Monday, October 16, 2017

Is Chris Grayling being realistic about growing more food after Brexit?

By Georgina Lee-16 OCT 2017

“What we will do is grow more [food] here and we’ll buy more from around the world”

That is what the transport secretary Chris Grayling said could happen if Britain leaves the EU without a trade deal. He was responding to claims from the head of Sainsbury’s that a no-deal Brexit would see the cost of food go up by 22 per cent.

But is Mr Grayling being realistic? FactCheck takes a look.

How might a no-deal Brexit increase food costs?

A no-deal Brexit would mean both the UK and the EU would have to put up tariffs on the goods and services they import from each other in order to comply with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. This could have knock-on effects on the price of food for British consumers.

Increasing Britain’s food self-sufficiency is a “noble ambition”, but do we have enough time before Brexit?

Mr Grayling suggested that one way to avoid the cost of food going up would be to grow more in the UK. But leading food and environmental scientists are sceptical about whether that would be feasible on a mass scale in such a short time frame.

We spoke to Professor Sue Hartley, Director of the Environmental Sustainability Institute at York University.

She explained that at the moment, the UK only produces around 60 per cent of its own food – “increasing that figure is a sensible and important policy goal but there is clearly a long way to go”.
The picture’s even more stark when we consider fresh fruit and vegetables – only 18 per cent of what we consume is grown in the UK.

She identified three key questions that would need to be resolved for Mr Grayling’s proposals to become feasible.

First of all, she asks “can we grow what we want to eat?”. In other words, would UK consumers have to accept a narrower range of options, depending on what we can grow in Britain?

Then we have the question of “where can we grow it?”. Given “the need for our limited land to provide multiple functions”, Professor Hartley asks “whose housing development would be cancelled, or what road expansion would be scrapped?”.

She suggests that alleviating this pressure will require major changes in our agricultural system, such as reduced meat consumption, to allow more people to be fed from the same area of land.

And finally: “who is going to grow it?”. Farming is an ageing profession: “a third of farmer owners are over 65” and there are growing skills shortages in key sectors, such as dairy. Indeed, many parts of the UK agricultural sector, particularly horticulture, are “heavily reliant on EU workers”.

Answering these questions will take time, says Professor Hartley, and would be difficult to resolve by March 2019. This is something the government itself recognises as it aims to produce a 25 year Plan for Food and Farming.

She says that the UK’s increasing reliance on imported food is something “we would need to address irrespective of Brexit”.

But the problem is time.

Professor Hartley concludes that becoming more self-sufficient is “a noble ambition and it’s something that should be in the government’s thinking – but it should have started with a clear vision for a national and regional UK food policy 20 years ago”.

Joint research by City University and the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff also casts doubt on whether Mr Grayling’s proposed course of action would be viable.

In a 2017 report “A Food Brexit: time to get real”, Professors Tim Lang, Erik Millstone and Terry Marsden say that “the implications of Brexit for food are potentially enormous”. They point out that “the UK food system, consumer tastes and prices have been thoroughly Europeanised. This would be impossible to cut out or back by March 2019 without enormous consequences”.

They warn that leaving the EU will be a “major disruptor of the current food system, which has undergone a transformation since 1945”. They say that the prospect of changing all this in two years “is bringing most food analysts and food industries out in a cold sweat”.

In particular, the reports authors are concerned about “volatile and/or rising food prices from a botched Food Brexit”, which they say “will hit the vulnerable even more”.

FactCheck verdict

Evidence from leading food and agriculture experts suggests that Chris Grayling’s proposal to “grow more” is desirable in the long term, but not feasible in the timeframe of a no-deal Brexit.

Analysts agree that the necessary changes would take decades, not years. With the UK’s departure from the EU scheduled for March 2019, there simply isn’t time to implement such major structural changes.

For Years, U.N. Was Warned of Threat to Rohingya in Myanmar

Myanmar’s Muslim crackdown “has been decades in the making.”

A distraught Rohingya boy seeks handouts near the Balukali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on Sept. 20. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

BY COLUM LYNCH-OCTOBER 16, 2017

The flight of Myanmar’s Rohingya to Bangladesh should have come as no surprise to the United Nations.

For more than three years, a chorus of voices from within the U.N. community have warned that the country’s minority Muslims faced a grim reckoning that the U.N. was ill prepared to handle and called for pressing the government of Myanmar, which is often referred to as Burma, to halt its abuses.

“It has always been a question of when rather than if,” said Charles Petrie, a former U.N. representative in Myanmar, who has emerged as one the institution’s most prominent critics.

But at every step of the way these critics have faced fierce resistance from some of the most senior U.N. officials, who feared that publicly shaming Myanmar’s rulers would complicate efforts to steer the country through a delicate political transition from military rule to democracy and jeopardize the U.N.’s development and humanitarian relief efforts in the country.

Today, more than half a million Muslims have fled the country for Bangladesh in a brutally efficient spasm of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar security forces, who consider the Rohingya to be foreigners. Some U.N. officials are straining to figure out how and why their policies fell short, and to plot out what, if anything, they can do to stem a human tide.

Others say it may be too late, that Myanmar security forces have effectively rewritten the ethnic boundaries of the Rohingyas’ heartland in northern Rakhine state with little likelihood that they will ever return.

