Oxfam whistleblower: Allegations of rape and sex in exchange for aid

Cathy Newman-12 Feb 2018

Allegations of rape, harassment and sex in exchange for aid handouts – just some of the damaging claims raised by a former Oxfam employee in an interview with Channel 4 News. And Oxfam’s Chief Executive Mark Goldring apologises for not acting fast enough when concerns were raised about Oxfam’s practices.

Allegations of rape, harassment and sex in exchange for aid handouts – just some of the damaging claims raised by former Oxfam global head of safeguarding, Helen Evans, in an interview with Channel 4 News.

And Oxfam’s Chief Executive Mark Goldring apologises for not acting fast enough when concerns were raised about Oxfam’s practices.

Wi-Fi: The Silent Killer That Kills Us Slowly

November 8, 2017

Almost everyone had Wi-Fi in the house due to its convenience. However, there have been some safety concerns and the conclusion is that Wi-Fi can be detrimental to the overall health, especially in children. So, Wi-Fi has a negative effect on various things, from brain health to sleep quality.

Potential Dangers of Wi-Fi

Damages Childhood Development

The non-thermal radio frequency radiation from Wi-Fi can disrupt normal cellular development, especially fetal development. This radiation affects growing tissues, such as in children and youth. Consequently, they would be more susceptible than average to the described effects and are at greater risk of developmental issues.

Contributes to the Development of Insomnia

Wi-Fi has also a great effect on sleep. If you feel like you cannot fall asleep, have an irregular sleeping pattern, it may be due to the low-frequency modulation of cell phones and Wi-Fi. People who are exposed to electromagnetic radiation have a significantly more difficult time falling asleep. And we all know that sleep deprivation can be harmful to the health.

Agitates Brain Function

Wi-Fi affects the concentration and the brain function. So, the brain activity is reduced, and as a result, you may experience trouble concentrating or have memory loss.

Neutralizes Sperm 

Increases the Risk of Cancer 

The exposure to electromagnetic radiation increases the risk of tumor development.

Wi-Fi Radiation – How To Protect Yourself 

Fortunately, there are ways you can protect yourself from the dangers, including:
• Avoid placing a wireless router in your kitchen or bedroom.
• Do not keep the phone in your pocket.
• Use wired phones when at home, to reduce electromagnetic radiation.
• If you’re pregnant, don’t keep the phone close to the belly.
• Make sure you keep your phone at the other end of the room, or on the seat of the car.
• Use texting more than talking.
• Do not use wireless baby monitors, as they all operate on microwave frequency.
• Disconnect all Wi-Fi devices before going to sleep.

Kumarapuram massacre remembered 22 years on

12Feb 2018

Trincomalee residents remembered the Kumarapuram massacre, in which Sri Lankan army corporals went on a murderous rampage through the village 22 years ago, raping and killing 24 Tamils.

A remembrance event and prayers for the victims were held in Kumarapuram at the site of the memorial to the massacre.

Related Articles: 

11 February 2018 : No justice: Kumarapuram massacre 22 years on

04 April 2017 : PEARL releases report on impunity and the Kumarapuram massacre at Human Rights Council session

20 March 2017 : Impunity Reigns in Sri Lanka, concludes PEARL in latest report

70 Years of Independence | Vicky Shahjahan

on 02/12/2018

What does it mean to be Sri Lankan?

70 years after independence, our identity is defined mostly along majoritarian lines, which can be traced back to the divisions created under British rule. These divisions have contributed to violence and war, in the years since 1948.

To this day, there are communities who feel that what is commonly projected and defined as the Sri Lankan identity does not reflect their reality, or themselves.

Looking at this, Groundviews produced a series of videos exploring identity and belonging in a country emerging from war, but not yet out of conflict.

Vicky Shahjahan is a visual artist from Kompanna Veediya. In this interview, Vicky talks about the stigma that persists towards gender non-conforming individuals, and highlights the need to make them feel included in workplaces and society at large.

Editor’s Note: Click here for our video series.  Click here for more content around Sri Lanka’s 70th Independence Day.

Prevent vicious cycle from re-emerging after election

By Jehan Perera-February 12, 2018, 12:00 pm 

The recently formed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa won most of the local government authorities in the South of the country in a landslide victory that caught the government, and many others, by surprise. The next few days will show if the SLPP, which is the breakaway faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) will be able to woo the newly elected council members from the SLFP-led United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) of President Maithripala Sirisena to enable the SLPP to form the administration of more local authorities. There is also the possibility that similar crossovers can be generated at the national level, leading to instability in the government itself.

Jubilant opposition leaders have claimed that the mandate given to the government at the previous national elections had expired with the results of the local government elections. Addressing a news briefing held at the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) office in Colombo to declare the election victory, opposition members said the government had no option but to resign. However, the two main constituent parties of the government, the UNP and SLFP have dominated the main urban centres, and if their alliance continues, they will have the power of the central government to reduce the fall out of their poor showing at the local level.

