Cancer patients - the other victims of Yemen's war 

On Yemen's western coast, Mohammed al-Hosami (pictured below) receives support from the people of his village in al Mahwit to pay for his mother's cancer treatment in a clinic in nearby Hodeidah city.
Mohammed al-Hosami sits next to his mother.

Sanaa, Yemen  Khaled Abdullah-Filed Aug. 23, 2018,

"There is no work or salary so we can't afford transportation costs, and the village helped me with the payments for treatment and to take her there," he said as a doctor tended to his mother, who had visible swelling in one arm.

Millions of Yemenis are at risk from hunger and cholera brought on by three years of war, an emergency that has also hit cancer patients, struggling to get treatment in a country where the economy and infrastructure have collapsed.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said around 35,000 people have cancer in Yemen, with about 11,000 cases diagnosed each year.

Khaled Ismael's daughter, Radhiya, 17, had her left arm amputated due to cancer. "I spent all our valuables and had to borrow a lot of money to cover the expenses of my daughter's treatment. In the end, we couldn't afford a good treatment," Ismael said. "Because of our inability to travel abroad, my daughter did not get enough treatment and her arm had to be amputated."

"It is very difficult to find medicines, and if you find them in the market, they're too expensive and citizens cannot afford them," said Mohammed Al-Emad, accompanying a relative going for treatment in the capital Sanaa.

Yemen is embroiled in a war between a Saudi-led military coalition and the Iranian-aligned Houthi group. The fighting has crippled its economy and healthcare system, and unleashed the world's most urgent humanitarian crisis with millions facing starvation and diseases such as cholera, diphtheria and malaria.

A woman holds a chemotherapy IV for her son who has cancer at The National Oncology Centre in Sanaa.

The Saudi-led alliance has imposed stringent measures on maritime trade to Yemen in an effort to choke off arms supplies to the Houthis, who still control the most populous areas of the country including Sanaa. But the measures have also slowed the flow of desperately needed aid supplies.

A boy who has cancer walks with an intravenous drip at The National Oncology Centre in Sanaa.

The National Oncology Centre in Sanaa admits around 600 new cancer patients each month. But it received only $1 million in funding last year from state entities and international aid groups, the head of the centre, Ahmed al-Ashwal, told Reuters.

The few beds available at the centre are reserved for children. Other patients receive treatment intravenously, while sitting on dilapidated recliner chairs or in the waiting area.

A girl with cancer lies on a bed at The National Oncology Centre in Sanaa.

The WHO said that prior to the conflict, the centre used to receive $15 million a year from the state and that the budget was used to purchase chemotherapy medications and anti-cancer drugs for oncology centres across the country.

"Now, the National Oncology Centre is totally relying on the fund provided by international organizations, including WHO, and some charitable organizations or businessmen as the government fund has been disrupted for around two years," it said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

A cancer patient lies in the radiation therapy room at the National Oncology Centre in Sanaa.

The head of the Al-Amal Centre for Cancer Treatment, Yasser Abdullah Noor, said the centre is struggling to provide care to its more than 5,300 patients in Hodeidah and was in danger of shutting down without government support.

"A centre that provides care to thousands of patients cannot operate on donations and grants alone."

SRI LANKA: ABDUCTION OF 11 TAMIL YOUTHS;TWISTS AND TURNS IN THE INVESTIGATIONS

Nirmala Kannangra.-22/08/2018

Following the statements made in open courts by the defence counsels Shavendra Fernando PC and Attorney-at-Law Asitha Siriwardena, against the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), when the magisterial inquiry into the abduction of 11 Tamil youth in 2008 was taken up two weeks ago, blaming the latter for not naming certain tangible suspects in the B reports submitted in courts while naming those who were not involved, the CID has once again come under severe criticism for their continued failure to obtain a statement from Navy Intelligence Officer Lt. Commander Sedililage Don Sumedha Sampath Dayananda, who is one of the main suspects wanted for the abduction of two Tamil youths from Wattala in 2009, for ransom.

Speculation is now rife as to why, though vital evidence have surfaced regarding the abduction of two Tamil youths in Hendala, Wattala in 2009 allegedly by navy officers, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has taken a step backward from the initial investigations by not recording a statement from the main suspect, Navy Intelligence Officer Lt. Commander Sedililage Don Sumedha Sampath Dayananda.

