COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - With her 16-day old son lying asleep in her lap, tears streamed down the face of a 20-year-old Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh as she accused Myanmar troops of covering her eyes and mouth and raping her, before making her watch as they killed her husband.
“I don’t know if this baby is from my husband or the rape,” said the woman, speaking through a translator, during a visit by United Nations Security Council envoys to camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh sheltering nearly a million refugees.
Ahead of the council visit to Bangladesh and Myanmar last week, senior U.N. officials warned the envoys about the prospect of a flood of babies being born in the coming weeks and months in the refugee camps that could be the result of rape.
In a joint statement, U.N. envoy for sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, and U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights Andrew Gilmour wrote “reports suggest Rohingya women and girls were raped on a systematic and possibly massive scale.”
“Many of the women and girls raped in 2017 are due to give birth in the next few weeks, during the monsoon season, and we are concerned that many will not be able to access medical care to give birth safely,” they wrote.
Nearly 700,000 mainly Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh in the past eight months following a Myanmar military crackdown that the United Nations, United States and Britain have denounced as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar denies ethnic cleansing.
In March the United Nations launched an appeal for $951 million to help the Rohingya refugees for the rest of the year, but the world body said at the end of April it was only 9.0 percent funded.
The United Nations and aid groups working in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, said that it was difficult to know exactly how many women and girls were pregnant. It was even more difficult to know how many of the pregnancies were the result of rape.
“With the help of the U.N. bodies and other international and national (aid groups), we are trying to identify the pregnant women so that they get proper treatment,” said a senior Bangladesh health ministry official, who declined to be named due to sensitivity of the matter.
He said that so far 18,300 pregnant women had been identified and the rough total estimate was around 25,000.
Rohingya insurgent attacks on security posts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August sparked a military operation that Myanmar described as a legitimate response. Fleeing refugees have reported killings, rapes and arson on a large scale.
“Based on U.N. reports and testimonies from Rohingya women who told our staff of rape and sexual violence in Myanmar, we do sadly expect the number of babies born as a result of unwarranted pregnancies to increase in the coming months,” said Daphnee Cook, Save the Children’s spokeswoman in Cox’s Bazar.
MYANMAR MILITARY BLACKLISTED
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently blacklisted the Myanmar armed forces in his annual report on conflict-related sexual violence. The military must now decide whether to work with Patten on a plan that would lead to their removal from the blacklist.
During a two hour meeting with Security Council envoys in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw last week, military chief Min Aung Hlaing vowed “harsh action” over sexual violence. According to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper, he said: “Sexual violence (is) considered as despicable acts.”
Last November, Myanmar’s military release a report denying all accusations of rape by security forces.
Melissa How, Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Medical Coordinator in Cox’s Bazar, said the had seen “a number of women and girls” who had become pregnant from sexual violence in Myanmar or Bangladesh.
“Some have miscarried; some have turned to traditional medicine and other methods to end their pregnancies, using unsafe methods. A number of women and girls have chosen to access MSF facilities for medical care, as well as menstrual regulation, in Bangladesh,” she said.
Abortion is illegal in Bangladesh but menstrual regulation to terminate a pregnancy is permissible. How also added that the majority of women in the camps who give birth do so outside health facilities.
Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in January to complete the voluntary repatriation of the refugees within two years but the deal poses a challenge for women who give birth to children born from cases of rape.
U.N. envoy Patten, who will visit Cox’s Bazar this month, said a complying with a requirement in the deal for women to go the Bangladesh Supreme Court to obtain a document noting that a child had been “born out of unwarranted incidence,” a reference to cases of rape resulting in pregnancy, may be too difficult for poor, illiterate women.
In this file photo taken on October 6, 2017 Rohingya refugees take shelter from the rain at Nayapara refugee camp in Bangladesh's Ukhia district. Humanitarian agencies have been warning for months about the danger posed by the impending 2018 monsoon, due to start in June, to the welfare of refugees who live cheek by jowl in cramped tents on hillsides, following a mass exodus from Myanmar in 2017. Source: Fred Dufour / AFP
TWO laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize have publicly called mass violence against Rohingya Muslims in Burma (Myanmar) “genocide” after making a visit to refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh earlier this year.
Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi and Yemeni journalist Tawakkol Karman last week co-wrote an opinion piece in the prominent Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail in which they described their eyewitness accounts of the “fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world today.”
The two women visited Rohingya refugees in late February along with the Nobel Women Initiative and have vowed to fight for justice on behalf of the persecuted Muslim group. “Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw and heard,” they wrote.
“The systematic use of the most brutal and dehumanising forms of violence that we witnessed in the Bangladesh camps should awaken us all to the fact that what is happening to the Rohingya has a name: It is genocide.”
Humanitarian agencies have said that at least 687,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Rakhine State into Cox’s Bazar in since Aug 25 last year in response to so-called “clearing operations” by the Tatmadaw army.
Security forces and Buddhist vigilantes stand accused of mass killings, rape and arson in Muslim villages amid a campaign described by the UN human rights chief as a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing.
Burma’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi – herself a Nobel laureate once seen as a human rights champion – has been heavily criticised by many in the international community for failing to stop alleged atrocities against the Rohingya or defend their rights.
This picture taken on April 6, 2018, shows Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi (C), President Win Myint (R) and First Lady Cho Cho (2nd-L) taking part in reception following the swearing-in ceremony of the new government in Naypyitaw. Source: Thet Aung / AFP
Fellow laureates Malala Yousafzai and Desmond Tutu have are also among those who have publicly criticised Suu Kyi.
“More than 100 women told us how the Myanmar security forces burned villages, tortured, killed and systematically raped women and girls,” wrote Ebadi and Karman. Many medical aid organisations and rights groups have similarly documented widespread sexual violence against Rohingya girls and women.
The UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict recently added Burma’s military to a blacklist of organisations known to use sexual violence amid armed conflict, stating that rape was a “calculated tool” against the Rohingyas.
The authors also quoted Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s special envoy to Burma Bob Rae’s recent report, stating that: “the lesson of history is that genocide is not an event like a bolt of lightning. It is a process, one that starts with hate speech and the politics of exclusion, then moves to legal discrimination, then policies of removal, and then finally to a sustained drive to physical extermination.”
Rae’s report, entitled Tell them we’re human, argued that Canada should hold Burmese government officials, the military and vigilante groups accountable for committing “crimes against humanity” against the Rohingya, while arguing against sanctions against the long isolated Southeast Asian country.
“Ending the genocide against the Rohingya is a global imperative, and urgently requires robust, concrete leadership from Canada,” wrote Karman and Ebadi.
A judge ruled coffee makers, including Starbucks, had failed to show that benefits from drinking coffee outweighed cancer risks
Proposition 65 warning sign posted behind a coffee mug at a Starbucks coffee shop in Burbank, California. A judge issued a final ruling on Monday requiring coffee to carry cancer warning labels in California. Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/AP
Associated Press-Tue 8 May 2018 14.22 BST
A court ruling that gave coffee drinkers a jolt earlier this year was finalized Monday when a Los Angeles judge said coffee sold in California must carry cancer warnings.
Superior court Judge Elihu Berle said Starbucks and other roasters and retailers failed to show that benefits from drinking coffee outweighed any risks from a carcinogen that is a byproduct of the roasting process. He had tentatively made the same written decision in March.
A nonprofit group sued about 90 coffee companies, including Keurig Green Mountain and Peet’s Inc, under a state law that requires warnings on products and in places where chemicals that can cause cancer are present.
The coffee industry did not deny that the chemical acrylamide was found in coffee. But they argued it was at harmless levels and their product should be exempt from the law because the chemical results naturally from cooking necessary for flavor.
The final ruling clears the way for the Council for Education and Research on Toxics to seek a permanent injunction that would either lead to ominous warning labels or a commitment by the industry to remove the chemical from their product – as the potato chip industry did years ago when sued by the same group.
Attorney Raphael Metzger, who represents the nonprofit, said he hopes mediation will lead to some settlement of the case that has been brewing for eight years. If no agreement is reached, another phase of trial would determine civil penalties as high as $2,500 per person exposed each day since the suit was filed in 2010.
“In all the years I’ve been practicing, I’ve never had a case that got to this point,” Metzger said.
“They’ve lost all their defenses and we proved our case. The only issues left are the nature and form of the injunction and the amount of penalties to be assessed. It’s not a pretty place for them to be.”
