How To Understand Ranil’s Ideas About Economic Policy

By Rajiva Wijesinha –December 9 2017 

Reading Ranil’s answers to the Bond Commission was an eye opener because till then I had not realized how shoddy his pronouncements were. Coincidentally, while I was annotating his arguments, I heard a pair of announcers on early morning radio mocking his declaration, now forgotten, that he would provide tabs to everyone. It strengthened the perception that he simply used language as a tool to increase his standing, with little appreciation of the comprehension skills of his audience.

It was in that light that I read his statement on public finance, which was sent me by someone in the Ministry of Social Services. And I realized that that too deserved annotation, to establish how inconsequential it was.

So here we go, the thoughts of Chairman Ranil –

 

The challenge faced by us today is to sustain what we have built, and strengthening the economy. This task has two prongs. The first is to stabilise the economy creating a country free of debt for our future generations. ‘In the short term however we borrowed much more than we needed at higher rates of interest than the norm, but there were good reasons for this which I cannot share now’.The second is to expand the economy giving all Sri Lankans the chance for prosperity.

We inherited a plagued economy, ‘as the UNP did in 1977 and in 2001 given the mismanagement of Mrs Bandaranaike and then her daughter. This time round, though growth was high and inflation was low, we have no doubt that Mr Rajapaksa was much worse than those two, whom I have now learnt to love and admire.’

Despite the reasons which are beyond our control and challenging domestic and global conditions, we were able to sustain a steady GDP growth rate of 4.4%, ‘as opposed to 7.4% in 2014, but that is a small price to pay for having me in charge’.

For years, the growth of the Economy of Sri Lanka was heavily reliant on huge public investments in infrastructure. Only the industries such as construction industry were strengthened by such investments. Concurrently, the exports share of the GDP of Sri Lanka was decreased gradually.

The ratio of revenue to GDP in 2016 increased to 14.2% from 11.4% in 2014, . For the first six months of 2017, revenue to GDP now stands at 6.7% of GDP from 6% in the corresponding period in 2016. It is expected to reduce the current debt which is 79.3% of the GDP to 70% of GDP by 2020.

 

When considering the public debt service payments based on the outstanding debt as at end of August 2017, we have to pay Rs. 1,974 billion in 2018. We will have to pay Rs. 1,515 billion in 2019. It means we have to pay more than 3,489 billion in 2018 and 2019 for debt servicing, ‘a conclusion I reached having added the other two figures and then assumed that there must be more somewhere though only God and Arjuna Mahendran know where’.

In order to overcome these unprecedented challenges, the government has initiated a prudent debt management strategy. Our traditional approaches to debt management will have to change to cope with new risks and structural and regulatory changes. Our policies will be targeted on forward-looking liability management strategies. Accordingly, the funds required by the government will be raised with transparency and predictability ‘though we started by doing something totally unpredictable and lacking in transparency, and then repeated the exercise a bit later, though some might say that that at least was predictable – given our penchant for lying, if the Minister of Finance told banks not to bid at high interest because those bids would not be accepted, any fool could have predicted that the opposite would happen’. Under the medium – term debt management strategy, the detailed strategies of government borrowings will be known in advance to the domestic and foreign debt portfolios, ‘though we may occasionally announce that less will be auctioned than in fact we will want after my good friends Kabir and Malik get in on the act’.

Our government is taking a two-pronged approach to address the price stability,  ‘and I am proud that in 2015 inflation dropped to 0.9% and it is only teething problems that caused it to rise the following year to 4%’. We expect to provide the opportunity of buying the food items at a lower price throughout the year in order to control the short-term price fluctuations resulting in hardships to the people ‘and you must ignore the fact that soon after I make such sweeping promises the prices of many goods many people need will rise dramatically’.

We will improve the domestic supply chains and distribution networks to do so. In the meantime, we will allow importing of food products and other essential commodities at reasonable costs within the competitive market framework. We have reduced taxes on food commodities substantially over the past three months. ‘I am sorry that despite all this the price of food has risen but we’ urge domestic wholesalers and retailers to pass the benefit of these reductions to the consumers. However, the government will provide the space to the Central Bank to carry out its monetary policy independently to maintain price stability on a sustainable basis. The Central Bank is moving towards a new monetary policy framework targeting a flexible inflation. The aim of this framework is to maintain a low inflation continuously while supporting the economic activities. With this change of policy, our people will get the opportunity to live comfortably with the security of stable prices.

Our ambition is to make Sri Lanka a prosperous country by 2025. For this vision to become a reality, our activities should join hands with the external world. Sri Lanka is a small island right in the middle of a large world ‘whatever the middle of a round entity can mean, since I will not mention the Indian Ocean or Asia given that my vision is global’. For thousands of years we have benefitted from being located strategically. Unfortunately, we seem to have forgotten this competitive advantage of the location.

… we have to leave behind the decades of inward-looking policies that shrouded our capacity to grow ‘which is precisely what my mother’s cousin J R Jayewardene said 40 years ago, but you must bear with me for saying it again since obviously he did not change things as he claimed’.

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FRANCHISE DELAYED IS FRANCHISE DENIED

By Lakshman I.Keerthisinghe-2017-12-09

"A State which has universal suffrage and a wide extension of the jury franchise, must qualify the people by education to rightly exercise the great powers with which they are invested."
Edmund Barton

- American Politician

Media reported that the Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya had stated that "No one in this universe knows when exactly any election could be held in Sri Lanka." The Election Commission, the Commissioner said, is of the opinion that the Local Government elections are unusually late. He recounted the recent causes for the delay: In Amending the 2012 Local Government Law, there is a clause which says the Minister can appoint another review committee when the Delimitation Committee Report is forwarded. Therefore, in November 2015, Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister, appointed a Committee. This Committee and the Local Government Minister had an All-Party Conference in December 2015 and declared that their report would be out in three months. It was said that elections can be held in April 2016. When the Elections Commission was appointed in April the Election Commissioner as the Chairman of the Commission, had expressed doubts and said more time would be taken.