In these fraught circumstances the performance of the government parties at the local government elections puts a question mark over the reconciliation process that the country had embarked upon after the 2015 presidential elections. Prior to the change of government relations with the ethnic minorities and the international community were in a state of acute deterioration. This situation was largely reversed by the present government. During the past three years the relationship between the government and ethnic communities improved in a significant manner. The ethnic minority parties became partners of the government either by joining it or by having understanding relationships.

BLIGHTED HOPE

The main frame of the reconciliation process that the government has provided is a combination of constitutional reform and transitional justice. This is to enable a greater measure of power sharing on the one hand, and to deliver on the commitments made to the UN Human Rights Council on the other hand. The highlight of the constitutional reform process was the submission of a report on the options for constitutional reform which was presented in September last year. With regard to the commitments made to the UNHRC in October 2015, the government continued to return land taken over by the military and to amending laws relating to terrorism and to enforced disappearances. It also set in place the law for an Office of Missing Persons.

The government was proceeding along these two tracks prior to the announcement of local government elections, albeit slowly. Due to this the international pressure that had been building up against the government was relaxed and the confrontational relationship with the international community became transformed into a supportive one. However, the slow pace of reform resulted in disillusionment to the Tamil people who were the main victims of the war in its last phase. This disillusionment has found its political expression in the political rise at these elections of the Tamil Congress in the North which has been critical of the TNA for compromising too much with the government and getting too little in return.

There was hope that once the local government elections were concluded the government would restart the reconciliation process that had been put on hold during the campaign period. However, the results of the election put this recommencement into jeopardy. The opposition SLPP led by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa campaigned on the theme of the government’s betrayal of the national interest to LTTE proxies and to the international community. This evoked a responsive chord amongst the ethnic majority Sinhalese electorate which turned out in larger numbers to vote for the SLPP. The danger is that this could set off a vicious cycle in which Sinhalese nationalism in the South feeds and sustains the rise of Tamil nationalism in the North.

ENGAGE SLPP

Irrespective of changes in the government and opposition it is in the national interest that the reconciliation process should continue. There is a danger that the government will backtrack on the commitments given to the Tamil people and international community with regard to both constitutional reform and transitional justice. This could lead to erosion in public support for the moderate leadership of the TNA in the North and to a strengthening of the nationalist Tamil forces who want the reconciliation process to fail so that they can get even stronger. If the government does not deliver on its commitments there could also be an increase in the level of international pressure which would, in turn, be opposed by Sinhalese nationalism.

During the past three years the government’s relationship with the ethnic minorities and with the international community has improved greatly. In the context of failed reconciliation processes elsewhere in the world, Sri Lanka became seen as a model of post-war reconciliation to be strengthened and emulated. The situation should not be permitted to regress into what it was during the period of the previous government when Sri Lanka was at the receiving end of international condemnation and economic sanctions. Internally, the ethnic minorities saw the government as an oppressor and not as a protector. Avoiding a slide towards a vicious cycle would require that the reconciliation process continues without reversal.

In the present post-election circumstances, in which the government’s very survival is at stake, it will be difficult for the government to try and continue with its present reconciliation process if there is opposition to it from the SLPP led by the former president. The landslide victories that the SLPP scored in areas in which the Sinhalese electorate predominated shows that it is too powerful a political force to be kept out of national decisionmaking on issues as sensitive and controversial as the ethnic conflict. This suggests that even as the government struggles for its political survival in the remaining two years of its term of office, it needs to constructively engage with the SLPP on the future of the reconciliation process. As a first step the government needs to identify and engage with the moderates in the SLPP.

Examining The Entrails

By Emil van der Poorten –February 13, 2018


Considering the political evisceration of the Yahapalanaya lot, I make no apology for the title of this piece.

It is easy enough to say, “I told you so,” particularly since one has consistently sought to get this bunch of self-aggrandizing political has-beens on track for far longer than should have been necessary.

Not having any pretension to being a statistician, I will not seek to compare this with the epic defeat of the UNP in 1956 or that which it sustained fourteen years later.

However, that said, let me embark on an attempt to provide some relevant comment on what happened on the 10^th of February.

Sirisena, despite his periodically displayed chauvinist leanings, seemed to stay above the kinds of collaboration for financial gain that many of the UNPers were obviously guilty of.
The “Unuth Ekai, Munuth Ekai,” accusation of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna continued to have resonance with anyone watching how things were unfolding after Sirisena beat Mahinda Rajapaksa.
On the fateful night that Mahinda bit the dust there was, if a mass of circumstantial evidence is to be believed, an attempt to throw out the election result and establish a dictatorship. Mangala Samaraweera, a very senior member of the current Cabinet, was reported, on several occasions, to have made a formal complaint to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in this connection asking that a prosecution be launched against those seeking to overthrow democracy in Sri Lanka.

What the hell happened to that complaint? 