Berle had ruled about two years ago against the industry’s best defense before issuing the tentative decision 29 March that rejected a secondary defense.
At the time, the coffee industry said it was considering all options, including appeals. It said that cancer warnings would be misleading and said numerous studies have shown health benefits of drinking coffee.
The industry and lawyers in the case did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment sent after business hours.
Sinhala officials from the Wildlife Conservation Department attacked and burnt the huts of cattle herders in Mathavanai, Batticaloa.
On the evening of April 20, five officials arrived in a vehicle and entered the homes of the cattle herders, villagers said, describing the officials as drunk.
Shouting in Sinhala, the officials attacked one of the herders, Vadivel Somalingam and arrested him.
The herders filed a complaint with the police the following day.
On April 22, the officials returned, vandalising the homes and looting belongings and food items.
What is it about World Press Freedom Day that makes those who have in the past been part of governments violently suppressing the rights of journalists tweet their vociferous support of a free media? Or those in power, responsible for blocking or banning websites arbitrarily, use a baseline of media freedom under authoritarianism as the yardstick to suggest things are much better now? On May 3, what makes us flag or recall the impunity around the murder, abduction, torture or exile of journalists, that for the rest of the year, we choose to ignore? What gives rise to the promises made on this day to never forget the sacrifices made by journalists who have been killed, when in fact, why those voices are no longer around goes unacknowledged even by colleagues? World Press Freedom Day reflects a great deal, but does it really respond to the challenges of what media freedom means in a post-truth world?
So much of what is written on May 3 every year looks back at how bad things were in a country or context. Little to no time is spent interrogating how media freedom is defined in a world where news, produced by journalists, is ranked by algorithms outside their control. And while the pushback against Silicon Valley’s global capture of social media networks came to a head this year, less now is talked about how these platforms are invaluable networks of resistance and dissent under authoritarianism. What is the ‘press’ really, for a demographic that has never bought, and will never buy, a newspaper? Sri Lanka is not at risk of losing its share of consumers who will pay to read the news anytime soon, but the model of writing for print continues unchanged even as the vectors of news and information have changed dramatically. What risks does this entail, and what potential is there for capture by news and media entrepreneurs?
These are hard questions. The output on this day is now more theatre and scripted, than any genuine introspect and interrogation. The situation is not getting any better. But perhaps we do not have the language to fully capture how broken the system is, here in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. The easy targets are an older generation of journalists, government, the patriarchy in the system, the resistance to innovation, the dependence on advertising, the lack of talent, job insecurity, the lack of independence, peer support and personal safety. But in projecting outwards and to usual suspects the many ills of media, the scrutiny is never on reader, citizen or consumer. The vociferous private complaints, the karmic resignation, the canapé fueled outrage, the heated discussion over family gatherings – these and other forms of pushback against the kind of media we have in Sri Lanka never really sets out to change anything. Complaining is never out of fashion. So instead of demanding better, more publicly, or setting up initiatives that demonstrate by doing how media can be more inclusive and incisive, it is easier to bemoan the state of affairs whilst continuing to consume precisely that which gives rise to the grief. There’s an element of hypocrisy in all this that comes to a head on May 3, as the world collectively cries out to secure everything good and great about journalism, without at the same time promoting or seeking to strengthen the means through which good journalism is actually brought to life.
It starts with us. When sexist tripe and outright gossip is published on the front page of a newspaper, readers must demand better. When a TV station vilifies an individual because of personal vendetta over and above the necessary oversight of and scrutiny around public affairs and policymaking, viewers must call out its bias. When DJs on air embrace a false accent and project the worst sort of giddy ignorance as fashionable, listeners must ask them to be replaced. When someone shares an article on Facebook visibly false, friends must call it out as such. After encountering a tweet that clearly aims to foment violence, followers or those who encounter it have the responsibility to flag, frame and report. The new, nay already well-established information and media ecosystem requires of us to be more than passive consumers. It requires of us to critically question and intelligently respond. Few do. Which makes World Press Freedom Day’s framing of problems as much a problem of a passive citizenry and consumer base, as it is about official censorship and repression or corporate bias. The story though is never around personal culpability, because blame is easier to project instead of inwardly reflect.