If everything were completed the elections could have been held in 75 days. The Committee Report was made available only in February 2017. The Minister had gazetted it on 17 February. The review is over and the people questioned as to why elections cannot be held. The boundaries and other technical defaults needed to be corrected and also the number of members to be elected needed to be determined.

While these processes were on in 2016, the Government introduced a new Act to increase women representation. According to this Act, there had to be a minimum of 25 per cent female members in the Council. They should be brought in from a separate list. The earlier system was for people to contest from a ward and when they win and another number is selected from the losers list. This means there would be three nominations lists, one to contest (from wards), one to be selected from the losers and another one for female members. In Colombo (MC) there would have been 66 from votes, 19 from losers' list and 28 females – altogether 113. Earlier the Council had only 53 members. The 28 females are compulsory. Therefore, the Commission cannot call for elections – because the Commission is not aware of the exact number. The Minister must gazette it. The Minister gazetted the number of members in April 2017. He put the effective date as 1 July. But in July the Minister submitted a draft Bill to Parliament to clear the technical faults. The minister issued another Gazette on 30 June, and postponed the effective date as 2 October.

Therefore, the Commission could not go ahead with the plan to conduct elections, it was said.

In the meantime, the Court of Appeal issued an Interim Order suspending the operation of the Gazette Notification dated 17 February on the Delimitation Committee Report, until 4 December. The Court made this order consequent to a writ petition filed by six electors who challenged the legality of the Gazette Notification issued by the Provincial Councils and Local Government Minister on the Delimitation Committee Report with regard to the boundaries in respect of Local Authorities. The Court observed that in promulgating the Gazette notification, the Local Government Minister has acted ultra vires the powers vested in him under Section 3D of the Local Authorities Elections Ordinance. The Court further held that if any electoral process commenced in terms of the concerned Gazette notification, irreparable damage would be caused to the people's franchise rights. Thus, the election had to be suspended pending the final determination of the Court. Some say that the petitioners have acted under the influence of the regime in order to delay the election. The Attorney General had filed a motion requesting the Court to advance the date of hearing stating that this concerns a matter of national importance. The Court has rejected this request as the Court is not bound by such requests. It was said that the petitioners who filed the case against the Gazette on delimitation pertaining to the Local Government Election have decided to reach a settlement and withdraw their petition in which case the elections could be held as scheduled..

In conclusion, it must be noted that franchise most commonly refers to: suffrage, which means, the civil right to vote. Every citizen has been granted voting rights under the Constitution and the Local Government Election law. To delay elections by design or inefficiency of the State is to deny the prime right of suffrage to the citizen which grants the power to elect their representatives authorized to rule on their behalf as the people are sovereign.

(The writer is an Attorney-at-Law with LLB, LLM, MPhil.(Colombo) keerthisinghel@yahoo.co.uk

Indian Ocean Politics of the 21st Century – A View from Sri Lanka

 
Tissa Jayatilaka-December 9, 2017, 6:36 pm 

(Continued from last week)

Although no major announcements were made during the Mattis visit, it needs to be noted that in 2016, the United States acknowledged that India was now a major defence partner. India may not become an ally in the way Japan or South Korea or any of the NATO countries are, but even if limited co-operation develops, that will prove a strikingly complex change in the defence relations between the two countries. Such a momentous change will have an impact not on just South Asia alone. It is likely to impact significantly on the strategic dimension of the larger Asia-Pacific region presently dominated by the United States and China.

According to the current affairs magazine ‘India Legal’, the United States decision to supply 22 Sea Guardian drones to enhance India’s naval surveillance in the India Ocean was announced during Prime Minister Modi’s meeting with President Trump in June 2017. These drones are expected to help the Indian Navy to keep a close watch on the Chinese naval ships and submarines in the Indian Ocean. India, it appears, is the first non-NATO country to be given the drones by the United States. ‘India Legal’ quotes former Indian Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh as saying:

Yes, Indo-US defence co-operation is very much in focus, especially as for over 20 years, Washington had denied us all military technology. The nuclear deal changed the parameters of relations, and today there is robust co-operation and a US willingness to transfer high-end military technology to India.

Noting that the unspoken part of this defence relationship is China, Mansingh goes on to observe:

The desire to balance China’s growing military and economic power in Asia by encouraging India was there from the time of George W. Bush. If American focus is on balancing the power equation in India, India, too, wants the US as an insurance against China.

Students of international relations are of the view that there is likely to be closer co-operation among China, Pakistan and Russia to meet the challenge of a possible joint defence arrangement among the United States, India, Japan and Australia. We thus see that tensions in the region are most likely to escalate given that the United States and China on the one hand, and India and China on the other are competing for dominance in the IOR. It must be noted, however, that this above-referenced possible joint -defence arrangement is not a new idea. In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, President George W. Bush announced that India, the United States, Japan and Australia would set up an international coalition to coordinate rescue and rehabilitation operations. Suhashini Haidar writing to ‘The Hindu’ refers to this proposed multilateral grouping as ‘the Quadrilateral or Quad’. According to Haidar, the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was most enthusiastic ‘voicing his long-standing idea of an "arc of prosperity and freedom" that encompassed India, and brought it (sic) into a tighter framework with Japan, the United States and Australia, which were already close military allies’. Concerns about the Quad in Beijing, Haidar suggests, led to the United States moving away from the idea in 2007, given other priorities in the pipeline at the time such as the strategic efforts underway to move for sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council and the six-nation talks on North Korea. Haidar poses an interesting question in conclusion:

A decade later, the question is: will the Quadrilateral melt away as before, or is it an idea whose time has finally come?

Sri Lanka is a small state and one of its strengths has been the significant diplomatic role it has played on the international scene over the years. Sri Lanka has had a reputation in the diplomatic world for unusual success in explaining and clarifying to the global North the concerns, concepts and complaints of the South. Many Sri Lankan scholars, diplomats and intellectuals have shown the same capacity for generating Northern interest rather than ire. Sri Lanka is indeed unlikely to be able to change the geopolitical realities of the region surrounding us. But through a pragmatic foreign policy based on avoidance of alliances with any one power bloc and maintaining friendship with all, we should be able to play a constructive role as in the past in the emerging new order. Sri Lanka, it will be recalled, played a key role in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and in calling for the possible declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (IOPZ) beginning in the 1960s and 1970s respectively.