The refugee crisis has its roots in a long history of Burmese discrimination against the Rohingya. But some of the U.N.’s shortcomings in responding to the crisis are self-made: a product of long-standing interagency squabbles over turf and policy, compounded by a bureaucratic decision taken in December 1977 that empowered the U.N. Development Program to appoint the senior U.N. official, or resident coordinator, presiding over most of the international body’s duty stations around the world.

As an agency that relies on governments’ cooperation to do its work, UNDP has historically shied away from tackling thorny political matters or confronting those governments when they commit abuses, according to the critics. That, they claimed, fed a culture of silence that has pervaded many duty stations, subjecting the U.N. to allegations that it has been complicit in atrocities, from Myanmar to Sri Lanka.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has been pressing for a key reform that would end the development agency’s role in appointing the top official, or resident coordinator, in U.N. field offices, and transfer that authority to his own office.

The reform, according to advocates, would give the U.N. chief greater power to rally the U.N.’s fractious agencies behind a single policy and to swap out top U.N. field officials who may lack the requisite skills to respond when their duty station descends into chaos.

In his first meeting with top advisors, Guterres outlined a plan to place the top U.N. official, or resident coordinator, in the more than 130 U.N. duty stations under the authority of the U.N. Development Group, which is headed by his own deputy secretary-general, Amina Mohammed, a former Nigerian environment minister.

“There is overwhelming consensus that the Resident Coordinator system needs to change,” Erik Solheim, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, wrote in a memo to his staff describing the meeting. “It needs to separate from the Development Programme, to allow better representation of all parts of the United Nations.”

But the effort has faced internal resistance from U.N. agencies, including UNDP and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which fret it could weaken their standing in the field, according to a senior diplomatic source.

It has also been received with some trepidation by developing countries, as well as China and Russia, which suspect the reform would place too much power in the hands of the U.N. chief, who may one day use it to interfere in their domestic affairs or to lecture them on their human rights conduct.

“I fear that if the secretary-general’s attempt to reform the U.N. representation on the ground does not succeed, many more Myanmars can be foreseen,” said Petrie

“I fear that if the secretary-general’s attempt to reform the U.N. representation on the ground does not succeed, many more Myanmars can be foreseen,” said Petrie

, who was expelled from Myanmar in October 2007 for criticizing the military government.

In many ways, Guterres waded into a policy vacuum on Myanmar when he was elected last year. The U.N. General Assembly had just eliminated the post of U.N. special representative to Myanmar, a sign of the international community’s views that Myanmar’s democratic transition, now led by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was on track and the need for foreign intervention in the country’s politics had passed.

The Myanmar government made it clear to the new U.N. chief during his first months in office that it would not accept a new special representative. Guterres’s proposal this summer to replace the U.N.’s resident coordinator, Renata Lok-Dessallien, with a more senior successor to grapple with the deteriorating political and human rights situation was also rejected by the government, which has repeatedly denied there is any human rights problem in Myanmar.

Frustrated with the failure to move Myanmar’s leaders through quiet diplomacy, Guterres in early September took the rare step of directly requesting the U.N. Security Council press for restraint and calm, warning that Myanmar was facing a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

But the crisis has only worsened.

On Oct. 9, 2016, a previously unknown armed group called Harakat al-Yaqin, since renamed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, mounted an attack on three police stations in the townships of Maungdaw and Rathedaung, killing nine officers. The military retaliated with even greater force, setting Rohingya villages on fire and forcing tens of thousands to flee to Bangladesh. By late January, nearly 70,000 Rohingya had crossed the border into Bangladesh.

“The current crisis in Rakhine, which at this moment in time is quite possibly the most acute human rights crisis in the world, may have been triggered by attacks by Muslim militants,” Andrew Gilmour, the U.N. assistant secretary-general told U.N. Security Council members Friday. “But it has been decades in the making, through the systematic discrimination against the Rohingya population.”

In April, a consultant hired by the U.N. office in Yangon warned in an internal report that it was only a matter of time before a new wave of violence occurred. “All indications,” the consultant, Richard Horsey, wrote in his confidential report, are that Muslim insurgents would launch an attack on Myanmar security forces in the next six months, triggering a “heavy-handed and indiscriminate” army assault on the region’s long-discriminated-against Rohingya Muslims.

The report, which was obtained by Foreign Policy, was first reported on by the Guardian, which said its distribution within the U.N. was suppressed by Lok-Dessallien.

But Horsey wasn’t the first to raise concerns about the Rohingya.

Back in 2015, Liam Mahony, a consultant to the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, wrote a pointed critique of the organization’s role in Myanmar that painted a picture of deep dysfunction. U.N. humanitarian agencies based in Myanmar squabbled over turf, withheld information from one another, and soft-pedaled the regime’s abuses.

He reserved some of his sharpest criticism for Lok-Dessallien, claiming she had failed to speak up publicly in the face of discriminatory policies that sentenced the Rohingya to an apartheid-like existence and the placement of thousands of civilians in internment camps supported by U.N. aid.
Mahony argued that Myanmar relies on the U.N.’s stamp of approval for a successful transition, but the international body has been reluctant to use that influence to press for better treatment of the Rohingya.