According to the facts reported to Colombo Magistrate Court No: 3 by the CID (Case No: 2109/2009), Lt. Commander Dayananda is the most wanted person into the abduction of the two Tamil youths. Despite the strong material unearthed during the initial stage of the investigation, the failure to obtain a statement from the suspect, over the past one year, has raised doubts whether the CID is now attempting to defend Lt. Com. Dayananda from interrogation. The ‘B’ report reveals details into how Dayananda had used one of the victims’ mobile phone for several months since the abduction took place while he was attached to the Navy Base in Wattala.

Meanwhile, Lt. Com. Dayananda has reportedly told his contemporaries at Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), that he would never be questioned nor arrested by the CID as the present Chief of Defence Staff is looking after his interests.

Highly reliable Naval officers on strict condition of anonymity exclusively revealed to the Daily Mirror last week how this Navy Intelligence officer, against whom sufficient evidence has surfaced for his alleged involvement into the abduction for ransom, had been boasting that the then Navy Commander Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne- who is now the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), is safeguarding him against being summoned to the CID for interrogation and that he would never be arrested.

The fate of Pakkilisamy Yoganathan and Ratnasamy Pramanandan is yet unknown.

The fate of Pakkilisamy Yoganathan and Ratnasamy Pramanandan, who were abducted on January 11, 2009 while on their way to Wellampitiya, is yet unknown. They had left their home, situated at No: 73, 7th Lane, Bloemendhal Road Kotahena, to go to Wellampitiya on January 11, 2009 afternoon in the former’s Toyota van bearing registration number WP PA 6023. But they never returned nor was the vehicle they were travelling in found. Later investigators uncovered that they had been abducted in and around Hendala Wattala, for ransom together with the vehicle they were travelling in. The investigators, going by the B report, believe that the gold sovereigns that were in the possession of the victims-worth of Rs.2.5 million at that time-is alleged to have been taken over by the abductors. According to Yoganathan’s wife, two Navy officers had visited her few months after her husband’s abduction demanding a ransom to release the two victims. The CID in the ‘B’ report, filed in the Colombo Magistrate’s Court, states that they believe the two youths had been killed thereafter- the same fate that had befallen on the 11 Tamil youths who had been abducted by the Navy the year before.

Following the information received regarding the Navy’s involvement in abduction of five students from Kotahena and six more from other parts of the country in 2008 for ransom, the CID- whilst conducting the investigation at the Sri Lanka Maritime Naval Academy at Trincomalee, where the victims are said to have been kept under detention- had received anonymous information about a vehicle belonged to Kasthuriarachchige John Reid. He was among the 11 abductees. According to the information received, the abductors had not only kidnapped Reid, but also had seized the vehicle bearing registration number 56-5536. This vehicle had been used in Trincomalee by Sri Lanka Navy under a forged registration number plate- Navy 2016. The anonymous informant had also told the CID officers that few parts of Reid’s vehicle had being hidden in a safe house at the Navy’s Gemunu Base at Welisara.

Forged registration number

According to the B report, following the tip off, though the CID investigation team- lead by Inspector Nishantha Silva -discovered John Reid’s vehicle within the Sri Lanka Maritime Naval Academy, the Navy could not produce any legal document to claim the ownership to the vehicle they were using with the mentioned forged registration number. The Navy had deleted the chassis and engine numbers of the vehicle which were beyond recognition, but John Reid’s brother and brother-in-law had identified the vehicle which was owned by the victim. The original paint, which was white, had been changed to blue.

The facts reported to courts further state as to how the CID investigation officers, after obtaining a court order from the Colombo Magistrate’s Court, examined Gemunu Base at Welisara for the hidden parts of the vehicle. When going in search of the spare parts, the CID had discovered a heap of vehicle parts hidden in a room adjacent to the Navy Intelligence Sailors’ Hostel. Upon inspecting the closed room, the CID had been able to unearth 72 pieces of a dismantled vehicle. When inquired from the navy officers what those spare parts were, the CID had been informed that they were parts of a vehicle laden with explosives that was taken into custody on an alleged information during the height of the war. But, there were no records to show that the Navy had informed the police or the bomb disposal unit about the vehicle.