So instead of reading about what everyone says is what ails the media, on May 3 each year for the past couple of years, I watch Good Night, and Good Luck, a film nominated for six Oscars about American journalist Edward Murrow’s journalism at a time when the US was under the terribly violent influence of Senator McCarthy, in the 1950s. It’s a lovely movie, and not just for the acting. More recently, The Post brings to light the terrible parallels between media control under a former President and the incumbent in the US, and more broadly, the close connections those in power enjoy with those who own and publish mainstream media. These films resonate globally because the context, culture and challenges they frame, with the journalist as hero, is familiar to us. But it is in fact an outmoded and outdated model of journalism. Press freedom today, at its core, is inextricably pegged to the quality and nature of the investments we will make – that’s you and I – around conversations and content that interest us the most. If all we value is free access, we then have to countenance the fact that quality journalism which needs financial investment will suffer and die. If all we value is partisan information, then we have to acknowledge a world intolerant of difference diminishes everyone. If all we do is to wait for the media to miraculously change somehow, we must recognize the role we play in sustaining precisely what ails it, print to pixel, broadcast to blog. If all we do is to consume passively, then we must embrace the fact that content geared for the broadest possible appeal will invariably overwhelm investigative journalism of the sort we seem to only relish seeing in films.
World Press Freedom Day is anchored to journalism and journalists. It is time this day, and every day in between, goes beyond this and flags the inescapable fact that in order to truly address what is still so wrong with media as it stands, we cannot expect solutions from those who made the industry, culture and context the way it is. The thing about press freedom is that it is at the end of the day a reflection of who we are. Until we unchain ourselves, the press will never be free.
“What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself”
The above great words of Abraham Lincoln are dedicated to those who try to go after bad publicity. This peace of writing is on such personnel.
The recent developments of bombardment against the Justice system of Sri Lanka (one can says that as a part of an Agenda to tarnish the legal system of Island Nation) which brought about quite a dissent over the Judiciary and the Legal Profession, among the society, which has gone out of proportion, as Author believes. Thus, this artifact is an assessment of recent remarks made by Hon. Minister of Ranjan Ramanayake, Deputy Minister of Social Empowerment, Welfare & Kandyan Heritage, Sugandika Fernando, Nagananda Kodithuwakku – Attorneys-at-Law, Facebook and other Social media pundits, etc. which they have claimed to be themselves as whistleblowers stand for the sanctum of Judiciary.
‘One Shot’, Minster – Ranjan Ramanayake punched the first blow targeting the Judiciary and the legal fraternity, condemning that majority of Judges and the Lawyers are corrupted and blemished. The actor-turned politician who is always thrilled by the hoots of Gallery went on to the extent that 90% of Lawyers and Judges are sinful. The said stance was re-iterated and affirmed by one time custom officer and now Attorney-at-Law, Nagananda Kodithuwakku in his extensive Article published in Colombo Telegraph dated 03-09-2017. To wit, that is an article to justify the utterances made by the aforesaid Minister.
Then, couple of weeks ago, the scandalous video of a Lawyer called Sugandhika Fernando came from abroad went viral in social media, making more than 74 000-viewers (there about 2-3 edited versions of the same, the writer only refers to the prime video footage, altogether the number of viewers may be well over 100 000) as at this date. Afortiori, the said speech given by the said Lawyer called Sugandika has been circulating and sharing in the Facebook over thousands of times which cannot be counted. On the other hand, it is evident from the Youtube that the said viral video had been viewed by more people in Sri Lanka beating the number of viewers of Iraj’s song of peeling Banans and feeding drumsticks to a man personates as Victor Rathnayake couple of months ago.
Out of those two, the former video was against one pillar of the Government, as we all call it, the Judiciary which is sine qua nonof present Nation State concept. That could have been the reason that general masses pose an extra penchant over such a video which teases the anarchist mindset hidden in every man. Some nihilists voiced their heart out demanding independence and unchastised Judiciary after seen Sugandhika’s heroic speech. The video became the talking point from bar table of a tavern to Bar table in court house. Some social media champions were opining that such a comment made by a person in the same fraternity would elaborate the lawlessness in this Country. To some, that is where the foreign judges are required to iron out such follies made by our own Lawyers and the Hon. Judges. For some, that reflects the break down of our legal system.