“The U.N.’s overall approach fails to take adequate advantage of the unique historical moment in which Myanmar finds itself,” he wrote. “It needs the international community, it wants to reap the huge financial rewards that this new relationship brings; and it understands it must make trade-offs to reap them.”

Instead, he said, the U.N. and other international agencies have been “frightened” into a “level of silence that tends to support or facilitate the state’s ongoing strategies of discrimination.”

The mission’s tread-softly approach has been challenged by some other senior officials, principally U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and former Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, who were tasked with implementing the former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s U.N. Human Rights Up Front Initiative, which called for placing the promotion of human rights at the center of the U.N.’s work in the field.

But they faced stiff resistance from UNDP’s former executive director, Helen Clark, and the former special envoy, Vijay Nambiar, according to former U.N. officials and internal U.N. documents reviewed by FP. In private meetings, Clark and Nambiar repeatedly argued that frank criticism of Myanmar’s human rights conduct would be counterproductive and that the government was doing its best to improve, the officials said.

As early as late 2015, Eliasson pressed to have Lok-Dessallien replaced with a successor with more experience in crisis zones and a willingness to press the government more forcefully on human rights. But the effort was blocked by Clark, according to two former senior U.N. official.

In response to a request for comment, Clark told FP that there was “discussion from time to time as to whether” Lok-Dessallien should continue running the U.N. mission in Myanmar, “but in the absence of compelling reasons to withdraw her she stayed in her post.”

Clark recalled no “sharp policy disputes” at the highest levels of the U.N. and that there “was a general appreciation” that the U.N. had to simultaneously promote human rights while advancing political, humanitarian, and development goals in Myanmar. “That was certainly my view,” she wrote in response to questions from FP.

“I considered then and consider now the human rights issues impacting on the Rohingya to be serious, and first raised them with Aung San Suu Kyi directly myself when I called on her in Naypyidaw in 2013,” she said. “Senior officials regularly wrestled with the issue of how to have an impact on serious human rights issues in Myanmar. To portray me as indifferent or hostile to that cause is not only wrong, but constitutes a calculated smear

Senior officials regularly wrestled with the issue of how to have an impact on serious human rights issues in Myanmar. To portray me as indifferent or hostile to that cause is not only wrong, but constitutes a calculated smear

which I would hope Foreign Policy would not perpetrate.”

For his part, Nambiar acknowledged that the depiction of high-level differences at U.N. headquarters “is not essentially incorrect,” in a lengthy written response to questions. But he said that his private messages to Myanmar’s leaders “were as forthright and and direct as I could make them.”

“I believed that publicly upbraiding the government on the Rohingya issue and the use of expressions like ‘genocide’ were likely to be counterproductive and could further weaken the hands of the incoming government of [Aung San Suu Kyi] in tackling the issue,” he wrote.

Nambiar said that he raised concern about “institutionalized discrimination” against the Rohingya and other minority groups in “almost every” meeting he held with then-President U Thein Sein.

“It is factually incorrect and misleading to suggest that my office was disproportionately focused only on the peace process and that it did not pay sufficient attention to the Rakhine issue,” he said. “The sad fact was that despite the many-pronged efforts of the U.N., on many critical points, the Thein Sein government proved unwilling or politically unable to take a strong stand on this issue against the Buddhist clerics or the army.”

Nambiar said he initially held high hopes that Aung San Suu Kyi would take a more sympathetic approach to the plight of the Rohingya. But her position hardened after the emergence of Rohingya militants in October 2016. “I pleaded to her to listen to her own ‘inner voice’ as well as to personally visit Northern Rakhine to signal her concern for the security and dignity of the local population there,” he recalled.

“I pleaded to her to listen to her own ‘inner voice’ as well as to personally visit Northern Rakhine to signal her concern for the security and dignity of the local population there,” he recalled.

“Her sharp reaction was an indication of a change in her stand.”

But those sharp policy differences at U.N. headquarters were never resolved, fueling a similar battle among the various U.N. agencies in the field over the wisdom of pressing the government to improve its treatment of the Rohingya and other minorities. Lok-Dessallien carried out the policy favored by Clark and Nambiar, steering clear of tough talk on the need for political reforms or better human rights, and focusing on areas where the U.N. and the government could work together to promote development.

The approach fueled deep divisions within the U.N.’s field office, with officials from U.N. agencies, including the office of the U.N. emergency relief coordinator and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in open dissent.

Lok-Dessallien declined through a spokesman to comment. But one senior U.N. official came to her defense, saying that she was a principled international civil servant who may have lacked the experience and the skills to adjust to Myanmar’s descent into crisis.

But “if you think that had she had taken a much harder line a year ago then none of this would have happened you’re delusional,” the official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that the U.N. could pay a high price for speaking out without achieving results: “We are not an NGO. If Human Rights Watch gets kicked out of the country for speaking out it’s a badge of honor, If we get kicked out, what happens to the humanitarian and development programs?”

“I think Renata got a bum deal,” the official said. “The fault is more with the system as a whole.”

Thousands of new Rohingya refugees flee violence, hunger in Myanmar for Bangladesh

Zeba Siddiqui, Wa Lone-OCTOBER 16, 2017

COX‘S BAZAR/YANGON (Reuters) - Hungry, destitute and scared, thousands of new Rohingya refugees crossed the border into Bangladesh from Myanmar early on Monday, Reuters witnesses said, fleeing hunger and attacks by Buddhist mobs that the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing.