Meanwhile, the Government Analyst had been able to discover the chassis number of the dismantled vehicle. Using the information, the Department of Motor Traffic traced the name of the owner and found out that it was Pakkilisamy Loganathan of 73, 7th Lane, Bloemendhal Road, Kotahena. Later it had come to light that the owner of this vehicle had gone missing since January 11, 2009. Through further investigations, it was allegedly discovered how Pakkilisamy Yoganathan and Ratnasamy Pramanandan were abducted by the Navy and how the vehicle they were travelling in was seized and how it was dismantled and hidden in the safe house to conceal evidence of the two abduction. From the evidence the CID had recorded statements from the Navy officers, attached to the Gemunu base in Welisara, at the time of the abduction.

When the abductions in which the Navy was involved in were unearthed as per the B report, the then Commanders Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda and later Ravindra Wijegunaratne had reportedly told President Maithripala Sirisena that all those who were abducted were involved in terrorist activities. They had said that there was no ransom involved regarding these arrests, although the State Intelligence Service, Terrorist Investigation Division, Colombo Crimes Division, Police Narcotic Bureau, Kotahena Police, Intelligence Unit Western Province, Army Intelligence Unit, Air Force Intelligence Unit, Navy Intelligence Unit and Police Special Investigation Unit have cleared their names against any involvement in crimes or terrorist activities.

Promise not kept

The ‘B’ report further states as to how all requests made by the CID to the then Navy Commander Vice Admiral Wijegunaratne, demanding the release of Navy Intelligence officer Lt. Commander S.D.S.S. Dayananda, fell on deaf ears. The CID has also informed the court that although Vice Admiral Wijegunaratne had once given an assurance that the suspect would be handed over once he finishes a training course he was undergoing, the high ranked Navy official had not kept his promise.
Be that as it may, the court had been informed through the ‘B’ report as to how former Colombo DIG Anura Senanayake, who was arrested and is now on bail for concealing evidence in Wasim Thajudeen’s murder, had prevented the officers of the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) from inquiring into the abduction of these two Tamil youths in Wattala when there was clear evidence against the Navy officers.

What is the fate of the Tamil youths abducted by officials of the sea going force in separate incidents in 2008 and 2009?

On a complaint lodged by Rajagopal Chitradevi, the wife of Pakkilisamy Yoganathan, on May 9, 2009, the CCD had initiated an investigation. It had revealed how the inquiring officer Sub Inspector CCD, Sumudu Sudesh Wijesinghe was not allowed to record a statement from the accused Lt. Com. Dayananda by the then Director CCD, SSP Anura Senanayake and the task was handed over to SI, Samantha Kulatunge Hettiarachchi, who was on probation..

According to the statements made to the CID by CCD officers, the then SI, Wijesinghe, SI, Hettiarachchi and the former ASP CCD, Asoka Senarath Jayathilake, had Anura Senanayake not intervened in the inquiry and the investigation, the CCD could have saved the lives of Loganathan and Rathnaswamy and also the vehicle from being dismantled.

According to SI Sudesh Wijesinghe’s statement, the disappearance of the two Tamil youths was handed over to the CCD on the request of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress MP, R. Yogarajan. On the instructions of the then SP, Ravinda Karawita, Wijesinghe was assigned to investigate the complaints lodged by the wives of the two victims.

The statement further states, ‘Going through Loganathan’s mobile phone IMEI (international mobile equipment identity) number, it was discovered that the phone had been used with a different SIM card -071 6887811 by S.D.S.S. Dayananda of 19 C, Pdagoda, Beruwala, Kalutara. This number had been used from January 15, 2009 for four days since Loganathan’s disappearance. It was later revealed that Dayananda is a Navy officer. Although Dayananda was asked to report to the CCD to give a statement, he absconded for several days and had later met SSP Anura Senanayake. When Senanayake informed SI Wijesinghe that Dayananda had picked up the phone from a bus he was travelling and since he could not find out the owner he had made use of the phone. SI Wijesinghe had refused to accept what Dayananda said. As a result Anura Senanayake had repeatedly not allowed Wijesinghe to record the suspect’s statement but asked SI Hettiarachchi to record Dayananda’s statement.

‘In the meantime the CCD had been able to find out the IMEI number of the mobile phone used by the other victim- Rathnaswamy. This phone had been used with another SIM card- 0773952046 which was registered under Secretary to the Commander of the Navy, Commander of the Navy Office, Navy Headquarters, P.O. Box 593, Colombo 1.

‘Although the new developments had been informed to Anura Senanayake, he had not given any instruction to investigate into the abduction. Even Sri Lanka Navy did not reply to any of the letters the CCD wrote to them on this matter’.

