TRUTH, LIES AND MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA

by Sarath de Alwis-5 August, 2018

Sauce for the goose: Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Chinese President Xi Jingping inspecting a 3D model of the Colombo Port City in 2014 after inking the deal to build the brand new metropolis on land reclaimed from the ocean facing Galle Face, Colombo. The original agreement signed between Sri Lanka and China provided 20 hectares of free hold land in the newly reclaimed city to China Harbour Engineering Corporation, owned by the Chinese Government. The new Government renegotiated that contract and changed the terms to 20 hectares granted to CHEC on a 99 year lease basis in 2015. In 2011 President Rajapaksa's Government sold 10 acres of prime seafront property at Galle Face to the Hong-Kong based leisure group, Shangri La, where the Ministry of Defence complex. The land was sold outright on a free-hold basis, rather than on a long-term lease

The former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has warned buyers of our national assets that he would review those deals when returned to power.

He has asserted most forcefully, that the current government had no mandate to sell national assets. He has vehemently condemned the “authoritarian manner” adopted by the Government in leasing out the sea port in Hambantota and the airport in Mattala- the outstanding national assets that he built for us after ending a debilitating war.

Mahinda Rajapaksa is outstandingly non-moral. He does not utter falsehoods. He does not speak the truth either. He manufactures facts. He is a strange creature, who lives in the world where knowledge exists on sufferance.

On reading the former president’s brave declarations in the print media the next day, this writer was reminded of that eloquent opening passage in Friedrich Nietzsche’s tract on “Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense.”

Nietzsche opens his unravelling of truth and lies with a beautiful fable.

‘Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing.

That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die.’

The German philosopher devised the allegory to explain the conduct of humans such as our former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Nietzsche then proceeds to explain how aimless and arbitrary human nature could turn out to be.

Nietzche devised this allegory to explain how the theatre of truth unfolds in the human mind. The truth is only a part of the process of thinking and knowing.

Hannah Arendt in recent memory helped us resolve the conundrum of truth even better. In her incisive work “Life of the Mind” she identifies the vital difference between thinking and knowing. “The need of reason is not inspired by the quest for truth but by the quest for meaning.”

Undoubtedly the deep-sea port at Hambantota is a national asset. By stretching our imagination to maximum permissible lengths, we may even label the Mattala airport as a national asset. They are however, assets acquired by heavy borrowing with the lenders breathing down our necks.

This incoherent government has singularly failed to explain in simple common-sense language why we had to lease these two ‘national assets’ to ease our debt servicing burden.

That allows our former President to excel in what he does best- manufacture of truth and fact.

What is truth? The Nietzsche the German philosopher dismantles truth in to identifiable components.

Truth is “the sum of human relations rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding”

We have underestimated Mahinda Rajapaksa. He is the true discoverer of ‘non-moral truth’ in our midst.

Can we call him a liar? Not that easy. Not that simple. The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, to make something unreal to appear as real. Our man does the reverse. He makes the real in to the unreal.

A man can say ‘I am patriot ‘when his real intent is to acquire that designation to alleviate some other immediate concern far removed from the wellbeing of the nation or the motherland.

The liar by means of arbitrary substitutions and reversal of events manufactures his own versions of truth. Mahinda Rajapaksa is the President who ended the war. Believability is an asset he claims just as he claims the sea port and the airport he built on money borrowed on exorbitantly high interest rates are assets.

He takes care to warn possible buyers of the two so-called assets and not lessees of the two ports. He owes some allegiance to his benefactors. His use of the third person plural in his folksy Sinhala idiom is both deliberate and deceptive.

Knowing and sensing lies is not possible if we are blinded by the charisma of the liberator and redeemer Mahinda Rajapaksa. Patriotic pride is the fog over the eyes of a gullible people. Deception then becomes the natural consequence of that false national pride.

Confronting this profoundly false, make believe world of fake patriots is not easy. The Mahinda ‘ Mafiocracy’ is only a new local incarnation of a process that has numerous precedents in human history.

Deception, lying, deluding, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention are not new phenomena.

With the thought that Mahinda won the war that nobody could win before him a good 40% of our electorate willingly permit themselves to be deceived in their dreams every night and in their awakening yawns every morning. 

‘Overcrowding impedes control of drug, mobile phone use in prisons’ - Galle prison suptd.

Galle Central Special Correspondent-Saturday, August 4, 2018

The control of drug and mobile phone use within the prisons premises is difficult owing to overcrowding. The number of prisoners have increased by six fold in comparison to that of the actual number of prisoners that can be accommodated in jails, Galle Prison Superintendent Jagath Chandana Weerasinghe disclosed.

He was speaking at the Galle District Coordinating Committee (DCC) Meeting held at the Galle District Secretariat recently.

“The Galle Prisons can accommodate only 270 prisoners. However, we get an average of over 900 inmates regularly and sometimes the number exceeds 1200. As a result of the extreme congestion within the prisons, a great number of problems have cropped up,” he said.