Rohingya refugees arrive to the Bangladeshi side of the Naf river after crossing the border from Myanmar, in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 16, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

Wading through waist-deep water with children strapped to their sides, the refugees told Reuters they had walked through bushes and forded monsoon-swollen streams for days.

A seemingly never-ending flow entered Bangladesh near the village of Palongkhali. Many were injured, with the elderly carried on makeshift stretchers, while women balanced household items, such as pots, rice sacks and clothing, on their heads.

”We couldn’t step out of the house for the last month because the military were looting people,“ said Mohammad Shoaib, 29, who wore a yellow vest and balanced jute bags of food and aluminium pots on a bamboo pole. ”They started firing on the village. So we escaped into another.

“Day by day, things kept getting worse, so we started moving towards Bangladesh. Before we left, I went back near my village to see my house, and the entire village was burnt down,” Shoaib added.

They joined about 536,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25, when coordinated Rohingya insurgent attacks sparked a ferocious military response, with the fleeing people accusing security forces of arson, killings and rape.

Myanmar rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing and has labelled the militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army who launched the attacks as terrorists, who have killed civilians and burnt villages.

The European Union said on Monday it would suspend invitations to Myanmar’s army commander-in-chief and other senior generals “in the light of the disproportionate use of force carried out by the security forces”.

A statement issued after a meeting of EU foreign ministers also called for thorough investigation of “credible allegations of serious human rights violations and abuses”.

ANOTHER BOAT SINKS

Not everyone made it to Bangladesh alive on Monday.

Several kilometres (miles) to the south of Palongkhali, a boat carrying scores of refugees sank at dawn, killing at least 12 and leaving 35 missing. There were 21 survivors, Bangladesh authorities said.

“So far 12 bodies, including six children and four women, have been recovered,” said police official Moinuddin Khan.

Bangladesh border guards told Reuters the boat sank because it was overloaded with refugees, who pay exorbitant fees to cross the Naf River, a natural border with Myanmar in the Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh.

Rohingya refugees arrive to the Bangladeshi side of the Naf river after crossing the border from Myanmar, in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 16, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

The sinking came about a week after another boat capsized in the estuary on the river, which has become a graveyard for dozens of Muslim refugees.

FOOD, AID RESTRICTED

Refugees who survived the perilous journey said they were driven out by hunger because food markets in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State have been shut and aid deliveries restricted. They also reported attacks by the military and Rakhine Buddhist mobs.

The influx will worsen the unprecedented humanitarian emergency unfolding in Cox’s Bazar, where aid workers are battling to provide refugees with food, clean water and shelter.

On Monday, the Red Cross opened a field hospital as big as two football fields, with 60 beds, three wards, an operating theatre, a delivery suite with maternity ward and a psychosocial support unit.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had already been in Bangladesh after fleeing previous spasms of violence in Myanmar, where they have long been denied citizenship and faced curbs on their movements and access to basic services.

Monday’s EU move to shun further contacts with Myanmar’s army top brass comes after officials told Reuters the European bloc and the United States were considering targeted sanctions against military leaders.

The action announced by Brussels is largely symbolic, though the EU said it may consider further measures.

Western governments, who have invested politically in Myanmar’s democratic transition, are wary of doing anything that would hurt the wider economy or destabilise already tense ties between civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military.

The powerful army chief, Min Aung Hlaing, told the United States ambassador in Myanmar last week that the exodus of Rohingya, whom he called non-native “Bengalis”, was exaggerated.

But despite Myanmar’s denials and assurances that aid was on its way to the north of violence-torn Rakhine State, thousands more starving people were desperate to leave.

“We fled from our home because we had nothing to eat in my village,” said Jarhni Ahlong, a 28-year-old Rohingya man from the southern region of Buthidaung, who had been stranded on the Myanmar side of the Naf for a week, waiting to cross.

From the thousands gathered there awaiting an opportunity to escape, about 400 paid roughly $50 each to flee on nine or 10 boats on Monday morning, he added.

“I think if we go to Bangladesh we can get food,” he said.

Magic mushrooms can 'reset' depressed brain

By James Gallagher-14 October 2017

A hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms can "reset" the brains of people with untreatable depression, raising hopes of a future treatment, scans suggest.

The small study gave 19 patients a single dose of the psychedelic ingredient psilocybin.

Half of patients ceased to be depressed and experienced changes in their brain activity that lasted about five weeks.

However, the team at Imperial College London says people should not self-medicate.

There has been a series of small studies suggesting psilocybin could have a role in depression by acting as a "lubricant for the mind" that allows people to escape a cycle of depressive symptoms.

But the precise impact it might be having on brain activity was not known.

The team at Imperial performed fMRI brain scans before treatment with psilocybin and then the day after (when the patients were "sober" again).

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, showed psilocybin affected two key areas of the brain.

The amygdala - which is heavily involved in how we process emotions such as fear and anxiety - became less active. The greater the reduction, the greater the improvement in reported symptoms.
The default-mode network - a collaboration of different brain regions - became more stable after taking psilocybin.

Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, head of psychedelic research at Imperial, said the depressed brain was being "clammed up" and the psychedelic experience "reset" it.

He told the BBC News website: "Patients were very ready to use this analogy. Without any priming they would say, 'I've been reset, reborn, rebooted', and one patient said his brain had been defragged and cleaned up."

However, this remains a small study and had no "control" group of healthy people with whom to compare the brain scans.

Further, larger studies are still needed before psilocybin could be accepted as a treatment for depression.

However, there is no doubt new approaches to treatment are desperately needed.

Depression: A revolution in treatment?

Prof Mitul Mehta, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said: "What is impressive about these preliminary findings is that brain changes occurred in the networks we know are involved in depression, after just a single dose of psilocybin.

"This provides a clear rationale to now look at the longer-term mechanisms in controlled studies."

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Seventh mother dies since families of the disappeared ongoing protests began

15Oct 2017

A Tamil woman that has been searching for her disappeared family members died from a heart-attack on Saturday.

55-year-old Jesintha Peiris is the seventh protestor to die since families of the disappeared began protesting, eight months ago.

She was searching for her son Rosanly Leon and husband Amalan Leon, all from Mannar, who were abducted by white van in Colombo in 2008.

Despite ill health, Mrs Peiris had been travelling often to Colombo to attend the trials looking into the discovery of 12 identity cards found in a secret camp run by the Sri Lankan Navy.

Rosanly and Amalan Leon’s identity cards were among those found.

Families of the disappeared have been protesting in Kilinochchi and other locations for almost 250 days.

SRI LANKA’S STATE MINISTER FOR DEFENCE ATTACKS TNA; SAYS PTA DETAINEES WILL NOT BE RELEASED

Image: Campaign for the release of political prisoners are gathering momentum. ©s .deshapriya.

15/10/2017

Defence State Minister Ruwan Wijewardene has reiterated that the remanded LTTE suspects, who had allegedly committed serious crimes,will not be freed without a judicial process despite the hartal campaigns in the North, according to state controlled Daily News.

Wijewardene, a close relative of the PM Wickremasinghe, has made these observations speaking to the media after an event at a school in Biyagama.

The State Minister had said that several TNA members are trying to disrupt the day-to-day life of the people in the North by organizing a hartal campaign.

The Minister, pointing out that there are no ‘political prisoners’ as claimed by the TNA, said that the investigations have revealed that those prisoners were involved in serious crimes during the time of war. He had emphasized that those prisoners could not be released without a judicial inquiry.

“If there are delays in the judicial process, those must be rectified. However the prisoners must go through the judicial process and either be convicted or released at the end of it,” he had said.
With the inputs form Daily News.

Attorney General Abused Office To Deny People’s Franchise

By Nagananda Kodituwakku –OCTOBER 15, 2017

Nagananda Kodituwakku

Attorney General to act for the people

The law requires the Republic’s Attorney General to be absolutely independent in performing his statutory duties, which also includes the constitutional duty of examining Bills for the contravention of the requirements of the Constitution and expressing his views as the guardian that protects the sovereign rights of the people.

Unfortunately, recent experience shows that this is not happening in the Republic of Sri Lanka, despite Attorney General’s mandate has been clearly defined by Law, where it stipulates that ‘Attorney General represents and acts for the people of the Republic, who are supreme over all organs of the government‘ (Land Reforms Commission v Grand Central Ltd)

The most recent and patent let down of the people by the Attorney General is the passing of the Provincial Council Election Act No 17 of 2017 on 20th Sep 2017 by fraudulent means, absolutely disregarding the entrenched provisions set out in the Constitution and also with a scant respect to the authority of the Supreme Court that declared the approval of the people was required to postpone the provincial council elections.

In this backdrop the concerned citizens of the country are entitled to know as to why, the Attorney General acts in this inappropriate manner, which is an insult to the sovereignty of the people. The compelling reasons for the serious crime committed by the AG are identified as follows.

The flawed appointing process of judges to the Superior Court System

It is noted that there is no proper guidelines, in the Republican Constitution now in operation, regarding the process of appointing judges to the superior court system (Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal). The system currently in progress is that the Executive President sends a list of names as he pleased to the ten-member Constitutional Council for its approval, in which seven are MPs. This list always includes several names of those who serve in the Attorney General Department and thus it provides adequate leverage to the Executive President to abuse the process to ensure those who have protected the interests of the government to enter the superior court system.

This flawed practice is never followed in other leading democracies including the UK, where no person serving in the Crown Prosecution Service, is considered for any judicial appointment.

Good judges are sidelined

And this prevailing practice causes a tremendous damage to the independence of administration of justice in the Republic of Sri Lanka by effectively disregarding the judges who perform their judicial duties impartially. For instance, when President Kumaratunga was determined to install her favorite Sarath N Silva to the office of the Chief Justice, who was then a very junior judge (not even a judge in the Supreme Court), she first made him the Attorney General and paved the way for him to leapfrog to the office of the Chief Justice, bypassing all the other senior disserving judges in the Supreme Court. This includes one of the most respected judges of that time, justice Mark Fernando. The same fate was meted out to justice Sri Skandarajah, the, then President of the Court of Appeal who had been overlooked throughout by the Rajapaksa regime until his sudden demise. Justice Sri Skandarajah had the courage to declare that the removal of the Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was patently illegal at a time when Rajapaksa was dictating terms on the judiciary. President Rajapaksa then appointed his own advisor Mohan Pieris, a former Attorney General to the office of the Chief Justice,.