What is also interesting is that only much later was the third member of the group that visited Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees on that fateful night named. For the longest time, the names that were quoted were those of Ranil Wickremesinghe and Thirukumar Nadesan who is married to a female relative of the ex-President and has a reputation as a wheeler dealer par excellence. Why did it take more than a year, if memory strikes me right, for the Third Musketeer to be named? If one were to follow the career of our diminutive Aramis, this conduct would not be considered out of place for someone who has most effectively run with the hare and hunted with the hounds, doing very well in that endeavour, thank you!

That some elements of the media have been complicit in these cover-ups is beyond question but, typically, it is hard, if not impossible, to hide this kind of stuff in a place like Sri Lanka where the gossip grapevine is so active that, periodically, it produces some material the veracity of which cannot be doubted and which then proceeds to develop a life of its own!

Before the coalition government can even think of a mass clean up of both constituent parties, Ranil Wickremesinghe has to begin, like charity, at home.

He needs to remove EVERY one of those with so much as a taint of corruption. We can no longer tolerate people resigning as Ministers when found covering up for those running offshore armouries only to return under one cover or another to positions of equivalent power in the cabinet once the heat appears to be off. Continuing to re-arrange the deck chairs on the Sri Lankan Titanic is NOT an option. Mr. Wickremesinghe has to stop insulting the intelligence of his fellow countrymen by, for instance, apportioning a different deck chair to the man who could be a multi-headed monkey – not seeing, not speaking and not hearing any evil – when it comes to his immediate family accepting “goodwill gestures” amounting to millions of rupees in the matter of personal housing. Then there was the other bright spark who had a wonderful explanation for a multiplicity of calls to the now infamous Arjun Aloysius, the head of Perpetual Treasuries. His explanation for the calls at a time when there was all kinds of scurrying about to avoid appropriate action against those accused of the biggest bond scam in Sri Lanka’s history? He was researching material for a book he was authoring on the subject. One little problem with that explanation was that the “research” was being conducted after the book was published.

That Ranil Wickremesinghe and Maithripala Sirisena should pay for this kind of insulting conduct towards their countrymen is beyond question. However, what complicates matters somewhat is the fact that there appears to be documentation of the fact that those seeking to take the place of the Yahapalanaya lot utilized the services of the self-same Mr. Aloysius when they had their hands on the levers of power. And that was but a very small piece of the litany of wrongdoing and violence that occurred on their watch. Back to the old JVP accusation, but with a little twist:

Read More

Editorial: Fault Line

12Feb 2018

Sri Lanka’s unity government suffered an electoral blow at local government polls this weekend, just three years after its surprise victory. The Sinhala people renewed their support for the former war-time president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who asked voters to use the polls as a de-facto referendum on the unity government’s constitutional reform process, which he warned was the gateway to federalism. The Tamil people reaffirmed their support for the Tamil struggle, with Tamil nationalist parties winning the vast majority of seats in the North. Notably however, the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) made unprecedented gains in key wards, at the expense of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The TNA, which had provided unconditional backing to the Ranil-Sirisena coalition despite the government’s repeated failure to deliver on key pledges to the Tamils, was numerically successful but short of a majority in all councils across the North.

The government’s failed promise of exemplary governance, albeit a factor, was not the deciding one. Many of its reforms were after all deeply tangible in the South, with the opening up of political space and freedoms. For the ‘moderate Sinhala voter’, said to have been instrumental in securing the 2015 Ranil-Sirisena win, the pace of reform whilst falling short of the promised 100 days, was nonetheless greater than was achieved in 10 years of Rajapaksa. The results are instead a paragon of the island’s unreconciled fault line of the Tamil question. The South voted for Rajapaksa fearing a slippery slope towards the concession of power to the Tamils and federalism, while Tamils rebuked the TNA for veering too far from core Tamil political aspirations outlined in the Thimphu Principles and for propping up a draft constitution that fell far short from delivering on the party’s election promise of a federal state.

Ranil-Sirisena’s 2015 electoral victory, contrary to how it was portrayed at the time, was never a Sinhala endorsement of power sharing or justice for Tamils - a truth that was not lost on the president and prime minister, who routinely reaffirmed their rejection of federalism and any meaningful accountability mechanism. Sinhala voters had instead punished the Rajapaksas for their burgeoning nepotism and corruption, and for allowing their murderous rule to extend beyond the Tamil areas into Sinhala ones. As this election illustrates however, the Sinhala electorate’s censure of illiberal governance will never be at the expense of safeguarding a Sinhala majoritarian Sri Lanka. Through Sri Lanka’s 70 years of independence Sinhala ethno-nationalist parties have been voted into power whenever any possibility of power sharing with Tamils drew near, and governments who oppressed Tamils have been consistently rewarded by Sinhala voters. Rajapaksa was not defeated because he presided over the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of Tamils; he was rewarded with another election victory.

If there was ever a window of opportunity for internal change towards a political solution or meaningful accountability, that has now firmly closed. Difficult reforms and conversations that were not pursued when the unity government was in the strongest possible position are not going to be pushed through now in light of Rajapaksa’s re-emergence - Ranil and Sirisena know full well to do so would seal their demise. As the Tamils have long argued, heightened international pressure is the only way to effect change, and firm international scrutiny is the Tamil people’s only present safeguard against repression by the state. Rajapaksa’s return to the political stage as well as a Sri Lankan military brazen with impunity and further emboldened by the presence of an increasingly limp government fills Tamil minds with terror. Nothing exemplifies this further than Sri Lanka’s Defence Attache making a throat slitting threat to Tamils in London last week.