“Among them the lack of sanitary facilities for the increasing numbers of prisoners is a serious impediment.

Furthermore, numerous administrative complications are posed due to the shortage of human and physical resources,” he further said.

Nearly sixty five per cent of the total number of inmates have been convicted over drug related offences,” he added. 

Blood thirsty Padeniya‘s doctors alias Draculas lust for blood again !

(Lanka e News -04.Aug.2018, 10.00PM) The mafia of Padeniya’s doctors alias draculas who remained  dormant for a  while  from their blood thirsty activities because of the opposition mounted by the people had again started their lust for blood of patients again !

This doctor mafia  staged a strike on the  3rd compromising the precious lives  of the helpless hapless patients despite their duty under oath to protect and rescue the patients .

 Every profession in the world has the  right to strike because it is a right to enable them to win their just demands. However the Padeniya doctor alias Dracula mafia in Sri Lanka stages strikes not to win justifiable demands of theirs but rather on matters which do not concern their profession at all. That is when the state is signing a useful profitable trade  agreement  with another state. Believe it or not ! this mafia due to  its crazy mania is staging strikes against the trade agreement SL is signing with Singapore. Their objection is , because Singapore doctors are coming to SL , the rights of these maniacal self centered rascally doctors are being deprived.  One reason is :if a doctor draws a  salary of 4 to 4.5 million (in SL rupees) in Singapore is to come to SL for a low  meager salary with minimum facilities, he is a mental patient  and  not a doctor.  

The health sector of Singapore is so advanced that the salary payments and facilities are  high so much so that even nurses of the state health service (NHS)  of England (where the head office of Lanka e News is located) who enjoy all the facilities there , are now   most anxious to work in Singapore  after throwing away their jobs in England.  

In such circumstances , if such Singapore doctors are to come to work in SL capitulating  to the mafia of Padeniya’s Dracula doctors , those doctors must either be insane or have lost their senses of course. 

Let us assume , even for some mad reason the Singapore doctors arrive in SL for employment , surely that is going to be greatly beneficial and not at all harmful to the country .

When the rich Sri Lankans  travel to Singapore for medical treatment  wasting our foreign exchange and spending colossal sums of money, won’t those  expenses be curtailed if the Singapore doctors come to SL ?

No matter what contention Padeniya mafia advances in their defense , those are the same as or worse than the grounds cited by these moronic demonic doctors earlier on when they objected to the Indian ambulance service in SL.

In any event it is crystal clear , these bloodthirsty Doctor Draculas who  are striking ostensibly citing  the trade agreement are truly having other evil  ulterior motives. It is to bring back the corrupt blue brigand Rajapakses back to power . It is obvious they struck work on the  3rd because they are in league with the corrupt criminal Rajapakses  who staged a Janabala protest on the  2nd. By now it is well known the medical profession in SL has been reduced to the level of a group of  pavement idlers by this Padeniya mafia owing to wasting their official time on the pavements  staging meaningless senseless protests to the detriment of the patients and the nation.

These Doctor Draculas had presented a list of demands to justify their unjustifiable strike . The health minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne however had furnished the following answers to those …

The GMOA had said , the Vat applicable to doctors which was 12 % has been raised to 24 %

In fact , the Vat levy has been raised to 24 % only in respect of doctors earning more than Rs. 350,000.00 per month. Hence the  same  12% levy still applies to those doctors earning below Rs. 350,000.00 per month.The announcement that the Vat has been increased to 24 % is a baseless allegation therefore  .

The GMOA alleges the Vat Levy of 15 % imposed on  private hospitals is to impose tax burdens on the people .On the contrary , since last month , the Vat levy which applied to private hospitals had been totally withdrawn.A trade union  like  the GMOA being unaware of this fact  is a matter for deep regret .Because the government has completely withdrawn the Vat applicable to hospitals , the Vat levy attaching to patients is inapplicable whereby the patients are granted a relief.  

Therefore it is obvious this  unjustifiable strike of the GMOA  is not in the interests of the nation .

It is worthy of note , the government has decided to reduce the indirect taxes which are burdening the ordinary  people. It is with this objective  in view it is collecting taxes from the high income earners.

It is an incontrovertible fact owing to the unjustifiable and unreasonable strikes staged by the Doctor mafia  based on their inordinate greed for filthy lucre, and self centered interests which are their true hidden overriding motives , a large number of patients  had to face abysmal suffering in the past.  Based on reports reaching Lanka e News , a number of private organizations are now getting ready to take  legal measures on behalf of the rights of the hapless and helpless patients . It is therefore best if the Padeniya’s  doctor Dracula mafia in their own interests stops its cruel activities which compromise lives of patients,  before it is too late.   

It is hoped the realization will first and foremost dawn on these doctor draculas , there  can be no  progress for the country and the people with such a GMOA at the helm of which there is  a pack of idiots with GOMA (cow dung) in their heads . Hence  they must first mend  their ways giving priority to that rectification instead of staging stupid senseless strikes.  