Bar Association condemns the prevailing system

This wrong procedure of appointing judges to the superior court system has been severely criticized by the Bar Association in many occasions and on 11th Sep 2014 the, then President of the Bar Association Upul Jayasuriya, made his observations on improper judicial appointments as follows.

Upul Jayasuriya, hit out at the appointment of the new President of the Court of Appeal, (ASG Vijith Malalgoda) reiterating the need for judicial appointments to be made on the basis of merit and seniority and not on political considerations.

He said that there should be a set of transparent criteria and a due process for the appointment and promotion of Appellate Judges, which is not vested solely in the hands of one appointing authority and further quoted as follows.

“… What does the Executive want? A subdued Judiciary! A Judiciary that makes orders on the will and desires of the Executive? If that be the case, you don’t need a Judiciary. You can rule with Executive order …”

Dangling the carrot before the Attorney General

This undesirable system of appointing judges to the superior court system paves the way for the government to appoint the Attorney General as a judge or Chief Justice in the Supreme Court whilst the other officers serving at the AG’s Department too are considered for judicial appointments in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court.

Federalism is the antithesis of separatism Wiggy

By Sulochana Ramiah Mohan-2017-10-15

Descended from the family that produced Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, C.V. Wigneswaran is a celebrated Sri Lankan. Lawyer, Supreme Court Judge and now Chief Minister of the Northern Province, he is a man unafraid to voice his convictions. Recovering recently from minor surgery, Wigneswaran emailed answers to a series of questions around the debate over the proposed new Constitution.

Here is the second part of that email:

You have objected to the term 'Ekiya Rata' in the new Constitution. Why?

A: I have pointed out that this is another way of continuing the unitary status of the country. If the word used was 'Eksath' I could understand that there is a change of heart among the Sinhala leaders. But they preferred 'Ekiya Rata' to 'Eksath Rata'. The Supreme Court will interpret 'Ekiya Rata' as a unitary State. This country was never a unitary nation. Several groups of people living separately were brought together by the British and the unitary status was imposed subsequently by the majority community. Nevertheless, Sir James Pieris and E.A. Samarawickrema, the Sinhala leaders around 1919 or thereabout, accepted the fact that Tamils were the dominant community from time immemorial in the North and East. Thus when we are enacting a Constitution acceptable to all communities we must accept the fact that the British 'united' the disparate units in this country. That is why we want theword 'Eksath' (united) used.

Minister S.B. Dissanayake criticized you in Jaffna as being the voice of the Tigers. He said by yourself you were different. But now you are acting for the Diaspora. What are your comments?

A: That I am acting for others is correct. I act on behalf of my people of the Northern Province. I am like a lawyer presenting the case of our people to our Sinhalese brethren as well as the world at large. A lawyer must believe in his clients' case. I do believe in the cause of our Tamils. As an erstwhile man of religion I loved the entirety of humanity. I still do. That is why those who conspire against me and think of harming me are quite at ease in my presence. I brook no hatred towards anyone. But that does not prevent me from criticizing those who need to be criticized and supporting those who need to be supported. I am critical of wrong action rather than the actors. What the minister is trying to say is that I supported 'separatism' advocated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

What he forgets is that I was elected by over 133,000 people not to pursue separation but on the platform of self-determination, North East merger and federalism all of which are in our election manifesto – 2013. Minister Dissanayake is a graduate. He was the Minister of Higher Education.

Does he not know the difference between separatism and federalism? In fact, federalism is the antithesis of separatism. Federalism brings together disparate units into a composite whole. When he says I am a voice for the Tigers, he must identify the LTTE unit which he is referring to. The government took pride in saying LTTE was finished, destroyed and decimated. Whom is he now talking about? Surely for me to advocate what we had inserted into our election manifesto in 2013, I do not need outside support. Knowing what it means, I contested the election. I am only advocating what we mentioned in our election manifesto for which I got elected. That is my duty.

Is he now saying that the remaining members of the LTTE (if there be any) have all accepted federalism and are advising me regarding federalism? In that case they should become my mouthpieces and voice and not vice versa. I expected much better comments and statements from the minister, not statements that illiterate men on the street make.

You have said the Interim Report released by the government on the intended constitutional amendment has disappointed Tamils. You have also said the Interim Report has been prepared without understanding the root cause. What is that?

A: The root cause of the problem is that the Sinhala leaders from around 1919-1921 have usurped political leadership unto themselves. Having promised to the British, studiously that all so-called minorities would be looked after very well by them, as soon as power came into their hands they started depriving the rights of the minorities gradually. I said so-called minorities because the Tamils have been the majority in the North and East from time immemorial.

First, they disenfranchised the Indian Tamils in 1949. Then contrary to the provisions of section 29 of the first Constitution they passed the Sinhala Only Act in 1956 depriving the rights of the Tamils of the North and East of their language. Then around 1971 standardization was brought in to deprive competent Tamil children from entering universities. While this was going on surreptitious colonization of Tamil speaking areas with Sinhala speaking colonists was taking place contrary to Natural Law.