Rising Tamil frustration and anger at the TNA leadership’s appeasement of the government, despite the latter's repeated refusal to address key Tamil concerns, led to the first electoral endorsement of the TNPF. The TNPF’s hard earned gains stand as a testament to the party’s steadfast commitment to the Tamil struggle. It is now incumbent on the TNPF to build on this momentum, establishing an inclusive, broad based force of political leadership. The TNA must meanwhile reflect carefully on its electoral set back. Its leadership, which habitually uses electoral successes to silence dissenting voices, has long taken the Tamil people for granted. The TNA must now change. It must put an end to its opaque diplomacy on the Tamil national question, in favour of a transparent approach. The TNA, which at election time has always relied heavily on invoking their historic links to the LTTE and claiming to be their legitimate heirs, must now uphold its election promises and the mandate granted to it by the Tamil people. To this end it is positive to note a humbled TNA after the election, calling on all Tamil nationalist parties to unite towards federalism. Coalition building between the two main Tamil parties may prove difficult after a bitterly-fought campaign and core differences on principles. However there must be unity in purpose amongst all shades of Tamil nationalist parties. The paramilitary EPDP can never be a partner. The Sinhala Buddhist state-building project remains a grave threat to the Tamil nation - the safeguarding of the Tamil people through the establishment of a truly federal system of governance, in addition to credible, international accountability mechanisms must remain at the forefront of Tamil politics. Now it is up to the Tamil leaders to deliver.

UNP to form separate govt. but can it forge ahead with a deadly enemy - the president around ? Karu is P.M. ?

(Lanka-e-News - 12.Feb.2018, 11.00PM)  A discussion chaired by the UNP leader was  in progress at UNP headquarters  –Sri Kotha to form a separate government. 

The president who agreed to continue with the consensual government yesterday (11) ,however  through his media divisions released a communiqué that he did not concur in such a view when he heard the UNP is holding discussions to form its own government .

A majority of the UNP members had decided  that since the SLFP faction of the consensual government did not work in accord   with the consensual agreement they cannot go any longer with them , and it is the request  of many that the prime minister post shall be granted to Karu Jayasuriya. However Malik Smarawickrema and  Sagala Ratnayake have opposed that. Though they did not wish to openly state , a majority of the UNPers  are in favor of Ranil Wickremesinghe stepping back.

It is the view of some others , UNP trying to form a separate government is not practical . This is because the president who conducted himself against the UNP during the consensual government can turn hostile when the UNP forms a separate government ,and  he is sure as the chief of the cabinet going to  turn antagonistic openly to  scuttle all the UNP proposals .

President Sirisena by now  has confirmed beyond any trace of doubt and umpteen number of times he is a most virulent  enemy who  could from  within destroy the UNP , while his other group to whom he went on all fours prior to the elections could attack from outside. It is therefore the opinion of some other UNP stalwarts, that it would be difficult to form a separate UNP government and forge ahead amidst such venomous enemies .

It is learnt the UNP has still not discussed with the JVP  in connection with  the party  forming a separate government . There are 105 UNP members who contested under the elephant symbol , and they require only another 8 to make it 113 to form a UNP government.

The  request of the Rajapakses is to dissolve parliament and call for elections. This will not be practical since  this was an election held for local bodies. Besides  that could create a pernicious precedent.  If each time after the local body elections or a provincial council election the parliament is to be dissolved , it would not be possible to run a stable government in that country .

Meanwhile  , the Rajapakses who polled 44 % of the votes as against the government which polled 46 % ,cannot demand dissolution of parliament , and call for elections . Instead what they should demand is the resignation of the president  whose vote base fell to as low as  4 %, and demand a presidential election .( If the president resigns the law must resolve the issue whether the speaker will become the president  until his term is over ,or a fresh presidential election shall be held).

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by     (2018-02-12 18:52:31)

How Chinese investment can be an offensive weapon

Pumps dredge sand on Dec. 5, 2017, to reclaim land at the site of a Chinese-funded $1.4-billion reclamation project in Colombo.

LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

BY CALLUM WOOD • FEBRUARY 12

Sri Lanka celebrated 70 years of independence on February 4, but China’s economic presence is leading some to question the extent of that independence. Between 2005 and 2017, Beijing invested $15 billion in the island nation’s infrastructure projects. Regional rivals like India see these investments as Chinese economic colonialism.

The ‘String of Pearls’

Sri Lanka is part of the “String of Pearls,” also known as the Maritime Silk Road, which describes a route of ports, airports, sea-lanes, highways and railroads that connect China to the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa. China claims this is just an economic corridor, but India claims the “String of Pearls” is a noose for strangling and subduing China’s neighbor.

China has often used aggressive techniques to stake claims along the trade route. In Sri Lanka, the Chinese are waging a silent war to dominate the nation.