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by     (2018-08-04 17:16:17)

SRI LANKA DOCTORS’ ASSOCIATION (GMOA) HEAD THREATENS JOURNALISTS WITH “TRAITORS” LIST

05/08/2018

President of the Government Medical Officers’ Association, Dr Anuruddha Padeniya, incensed by the fact that he was forced to admit that only about half of the private practitioners had participated in the token strike, retorted that the trade union was currently in the process of compiling a ‘traitors’ list of journalists working against the interests of the motherland.

“We have created a point scheme. In Psychiatry, there is a method to identify people who betray the country. We are going to launch this list and keep it online with the materials you publish. So we can display that you are carrying out a contract,” he threatened a reporter over the telephone last Friday. The journalist reported that the article had not even been published yet, but Dr Padeniya responded that there was ‘no point’, because journalists at the Sunday Observer were supportive of selling the country. “You should be ashamed of doing such a job. If I were you, I would stay home and cultivate rather than work for a paper like yours,” the GMOA president charged during the conversation.

“I know you must be recording this. That is good. Let others in your newspaper also listen to this,” Dr Padeniya added.

Reporter’s Note:Sunday Observer reached out to Dr Padeniya because this newspaper believes in obtaining a cross-section of voices about any social issue it covers. His views and the GMOA demands are reflected in the article on this page, and we reject his disparaging comments about our reporting and our profession. While we respect the GMOA’s right to strike work to secure their rights as a trade union, as journalists at a national newspaper, we have a bounden duty to represent the public, their views and difficulties in any story we cover. In this article, and all others, this is all we seek to do and we will not be deterred in this endeavour by threats from the GMOA or any other trade union. The decision of who is traitor, and who is patriot, is one we will leave to our readers. ]
Sunday Observer 

Future of Employees Provident Fund

 Monday, 6 August 2018

Today, there is an ongoing discussion about the EPF Sri Lanka, focusing on many related aspects. The main concern was the alleged swindling of its funds in association with the CBSL Treasury Bond Scam. Currently, the working class organisations are debating about the advantages of a proposal by the Government to appoint fund managers to man its investment portfolio. In this context, it is relevant and important to pay attention to the issues in a ‘watch out’ sense, mindful of the p’s and q’s.

My last article aimed to create a sense of awareness of the possibility of utilising the Provident Fund system as the bedrock of a social security system integrated with a social insurance scheme that targets issues such as education, subsidised housing and medical care for the broad masses with a high focus on housing development. However, the safe existence of the Provident Fund and ensuring its primary objective of providing retirement benefits to the employed population, who happen to be the stakeholders, as contributors to this fund should take preference and prominence in any order of priority to improve the efficiency of the system.

There is no doubt that the benefits accrued by the members have to be maximised in order to make the final withdrawal amount sufficient to support their retirement life period. The Provident Fund is a defined contributory system where the administrators are required to maintain a one-to-one relationship with the members, ensuring good governance while keeping accounting records of the members’ contribution and withdrawals. The incomes from the investment of funds accrue to the members in proportion to their contributions. Due to a growing large number of contributors, as well as the varying active and dormant memberships, the administration of the fund has to be modified to provide for an individualised identification system coupled with the maintenance of an ID-based accounting system. Many amendments effected subsequently from time to time, increasing and broadening the scope of coverage, etc., have increased the complexity of the operations of the fund. The speedy release of balances at the time of withdrawals is a service that has to be provided by the administrators without any undue delays and complications arising out of documentation problems.

The implementation of the Act regarding the coverage of employers, registration of workers, penalisation of errant employers who do not contribute as well as those who do not remit the deducted contributions of the employees, imposing penalties and instituting legal action, etc., fall within the responsibility of the labour department while the monetary administration is entrusted with the Monetary Board. During the early days of the enactment in 1958, the legislators had a clear foresight with regard to the possibilities and conflicts of mismanagement of the Fund. They thought that the Central Bank established under the Monetary Law Act, which was in force at the time, being charged with the duty of securing economic and price stability, and financial system stability with a view to encouraging and promoting the development of the productive resources of Sri Lanka, would be a safe haven for a huge fund of this nature. They expected the safety of the funds to be in the hands of an organ of the Government which would be responsible and accountable to the Public.

Mismanagement of public funds, which have led to scandals and mistrust of the governments in force, has occurred in many places. It has happened here, too, both before the country started looking for good governance as well as after the establishment of so-called good governance. But, any step conjectured to be in the wrong direction according to speculations arising out of bad experiences cannot be ignored in taking crucial decisions, especially at times when people are highly suspicious about the ongoing happenings. Unfortunately, our own experiences in the most recent past and during previous regimes are shockingly disturbing for us to convincingly consent to any indiscriminate and hastily determined policies.