If a judge is lying in the chamber due to a hangover in the office hours and the ‘Mudliyar’ attends there into, if women Lawyers sleep with the Policemen and if each male Lawyer goes with the female spouse of his Divorce case is assumed as true, divulging of such a state of affair by a lady Lawyer, shouldn’t her be considered as a national heroine? Who would undermine such a bold speech which is an act of sheer courage? If I am not a Lawyer, who anticipates nothing but better Sri Lanka, Sugandhika is the Margret Thatcher to me, Nagananda is the Justinian to me, Ranjan Ramanayake is the Abraham Lincoln (or Incredible Hulk) in my world. They are the only hope and only living disciples of fountain of justice, or the ultimate Judiciary!
If what those trio preach is true, are there no good Lawyers and good judges in Sri Lanka?
Being a Lawyer, giving due credit to those 3-self-proclaimed-stoolpigeons, Author sees no wrong in some comments made by Miss Sugandika or Mr. Nangananda in their videos and writings. For instance, touting done by Lawyers, Policemen solicit Lawyers, some outrageous advices sent by the Hon. Attorney General, delay of litigation, ugly treatments upon Junior Lawyers by Seniors, childlike judgments written by the judges etc.
But, I vehemently disagree with the comments made by the above said three, inter alia, all female Lawyers bed with policemen, all judges are wicked and corrupted like ‘Lenin Rathnayake’ who might grant bail for a husband at the ransom of sex bribe by the wife, all male Lawyers are getting cases solicited by OICs and Police Constables, Judges pass their judgments for financial offers, every divorce Lawyer ends up in a hotel room with his female Client, each male Lawyer is a pervert who seduces his Junior female Lawyers who work under, depriving a Client from a Fee Memo is as evil as Genocide, and what not.
Having carefully watched the much scandalous video in Sugandhika by the Author, it is not inaccurate to say that nowhere in the said nearly 1-hour long speech, Miss Sugandhika ventured to state a single virtue of a Lawyer who deserves some merits. That is where Author figures out the Agenda of this female Lawyer. Knowing that the slanders made by her is relevant to 5% or 10% of those who in the legal practice, she was shrewd enough not to say one word to exclude the rest of the innocent 90% or the 95% of Lawyers and or Judges who may have high moral standards. In a nutshell, Lady Sugandika had no intentions to single out one Lawyer in Sri Lanka (may be except Mr. Naganada) who might have some rectitude left. Instead of that she was conscious enough leave no stone unturned to strip off the Lady Justice leaving nothing but a state of despair.
There was an acting Judge she referred to have been struggling from a hangover in the Judge’s Chamber in work hours where the ‘Mudliyar’ is seen attended to put some lime on the head and feet of the said Judge. It is sad that she could not name that Judge (or the Lawyer). She was in the opinion that one Judge named Shivantha Manchnayake had once refused her Application based on want of evidence, thereby, in the next time she humiliated the Judge by asking, “I don’t know your Honour’s SATISFACTORY LEVEL”. This is a disgraceful and despicable aspersion which needs to be atoned. Having done such reprehensible act, she has the audacity to talk big and say that she made the said Judge to step down from the Bench twice. Is that SO valiant effort to placed a judge into such embarrassment in his own Courts? Should the judiciary in the country be laughed at as such? In the said anecdotes, she was trying to illustrate that the said judge was corrupted not to give the judgment in Sugandhika’s favour. But, the law as the Author knows, judges have every right to dismiss cases, if they are not satisfied of the evidence led before them. This is the reason that we have a system called Appeals and the Author is pretty sure that Sugandika must very well aware of thatmodus operandi.
Nevertheless, we see, at the beginning of the practice, some armature junior lawyers take cases personal and fight with the judges thinking that Judge is against them. (Author does not wish to find the correctness of Mr. Shivantha Manchnayake’s Order as the Author is not privy to facts of the case. However, judges are empowered of dismissing cases). In such a backdrop, talking filth in the court house (sexual satisfactory level of the judge is the innuendo), against the presiding Judge, being a lady Lawyer, is appalling.