Hambantota Port

In 2010, Sri Lanka went to India to plead for investment. Sri Lanka’s prime minister at the time, Mahinda Rajapaksa, wanted to transform the port in his hometown of Hambantota. This underdeveloped fishing town had been damaged in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Economic analysts did not think such a port would create much economic value, and India declined investing in the costly exercise.

In desperation, Sri Lanka turned to China.

China invested $361 million in the port project that very year. In 2012, Sri Lanka received another $810 million for the second phase of construction.

But Sri Lanka couldn’t afford to pay back the loan. This gave China powerful leverage over the Sri Lankan government.

In December, China repaid itself by taking control of Hambantota Port. Facing a huge debt to its creditors, Sri Lanka had few options but to offer the port to China on a 99-year lease.

For the next century, China will own this southern Sri Lankan port, which is a major maritime asset in the Indian Ocean not far from the southern tip of India. Hambantota also happens to be Sri Lanka’s naval headquarters, and naval officers are seeking ways to distance their operations from prying Chinese eyes.

A Debt Crisis

But Hambantota is just one example. In 2010, China invested $200 million for a second international airport in Sri Lanka. In 2013, it invested $272 million for a railway. By 2015, Sri Lanka owed China $8 billion. In early 2018, China pledged another $1 billion for Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port City project.
Foreign debt now equates to 75 percent of Sri Lanka’s gross domestic product, the total sum of goods and services it produces in a year. The Sri Lankan people are slaves to the government’s debt.

“They [the Chinese] called in the debt, and the debt has been paid by Sri Lanka giving them the (Hambantota) Port,” Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told cnn. “That port then gives them not only a strategic access point into India’s sphere of influence through which China can deploy its naval forces, but it also gives China an advantageous position to export its goods into India’s economic sphere, so it’s achieved a number of strategic aims in that regard. … This is part of a determined strategy by China to extend its influence across the Indian Ocean at the expense of India, and it’s using Sri Lanka to achieve it.”

India has caught on to China’s strategy, as has Japan and other nearby nations. India is trying to muscle in on projects in Colombo and Hambantota. Japan is offering help, too. But China is already building.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s new airport services just a few flights each day. The rest of the time, it sits silent as Sri Lankans continue to pay for it. The new port facilities in Hambantota do not include an economic zone for trade, so few can take advantage of the port. It sits relatively unused, except by China.

A Working Strategy

China is shackling nations like Sri Lanka with debt and leveraging the debt to secure advantageous economic infrastructure and political outcomes. This pattern is occurring from the Philippines to Eritrea—and it includes Australia. Australia borrows billions of dollars from China, and China owns Australia’s northernmost port, which is also home to Australian and United States naval bases. China owns the lease for 99 years.

Last August, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke at an East Asia ministerial summit and admitted, “We will not be able to compete with the kind of terms that China offers. But countries have to decide, what are they willing to pay to secure their sovereignty and their future control of their economies?”

The Trumpet has written extensively on China’s efforts to control this vital trade route. We write about China not from an economic standpoint, but from that of Bible prophecy. The Bible actually has a lot to say about the rise of China and the role it will play in the end time. China will soon wield its economic and military might in a violent global conflict.

China’s effort in Sri Lanka is prophesied in the book of Revelation. A prophecy in chapter 16 refers to an end-time Asian bloc of nations known as the “kings of the east” (verse 12). China is already exerting powerful influence over many smaller nations in the region. Bible prophecy states that this bloc of nations will form an army of 200 million soldiers that will march across the Middle East (Revelation 9:16). We discuss these prophecies in our free booklet Russia and China in Prophecy.

When you look at the “String of Pearls” with its empty ports, quiet airports and lonely highways, you could think China had made poor investments with little opportunity for return. But these are part of a developing Chinese superhighway. Nations like India and Japan are finally waking up to the realization that Chinese-controlled ports don’t just take in tankers. They take in warships. Airstrips don’t just accommodate cargo planes; they also provide landing areas for fighter jets. China is gobbling up parts of the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. To learn more about this prophetic trend, watch the 90-second video below.

Sri Lanka: Where from here after the LG polls?

Mahinda did make some conciliatory references to the ‘national problem’, however oblique it was, in his first reaction to the LG polls.

by N Sathiya Moorthy-Feb 13, 2018

( February 13, 2018, Chennai, Sri lanka Guardian) Grant it to Basil Rajapaksa’s political acumen and electoral organisation. At last count, his pre-poll prediction of Mahinda R-led SLPP would bag 225-250 local government institutions across the nation has come closer to the truth. The last time round, his calculations were equally correct in that he predicted that for incumbent Mahinda to win the presidential polls in January 2015, they would require a minimum of 25-30 per cent of the Tamil and Muslim votes. Mahinda did not get them, and lost.