We saw attempts and signalling of policy announcements about the need for the creation of a wealth fund amalgamating the large captive funds of the Government by people such as the former Governor of the CBSL who is now a fugitive. The source of such policy announcements itself is sufficient for the stakeholders of the EPF to be scared and cautious because we have seen what they have done to the PF while it remained in their hands. There were manoeuvres to shift staff in key decision-making places in the EPF to perpetrate fraudulent transactions. They have now come to light and were established with evidence before a Commission of inquiry. Instead of the EPF being in the hands of a safe haven, we see that it had fallen into the devil’s hands. The people who were supposed to be the custodians of the Fund, specially handpicked to be appointed to such places, have wreaked havoc.

There are many other instances where the EPF and other captive funds were misused for covering up large-scale frauds. The pivotal and fundamental factor has been the availability of the monies of these funds and the control of these funds coming under a group of unscrupulous swindlers. Therefore, let the working class of this country, the guardian angels of the employee contributors to the EPF, take a closer look and evaluate the ramifications in the proposal now brought up by some sections of the Government to hand over the management of the EPF to external fund managers and the creation of a wealth fund similar to the Temasek model in Singapore.

Much can be stated about the Temasek as well as many other wealth and sovereign funds and the fate of their management under fund-managing specialists. There are serious concerns about administrative expenses and the management costs, which ironically remain undisclosed similar to the salaries and perks of some contracted executives and specialists appointed to certain SOEs in this country. Some of the model funds cited as examples are being managed as PONZI schemes. Therefore, let us be cautious. Put the house in order first. There are many developments that have to be effected in the EPF, including the relationship between the administration and the management (Labour department and the CBSL). The taxation of the EPF funds at one point, the taxation of the beneficiaries at another point, and the taxation of the employee at the PAYE level, and finally, subjecting the savings element to further tax are matters that need to be addressed immediately before thinking of external fund managers. There is no attention focused on these matters.

The EPF of Sri Lanka should be managed effectively. A Trust comprising of member representatives and statutory officials appointed by the Government who are professionally qualified  to handle such a portfolio would certainly be a more accountable and responsible body to handle the investments and generate good returns safely to enhance the benefits from the  fund. There are many good governance examples of EPF, and some pitfalls and failures of fund management experienced elsewhere, which I wish to bring as examples in detail in a future article.

Former President CBEU, Chairman BOC, Chairman NG and JA, and currently Councillor CMC

Human Trafficking via BIA

 AUG 06 2018

The Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) has now become a hotspot for human trafficking according to Immigration and Emigration Controller Nihal Ranasinghe.

The Immigration and Emigration Controller has made the startling revelation at a time efforts have been strengthened to curb human trafficking globally.

Sri Lanka was a popular spot for human trafficking when the war was in progress over nine years ago. Human traffickers benefitted in a big way by sending civilians from the war-torn Northern and Eastern Provinces and from other parts of the island for nearly three decades.

The human traffickers had an extensive network to extract money in millions of rupees from those who fled the country illegally during the turbulent days.

However, it is shocking to know that despite the stringent measures adopted internationally to deal with human trafficking, the matter has become a big global problem with the BIA remaining the favourite destination of the human traffickers.

However, it is good to know that the Immigration and Emigration Controller has come forward to work out a new strategy to deal with human trafficking from Sri Lanka.

According to the Immigration and Emigration Controller the new strategy which will be introduced to curb human trafficking from Sri Lanka will have a broader network comprising the Immigration and Emigration Department, the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), intelligence units of the Police and the Armed Forces and the Civil Aviation Authority.

The new strategy is timely and it should be executed in a manner developing proper contacts with other international agencies which have flexed their muscles to thwart human trafficking globally.
Ignorance and negligence of the Immigration and Emigration Department has led Sri Lanka becoming a safe haven for human traffickers with BIA becoming a hotspot for their activities.

The human traffickers thrive on the unstable political and economic situation of a country.
Recent reports on those who seek employment opportunities in Middle East countries indicate how far the innocence of those job seekers has been exploited.

According to Immigration and Emigration Department a recent US State Department report has pointed out that Sri Lankans are among a large number of others from various countries that have ended up in forced labour camps in countries stretching from New Zealand to Egypt and elsewhere.

So, the US State Department report has not only highlighted the plight of the Sri Lankans exploited by the human traffickers, the report also remains an eye-opener to realize how far the Sri Lankan officials remain ignorant about the human trafficking issue.

Therefore, the new strategy to be introduced by the Immigration and Emigration Department should be designed to monitor every aspect of the human trafficking from the grass roots level and coordinate with other law enforcement agencies to nip the menace in the bud.

Apart from strengthening the measures to curb human trafficking activities taking place via airports and the seaports of the island, the Immigration and Emigration Department should also obtain intelligence reports on big time human trafficking operatives and keep track of their accomplices in the country.

From the reports available with regard to human trafficking, it is observed that Sri Lanka is also a centre for human trafficking carried out from other countries in South Asia.
According to the SLBFE, two hundred cases of human trafficking have been detected annually.