Given the above-referred to constructive role played by Sri Lanka in the diplomatic world, the categorical statement made by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe on behalf of the Government at the Second Indian Ocean Conference hosted by Sri Lanka in September 2017 regards the Sri Lanka Government’s decision to develop its major sea ports, especially the Hambantota port which some claim to be a military base, is to be welcomed and worthy of quotation in full:

I state clearly that Sri Lanka’s government headed by President Sirisena does not enter into military alliances with any country or make our bases available to foreign countries. We will continue military cooperation such as training, supply of equipment and taking part in joint exercises with friendly countries.

Only the Sri Lanka Armed Forces have the responsibility for military activities in our Ports and Airports. We are also working with foreign private investors on the commercial development of our ports.

Sri Lanka should now push for an international code of conduct for military vessels traversing the Indian Ocean. ASEAN and China have agreed to prepare such a code for the South China Sea. The Indian Ocean Code could be along the lines of the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and China regarding the rules of engagement for safety in the air and maritime encounters. Such a code could recognize and seek to deal with the escalation in human smuggling, illicit drug trafficking, and the relatively new phenomenon of maritime terrorism. According to specialist opinion, UNCLOS does not have adequate provisions to address these issues of recent origin. Any code on the freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean must include an effective – and realistic – dispute resolution process.

This code of conduct should ideally be built on a consensual basis with no single state dominating it. In this regard, the United States Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott Swift addressing the annual ‘Galle Dialogue 2017 (a defence seminar dealing with the Indian Ocean region hosted by Sri Lanka) in early October said the following as quoted in ‘The Island’:

For the last 70 years, the India-Asia Pacific region achieved unprecedented level of stability and prosperity, due in large part to our collective respect for- - and adherence to - - international norms, standards, rules and laws. These benchmarks were not imposed by one nation upon another. Rather they emerged through compromise and consensus, with all states having an equal voice, regardless of size, military strength or economic power.

The IOR needs a security architecture that is of mutual benefit and one established on a multilateral basis with an effective multilateral governing structure. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe speaking at the inauguration of the Indian Ocean Conference in Singapore in 2016 called for the formulation of an Indian Ocean Order with accepted rules and regulations that would guide interactions between and among states. Importantly he called for this Order to be built on a consensual agreement in which no one state would be allowed to dominate it.

Here are my concluding thoughts. Through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), it is apparent that China is desirous of becoming a global power. Although, relatively speaking, the United States is in economic decline it will remain a global power for the foreseeable future, given especially its superior technological and naval capability. If the United States and China as the key international actors, and India and China as the pre-eminent regional players, can maintain a power balance, then the IOR could take off socially and economically and be a boon not only to the Asia-Pacific but to the world. To be sure, as in all equations in this equation that I have outlined, too, there are imponderables. That said, if we could achieve the golden mean between competition and cooperation and somehow avoid the bitter and relentless divisiveness that characterized the Cold War era, our collective future would and could be something to look forward to.

(This is an edited version of a presentation made on Tuesday, 31 October, 2017 at the ‘Roundtable Discussion’ jointly organized by the Mario Einaudi Centre for International Studies and the South Asia Programme of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York)

(Concluded)

Sirisena’s record breaking betrayals and double crossings.! -Visal’s analysis

(Lanka-e-News - 09.Dec.2017, 1.00PM)  The attempt made to establish an unholy alliance between Sira and MaRa had come to an unbelievable end. The condition imposed by Rajapakses (MaRa) that if Sirisena (Sira) is to contest the forthcoming local body  elections jointly  with MaRa faction , he must leave the consensual government ,had  put a halt to the attempted unholy alliance despite silly Sirisena going behind Machiavellian MaRa ,and crawling on all fours before MaRa most abjectly . 

It is well known that Mahinda has demanded he should either be made  prime minister or opposition leader , and following the establishment of the alliance ( if that materialized) , he shall be given its president and secretary posts. Most shockingly and shamelessly the Sira group had agreed to abide by those conditions.

When Machiavellian Mahinda announced they would contest alone , silly Sirisena in mortal fear has sprung forward and agreed with whatever anti -national conditions MaRa put forward. However, since  the greedy ministers of the SLFP who cannot be without ministerial   luxuries , perks and privileges brought pressure to bear against those conditions , this unholy alliance attempt went up in smoke. In any event silly Sira  is still making  another attempt to arrive at a consensus through Elle Gunawansa the robed monk , it is learnt. 

Though the leadership of the SLFP is not his  , Mahinda had demonstrated he is capable of going  on the political journey. It is common knowledge (which bitter truth even Sirisena is aware)  that the SLFP vote base is in Mahinda’s hands .Therefore  Sirisena must have analyzed he would have to court defeat if he and his group are to contest alone , and besides he too would be annihilated because  Sirisena has no knowledge or strength when it concerns   self existence. 

Except what he says before the mike , he knows no  politics beyond that. He  has no patience or capacity to wait and implement far sighted policies. This is the Sirisena alias Sillysena who while  seeking  power , popularity and position through cheap political agendas and mischief  loses his equilibrium and panics  when he confronts  constructive criticisms . He had so far only succeeded  in proving what a hollow and shallow individual he is during his  short period in power, with no thought to rectify or amend his ways.  

Sirisena who betrayed UNP the main party of the consensual alliance, and People’s forces which installed him in power ,   after trying to link with  Mahinda surreptitiously and   getting humiliated temporarily halted his underhand maneuvers. But  now he is seeking the same dastardly objectives through other methods. It is high time all those of the consensual alliance exercised caution and be  most wary, for a serpent that gobbles up eggs is safer than a serpent which gobbles up hoppers.

Sirisena in his desperation is now trying another unconstitutional ploy. That is , he is trying to take into his fold another violent  racist and murderous force as a retaliatory move against Mahinda -a two penny half penny worth political ignoramus by the name of Weerakumara  whose political knowledge is even below that of a Kindergarten class child and  who knows only criminal activities is  to be given a ministerial portfolio. 