The question of party discipline /indiscipline provides a window to an understanding of some of the changing dynamics of Sri Lanka’s political party system at present.
by Jayadeva Uyangoda-
( May 6, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) For a student of political institutions in Sri Lanka, things happening within political parties are great material for reflection and analysis.
It appears that our political parties today are not what used to be a few decades ago. The presidential system, the system of proportional representation, changes in value framework in society, shifting class bases of political power, and persistence of coalition politics seem to have contributed to what one may call reshaping of the nature, dynamics, and cultures of political parties as institutions of democracy.
Party Indiscipline
The question of party discipline /indiscipline provides a window to an understanding of some of the changing dynamics of Sri Lanka’s political party system at present.
When we look at what we might call internal crises of both, the UNP and SLFP during the past two-to-three years, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that these two parties are no longer governed by the old cultures of ‘inner party discipline’ and ‘party loyalty.’ Indiscipline and weak loyalty with impunity seem to be a culture of party governance tolerated with indifference within both the UNP and SLFP.
SLFP’s Record
Let us briefly look at what has been happening to the SLFP since November 2014. The General Secretary of the party staged a dramatic defection to the Opposition one night in November 2014 to become the Opposition’s presidential candidate against his own party leader. His party membership was suspended, but with little or no effect on his position within the party. Two months later he became the party’s leader by virtue of the fact that he was elected as the country’s President. This is an extremely interesting instance of how a grave violation of party indiscipline and disloyalty has been rewarded in thrilling form under unusually unusual political circumstances!
Then, in January 2015, President Sirisena, as the SLFP’s new leader, brought his party to be a co-partner of the coalition government with the UNP, signing a formal agreement for a unity government. More than half of the SLFP MPs in Parliament defied the party leader’s decision, organized themselves informally into a ‘joint opposition’ in Parliament, and began at act as the de facto parliamentary opposition to the government headed by its own party leader. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa continues to give leadership to this joint opposition, with no disciplinary consequences either for him or nearly 50 of his MPs. When one looks at the whole issue from the conventional perspective of party discipline, this is a situation that warrants to be called bizarre.
Then came the local government election held last February. Hundreds of members of the SLFP contested under a new, rival party called Sri Lanka Podujana Peramnuna (SLPP), and many of them even won. No one seems interested in even finding out whether such open defiance of party discipline should bring to these errant members any disciplinary consequences. The topic of party discipline is totally absent in the otherwise intense debates among different factions of the SLFP.
The current episode of 16 SLFP Ministers who are reported to be joining the Joint Opposition in the coming few days is another addition to this new trend in redefining party loyalty as a domain of extreme uncertainty. It is not very clear which side of the aisle they actually belonged to. They seem to find oscillation between the Government and the Opposition an enjoyable game in a situation where the line of demarcation between the Government and Opposition in Parliament is also blurred.
UNP’s Record
The story of the break down of party discipline in the UNP is only slightly better. None of its disgruntled MPs or leading members has so far, since 2015, formed a rival party, or defected to the enemy camp. Yet, several MPs and Ministers continue to show scant respect for the party leader as well as the idea of party discipline with impunity.
There has been an open revolt against the party leader for months, with several Ministers, Deputy/State Ministers and MPs openly criticising, nay attacking, sometimes virulently, their party leader who is also their Prime Minister. And some of them have even been rewarded at last week’s reshuffle of the Ministerial portfolios, giving a lie to the old practice of a reshuffle as a mechanism to punish those who violate party discipline.
Meanwhile, one young MP the other day even posed an open challenge to the party hierarchy suggesting that she and several junior MPs had decided to boycott events attended by the leader as a mark of protest against his refusal to initiate substantial leadership reforms.
Unusual Things
Thus, in both the UNP and the SLFP, two unusual things have been happening. Party discipline has severely broken down, and the party leaders are unable to maintain the traditional disciplinary norms of party organisation. This stands in sharp contrast to the Sri Lankan tradition of strict party discipline maintained even during the recent past by leaders such as J. R. Jayewardene, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, R. Premadasa and Mahinda Rajapaksa.
What is most interesting is that even a leader like Mahinda Rajapaksa who controlled the SLFP under an iron fist could not prevent a debilitating defection three years ago, suggesting a general trend within both the SLFP and the UNP.