The Basil predictions of the day hid another tale, which went mostly unacknowledged. That Mahinda R still held a substantial share of ‘majority Sinhala votes’ then, as since. There is no denying that Mahinda’s 47-per cent vote-share in the presidential polls, down to 42.38 per cent in the parliamentary elections eight months later in August 2015, and now marginally up, to 44.65 per cent, in the local government polls of February 2018, are mostly personal and/or personalised votes. That again holds a story of its own.

There is no denying that victorious presidential candidate Maithiripala Sirisena’s vote-share came mostly from his UNP ally (?) since, and also the ‘minority’ Tamils and Muslims. If one were to go by the UNP vote-share of 45.66 in the parliamentary polls and TNA’s 4.62, and JVP’s 4.87, Sirisena possibly did not (!) bring in any vote to call his own in the 51.28 per cent he polled in 2015. Yet, his SLFP (4.4 per cent) and UPFA (8.94) together have got 13.34 per cent votes.

In the LG polls, Mahinda has yet got more than their SLFP’s parliamentary poll figure under their joint stewardship. One back-of-the-envelope possibility is that ‘swing voters’ who went with the UNP in the presidential and parliamentary polls have now gone back to Mahinda the man, as in the post-war presidential polls of 2010. Even more simplistically, Mahinda R and the UNP (45.66 pc / 32.63 pc) have swapped places between the parliamentary polls and the LG elections now, at least in terms of vote-share, with a minor segment of the swing-voters still preferring Sirisena SLFP, which has a woefully dwindled share of cadre and party votes from the past.

Yet, there is no denying that the UNP has once again proved to be the single largest party in the country with a steady vote-share, though it also means that it cannot win any election on its own, without ‘imaginative’ allies of the Sirisena type, who could ‘shock’ the voter into disbelief and then hope. The question now is if the Ranil leadership still has more of the kind in its bag, or if the UNP has another leader who has the time, energy and acceptance level within the party to be able to work for larger, voter-acceptance.

Bandaranaike legacy

No prize for guessing who has got it, be in Sirisena’s native Polonnaruwa district (where the margin of vote-share loss was a relatively respectable 5,000 votes overall), or SLFP scion CBK’s Gampaha (where the SLPP got five times as many votes as the parent party, and much less than the UNP, which was the distant second with a district-level margin of 200,000 votes). Who then laughed at Mahinda’s pre-poll claims to being the ‘inheritor’ of the Bandaranaike legacy in the SLFP? If at all anyone has it now, it is either he, proved thrice in a row unaffected by war and victory, or it is just not there, in political and electoral terms.

Already, the SLPP-JO has demanded that President Sirisena invite Mahinda R to become prime minister in Ranil’s place. The other two cannot complain, or even protest too much, whatever the justification for denying the same to Mahinda now. Having used the presidential poll results to replace his own SLFP prime minister of the day with a UNP rival in January 2015, Sirisena, if he wished so, could do it again, the JO having pointed out that they now have more MPs than what Ranil had then.

Needless to point out if Mahinda now wished, he could have more of MPs, definitely from the official SLFP but possibly also from other parties. Already, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), the parent-party of Upcountry Tamils, as different from the Sri Lankan Tamils’ TNA, is joining hands with the SLPP to head at least two local government bodies in that region. Though not to the same extent as in the past, the CWC has still not recovered some of the past ground, indicating that their own people are not happy with the claims and performance of the pigmy parties that came to replace the CWC with promises, which seem to remain worse than that.

TNA’s woes

In his early reaction to the early LG poll results, Mahinda R reportedly claimed SLFP leadership and official recognition as the main Opposition in Parliament, which position he would occupy. The TNA, whose R Sampanthan now occupies the seat, has lot more to worry about, but then they all knew that it was not theirs by vote but by choice – the choice of Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, who could not but have it otherwise, considering that the ruling duo would have none of Rajapaksa or his stand-by in Dinesh Gunawardene.

Even without it, the TNA has a lot to worry about. Despite having retained overall control of the Tamil-majority areas in the North and the East, at least in percentage terms, their shared has fallen by about a third– from 4.62 per cent in the parliamentary polls to 3.07 per cent in the LG elections. No points for guessing again, as the non-TNA, anti-TNA Tamil parties have gained the upper-hand in many places, if their votes are added. Less said about the technical calculation of adding all non-TNA votes in a single pool the better it is for the TNA.

Even without it all, the TNA has a lot to worry about. True, the incumbent government does not want the provincial council polls just now. It includes that for the Northern Province, which is otherwise due later this year. Maybe, chief minister C V Wigneswaran may not have won a vote for his hard-line stance in the LG polls either, as with the parliamentary elections, but then that does not automatically guarantee as clean a sweep as in the past for ‘the moderate’ TNA leadership any more.

Though only by a periphery still, the TNA leadership has cause to worry for being dubbed ‘B-Team’ of Ranil at times, Maithiri on occasions, and of both, almost always. Now with Mahinda’s SLPP gaining the upper-hand and his partners in the JO already talking about dumping the proposed Constitution, the TNA would have a lot more to tell its voters as to what they were doing for the larger Tamil cause over the past three years of the love-hate co-habitation with the ruling duo (other than lining some pockets, as was alleged from inside).