Weerakumara the notorious bankrupt politico is antagonistic towards the new constitution ; against all murder investigations ;  against the Tamil race; being a racist out and out wallows in racial disturbances ; and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to him is like kerosene to a serpent , and is  his  bitterest enemy . Interestingly this political marauder  is getting closer to Sirisena not after abandoning his vicious policies ,but after announcing Sirisena is the one more suitable to him than his policies.

If the president is to command at least minimum respect and if he is acting with maximum responsibility towards the forces which put him on the presidential pedestal , what he should do is tell those who are getting closer to him to accept his policies and come to him . Instead  , what is happening is the converse. They are dictating terms to the president, and proclaiming  it is Sirisena who falls in line with their  policies.  What a shame!

Even at this moment a number of extremist robed monks are clustered around him . The Tamil population which reposed faith in him have been betrayed by that. In a day or two the crook Mahindananda will also be by his side. Thereafter more and more crooks , criminals and discards will be attracted to his den of rascals  and the corrupt. After giving ministry posts to them diabolic despicable dramas would be enacted to push the UNP which elevated him to this position to the edge, and defeat the new constitution . 

Though Sillysena’s attempt to team up with Mahinda Rajapakse  has failed he is still trying out other subterfuges and camouflages  without realizing all these double deals and double faced manipulations are to the detriment of the nation and the people who elected him  because they  did not give him the mandate to stoop  to these villainies and treacheries after becoming the president. 

The pro good governance doctors, professors and political analysts   remaining silent amidst these unprecedented betrayals and what are in store is most shocking and reprehensible. Since many professors are by birth anti UNP, they must be foolishly and excessively trusting Sirisena .

On the contrary   what should be focused on , and should never  be forgotten is , the majority contributed to Sirisena’s victory in expectation of a planned proper program of work  because he had  a 100 days program of work to be completed after his appointment as president and  thereafter hold general elections. In addition at the elections he was expected to  obtain a  majority in parliament  with a view to forming  a strong government to  complete the remaining programs .

May we remind, the abolition of the executive presidency and finding a permanent solution to the national issue were among the main concerns and in the primary  plans to be executed by Sirisena. 

These were the inescapable  responsibilities of the common candidate. In those clear plans , clearly there was nothing to indicate Sirisena should become the SLFP leader. Hence , it is very evident now, from the very beginning it was Sirisena who was crippling and sabotaging the salutary good governance programs . Needless to explain again and again it is Sirisena who behaved like Sillysena and turned everything topsy turvy of good governance. After his proving  he is not at all fit and is a wrong choice for the honorable common candidate post  , that stark fact cannot be hidden any more. 

He has brazenly , unconscionably and uncaringly betrayed all those who committed themselves after  forgetting their past differences to make Sirisena the president of the country even risking their precious lives while  making progress  from the very bottom level during the run up to the presidential elections.  The UNP members  even heavily spent their financial resources towards that end.  The TNA , Muslim Congress, Mano Ganeshan and political forces , as well as the civil society and civil forces led by the Citizen’s Front have been double crossed  by him most ruthlessly .In short he has completely without exception betrayed everyone who came forward making supreme sacrifices sans any selfish motive to propel him to the position he is now in .

Yet  unbelievably , he sought to strike an alliance with corrupt crooked people discarded Machiavellian Mahinda whom people have rejected. What’s more ! he even got close to the extreme racist  murderers . Mind you he resorted to all these rascally and roguish activities after kicking out the mandate of the people who elected him into power.

Never has there been a greater betrayal than this in the entire world history . Sirisena who would sacrifice not only his voters , but even the  nation  and country’s future  at the altar of political  opportunism and selfish self gains is a political renegade who deserves to be crucified in public . Personally  I would certainly not hesitate to do that to such a scoundrel  . Neither will I be frightened .

In the circumstances , can double crossing  policy-less, faceless , rudderless Sirisena be permitted to further cruelly trample the mandate of the 6.2 Million people?

By Visal Karunaratne

Translated By Jeff 

---------------------------
by     (2017-12-09 07:37:11)

COPA scans EPF losses

Rs.6.3 bn between 2010 and 2013

Cabinet approval granted for failed investment

Saturday, December 9, 2017 - 01:05

A number of investments made by the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) in 2010 and 2013 which resulted in impairment losses of Rs 6.3 billion was questioned by the Committee of Public Accounts (COPA).

The latest COPA report tabled in Parliament yesterday revealed that the EPF had made an investment of Rs.500 million in SriLankan Airlines in July 2010, another investment of Rs. 810 million in a hotel company in May 2010, and another investment of Rs. 5 billion in a new hotel complex at the end of 2013, but those failed to make any profitable gains to the Fund.

The said amounts had been written off as impairment losses in the financial statements. The EPF authorities had told the Committee that Cabinet approval has been granted to restructure the activities related to the Fund.

The report also stated that Rs 2.5 billion and Rs 5.2 billion worth of investments were written off in 2015 and 2016 respectively as losses.

The EPF authorities had been directed to formulate and submit a comprehensive report on those write offs clearly categorizing them as complete losses and losses incurred as a result of impairment.
“Having observed the deficiencies in investments made by the Fund, the Committee directed the authorities to conduct a feasibility study before deciding on any investment in future and to establish a transparent and standardized methodology for that purpose,” the report stated.

The COPA requesting the details on investments made by the EPF has asked for the investigation report of the Central Bank Monetary Board in that regard. It has also queried on the investment of Unit Trusts by the EPF during a period of seven years from January 2010 – December 2016.
The report also stated that the EPF in 2016 had purchased a lesser volume of bonds from the primary market which has a higher yield, while a greater volume of bonds had been purchased from the secondary market which has a lesser yield, depriving the members of the Fund a massive financial gain.

The Central Bank Governor had told the Committee that an internal investigation is being carried out on the purchase of bonds by the EPF in 2016.

With regard to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the report also highlighted that over Rs 310 million remained unsettled for travelling expenses, rent advances and other advances with relevance to foreign missions. The Ministry Secretary had told the Committee that the attention had been paid to appoint a committee to investigate in that regard and issue a circular through the Foreign Administration Unit.