According to the statement made by ASP Ashoka Jayasinghe, he had confirmed what SI, Wijesinghe had said in his statement and had further added as to how he, as the ASP CCD, was in a position to investigate the complaints, but could not on the directives of Anura Senanayake, who had wanted only to discharge the work that he (Anura Senanayake) had assigned, but not any other ‘unnecessary’ work. According to the statement, Anura Senanayake had worked closely with the then Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Head of National Intelligence Kapila Hendawitharana.

Meanwhile, it has come to light how the then Director Intelligence, Sri Lanka Navy Commander Ananda Guruge, who is also accused of having a hand in the abduction of 11 Tamil youths in 2008 too was involved in the Wattala abduction as well, according to the ‘B’ report filed in courts.
Chitradevi speaking to the Daily Mirror said how two Navy officers visited their Kotahena residence, a few months after her husband’s alleged abduction, seeking a ransom to release him. However the conversation between Chitradevi and the said naval officers had come to an abrupt end when Mr. Mohan- brother of the then UNP Provincial Council Member Y.P. Ram- intervened.

“Two middle aged men said to be from Sri Lanka Navy came to our door step one morning and wanted to find out details of my husband. When I asked who they were, I was told that they are from the Navy. They were in civil attire I could not understand what they were saying in Sinhala. I sent a message to Mr. Mohan who is a businessman in the vicinity. When Mr. Mohan wanted these two navy officers to show their identity cards, they refused and left immediately. We still don’t know whether they were from the Navy. After the CID informed us that they had found my husband’s dismantled vehicle within the Welisara Navy Camp, we believe that it was the Navy that sent these two men to gather more information about my husband and also seeking ransom,” Chitradevi said.
According to Chitradevi, following her husband’s failure to return home, she had lodged a complaint at the Kotahena Police the following morning.

“When I took a call to my husband around 5pm the phone was not working and since I could not contact him thereafter and as he did not return even by midnight, I became impatient. My husband had never stayed a night away from home other than at times when he travelled abroad,” Chitradevi said.

She further described as to how SI Wijesinghe had told her that he had been stopped from inquiring into the disappearance of the two by the then Director CCD, SSP Anura Senanayake.

“I lodged the complaint at the Kotahena Police and met MP, R. Yogarajan. He gave a letter to the CCD requesting to take over the investigation. I lodged a complaint at ‘Sahana Mediriya’ at the Police Headquarters, but to no avail as Anura Senanayake had prevented the CCD Officers from further investigating,” Chitradevi said.

When contacted Navy Spokesman Com. Dinesh Bandara, to obtain a comment with regard to the Navy’s failure to assist the CID to apprehend suspects involved in the abduction of the two Tamil youths in 2009 and the 11 Tamil youths in 2008, Com. Bandara said that he would direct the questions to the relevant departments at SLN and make a statement to the Daily mirror . Although several reminders were given to the Navy Spokesman during the past week seeking a statement from them, the Navy Spokesman did not respond to any of the calls made thereafter nor sent a comment till the paper went to print.

Meanwhile all attempts made to contact Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekera for a comment to find out as to whether the CID is dragging its feet by not recording a statement from the main suspect into the Wattala abduction, were unsuccessful as SP Gunasekera did not respond to Daily mirror calls.

–Daily Mirror

Mannar mass grave: Skeletal remains of 66 unearthed

2018-08-22 10

Skeletal remains belonging to 66 individuals had been unearthed by yesterday from excavations of the mass grave in Mannar Sathosa Building Site, Judicial Medical Officer S. Rajapaksa said today.

He said the excavations of the site were temporarily suspended on August 10 and by that day skeletal remains belonging to 56 individuals were unearthed under the supervision of Mannar Magistrate T.G. Prabhakaran.

He said 40 out of 66 skeletal remains that had been unearthed were sealed and placed at the Mannar Magistrate’s Court.

The excavations of the site began after some skeletal remains were found while digging a foundation for the Sathosa building by workers in March. (Romesh Madushanka)

Assessing the return of an unlimited presidency

By Jehan Perera-August 20, 2018, 

The unexpected resurrection of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s hope to be a third term president of the country has taken the centre stage of political debate. It also highlights the vulnerability of the rule of law. One of the memorable phrases of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission appointed by the former president to cope with the international demand for accountability for war-time violations of human rights was that the Rule of Law rather than the Rule of Men should prevail if the tragedies of the past were not to repeat themselves. But to politicians whose quest for power is unlimited such principles of democratic governance may be dispensed with as and when the need arises.