However, the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment has pointed out that thousands of persons are known to be leaving the country on bogus claims and the Immigration and Emigration officials should be more vigilant over these illegal departures.

Therefore, the new strategy to be adopted by the Immigration and Emigration Department with the coordination of other law enforcement agencies in the country must ensure that human trafficking from the island is thwarted once and for all.

A greener future

Lionel Wijesiri-Saturday, August 4, 2018

For the people in Sri Lanka, forests have always played an important role. They have shaped our culture, our history, our sagas and our traditional songs. Their diversity has provided vital products and amenities to our society including quality habitat for wildlife, biodiversity of plant and animal communities, clean water and aesthetic benefits.

It is in this background we need to take a look at the latest report on our forest cover. Statistics reveal that our closed canopy natural forest cover in the country, which stood at 80.0% of land area until the turn of the century had dwindled to less than 29% by 2016.

President Maithripala Sirisena is quite concerned about the situation. Addressing the FAO parley in Rome recently, he said that the government is committed to plant five million trees by 2020 and increase the forest cover to 32 per cent.

If the President’s bold challenge is to be fulfilled, the writer believes, four initial requirements must be met before the campaign starts: First, identify the land to be reforested; second, arrange for the required budget and third, seek suitable technology needed and fourth, canvass people's maximum support.

Land

Areas that need to be brought under tree cover will necessarily be mainly government land. This would include degraded and scrub forest lands, waste and unused lands, grazing lands and pasture, river canal and tank banks, along national and state highways, village roads, etc.
Technology

Planting five million trees with two years needs high technology.

Today, there are many advanced systems used in replanting. One is the usage of drones. A drone, mounted with an air gun, will be able to seed a hectare of deforested land in less than half an hour – a job that would take four people using conventional tree-planting methods more than six days.

Thailand and Japan are utilising this system. The scientists are now improving the structure of the “delivery vehicle” – how to drop seeds into the ground so that they have the best chance of germinating.

Miyawaki method

Another system widely used elsewhere is known as Miyawaki system. It was designed by Akira Miyawaki, a Japanese scientist. He has planted around 40 million trees all over the world, and in 2006, won the Blue Planet Prize, the equivalent to the Nobel Prize in the environmental field.
His method is based on what’s called “potential natural vegetation”- a theory that if a piece of land is free from human intervention, a forest will naturally self-seed and take over that land within a period of around 600 to 1,000 years. It will develop species that would be native and robust requiring no maintenance.

Miyawaki’s methodology cuts it down to 10 years. His system is simple. Firstly, you identify what nutrition the soil lacks, what species are most suitable to be grown in this soil and what biomass is abundantly available in that region to give the soil whatever nourishment it needs, (e.g. animal manure or press mud). Secondly, you amend the soil to a depth of one metre and plant saplings that are up to 80 centimetres high, packing them in very densely- three to five per square metre. The forest itself must cover a 100-square-metre minimum area.

This grows into a forest so dense that after eight months, sunlight cannot reach the ground. At this point, every drop of rain that falls is conserved, and every leaf that falls is converted into humus. The forest needs to be watered and weeded for the first two or three years, at which point it becomes self-sustaining.

Miyawaki’s methodology is a natural process and this had been successfully adapted by many countries successfully.

Public participation

Public participation in forestry has become an issue of growing importance in world-wide forest policy discussions over the past few decades. However, in Sri Lanka, various forms of participatory forest management have been successfully practised for centuries. Since the UN Rio Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, the need for interaction between forestry and society and the concept of public participation have been recognized as integral to sustainable forest management.

There are a number of reasons for encouraging public participation process in forestry. Most importantly, it will improve public understanding of forestry issues and mutual recognition of interests. It can also stimulate involvement in decision making and, in the process, identify and manage conflicts in a fair way agreeable to all parties.

It may be true and a globally accepted fact that active participation of public and other non-governmental parties will be beneficial for all parties concerned. But caution needs to be taken that all parties involved should have an equal opportunity to express their opinions and an equitable chance to assert their interests and rights. Because of the voluntary nature of the process, no decision can be imposed on anybody.

Finally, public participation in forestry should be a means to develop better-informed and more widely accepted forest management outcomes. In this sense, public participation represents a tool to enhance the social sustainability of forest management.

Types

When we study other countries’ experiences, we come across three types of public participation process in forestry. (1) Forest policies, programmes and plans: This participatory process takes place at an early stage of decision-making in order to anticipate conflicts and to enhance transparency and social acceptance of policies or plans. (2) Special forest projects: In these cases, public participation aims at promoting direct public involvement in the implementation of special forest project. (3) Advisory boards: Generally, these are permanent types of forum that help the public to be better informed and to have a more direct influence in forestry-related matters.

Participatory management is much more than a technique, it is a way of thinking and acting for both decision makers and participants. All problems or conflicts may however not be solved within the participatory process. Creating a climate of good faith and involving all stakeholders in cooperative problem solving is a true challenge for public participation.