With reference to the National Museums Department, the report has highlighted that no proper procedure has been implemented to date to ensure the protection of antiquities since the robbery t that took place in 2012. “Despite the lapse of a period of five years since that robbery, no action has been taken so far to properly install a security camera system. Existing CCTV system has a number of weaknesses such as the inability to capture scenes in the dark. It has been defunct by the time the robbery happened.

The report contained the findings on 36 institutions probed during the period from January to May 2017. 

There is rice in the country until next April – importing coconut is illegal

December 9, 2017 by

With the harvest gathered during the last ‘Maha’ and ‘Yala’ seasons the country has enough rice until next April and importing coconut is illegal and the government should take the responsibility of this act says the National Organizer of all Ceylon Farmers’ Federation Namal Karunaratna.

Speaking further at a press conference held at Dambulla yesterday (8th) Mr. Karunaratna pointed out the mite infestation of coconut trees has brought down coconut harvest and has destroyed many plantations. He complained that the mite infection had been brought to the country from abroad. As such, importing coconut is dangerous to the coconut cultivations in the country and it is against the quarantine laws in the country.

Mr. Karunarathna pointed out that a ship bringing coconuts to Sri Lanka during the previous regime was not accepted and the whole consignment of coconuts had to be thrown overboard.

He said the present Ranil – Maithri government too brought down a ship of coconuts but turned it away when media revealed it. He said it would not be surprised if vegetables too are imported and added that grass as fodder too was imported during the previous regime.

Mr. Namal Karunaratna explaining the reason for the government to import rice said there is an acute fertilizer shortage in the country. He said the 50 kg bag of fertilizer sold to the farmer has been reduced to a 40 kg bag and is sold for Rs. 2500.

He said on 31st December last year the Auditor General’s Department issued a special report on rice and according to this report, there wouldn’t be a shortage of rice ion the country. Displaying the report Mr. Karunaratna said with harvests from ‘Maha’ and ‘Yala’ seasons added the country would have enough rice until April next year.

Mr. Karunaratna said importing rice from a foreign country in 2014 wasted Rs. 15150 million of public funds.

The General Secretary of All Ceylon Farmers’ Federation T.B. Sarath, its Vice-President and the convener of National Center for the Protection of Dairy Farmers Susantha Kumara Navarathna and the Member of the National Committee of all Ceylon Farmers’ Federation Sunil Ranaweera and several others participated.

‘Interfering Sagala’ Talks About Independence Of Police In UN Anti-Corruption Day Statement

hor: COLOMBO TELEGRAPH-December 7 2017 

Minister of Law and Order and Southern Development Sagala Ratnayaka acknowledged that the Government has a long way to go in ridding the country of corruption but argued that Prime MInister Ranil Wickremesinghe making a statement to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Central Bank Bond Scam indicated the Government’s commitment.


Ratnayake was expressing these thoughts through a Facebook video posted this morning (December 9) on the occasion of the UN Anti-Corruption Day.

He bragged that the Government has done a lot of work in combatting bribery and corruption, pointing to the setting up of the FCID (Financial Crimes Investigation Division) and the establishment of an independent Police Commission under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Interestingly, Ratnayake has come in for a lot of flak for inhibiting the course of justice including suspicious relations with a key suspect in a corruption case, Gamini Senarath, who was advisor to former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Ratnayake was also named and shamed by President Maithripal Sirisena who told a delegation of senior UNP ministers that it was Ratnayake and no one else who was in the way of legal processes pertaining to the former Secretary, Ministry of Defence and Urban Development, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Although Ratnayake said that the Police Department can now operate without political interference, IGP Pujith Jayasundara revealed a year ago to President Sirisena that Ratnayake had instructed him (Jayasundara) not to arrest a ‘Nilame,’ believed to be Dilshan Wickremeratne Gunasekera, the former Devinuwara Basnayake Nilame and a close relative of the Rajapaksa family who was also the Chairman, Mineral Sands Corporation.


The full text of the statement is as follows:

Corruption, in this day and age, is no longer considered a mere ‘economic’ or financial crime. It has greater implications -such as abuse of power, exploitation of the vulnerable and denying social justice. It is in this context that we have to identify corruption as a crime against society – or a crime against mankind.

Battling corruption was a top priority on the national unity government’s reforms agenda and we embarked on this process under the leadership of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

A key milestone in the battle against corruption was the setting up of the Police Financial Crimes Investigations Division which was entrusted with the task of probing into financial crimes in a fair and impartial manner.

Apart from the FCID, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Serious Acts of Fraud and Corruption (PRECIFAC) was also set up under the government and this showed the government’s commitment to probe into bribery and corruption.

Alongside these new establishments, the 19th Amendment to the constitution was passed in Parliament which enabled the setting up of independent commission. Independent Commissions, as we all know, ensures a vibrant democracy and allows transparency in the country’s system of government – a major deterrent to corruption.

As the Law and Order Minister, I must state that the establishment of Police commission was a major boon to the Police service which suffered under the political jackboot for many years.

It allowed Police officers to act diligently and independently, without undue pressure from the political circles. It, needless to say, restored public faith in the Police service.

I am proud to say that the systems we have established, under our government, will go a long way in terms of battling bribery and corruption, in the years to come.

But, there are challenges that we need to overcome. I am aware that the patience of the public – especially the ones who have voted for the government against bribery and corruption – is wearing thin. They want to see the culprits convicted and they, understandably, demand justice without delay.

Our law enforcement bodies are working day in and day out, despite many a challenge, to achieve these results and fulfill the expectations of those who voted for a change on January 08, 2015.

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The corrupt quartet in Washington Forum: Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Ukraine

World Bank Headquarters in Washington

Rajan Philips-December 9, 2017, 6:25 pm 

The media took time to report on the inaugural meeting of the Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR) held over three days last week (December 4 to 6), at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington. There was no advance media coverage of the Washington gathering and even the government would appear to have kept mum about its participation in it. The Global Forum was hosted by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom with support from the World Bank’s Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (SARI). Its sole purpose is to help four countries - Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Ukraine – to recover their public assets stolen due to government corruption. Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya was a listed speaker in the plenary session along with his counterparts from other countries including the US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Lawyer JC Weliamuna, introduced as Chairman of the Presidential Task Force for the Recovery of Illegally Acquired State Assets, was a panellist in one of the Working Sessions of the forum.