Natural Law expects people from the area where colonization takes place to get the first preference. Thereafter persons from the same district, then same province and so on. But straightaway Sinhala colonists were brought into the North and East with the idea of changing the demography of the North and East.

All this was possible because the Sinhalese were able to retain the majority in Parliament through the Territorial Representation they opted in 1919-1921. The then Sinhalese leaders got Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam to prevail upon Sabapathy who led the Jaffna Association to give up Communal Representation for Territorial Representation. Having taken control and passed dubious discriminatory laws they started bargaining with the affected people. Even their bargaining came to naught. The Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact, the Dudley-Chelvanayagam Pact and many other agreements reached after bargaining and agreeing were thrown to the winds in no time.

Hence, the Interim Report should have found ways and means of putting the wrongs set right. What was expected of Sinhala leaders in 1919-1921 and 1948 by the British were fairness, justice and dignity towards the so-called minorities. They did not show fairness, justice or dignity towards the minority. They showed only preference for Sinhala Buddhists. As far as the North and East are concerned we felt a Federal Constitution giving rights of self-determination to those people would put right the wrongs done by the Sinhalese leaders so far to the Tamil speaking people. The Interim Report does not even discuss why federalism cannot be granted. How could it be acceptable to the Tamils?

Better suspend ‘New Constitution’ and focus on economy

Prime Minster Ranil Wickremesinghe presenting the interim report of the Constitutional Council to Parliament.
(File Photo)

By Laksiri Fernando-October 15, 2017, 8:20 pm

The Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly has produced an Interim Report on six key issues after 73 sessions between April 2016 and September 2017, without basic consensus among the key partners of political party representatives in the Committee. There were six sub-committee reports submitted before, in November and December 2016, and some of them were more controversial than the present report.

The Report perhaps has tried its best to incorporate alternative views expressed by members on key matters, but 13 out of 22 members have submitted their ‘dissenting opinion’ in separate submissions. The report is of 26 pages but these submissions run into 66 pages. While the introduction to the Report says these are ‘observations and comments by Members of the Steering Committee on the principles and formulations,’ it does not appear that way. Out of six separate submissions, five are very clearly on behalf of political parties (SLFP, JVP, JHU, JO and ACMC). All these are signed and addressed to the Chairman of the Steering Committee, although the Interim Report is not signed by anyone even by the Chairman. It is fair to say on that basis, the Steering Committee Report primarily represent the views of the UNP.

Consensus Building

There is no question that consensus building on a new constitution is not an easy task. However, without consensus, at least between the two main political parties in the government, the UNP and the SLFP, it would be extremely difficult to get a draft through the two thirds majority in Parliament, not to speak of a referendum. When the idea of a new constitution was mooted, the three key areas for reform identified were: (1) the executive presidential system (2) devolution of power and (3) the electoral system.

What transpires from the Report and the submissions is that, there can be possible consensus on electoral reforms, than the other two. Although the abolition of the executive presidential system appeared largely agreed, prior to the begging of the present process, it has become more and more entrenched in the devolution debate. The nature of the state is also naturally embroiled in the same.

Therefore, one practical suggestion would be to have electoral reforms first, allowing more time and effort to build possible consensus in the future, perhaps after the next elections. Why have a half-baked constitution, when there is a possibility of a better constitution in few years’ time? A constitution for a country should be for a long period. Another reason to make this suggestion is the economy. It is in bad shape. Think about the people and not the elite. There is some ‘intellectual poverty’ in economic thinking. Take the example of the Vision 2025. It is more of a fantasy than a vision. After two years of government, what the country requires is not a wish-list or an academic discourse, but practical steps and action within a viable planning framework. The vision document does not supply such a framework.

Some Features of the Report

There is no doubt that the present constitution is ‘obnoxious’(Bahubutha). However, after the 19th Amendment, it has come to a decent shape. It would have been better, if Sri Lanka had a new constitution by now, especially considering national reconciliation. But it is not the reality. The quality of parliament that was produced at the August 2015 elections is quite poor for an enlightened constitution. There have also been some blunders or hick ups in the constitutional assembly process. The Steering Committee Report does not appear very professional either. Apart from the obvious disputes, the way the disputes are handled does not appear frank or open.

One example is the formulation of the nature of the state as ‘aekiyarajyaya / orumiththanadu.’True, avoidance of controversial formulations is necessary in certain instances. However, one cannot fudge key issues. What (some) people understand on a given constitutional feature at a given time cannot be the principle of a constitutional formulation. Formulations should be closer to the existing reality or the expected change. What Sri Lanka at present is a ‘unitary state with devolution.’ If the representatives or the people are ready go beyond for federalism, then it should be reflected in the formulation.

More dangerous is the way some have proposed to resolve the dispute over the executive presidency. If I am not mistaken, the proposal is to keep the executive presidency until 2025, allowing the present (SLFP) President to continue, and then completely abolish it. A constitution,or even interim arrangements, should be made on principles, but not to suit individuals, however good they might be. If the present President wishes to continue, he should best be elected by the people but not as a constitutional gratuity. This reminds what happened to the August 2000 constitutional draft. After agreed by the two main parties, the SLFP and the UNP, certain interim arrangements were allegedly made to suit the incumbent President. Therefore in Parliament, it was opposed and the document was burnt by the UNP members. These are constitutional manoeuvres, not principles.