The successful countries’ experiences also reveal that natural and local tree varieties, including non-timber forest plantings, will have to be the cornerstone of the replanting strategy. The main objective should be to ensure environmental stability, ecological balance and preservation of biodiversity.

However, the strategy should also consider, as a secondary matter, to meet the needs, protection and privileges of villagers living close-by.

Funding

It is obvious that to become successful in this strategy, the government will have to be the largest fund provider. It is doubtful whether private sector will have the same commitment and perseverance to carry on with this type of a project, unless attractive benefits are offered.

A reasonable allocation from the budget will be necessary to match the estimated contribution of forests to the GDP. It is a worthwhile investment because we are not even taking into account the ecosystem benefits contributed by them. Forest development is every citizens’ responsibility and, therefore, must become an integrated activity. That is why public participation is a must to maximise the effectiveness in caring for the forests and to move towards achieving excellence.

Our neighbour, India has recently formulated policy plan for participation of public sector in a forestation. It may be a good idea, if Sri Lanka takes a cue from them and introduce policy guidelines for public participation to our forestry programme.

Suffering starts all over again in Gaza

Fadel Abu al-Qusman, center, with his sons Amer (right) and Muhammad (left).  Abed Zagout

Hamza Abu Eltarabesh-30 July 2018

Fadel Abu al-Qumsan has survived two attacks in the past four years.

Early on 3 August 2014, Israel bombed his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp of northern Gaza. Two of his nieces and his brother-in-law were killed.

In recent months, Fadel, 53, and his family have once again been hurt by Israeli state violence.

On 6 April 2018, Fadel joined the Great March of Return to demand that Palestinians uprooted by Zionist forces in 1948 be allowed to return home.

At approximately 3 pm, he fell to the ground screaming. He had been shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper.

Fadel was roughly 700 meters from the boundary fence between Gaza and Israel at the time.

“I didn’t expect to be injured,” Fadel said. “I’m an old man and I was standing away from the fence.
But it seems that Israel does not distinguish between children, young people, the elderly or women.
This was a clear message from Israel that anyone who participates in the demonstrations is a target.”

The leg in which Fadel was shot had already been injured in the 1990s. The injury occurred during an accident while Fadel was a construction worker inside Israel. He has required crutches since then.

Fortunately, the bullet which hit Fadel in April this year did not cause major damage.
His 22-year-old son Muhammad, however, was subsequently shot by Israel. Muhammad was hit under the knee of his right leg with an exploding bullet on 22 June.

He remains in Gaza’s Indonesia hospital. Although Muhammad has been referred to a hospital in Turkey for further treatment, he has not yet received the full approval he needs to travel there.

“I will never forget the fear”

Muhammad’s mother Jamila described his condition as “very dangerous.” There is a possibility, she added, that an amputation will have to be carried out.

“The last four years have been the most difficult in my life,” Jamila said. “I lost my house and witnessed the deaths of three people. Now I’m suffering again because my husband and two of my sons have been injured.”

Amer, Muhammad’s elder brother, was wounded on 30 March, the first day of the Great March of Return. He was close to the boundary with Israel when a sniper shot him.

“Suddenly, I felt something burning my thigh,” Amer, 29, said. “After a moment, I fell on the ground. But, thank God, my injury was not serious. I stayed for one day in the hospital and I returned home on a crutch.”

Fifteen Palestinians were massacred that day and others have since died from their injuries. Aware that standing up to Israel is risky, Amer is determined to remain politically active.

The Great March of Return resonates strongly with his family as they originally hail from Deir Sunayd, a village about 12 kilometers from Gaza. Deir Sunayd’s population was expelled by Zionist forces when they occupied the village in 1948.

“The memory of our house being targeted in 2014 still lives with me,” said Amer. “I will never forget the fear we felt before we managed to escape. But this will not prevent me from participating in the Great March of Return and demanding my rights.”

“No comfort”

Laila Hassaballah was living just a few meters away from the Abu al-Qumsan family in 2014.

Her son Ismail – an officer in the Gaza police – was injured in the same attack. He was hit in the head with shrapnel, causing him to lose sight in one eye.

In 2016, Laila sold her jewelry and borrowed money from a relative so that Ismail could receive treatment in Cairo. It took four attempts before they eventually could travel in December of that year. The Rafah crossing on the border between Gaza and Egypt was repeatedly closed.

When they eventually reached Cairo, they had to wait two months before the surgery on Ismail’s retina could be completed. He also required counseling.

Although Laila lacked sufficient funds to cover their expenses, she remained in the Egyptian capital. The treatment proved effective. By the time they returned to Gaza in February 2017, there was considerable improvement in Ismail’s eyesight.

Now aged 30, he is studying for a master’s degree in police science at Gaza’s Ummah Open University.