One of would have thought that the Washington forum and its focus on Sri Lanka would stir some discussion in Colombo. More so in light of the 2015-2016 bond scam inquiry, the Prime Minister’s announcement of a new inquiry into pre-2015 bond transactions, and his announcement at the Commission of Inquiry about the technical assistance from the US Treasury for managing public debt in Sri Lanka. And why is this lack of interest? It may be that asset recovery in the abstract is not as exciting as war crimes investigation for news coverage. The UNHRC in Geneva is more media-notorious than GFAR in Washington. And Lord Naseby is far more well-known in Sri Lanka than Jeff Sessions would ever be. The latter is the controversial Attorney General of the even more controversial American President, Donald Trump.

The big global news story of the week was of course President Trump’s precipitous, and even pernicious, announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ordering the State Department to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Even Israel was not expecting it. The US Secretaries of State and Defence, the two most important members of Trump’s cabinet, steadfastly opposed the move. But Trump is not Trump if he is not true to his bully-kid instincts and his opportunistic loyalties to his even more bullying base. Logistically, it might take years before the US Embassy is relocated in Israel and by then Trump’s directive could be rescinded by a different President. For now, the major fall out of the announcement is the break-up of an older quartet - the Middle East Quartet of the UN, the US, the EU and Russia, that was established in 2002 to broker peace in the Middle East. The Middle East peace process is in shambles.

The new ‘corruption’ quartet is not world news but deserves to be important local news. The selection of the four countries seems quite random. Nigerian corruption is legendary. Tunisia and Ukraine are recent additions. Ukraine is also at the centre of the storm in Washington over Russia’s cyber intervention, in favour of Trump, in the US presidential election last year. And Sri Lanka completes the Asian side of quartet for the current global focus. What might be common to the four countries are the challenges facing new governments in investigating high level corruption and recovering assets lost due to corruption under earlier regimes.

Preoccupation with corruption

The forum is also an outcome of the World Bank’s growing preoccupation with global corruption. The Bank estimates that the world is robbed of $20 billion annually due to corruption. The UN has its own Convention against corruption – the UNCAC, which was adopted in 2003 and came into force two years later. The Convention addresses "preventive measures, criminalization and law enforcement, international co-operation, asset recovery, and technical assistance and information exchange." The definition of corruption covers bribery, abuse of power, influence trading in the public sector, as well as acts of corruption in the private sector.

Corruption is the dark side of globalization and the domination by market forces. This is quite a departure from the priorities of the development decades, when governments were in the saddle running economies. International agencies were focused on dispensing development aid. Now they are preoccupied with fighting corruption. A majority of Sri Lankans like their counterparts in other countries have experienced the worst of both worlds: the old era of universal scarcities that was followed by the current era of universal corruption. Corruption is endemic in the development of public infrastructure – the area of partnerships between governments and businesses. It is unfortunate that Sri Lanka is being warmed up to public-private partnerships for infrastructure development even as others are getting tired of them.

The global initiative for recovering assets began in the wake of the Arab Spring that was set off in Tunisia on December 17, 2010. The Arab Forum on Asset Recovery (AFAR) was established in 2012 to recover the loots of fallen dictators. Its successor was the Ukrainian forum. The current global forum is an off-spring of the 2016 Anti-Corruption Summit in England which President Maithripala Sirisena attended. Nigeria, Tunisia and Ukraine have been receiving external support for asset recovery since 2013 and Sri Lanka since last year. Assets of varying amounts have been recovered in Nigeria, Tunisia and Ukraine. In addition, over 300 criminal indictments have been effected in Ukraine. According to the Forum’s website assistance to Sri Lanka includes providing a resident legal adviser and training and technical support to the local CIABAC (Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption).

What are noteworthy are the ‘innovative’ tools that are being promoted to address corruption and to recover stolen assets. One of them is to divert stolen assets to building new permanent assets for public good. The legal mechanism for this is the ‘non-conviction based forfeiture’ of stolen assets. An even more radical innovation is the ‘reversal of the burden of proof’ – i.e. putting the onus on the embezzler to prove that his wealth, or portion of it, is not ill-gotten. A major purpose of the forum is to facilitate international co-ordination and to enable banks (famously, the Swiss banks) to break with the tradition of protecting the privacy of their depositors and to co-operate with governments and asset recovery agencies to provide information and to turn over ill-gotten deposits to respective governments.

It is still quite a way to go before we could see positive effects of the Global Forum in Sri Lanka. But the Forum by itself will not yield results and it is up to the Sri Lankan government to use the resources of the Forum for good results. On the other hand, being part of an international network might itself be pressure on the government to be on its feet exposing corruption rather than sit on its hands covering up corruption. The irony is that the yahapalanaya government, that was elected to address the corruption of its predecessor, has to address corruption generated by its own officials on its own watch. Wouldn’t it have been the height of irony if Sri Lankan delegates at the Washington Forum presented the experience of the Commission of Inquiry on the bond scam as a case study in fighting corruption and recovering assets?

Addressing the final press conference in Washington, Mr. Weliamuna indicated that Sri Lanka was able to initiate at the forum, 11 bilateral processes and another initiative involving four countries for recovering assets. In addition, Sri Lankan officials had technical discussions involving 34 cases of corruption. The convenors of the forum highlighted as one of its unique aspects the joint participation of both political and technical representatives from the four focus countries. It was emphasized that fighting corruption is as much political as it is technical. Who represented Sri Lanka politically at the forum? Strangely, no single minister is solely in charge of corruption investigations. And no cabinet minister seems to have attended the forum in Washington. The government may or may not make a full statement in parliament on the Washington Forum. And the Joint Opposition has no incentive to call for a full statement, as it would mostly be a statement on corruption under the previous government.