That trend is the simmering discontent at all levels of the party which the party leadership cannot address or contain by conventional means of securing loyalty to the party and the leader through internal party mechanisms. The UNP leadership is now facing this particular problem.
Does it mean that modern day party members have acquired a certain degree of autonomy from the party organization, even acquiring the capacity to function free of a regime of strict party discipline? Yes, that seems to be the case, particularly, with regard to those who have access to elected office.
Recent Changes
This invites us to look somewhat academically, at the recent changes in Sri Lanka’s political party system. The research conducted by Dr. Pradeep Peiris of Colombo University, a few years ago as part of his doctoral work, provides important clues to some significant shifts in the nature and dynamics of Sri Lanka’s political parties. Among his findings are the following:
(a) Major political parties in Sri Lanka no longer function on the foundation of well-structured national organisational networks on the ground that are controlled and managed by the party hierarchy, as it was the case in the past.
(b) Party organisations built locally are the most important organisational entities of the parties. This gives a greater leverage to local level party organisers, who will eventually become Provincial Councillors, MPs and Ministers, in party politics than in the previous system where the national level structures had held sway.
(c) Thus, the rise of the local party networks, built on the personality, resources and the ideological flexibility of the local organisers, over national organisational structures is the most significant new development in the organisational cultures of both, the UNP and the SLFP. This may be observed in other parties too, to greater or lesser degrees.
(d) What exists at the local level as ‘party organisations’ are primarily informal and flexible networks of electoral support and patronage. These are usually established by individual MPs and office seekers through personal links with the electorate, on the basis of family, caste, patronage and other ‘non-party’ as well as ‘non-political’ ties.
(e) The party affiliation thus provides only a tenuous basis for party loyalty. Thus, extra-party loyalties built around individuals work side by side with party and ideological loyalties, often threatening the latter.
Crucial Shifts
These findings indicate that there have been crucial shifts in the relationship between individual politicians – Provincial Councillors, MPs, and Ministers – and their political parties: Parties have less control over them now than in the past. If we study individual cases of politicians whose record of party loyalty and discipline is marked by abiding uncertainty, vacillation and even what may be called ‘unprincipled opportunism’, we can see how the new logic of party indiscipline and disloyalty has been working as a distinct pattern in party politics in most of our political parties, big or small. Party loyalty then is a renewable virtue that is interspersed with ruptures, betrayal, and renewal. This relative autonomy of party functionaries vis a vis party bosses has also been made possible by two other structural factors, (a) the prevailing electoral system of proportional representation, and (b) the persistence of multi-party coalition governments. These two factors have made loyalty to the party fragile and party affiliation unstable, as repeatedly demonstrated during the People’ Alliance government of 1994-2001, the UNP government of 2001-2003 and the two UPFA governments during 2004 and 2014.
The Supreme Court interpretation of the constitutional provisions governing the consequences of crossovers under the PR system during the PA government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga inaugurated a new pattern of party disloyalty with no consequences. It actually allowed penalty-free cross overs from the opposition to the ruling party and back. A few beneficiaries of that Supreme Court ruling are holding top positions in the current coalition government.
Today, party bosses are reluctant to take disciplinary action against errant MPs and Ministers thanks to that particular binding interpretation of the PR law. It has in fact pushed the practice of disciplinary action in political parties into a zone of uncertainty, making institutional cohesion of Sri Lanka’s political parties uncertain and fragile.
Coalition Impact
Meanwhile, the recurrence of coalition governments under the Presidential system has added another fascinating element to the fragility of political institutions. Its most visible expression is the erosion of the theory and practice of collective responsibility of the Cabinet.
This is a process that began during the mid-1990s when a fragile coalition of several parties, — the People’s Alliance – survived as a government with a very slim parliamentary majority. That is also the period in which the breakdown of party discipline and the disregard for the principle of collective responsibility of the Cabinet worked together to germinate some significant new trends in Sri Lanka’s political institutions. What we observe at present is the fruition and maturity of those trends.
New Creatures
So, the point that interests students of political institutions is that Sri Lanka’s political parties have become new creatures with some unusually new characteristics. Monitoring these new changes requires not only scholarly vigilance, but also detachment from our old images of what democratic political institutions are.