Laila Hassaballah with her son Ahmad. Abed Zagout

The family has not been spared further pain. On 20 April this year, Ismail’s brother Ahmad was shot in the right leg by an Israeli sniper while taking part in the Great March of Return.

The bullet which struck Ahmad, 25, has damaged his nerves and arteries. He is awaiting permission to visit Egypt for treatment.

With severe shortages of medicine, equipment and fuel in Gaza’s hospitals, Ahmad is unable to receive all the assistance he requires locally.

“If I stay in Gaza, I may die and never see my daughter again,” said Ahmad, referring to his 1-year-old child Fatma. “The condition of my health is getting worse every day.”

His mother, Laila, is preparing herself for the likelihood she will have to borrow money for his treatment. “I will not watch him die slowly,” she said.

“I thought that my suffering ended when I returned [from Egypt] with Ismail,” Laila said. “He’s doing well now and he’s financially supporting the family. But it seems that my suffering is just starting over again with Ahmad’s injury. Over the past four years, I have had no comfort in my life.”

“We didn’t know where to go”

During the 2014 attack on Gaza, the Israeli authorities used euphemisms to try and justify their targeting of civilians. Missile strikes described as “roof-knocking” are one such euphemism.
Through that tactic, a building was bombed as a prelude to a deadlier assault.

Omar Abu Khater was the victim of “roof-knocking.” In July 2014, an Israeli drone fired a missile at his family’s home in the Khan Younis area of Gaza.

All 19 members of his extended family who were in the two-story building at the time had to evacuate hastily. A few minutes later, the house was destroyed in a more powerful blast.

Abu Khater likens the hours following the attack to the Nakba – Arabic for catastrophe – the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. “Everyone was running around and we didn’t know where to go,” he said. “I’ll never forget those moments.”

Omar Abu Khater covering the Great March of Return protests in Khan Younis on 27 July.Abed Zagout

Towards the end of 2016, the family received some financial assistance to rebuild their home. The aid came from Kuwait and was administered by Gaza’s public works ministry. It was only enough to reconstruct one floor.

They had to borrow heavily so that they could finish the job. As a result, the family is about $50,000 in debt.

Abu Khater, 26, works as a photojournalist with Quds Press and has documented the Great March of Return at considerable risk.

During one of the protests, a tear gas projectile hit his left leg. He required surgery on his wound but managed to resume work after a few days.

On another occasion, an Israeli sniper shot at his motorbike, causing its fuel tank to explode.

He has also been asphyxiated by tear gas – a chemical weapon which Israel has fired liberally on Palestinians – a number of times in recent months.

Abu Khater tries to find solace by remembering how he enjoyed life before the 2014 attacks. Each midday, he used to read a book and drink coffee on the roof of his house.

He still seeks a quiet spot in the reconstructed house, so that he can sit and “imagine the old days,” he said, yet he will not allow nostalgia to reduce his commitment to his work.

“Losing my house and my injuries will not stop me from covering Israeli war crimes.”

Hamza Abu Eltarabesh is a journalist and writer from Gaza.

UN human rights chief to leave post with principles intact and few friends

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein worked for UN amid Balkan atrocities of 1990s and was instrumental in setting up International Criminal Court

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, who heads United Nations human rights system, will leave his post later this month (AFP)

James Reinl

Saturday 4 August 2018

NEW YORK, United States – Jordanian prince and UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein will leave his United Nations post later this month under a cloud, having broken from diplomatic niceties by shaming great powers and uncomfortably turning the tables on Western governments and the allies to whom they sell weapons.

He has warned of "xenophobes, populists and racists" winning votes and imperilling Western democracy. US President Donald Trump's immigration blitz is "state-sponsored child abuse," and Rodrigo Duterte, leader of the Philippines, "needs a psychiatrist," Zeid has said.

By last December, it was clear that UN hegemons – the US, Britain, France, Russia and China – were fed up with Zeid. Instead of pulling his punches and "bending a knee in supplication," he decided to step down at the end of August.

While his run-ins with big powers are well documented, less is known of Zeid's scrapes with his homeland, Jordan, where his censure of regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen have rendered the gaunt 54-year-old persona non grata.

It has been a spectacular fall from grace for a Hashemite prince who was Amman's envoy to Washington and to the UN before becoming rights commissioner, the highest-ranked Arab in the UN system since Egyptian Boutros Boutros-Ghali led the world body in the 1990s

Idrees Ahmad

✔@im_PULSE

Tribute from @KenRoth to a rare and effective UN diplomat. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/%e2%80%a8zeid-raad-al-hussein-a-confrontational-but-highly-effective-human-rights-commissioner … via @prospect_uk

2:43 PM - Aug 2, 2018

⁰Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein: a confrontational but highly effective Human Rights Commissioner

A response to Prospect’s August profile of the remarkable UN diplomat

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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• See Idrees Ahmad's other Tweets

"Jordan is a country I was born in and grew up in, I served and I love. But when it came to this job, it was just like any other country to me and I wasn't going to grant it any special favour," Zeid said in answer to a question from Middle East Eye.