Palestinian protests continue as Abbas pledges to snub US vice president's visit

#Occupation

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he will not meet with US Vice President Mike Pence when he visits the Middle East this month

Supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hold a placard with US Donald Trump's face during a demonstration in Gaza (Hind Khoudary)

Saturday 9 December 2017 

Demonstrations against the US recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital have continued to rock Gaza and the West Bank, as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced he will not visit US Vice President Mike Pence during his forthcoming trip to the region.

Abbas said that the US had crossed a "red line" over the decision by President Donald Trump on Wednesday to move the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, an aide said on Saturday.

"There will be no meeting with the vice president of America in Palestine," diplomatic adviser Majdi al-Khaldi told AFP. 

"The United States has crossed all the red lines with the Jerusalem decision," he added.

The White House warned on Thursday that cancelling the meeting planned for later this month in the West Bank would be "counterproductive," but Abbas has been under heavy domestic pressure to shun Pence following Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Jibril Rajoub, a senior member of Abbas's Fatah party, told AFP the same day that Pence was "not welcome in Palestine".

Pence is expected to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories sometime before Christmas.

Supporters of the PFLP carry a placard showing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Hind Khoudary)

Protests continue

In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of Bethlehem on Saturday morning.

Israeli forces shot large quantities of tear gas towards the crowd continuously throughout the day on the Jerusalem-Hebron road, with dozens suffering from excessive tear-gas inhalation. Scores of tear-gas canisters littered the street where demonstrations have taken place for the past three days. 

A Middle East Eye reporter on the scene witnessed two demonstrators being taken away by ambulances for treatment, and at least one instance of rubber-coated bullets being shot towards some protesters early in the morning. 

A Palestinian Red Crescent Society spokesperson told MEE that 12 people had been injured by tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets in Bethlehem by mid-afternoon. Meanwhile, protesters, the majority of them young boys and men, erected a barricade blocking the road and threw stones in the direction of an army base north of Bethlehem.

In East Jerusalem about 60 people demonstrated near the walled Old City, where paramilitary border police and officers on horseback tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas.

On Friday, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in protest and two Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli troops on the Gaza border. Scores more were wounded there and in the West Bank.

Across the Arab and Muslim worlds, thousands more protesters had gathered to express solidarity.

Trump's reversal of decades of US policy has infuriated the Arab world and upset Western allies, who say the move is a blow to peace efforts and risks sparking more violence in the region.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) called on the international community to intervene to prevent disproportionate force being used against the demonstrators.

"PCHR follows up with deep concern the deteriorating situation in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and condemns the Israeli forces’ excessive use of force against protestors," the organisation said in a statement. 

"PCHR believes that all of this happened after the Israeli forces were given the green light following the American decision to declare Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, directly constituting complicity in a crime of aggression and indirectly threatening the international security and peace.

"PCHR calls upon the international community and UN bodies to intervene to stop the Israeli crimes and escalating violations and to provide international protection for Palestinians in the oPt."

Tear gas canisters fired in Bethlehem (MEE/ Chloé Benoist)

Meanwhile, the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) cancelled its 50th anniversary commemorations to protest against the Jerusalem embassy move on Saturday.

PFLP supporters carried placards criticising Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been seen as moving Saudi Arabia closer to Israel.

"The PFLP ... emphasized that its march of anger and revolution will raise its voice against US imperialism, Zionist colonialism and Arab reactionary collusion," the group said in a statement on their website.

"It demanded the Palestinian Authority end its continued reliance on negotiations and end security coordination with the occupier."

A spokesperson for the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the PFLP, said they were open to targeting US interests in the region following the embassy move.

“We confirm that the US imperialist enemy is not welcome on Palestinian land,” said a spokesperson for the group.

'Day of rage'

Israel launched fresh air strikes on the Gaza Strip on Saturday in response to rocket fire from the enclave, and the Palestinian Hamas group said two of its gunmen were killed in the bombings.

Militants fired at least three rockets towards Israeli towns from the Hamas-controlled strip on Friday, which was declared a "day of rage" by Palestinians protesting against US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

A Hamas source confirmed that the two men killed in the strikes belonged to the group, which urged Palestinians to keep up confrontation with Israeli forces.

More than 15 injuries were reported at a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip as a result of Israeli shelling of various locations.

About 60 Palestinian youths threw stones at Israeli soldiers across the Gaza-Israel border and the health ministry said one bystander was wounded by Israeli gunfire.

Israeli airstrikes kill two in Gaza as fallout from Trump decision continues

Palestinian leaders hold emergency meetings to decide response to US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
 
Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli forces at the Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza. Photograph: APAImages/Rex/Shutterstock

Peter Beaumontin Jerusalem-Saturday 9 December 2017 12.05 GMT

Israeli airstrikes killed two members of Hamas in Gaza in the early hours of Saturday after missiles were fired at Israel, one of which the community of Sderot, Israeli military sources said

The new Palestinian deaths bring the number of fatalities in the past two days to four. The Israeli army shot two Palestinians dead in Gaza on Friday.

The exchange of fire with Gaza is the latest outbreak of violence in the fallout from the decision by the US president, Donald Trump, to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Most countries around the world have not recognised Israel’s 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem and maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv.

Trump’s decision to break that consensus led to Washington being isolated at the UN security council on Friday. Its representative was forced to field strong criticism, including from five European countries which said US policy was not consistent with past resolutions.

 Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops in West Bank – video

The continued tensions over Trump’s announcement came as the Palestinian leadership started a series of emergency meetings on Saturday to decide on the response to US recognition and Trump’s parallel decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Palestinian sources confirmed that their president, Mahmoud Abbas, would not meet the US vice-president, Mike Pence, when he visits the region later in December, and other measures under discussion including cutting ties with the Trump administration pushing peace negotiations.

Palestinians have been angered over a series of US decisions, including the passage in the House of Representatives of legislation that would cut aid if the Palestinian Authority does not stop its practice of paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners in US jails.

That in turn followed the threat to close the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s office in Washington.

“With the recognition of Jerusalem, the new law and the threat to the office the view is that the Americans can go to hell,” one official told the Guardian.

