Bank which stood for most that is good in the public sector has now been mired in mud. (I worked there, once.)

I have also begun to suspect that investment patterns have been determined by how much sleaze could be generated by each activity. Large investments made, en bloc, are more paying in sleaze than small investment that would bring in higher returns to society. Infra structure projects like harbours, airports, expressway, other highways, large dams to provide irrigation and generate power and the purchase of airplanes can bring in huge commissions and bribes, no matter what the return to society. During the last two months I traveled twice on the Southern Expressway and on routes A17 and A18. (I have also traveled on express ways for many years in other lands.).Traffic is very thin on these routes and acutely scarce on routes A 17 (Matara to Madampe and on Route 18 (from Nonagama to Pelmadulla). We have heard much on Mattala and Magampura. It was a popular saying in the 1980s that Mahaveli flowed to Trinco through a well known firm in Colombo. There is now high fever about expressways to the highlands and worse allegations of chicanery in the presentation of bills for consideration by Parliament.

Poverty

Despite claptrap about middle income traps, we are distinguished by poverty. About 20 percent of our labour force cannot find employment at home. More than half of these workers outside Sri Lanka are engaged in unskilled work as cleaners, drivers or watchers, because the domestic economy cannot offer them adequate employment. Indians working overseas remitted $65 billion last year partly because of the larger numbers, partly for the same reasons as in Sri Lanka. Now those enthusiastic about free international trade in labour as in commodities and capital will ask me what is wrong about that. In contrast to the international movement of commodities and capital, there are social costs which raise opportunity costs of movement of labour and these are not compensated for in wages. (Trump played an ace when he hit upon social costs of emigration of capital.) A response might be that workers who move know all when they make the move. This is a rationalization a priori and behavioral economists like Thaler will tell you that it is not true. They leave because poverty expels them.

We export tea competitively because workers in plantations are paid low. ‘Rents is high because prices are high’ as David Ricardo wisely said. Wages are low because prices are low. So with Chinese workers who beat the world to export manufactures. It is a question of time before tea plantations will find it impossible to export tea competitively.

This litany of woe about our society is long and sad. I had better stop now.

Sri lanka’s ‘bread and circuses’ sideshow

Sunday, October 15, 2017

 

Juvenal’s beautifully scornful castigation of the people being diverted by ‘bread and circuses’ (panem et circenses), has a specific application in the present day. That cynical tactic served the Roman emperors well in turning the attention of bored plebians away from pressing national issues and civic duties.

 

Catching the gleeful imagination of the public

Sri Lanka has had its fair share of diversions through the decades since we embarked on our less than distinguished expedition of gaining independence from colonial rulers and keeping a proud national identity intact. In recent times and under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, we had gleaming expressways snaking through the country and the sprucing up of Colombo to distract from abominable robberies of the public purse.

 

Now, the ‘yahapalanaya’ Sirisena-Wickremesinghe unity alliance has none too dubious ‘achievements’ all of its own. At the core is the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) bond issuance allegedly profiting Arjun Aloysius, principal shareholder and director of Perpetual Treasuries (Pvt) Ltd and the son-in-law of Arjuna Mahendran, former Governor of the Central Bank who was the handpicked choice of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

 

On its own part, the Commission of Inquiry inquiring into the CBSL bond issuance has certainly caught the gleeful imagination of a bored and cynical public after a very long time. The happenings coming to light before the Commission have all the hallmarks of a classic thriller. This week, we are beguiled with tempting references to shadowy characters codenamed ‘Wolverine’, ‘Little Jhonnie’, Tango’ and ‘Charlie’ and allegations of money being paid to them under the table by Perpetual Treasuries Limited. Fresh controversies ignite each day.

 

Remarkable contradictions at play

But as has been said before in these column spaces and deserves repetition, if serious political will existed to punish those responsible for this a Commission of Inquiry is not the answer. It is the criminal justice process that should have been activated. But yet it was not.