Conciliatory reference

Mahinda did make some conciliatory references to the ‘national problem’, however oblique it was, in his first reaction to the LG polls. But then, his energies are going to be drawn into yet another round of political one-upmanship within the majority Sinhala polity, where he has to ensure that he remains on the top, and also that the other two do not join hands all over again. This can happen if and only if he is able to frighten the SLFP-UPFA parliamentarians with apprehensions about the next parliamentary polls than presidential elections, which he cannot contest directly.

Mahinda should also be worried even more about his ability to ‘transfer’ all his votes to a presidential candidate of his choice, as he is barred under 19-A to try his luck a fourth time (having lost the 18-A facilitation in 2015). It cannot be Sirisena even if they patched up. It could be Gota R, between now and then, the Rajapaksas would have to be busier than ever, staying away from more court cases, and prisons, this time around through final verdicts, at least of the trial courts.

Sirisena may not have much to worry about. He was a ‘usurper’ at least as far as the SLFP leadership is concerned, just as Mahinda was when he replaced CBK as party chief. Sirisena also continued to behave like a usurper, not only viz the party post but also as the nation’s President, which he had won through a legitimate poll process. If his stars seem to be sinking, it is only in proportion to the return of Mahinda’s to its place. But then, Ṁahinda today needs Sirisena as much as the President of the nation, and not as the president of the divided SLFP, but then the Rajapaksas would also need to decide if they want to conquer the old party or retain the new imagery – that they do not require other identities than theirs to win and retain voter-support bordering on loyalty.

Ranil’s troubles

The same cannot be said of Ranil and the UNP. Those that had been living daggers drawn at Ranil in the name of his leadership losing a series of elections over the past several years could do nothing but to stand silent when the ‘Sirisena coup’ worked against the Rajapaksas, and also worked for the UNP. Now is then the time for ‘em all to put Ranil in the party dock, and demand replacement, as Ranil’s possible future elevation as president and their own hopes to become prime minister under a UNP-led dispensation look dim ‘especially under this leadership’.

The question is if the likes of Sajith Premadasa, who have had maintained stoic silence all along when Ranil, despite being Prime Minister, was taking the party southward all over again, could derive traction from the party cadres after a gap. True, the ‘urban elite’ fight for succession in the UNP may have dimmed after Ravi Karunanayake burnt his boat on all sides, from within the Central Bank bonds issue, under his care.

But there are others like Wijedasa Rajapakse, a urban-rural mix, who has an SLFP past too, and who jumped the boat before the fire engulfed it, and Harsha de Silva, who seemed targeting the other over the former’s ‘Hambantota retrieval’ statement as minister and would not sleep until Wijedasa was sacked from the ministry. But any or all of them would require to ‘market’ the self to the party first and against one another, before having the time and energy still left to market himself or herself to the people, either collectively or otherwise. It should also be insurance enough for Ranil W, in the interim at the very least.

But then, having deliberated over delaying the LG polls for three years and together at it, and having deliberately upping the stakes, to making it a national election fought on national issues, instead of village and street-level concerns, none can complain now, that the other party did not win or lose the way they claimed to be. If nothing else, even in its post-poll observations, the UNP is only saying that SLPP does not have the votes to make Mahinda R, president again, forgetting that they too could not make Ranil or anyone else, nor could they hope to string together another alliance of the 2015 kind, and expect the Sri Lankan voters, including the war-affected Tamils, to trust them, still, starting with their claims to unity and even more on ‘good governance’.

That is where also Mahinda’s immediate success remains, not in his ability to win elections on his own, either for the self, or for another Rajapaksa or any other of his choice for the presidency. The rest of it can wait, for Mahinda and also for his adversaries – but then that wait can become costlier than already for the nation and the people, who have had enough and more of it, long after the end of the war, which used to be the convenient punch-bag of the polity in the past, not anymore!

(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. Email: sathiyam54@gmail.com)

Mahinda – As Messiah?

By Suren Rāghavan –February 13, 2018

Mahinda has won. Statics of 44.46% is never an indicator of the density of the people’s political will.Now he is even more powerful than in post January 2015. Because in a post state world order in a country that tries to negotiate postwar-ontological anxieties no policy is valid. No project is delivering. From Trump to Markel to Modi it is a person who people are willing to look up to. Liberal political theorists may still disagree in their lofty analysis over a glass of wine. However, the reality especially the South Asia political cultural reality is that we seek an individual who could deliver no matter how great or not the guiding principles are. World famous Time magazine said only a 15% chance of Trump winning just 48 hours before the election but confessed the chances were as high as 90% on the night of the election. That how far the liberals have lost the reality world over. Voters did not defeat the Yahapālana. They in fact defeated the lack of it or the bogus gang mascaraing in the pretext of such good governance ideology. Sinhala Buddhist voters have taken a political punishment on themselves. They knowingly the danger of repeat of a Rajapaksa regime have still voted because they wanted to punish Ranil and the repugnant crony Royalists mob who neither have a sense of the deep concerns of the rural south nor the ability to stand the rigours scrutiny that is demanded by the modern market based open democracy. Instead Mahinda provides the Messianic hope to the largely Sinhala Buddhist constituencies and their societal sub-consciousness at least in words. The three years record of the Maithri-Ranil rule is one of the least performing instead largely problem creating first three years of any government in Sri Lanka in the known memory. There is no Prabhakaran or his terror squads to kill these VVIPs. There was no EU or Geneva that was waiting to invade us in different forms. There were no Mahanaayakas threatening to burn themselves, Except for the SAITM faded jeans drama once in 2 months. Champika the mike hero surrendered and slept for full three years in his dream of becoming the next PM. The official opposition – Sampanthan became even more smooth and sober and never challenged the government on any single issue. In summery the Maithri-Ranil rule was one without a single contender.