He came good on those words in December 2014, when he called Jordan's revival of executions "disappointing". In March 2017, he bashed Amman for hosting Omar al Bashir at an Arab League confab despite the Sudanese president's war crimes charges.

He was even tougher on the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, of which Jordan is a member. In March 2016, he said civilians died from air strikes with "unacceptable regularity" and alluded to "international crimes by members of the coalition".

He became one of the few voices on the world stage to call for a UN-backed probe into atrocities in Yemen, putting him squarely at odds with Riyadh and its diplomatic backers in the US and Britain.

For this effort, Jordan's foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, chided him. It was Cairo, however, that issued the harshest Arab rebuke of Zeid after he described a "pervasive climate of intimidation" in the run-up to Egypt's presidential ballot in March.

President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi's government did not mince its words. Foreign ministry officials told Zeid to "to stop attacking the Egyptian state without any right, and to instead adopt a professional and objective approach" to his work.

These were salty comments for a region known for sugar-coated diplomacy and a mark of how Arab leaders felt betrayed by Zeid. Rows between Arab statesmen take place behind closed doors; seldom are rebukes emailed as news releases to thousands of journalists.

"Maybe I have been critical of Jordan's friends and Jordan itself," Zeid told MEE and other reporters at the UN headquarters in New York this week.

Neil Buhne@NeilBuhne

Interview with the outgoing UN Human Rights Commission is inspiring and worth a look. "much of the suffering of people is caused by humans.....we need to look at who is causing this suffering".. " & "say you are not getting a pass" https://youtu.be/t5ogangpF_c  via @YouTube

8:00 AM - Jul 28, 2018

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"It's quite a frosty relationship."

Zeid told MEE that the fractious relationships he had with countries, including Jordan, had exhausted him.

He describes "feeling very low," jet-lagged and "fragile" in non-descript hotel rooms in far-flung cities on foreign trips.

"I realised this job, the pressures, are enormous," Zeid said.

Jeremie Smith, a Geneva-based director for the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, a pro-democracy outfit, said Zeid is seen as a "traitor" in Riyadh, Cairo and other Arab capitals. He embarrassed Jordan and eroded its status as the region's "political bridge builder".

Zeid's censure of Israeli settlement-building and the Islamic State's "mean-spirited house of blood" played well from Casablanca to Muscat, but his critiques within the fraternity of Arab League members were seen as beyond the pale.

"He would have been offered senior appointments by powerful Middle Eastern countries and perhaps even been nominated for the UN secretary general's position in the future," Smith told MEE. "He gave that up by taking a principled stance."

Zeid hails from Arab royalty, served in Jordan's desert police and was a rising star of its diplomatic corps, but the British-educated son of a Swedish mother was never fully at home in the back-slapping world of Middle Eastern deal-making.

Balkan atrocities

Bucking that trend, he worked for the UN amid the Balkan atrocities of the 1990s and was instrumental in setting up the International Criminal Court. He frequently warns of Holocaust-style abuses in the modern era and has helped the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation.

This makes him an awkward target for critics – and he knows it. In a landmark speech in September 2016, Zeid admitted he had become a "nightmare" who dared criticize the governments that elected him.

"I am a Muslim, who is, confusingly to racists, also white-skinned," he said.

Though Zeid could not be silenced by the mighty, he is doubtless being sidelined. The father-of-three is cheered by activists in Geneva and New York as a rare example of an idealist in office. Some, however, question whether he should have kept his powder a bit drier.

For Sarah Leah Whitson, a Middle East expert for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, he was willing to shine the spotlight on all dodgy governments and did not exempt "those favoured by the United States". Zeid did his job, she said, the failure was in the UN's creaky systems.

"Nobody wants to be criticised by a body it is technically paying for," Whitson told MEE.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres formally posted the job vacancy to replace Zeid in June and reportedly began interviews in July. Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet was approached, but she turned the job down initially, according to reports.

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US quits UN Human Rights Council over 'bias against Israel'

One of those vying for the job, Nils Melzer, a UN torture expert, has distanced himself from Zeid. The Swiss national said that "antagonising" world leaders does not work and warned of a "global shipwreck" from too much naming and shaming.

But, as he prepares to tidy his desk, Zeid says that he had played it right: holding all countries to the same standard and using the office as a bully pulpit for leaders who do not listen or do not meet their private pledges.

Importantly, he says that method is hard-wired into the system now. Future commissioners will struggle to ignore reports of illegal detentions and crackdowns on peaceful protesters. Excuses will be given behind closed doors, but the news releases will be sent out anyway.

"There's not that much room for manoeuvre," Zeid said. "Silence does not buy you respect."

Still, Zeid frequently likens the era of Trump and the global migrant crisis to the rise of European fascism in the 1930s. If he is right, perhaps his hope that a successor will keep the UN's torch of human rights burning is only that: a flickering hope.