Palestinian officials see Trump’s actions as an opportunity to cut ties with what they see as increasingly biased US mediation and try to internationalise the issue.

The crisis has put renewed pressure on the elderly and risk-averse Abbas, whom many Palestinians blame for failing to deliver concrete results in the last decade.

Abbas’s control of the internationally funded Palestinian security forces and Palestinian bureaucracy, however, has kept him in office without a meaningful mandate, ruling by decree.

One of Saturday’s key meetings was scheduled to include representatives of both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The latest moves came as the death toll in Gaza rose. The Israeli military said it targeted four Hamas facilities in response to rockets fired the previous day, including one that landed in the town of Sderot without causing casualties or major damage. It said it had struck military warehouses and weapons manufacturing sites, after which Hamas said it recovered the bodies of two of its men.

Israel considers Hamas responsible for all rocket fire emanating from Gaza, which is home to other armed groups. Some residents of Sderot and other border towns spent the night in shelters, fearful of a resumption of rocket attacks from Gaza that have led to three Israel-Hamas wars over the past decade.

Saturday marked the third Palestinian “day of rage” following Trump’s announcement, and more protests were expected.

A look back in anger

Defiant Palestinian women flash a victory sign at a funeral during the first intifada.Patrick RobertSygma via Getty Images

Mousa Qous-8 December 2017

When the first intifada erupted on 8 December 1987, I was working as a reporter with al-Fajr newspaper. I was 25 years old and the breadwinner for my family of four brothers and two sisters following the death of my father in 1983.

Life was demanding. But my “national and patriotic” education, in which I was well versed during my years at Bethlehem University, persuaded me to put any personal ambitions on hold and become involved in an uprising that responded to the long-bottled popular frustrations and the demand for freedom and independence.

I joined the Popular Committees, the grassroots youth body of the uprising. A few months later I was arrested for the first time by Israeli authorities.

I spent eight months in prison. My time there only deepened my belief in the just cause of my people. After my release in December 1988, I jumped right back into my activism, recruiting Jerusalem Old City youth to join the intifada.

In response to the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s policy – he was defense minister during the intifada – of breaking the bones of demonstrators, more Palestinian factions and groups joined in. Even the Muslim Brotherhood became involved. Traditionally, the Brotherhood had adopted non-military means of dealing with the occupation but after it joined the ranks of the intifada and of the popular resistance it adopted a new name: Hamas.

We were proud of our activities, fully convinced of the righteousness of our struggle. We immortalized our martyrs, hailing our political prisoners as heroes and freedom fighters. The overall belief was that the uprising would ultimately end in victory, no matter how long it took. Everyone was involved in one way or the other and we had the support of the world. We were on a high, even though, on the personal level, things just got tougher. At one point, my three brothers and I were all in Israeli prisons at the same time.

The Oslo betrayal

Unfortunately, international support waned during Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) sided with Saddam Hussein, the Gulf states suspended their financial support to the PLO and Kuwait deported its remaining Palestinians after the war.

Fearing that it would lose its status as leader of the Palestinian people and stuck for financing, the PLO began secret talks with Israel that ended in the 1993 Oslo accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority a year later.

Among the many concessions made by PLO negotiators as part of the deal, the Palestinians’ sole representative recognized the State of Israel.

I watched the signing ceremony of that notorious agreement while serving my second stint in Israeli prison, this one a five-year sentence. At the time, Israel released a group of Fatah prisoners on condition that they sign a commitment to renounce violence. We leftists who opposed the Oslo accords refused and were kept incarcerated until our sentences were served in full. I was released in 1996.

Following my release, I resumed a personal life: I started a new job, got married and had two children. I also got a master’s degree in international studies from Birzeit University.

Today, 24 years after the Oslo accords, Palestinians are still stateless despite the UN recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state in 2012. Israel is in a race with time to build more settlements and take more Palestinian land. It seems that only when the two-state solution becomes impossible will the international community begin to support it.

The hopelessness of today’s situation has driven some Palestinian youth to desperation. They see no hope for a better future and without a strong or unified leadership to guide them, some have turned themselves into “lone wolves.” Since 2015, young Palestinians have rammed cars into Israeli soldiers or wielded knives against settlers, believing that it would be better to die a martyr than live in humiliation.

However, the spirit of popular peaceful protests recently took over Palestinians once again, particularly in Jerusalem when Israel tried to install metal detectors and impose other restrictions at the gates of al-Aqsa mosque. Mass nonviolent protests beginning in mid-July and lasting almost two weeks ultimately succeeded in forcing Israel to stand down on the new measures.

A future better than the present

If any lesson was learned, it is this: Even 30 years after the first intifada, Palestinians have not tired of resistance and will continue to resist until the occupation ends, no matter how long this takes.

Lesson two: In order to achieve this, they need a dedicated and faithful unified leadership to guide them. The Palestinians need a leadership that meets the demands of its own people, not one that offers free concessions to the occupying power. These concessions have just made Israel even more assertive and expansionist.

In the current situation, Palestinians have no choice but to unite and adopt a unified strategy to win their freedom. Unfortunately, I don’t see the recent Cairo talks to restore Palestinian unity bearing fruit. Hamas and Fatah’s political platforms have always been two parallel lines that will never meet.

The two factions only entered talks after being put under pressure from regional countries keen on paving the way for US President Donald Trump’s “ultimate deal” for the Middle East.

This “deal” will reportedly focus on normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and regional Arab Sunni countries at the cost of Palestinian rights, ostensibly to counter the alleged Iranian threat. What it makes clear is that Palestinians have no other choice but to continue their struggle and steadfastness and wait out the tidal waves sweeping this unstable region. The Palestinians know that history is ultimately on their side. Occupation is always transient – it cannot last forever.

Today I run the Old City-based African Community Society, organizing social and community activities targeting women, children and youth to empower them and strengthen their resilience in their city.

After the disappointment of Oslo, I’ve renounced politics and now focus my time on engaging Jerusalem’s often marginalized youth to help them create a future that will hopefully be better than our present.

Mousa Qous is a reporter with Al-Quds newspaper and executive director of the African Community Society.