However, it is this easy-fancy front foot stand that gave Ranil and his royal round to be ultra-insensitive and unlimitedly arrogant about the state and its management. If not who on a drunk day dream will appoint a foreigner like Arjuna Mahendran and let him rob a Central Bank over the phone. Ranil still defends Arjuna even while a Presidential Commission has proved that he let his son-in-law do a shady deal. This is in parallel to the claimed 18 billion robed by Mahinda- as according to non-other than the finance minister Mangala Samaraweera. Not a single person had been convicted or punished even after 1000 days had gone. The Sinhalas know and remember well. They remember 1971 and 1988, that is why they don’t vote for a JVP which still refuses to accept and confess that killing their own school teacher and native doctor was more Khmer Rouge tribalism than Marxism. In the same way they also remember the terror politics and the abysmally dictatorial Rajapaksa clang and their goonies. Still they traded off a better/smart robbery to a weak and unproductive robbery because in the previous one at least they received the opportunity to go home in Matara in 90 minutes has as never happened in the entire history of Lanka.

True-democrats and minorities like me are worried, because we are a double or even tribble minorities. We oppose the rogues of capitalist market, extreme ethno-nationalists in the south as well as the extreme Tamil Nationalists who seems to be merging in the north. Because the hidden extreme ethno-nationalists who are gravitating around the hope of bringing Gotabaya as their leader in 2020 will surely make this platform to launch a neo-racist agenda that promises to win more voted in a 2020 election. Knowing him – and his total (in)ability to give leadership to any new process, Maithri will be tempted and compete with that Sinhala racism to win more votes and the JVP will struggle whether to embrace modernist or remain where they are.

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President’s wild unbridled criticisms dented his image and immensely damaged govt.-UNP group

(Lanka-e-News - 12.Feb.2018, 11.00PM)  It is because of the president’s unbridled tongue - himself openly maligning and mudslinging at the UNP before and during the run up to the local body elections  , he dug his own grave . Owing to those vicious   slanders , the government lost votes and the Flower Bud gained votes , the UNP group including minister Rajitha Senaratne of the government directly blamed the president , based on reports reaching Lanka e news.

These criticisms were leveled against the president when the latter met with the UNP group of the government on the 11 th. Prior to this meeting   the president and the Prime Minister too had met separately at a  discussion. 

Rajitha’s gravest  grouse was , the president should have made his criticisms among the government members without  going before the general  public to make such denunciations.  By that the president demonstrated  to the people he is a weda beri (incapable and incompetent) leader , which  created an impression among the people the government too is a weda beri administration, he pointed out.

The Flower bud which was in the filthy mud got an opportunity to gain grounds and get more votes owing to these indiscretions , the other ministers and M.P.’s highlighted. They reminded the president how Mahinda Rajapakse himself said on the TV channel ‘our campaign is being done by the president.’

President Sirisena in response requested  to listen to his  full speech in the You tube. In that his criticisms were 75 % against Rajapakses , and only 25 % against the UNP, but the media extracted only that 25 % , the president said in his defense.

Rajitha in reply  said , ‘the media of course extracts only what they can ‘market’, but it is for us to know what should and should not be conveyed to the media.’ 

The president also explained there is another side to the election results , that is , the amount of good done to the people by the government could not be duly ‘marketed’ among the people. The UNP group on the other hand elucidated to the president , the biggest detrimental  impact was , when there was a certain  incident the president and the government on two occasions expressed different opinions , the people talked about that , and not about what great benefits the government conferred on them. However , the two sides agreed to ensure against such mishaps  in the future.

Conspirators clustered around president… 

The UNP group drew the president’s attention to the buffoon Shiral Lakthileke the notorious conspirator who has stealthily crept into  the fold of the president  and is unrelentingly stoking conflicts between the president and the UNP. The MP’s pointed out this villainous rascal is spreading false rumors via the media that there is  a rift between the president and the government .  The UNP group urged the president to sack such conspirators. 

The president also informed the UNP group that he had discussions with the P.M. to make crucial changes in  the cabinet and also  effect a number of radical changes.

After the conclusion of the discussion with the president , the UNP group met with their leader P.M. Ranil Wickremesinghe separately at Sri Kotha.

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by     (2018-02-12 18:58:46)