The possible resurfacing of the former president as a presidential candidate occurs at a time when there is lack of clarity on both sides of the political divide with regard to who might be their candidates at the forthcoming presidential elections due no later than November 2019. On the government side there is no definite indication as yet whether it is going to be President Maitripala Sirisena again who will be the common candidate, as he was at the presidential election of 2015, or Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who has been the UNP’s main aspirant for the post since the presidential election of 1999. This issue of who will be the next presidential candidate has been left unresolved from the very beginning of the government’s term of office.

It is this unresolved issue of who will be the next president that has been at the root of the problem that has prevented the government from acting as a cohesive government with a 2/3 majority in parliament. As the time for elections comes nearer, it is a cause for frustration on the part of the opposition that they are unable to capitalize on this failure of the government, and its inability to act powerfully to deliver the necessary benefits and economic development to the electorate to obtain their vote at elections. The opposition showed up this weakness of the government at the local government elections earlier this year when they trounced the government parties in most parts of the country. However, the opposition too is beset with the same problem as the government with regard to deciding who might be their presidential candidate.

DRAFTERS INTENT

With his charisma and track record as a decisive leader, former president Rajapaksa continues to be the undisputed leader of the opposition that has been seeking to form an alternative government in the country from the time of their unexpected defeat in 2015. Other presidential aspirants have been repeatedly echoing each other in saying it is left to the former president to make his decision, and that they await his decision which will be made at the correct time. The challenge for the opposition is to identity a candidate who will unify them and not cause fragmentation. The signs of such potential fragmentation have been evident in the harsh comments made by different members of the opposition against the leading aspirants from amongst their ranks.

In these circumstances, with presidential elections a maximum of less than 16 months away, the allure of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa as the opposition candidate has grown. The problem, however, is that the former president is prevented by law from becoming a third term president. At least that has been the belief so far. The 19th Amendment to the constitution prohibits anyone who has been elected twice to the office of president to contest again to be president for a third time. The 19th Amendment, which was passed in 2015, repealed the 18th Amendment passed in 2010, which itself had repealed the provision in the constitution of 1978 that set a two-term limit on the presidency. The drafters of the constitution had put in the two-term limit being mindful of the possible abuses that could come if a president stayed too long in power and built up a coterie around him who would monopolise power. It was in terms of the 18th Amendment that former president Rajapaksa cut short his second term by two years to call for an early presidential election and make his third bid for presidential office.

The 18th Amendment to the constitution, which was passed as an urgent bill in Parliament within a week, without time for adequate debate either in parliament or in the country, represents one of the lowest points of the country’s adherence to principles of constitutionalism. The constitution represents the supreme law of the country. It should not be changed at the whim and fancy or deep and dark desire of those in power to further their own interests. The passage of the 18th Amendment was possible because former president Rajapaksa and his government had accumulated such enormous powers that all other institutions, including the judiciary, came under severe pressure. The separation of powers, and the system of checks and balances, needs to be protected at all costs if democracy is to prevail.

POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES

Members of the opposition and their legal advisors are now claiming that the 19th Amendment to the constitution does not prevent former president Rajapaksa from contesting the presidency a third time. They argue that prohibition of the 19th Amendment only applies to those who are elected from the time of the passage of the 19th Amendment and it does not apply retrospectively to those who were elected twice in the past. The final verdict on this needs to be given by the judiciary who will also be considering the intent of those who drafted the law in question. The intention of the framers of the 19th Amendment may be discerned in their statements made in and outside parliament at the time of the passage of the law. When there is doubt the courts will refer to the intent of the framers of the law.

The stability of a society and the trust that can be placed on its institutions depends on the Rule of Law being upheld as against the rule of men which will vary from time to time according to their whims and fancies. Whether it is with regard to the security of business investments or a sustainable solution to the ethnic conflict, there is a need for stability, in which agreements made one day are not overturned the next day depending on the will of one person or one party. The importance of the judiciary in upholding the Rule of Law and constitution can be seen in the context of the debate that is opening up regarding the possibility of former president Rajapaksa contesting the forthcoming presidential election and becoming a third term president.

The re-emergence of the candidacy of former president Rajapaksa may also serve to galvanise the government to resolve its own issues with regard to facing the oncoming presidential election. The sooner this is done the better. What the country needs is unified governance in which there is cohesive decision making but with the Rule of Law being upheld. In 2015, the combination of President Sirisena and the parties that now constitute the government were sufficient to win that election. The government parties joined forces because they felt that they could not individually take on the former president and the political machinery that he had at his disposal. When there is no clear choice of candidate for the government parties at the present time, the tried and tested formula might be the best to adopt, given the present absence of viable alternatives.