As mentioned before, the 19th Amendment undoubtedly is an enhancement of democracy. However even there, the prohibition of dual citizens contesting parliament was introduced aiming at some people, not as a general principle. This has become a major disappointment to many dual citizens.

The above are some glimpses of the situation and not the whole story.

Limits of a Constitution

A constitution is not everything. To believe such is too rigidly legalistic. A constitution is only a part of a country’s political superstructure. Even in constitutionalism, customs, traditions and practices are accepted. A constitution is also the way you handle the given powers of a particular office or powers as a whole. That is why good governance (transparency, accountability, rule of law, justice, democracy) is important not as a slogan, but as a practice.

President D. B. Wijetunga was different to R. Premadasa. Apart from the 19th Amendment, Maithripala Sirisena apparently is different to Mahinda Rajapaksa. Of course, no one can be trusted fully. Therefore, constitutional and legal safeguards are necessary. However, the country may live with the present for a moment, as a good new constitution does not appear feasible at present. A better opportunity for a better constitution might be created, if there is some patience and no particular hurry.What should and can change at present for the better is the electoral system. Others might be handled through flexibility and political consensus i.e. powers of the President and/or the Governors. An electoral system is something that should be followed to the letter. No conventions are possible.

Three main issues the country facing today are (1) economic progress (2) national reconciliation (3) enhancement of democracy. The relevance of the constitution in resolving these matters could be counted as 40 to 60 percent, in my opinion, not 100 percent. Let me outline few areas where measures could be done for reconciliation even within the existing constitution.

Handing over all private land occupied by the military, release of prisoners who have no apparent charges, assistance to the war affected in housing, education and employment, and the full implementation of the official language policy could go a long way in addressing reconciliation even without a single change in the constitution. This is just an example. In the broader area of devolution, the proposed apolitical and non-interfering governors or chief minister’s conferences could be implemented even without a new constitution. What is more important, even for reconciliation, is the addressing of the issues of the economy, without neglecting the political.

Priority to the Economy

It is said that the Prime Minister is so involved in political reforms and constitutional making, economic reforms have got the second place. He is the Minister for National Policies and Economic Planning. An important Deputy Minister has said a growth rate of 4 percent might be sufficient until political reforms are fulfilled. However, the targets announced in the Vision 2025 are quite high, almost impossible to achieve. Complacency, mere pronouncements or wishful thinking is not going to help.

Sri Lanka at present is around $ 80 billion economy. Still the per capita GDP is below $ 4,000. All these calculations are on the basis of current prices. Sri Lanka managed to double her per capita income between 2003 and 2009 and became a lower middle income country with a per capita GDP of $ 2,057. That was within six years. How did she manage to do so? By maintaining a growth rate above 6 percent. However, she has not managed to clearly double her per capita income during the last six years. Per capita income in 2016 was $ 3,835. It was even slightly below the 2015 mark of $ 3,843. After the change of the government there was a policy or planning discontinuity. This was over and above the slowing down of the economy since 2013.

Sri Lanka has not been able to manage a growth rate above 6 percent since 2012. It was mere 3.4 in 2013. It slightly picked up in 2014 as 5.0 percent, but diving down since then as 4.8 and 4.4. This is irrespective of roads and ports development. Most obviously financial mismanagement was the reason for this slump. Because, generally infrastructure projects and development uplift any economy. What is absent at present is exactly the same, while it might be too early to assess the overall mismanagement except the bond scam.

There has been an interesting dispute within the Cabinet over the Colombo-Kandy (Central) expressway recently. The President has given the nod although some of the counter arguments must have been correct. The reason is that this is the only significant infrastructure project this government might complete before 2020.

Some Lessons

If we take some lessons from the past, there had been two periods when Sri Lanka managed to go above 6 percent growth. First was between 1977 and 1982, when the economy was opened up and Mahaweli programme was accelerated. Then came the war, end of the rubber-rice deal with China, and political mismanagement after the famous lampu-kalagedi sellama (disgraceful lamp and pot referendum).

Second was between 2003 and 2012 (except 2009), when major highways and expressways were under taken, while the open economy and free trade continued. GSP+ also was beneficial for exports, while labour migration benefiting the foreign exchange situation. This was irrespective of the war. An estimated $ 15 billion came to the country from China, over 8 billion being loans and around 2 billion being FDI. What made the nosedive after that period was manly mismanagement, among other factors, after the 18th Amendment.

End of the war boosted the economy. But end of the Rajapaksa era has not done anything similar. Why? It is not only the excessive focus on constitutional or political reforms that has stalled the economy. (Don’t get me wrong. I am for a new constitution and even wrote a book!, but I am not for a half-baked loaf). There is something missing or wrong in the economic thinking as well. The sole focus seems to be on free trade and free trade agreements, expecting others to emerge automatically. To be brief, a comprehensive economic strategy should need a combination of (1) free trade (2) infrastructure development (2) export promotion and (3) foreign direct investments.

As a small island nation, there can be genuine as well as created concerns over foreign participation. This is an urgent public educational matter that the government should address. Time is running out and rising cost of living and other issues are working against the government. The economic issues should be addressed and resolved not merely to save the government, but to save the country and the people.