Prime Minister and United National Party Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe addressing the UNP May Day Rally at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo yesterday. Pictures by Rukmal Gamage and Hirantha Gunathillaka
A UNP which will rule for the next 20-30 years and not just five, was the promise UNP Leader and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe made to his supporters as the party commemorated May Day at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium yesterday.
Last week the UNP had taken over the Ministry of Social Empowerment and the Prime Minister who had promised quick action noted that they would bring in the Samurdhi Bank under the control of the Finance Ministry and Central Bank to avoid rampant corruption in the system.
“Yesterday, I looked into the Samurdhi, the previous minister had spent 52 percent of the allocation in three months. He was allocated Rs 25 billion for one year!”
A Samurdhi that would be apolitical and operated under the District Secretariat was thus promised in future.
“Similar to government action to resolve the trifecta; Fertiliser, Samurdhi and Jobs which they believed had led to their losses at the last Local Government election, the Prime Minister also informed his supporters that the long awaited party reforms would take place,
“On the 70th anniversary of the Party, I promised to create new leadership within the party. I have done that,”said the leader to a jubilant crowd as he referred to the new appointments to the UNP leadership.
J.R.created three leaders to take over after him, but, we lost all of them. I have the spare wheel, the third wheel in the three-wheeler,”the Premier said. “In 1994 when I took over, people said the party would die off after me.
We had not only lost our leaders but many of you lost your family members over the years, killed because they worked for the party,” the Prime Minister said.
Thus his vision of an unbroken UNP government he said could only be achieved by building the second tier of leadership, “More new officers would be appointed soon. I can’t take it forward forever,” he said.
A complete restructuring of the party was promised in the party’s journey to achieve long term power.
“All of you here now have to work as a team. If you can work as a team, the UNP can last for the next 20 years. The responsibility to bring victory to the party, I hand over to each one of you. I want to create a small Sirikotha in every village”. “I have laid the foundation now get ready to run,” stressed the UNP leader.
The Prime Minister noted that since taking over power, the government had steered a difficult path to overcome the debt trap it had been put in by the previous regime. Whilst also winning over the international community, he said they had spent time encouraging investments, establishing the rule of the law and laying the necessary foundation for future growth.
“The drought, floods and even the collapse of the garbage dump affected us. But we did not let the economy fail despite the setbacks, we can now repay all our loans in 2018-2019,” the Prime Minister added. However, admitting that they have failed to fulfil the aspirations of their supporters, the Prime Minister reiterated that the government would provide employment to graduates and train unskilled workers so that they can find employment in the private sector.
“The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) is not a party.We have to see why we lost the last Local Government Elections. We have come through even worse defeats, in 2015 no one thought we would win”.
“The UNP today is the only party which can provide the country with stability,” Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said.
The head of the Financial Crimes Investigations Division (FCID) reaches the mandatory retirement age of 60 next week with attempts to extend his services despite legal obstacles, official sources said.
Senior Deputy Inspector-General Ravi Waidyalankara submitted his papers to retire on his 60th birthday on May 14, but there were moves to grant an extension, officials said.
Inspector-General Pujith Jayasundara last month wrote to the Police Commission recommending that Waidyalankara’s retirement be accepted as there was no provision to grant him an extension.
Two senior officers had bene given extensions beyond the mandatory retirement age, but both had unblemished service records.
They are Deputy Inspector-General S. W. Wickremasinghe of Prime Minister’s security unit and Senior Superintendent R. P. Jayatillaka of the President’s security.
Both were re-employed on contract basis for one year.
However, IGP Jayasundara told the Police Commission that in Waidyalankara’s case there were two pending investigations against him — one by the SIU or the Special Investigation Unit and the other by the Bribery Commission (CIABOC).
The Commission has also been told that four senior officers had bene denied service extensions recently because they were still facing disciplinary inquiries at the time of reaching the mandatory retirement age.
Senior DIG Waidyalankara was the head of the FCID from its inception and is regarded as a capable officer. However, making an exception and extending his services could set a precedent for others in similar circumstances.
The FCID has been investigating a large number of high profile corruption cases.
Michelle Nichols-MAY 8, 2018
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By Ashan Nanayakkara –