 

Moreover, there is a remarkable contradiction at play here. The Attorney General’s Department which is most often than not, in the direct line of fire regarding ineffective prosecutorial practice appear to be distinguished in a different sense here. Its team exhibits a marked proclivity to go after its quarry, aiming for the jugular as it were, even to the extent of resorting to sensational exhibitionism.

 

This includes reportedly refusing to cross examine senior Ministers and powerbrokers of the United National Party (UNP), summoned by the Commission for a ‘quickie’ session where they used the opportunity to plead fresh-eyed innocence of any wrong doing.

 

Giving rise to cynicism

All this would give rise to cynicism in the most optimistic of minds. Our history is illustrative of the same. It is artfully sought to argue that Sri Lanka’s Commissions of Inquiry went wrong in the past due to the faults of those Commissions. The logic is therefore that, if a particular Commission functioned perfectly,, we would have had a different result.

 

In some few instances, this allegation may be true. For example, the Commissions established by (the late) Presidents R Premadasa and DB Wijetunge during 1991-1993 to inquire into killings and disappearances of suspected Sinhalese militants during the UNP terror era were demonstrably problematic. Their reports have not been published to-date. Again, the 2001 Presidential Truth Commission on Ethnic Violence constituted by former president Chandrika Kumaranatunge headed by a retired Chief Justice of Sri Lanka was a bad example of a ‘Truth’ Commission.

 

But even where past Commissions exerted their might and main to bring injustices to light, their efforts have been futile. Kumaranatunge’s 1994 Disappearances Commissions Reports is a case in point. Despite impractical time limits, insufficient resources and other logistical problems the Commissions resisted political pressure. Inquiring into the abuses suffered by citizens of majority and minority ethnicity alike, they presented impressively detailed and soberly reasoned recommendations.

 

Good recommendations by COIs ignored

The Commissions reiterated the need for an Independent Human Rights Prosecutor to be established as an institution similar to the Commissioner of Elections and the Auditor General with funds provided by Parliament. Significant changes were recommended to the law relating to the burden of proof. Superior officers were recommended to be held criminally liable for violations committed by subordinates under their command in appropriate instances.

 

The establishing of legal aid services and citizens’ assistance bureaus specifically to deal with gross abuses was advocated. But virtually all these recommendations were ignored. If changes in practice and policy had taken place, the misery that people had to go through in later decades of chaotic conflict may well have lessened.
And with all their considerable warts, the more recent Udalagama Commission of Inquiry and the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC) Commission also suffered similar fates. Some excellent recommendations should have been given effect to. Instead, they were disregarded.

 

Diverting attention away from reform of the criminal justice system

Whether they have been appointed to look into mega corruption or probe gross human rights abuses, Commissions of Inquiry in this country have failed due to rulers shrugging away the accountability of the State. We are yet to see Commissions exhibiting a powerful and potent force as a deterrent to abuse. Absent political will to bring the full force of the law against the perpetrators, ad hoc amendments to the law are of no use. Thus the 2008 amendment to the 1948 Act empowering the Attorney General to indict on the findings of Commissions of Inquiry made very little difference to the status quo.

 

And in any event, the criminal justice system is where the focus of law reform ought to be directed. Yet another report of a committee on law reform and ‘speedy criminal justice’ was presented to President Maithripala Sirisena this week. These are manifestly silly exercises. The precise points at which the criminal justice system must be corrected have already been dealt with more than a decade ago in the 2004 Committee Report on the Eradication of Laws Delays commissioned by the Government at the time. The excellent recommendations in that report in relation to structural reforms in the police, the Departments of the Attorney General and the Auditor General still remain unimplemented. That by itself is telling.

 

Suffice to say in the final result that these ‘bread and circuses’ exercises do not suffice to bring about justice for the wronged. That much is certain. At a certain point, public cynicism can only grow exponentially as the people witness the law being flouted with impunity. This is exactly what happened to the Rajapaksas. That can only be bad news for the unity Government struggling with its manifold dilemmas.