Doctors protest against gang violence after Jaffna attack

20Aug 2018

Doctors from Jaffna Teaching Hospital staged a protest today against increasing gang violence in the area after a doctor's house was attacked on Sunday. 

The house of Dr Emmanuel Santhakumar, who is a member of the surgical department at the hospital, was targetted by a gang on motorbikes. 

The windows were broken and items within the property, situated in Kokkuvil, were smashed. 

A complaint has been filed with Jaffna police. 

Related Articles: 

06 August 2018 : 22 arrested in Jaffna accused of gang violence

29 July 2018 : Three Jaffna houses attacked by armed gang

29 July 2018 : Chavakachcheri trader attacked by sword gang

The tempest in your tea cup

BY VINDHYA BUTHPITIYA-20 AUGUST 2018

A 1896 print advertisement for Ceylon Tea and India Tea.
Photo credit: periodpaper.com

Ceylon tea might be distilled down to a popular image, a vision even, of vividly-attired Tamil women. Their nimble fingers sift through the parrot-green flush, effortlessly sweeping two-leaves-and-a-bud into wicker baskets to the rattle and shimmer of gold-and-glass bangles. Their faces are bright with toothy smiles, foreheads blessed with crimson kumkuma. Since the introduction of tea cultivation to the Subcontinent in the second half of the 19th century, visual renditions of women tea pluckers have circulated as widely as the leaves they tirelessly picked. Imprinted on ornate tins of Orange Pekoe to be steeped in bone china tea pots in polite London parlours, or in hand-coloured postcards exchanged between friends divided by oceans, these images have infused tea with a particular enchantment: a feminised mystique.

What is striking, however, is the persistence of such colonial imagery in marketing tropes across Southasia even today. The case in Sri Lanka is no different. Photographs of these women continue to feature in advertising not only for tea, but for luxury tourism and hospitality ventures which seek to market that imperial nostalgia for the strange terrains and peoples of faraway colonies. These invite tourists to relive the opulence of the Raj, as if centuries of conquest might be something one might casually revive. This reminds us of the enduring global inequalities between former rulers and subjects, and long histories of wealth drain. What is disconcerting, moreover, is how the picturesque commodification of colonial nostalgia – in both language and aesthetic – undermines the violence of Sri Lanka’s colonial encounter, and the sustained exploitation of estate communities on the island.

The line room experience

In June 2018, a post on a social-media account expressed disgust at an ‘experience’ offered by Sri Lanka’s famed Jetwing Hotels at its Warwick Gardens property in Nuwara Eliya District – one which, like many hospitality ventures based in Sri Lanka’s hill country, promotes “colonial luxury”. ‘Meena Amma’s Line Room Experience’ was presented as one designed to immerse guests “into the lives of Sri Lanka’s iconic tea pluckers” by way of two refurbished ‘line rooms’ – colonial-era accommodation for tea-estate workers that are known for their inhospitable living conditions. Jetwing’s line rooms, the website noted, “feature an attached bathroom with hot and cold water, as well as a living space adorned with a vintage rocking chair to relax in view of the misty mountains”. The “authentic local living” experience would permit guests to partake in the “simple pleasures” of the meals and “traditional activities characteristic of their lifestyle”. Priced at USD 97 per night (LKR 15,500), a stay in Meena Amma’s line room amounts to more than 20 days of a Sri Lankan tea plantation labourer’s daily wages at LKR 730 (USD 4.50) a day.

The post picked up traction, and its contents and concerns were widely shared on Facebook and Twitter. Many were outraged at how centuries of subjugation of the largely Indian-origin plantation community was being white-washed for the pleasure of tourists, ignoring the inhumane living and working conditions many plantation workers are subjected to even today. Such an initiative was particularly disappointing given Jetwing’s commitment to various community and environment projects.

Jetwing’s response to the outrage – the company’s chairman Hiran Cooray called it “a sensationalist view that completely ignores facts” – was patronising and defensive in its rationalisation. Its purported intention to “uplift” the plantation community (“the investments we have made in people,” the chairman notes) conveniently ignored the fact that the property is in fact located in their estate where the resident tea pickers are expected to satiate the curiosity of the “fascinated” tourists. Jetwing claims to show Meena Amma – a former tea plucker and “a loyal employee of Jetwing for 12 years” – as a positive exemplar of a worker with agency. It claims not to romanticise the lives of this community and acknowledges that their lives have “historically been very difficult”. But the difficulties are, in fact, not just historical and continue today. Few critics of Jetwing really expected the company to fix Sri Lankan’s plantation industry or ‘uplift’ every tea picker in the island. Their concern was directed at its obliviousness to history, and casual commodification using tropes that ignore the ongoing exploitation.

A brief history of displacement

Sri Lanka’s Indian-origin Tamil community, also known as Up-country Tamils, was brought to the island by British colonial administrators as indentured labour from rural India in the 19th century to carry out the gruelling tasks the locals were unwilling to take on. Large swathes of Sri Lanka’s infrastructure and plantation economy were built on their backs. Isolated from neighbouring villages in the hills in the Central and Sabaragamuva provinces, the group was marginalised by barriers of caste, ethnicity and language. In the plantations, they were subject to a strict regimen of strenuous labour in inhuman conditions. The barrack-style 10-by-12-feet line rooms housed entire families that were engaged in strenuous tasks aimed at carving out plantations from the hilly terrain. Following Sri Lanka’s Independence from Britain in 1948, the fate of the community, which had lived on the island’s tea estates for generations, became ensnared in the political changes.

Immediately after Independence, the majority of the Indian-origin Tamil community were disenfranchised by the Ceylon Citizenship Act (1948) and the Indian and Pakistani Residents (Citizenship) Act (1949). At the time, they constituted about 11 percent of the population, whose impact on elections was feared by many, in the prevailing atmosphere of the Sinhala nationalist sentiment. Under the 1948 act, citizenship was contingent on one’s father being born in Ceylon, which many Indian-origin Tamils were unable to prove due to the circulatory nature of early migration and lack of documentary proof. Only about 5000 Indian-origin Tamil individuals qualified for citizenship under these laws, making around 700,000 from the community stateless. The 1949 act relaxed earlier provisions, facilitating the citizenship of 100,000 more, based on criteria like uninterrupted residence, marriage and income.

But citizenship would remain difficult for some time. Persistent lobbying by political parties such as the Ceylon Workers’ Congress and a number of pacts with India (Nehru-Kotelawala Pact, 1954; Srima-Shastri Pact, 1964; and Sirimavo-Gandhi Pact, 1974) saw the repatriation of many Indian-origin Tamils who wanted Indian citizenship and resulted in securing Sri Lankan citizenship for others in the community. However, as late as 1982, some 86,000 Indian-origin Tamils were still without citizenship and were in the process of applying for it. It was only in 2003, following the passage of the Grant of Citizenship to Persons of Indian Origin Act, that Indian-origin Tamils living in Sri Lanka were finally guaranteed citizenship.

Specimens of empire

Comprising around four percent of the Sri Lankan population, Up-country Tamils are among the most marginalised ethnic groups in the country. Problems in government registrations, such as the arbitrary assignation of ethnic categories to children – due to the lack of land ownership, low literacy and ongoing contentions about the group’s ethnic categorisation – have resulted in difficulty in accessing basic state services and entitlements. Sometimes, some members of the same family are registered as Sri Lankan Tamils and others as Indian Tamils. As the main labour constituent of the Up-country tea estates, the community is also entangled in unequal and exploitative economic practices, which have continued despite some reforms, as the tea industry continues to rely on undignified, dehumanising labour practices. For the community, what was once a legal issue of recognising ethnic identity has today transformed into a struggle against socio-economic marginalisation.

But it isn’t just the estate workers’ labour that is exploited for private profit in the country and beyond; it is also the image of this community that is commoditised and fetishised. Images of tea pluckers – always female, even though this is not necessarily the case in practice – have become a trope that are often a part of marketing campaigns of tourism and hospitality industry of Sri Lanka. The potency of these exotic specimens of empire are such that wealthy travellers will pay to partake in a costly ‘pluck your own tea’ visits, which permits them, for about USD 25 (more than five days of a plantation worker wages), to dress up and pose for photographs as they mime the estate labour for an hour or two. Residents of plantations are compelled by plantations to present themselves and the more quaint, palatable aspects of their lives for the consumption of curious tourists. Jetwing’s ‘line-room experience’, which created the social-media uproar, was one of such schemes. These forms of tea tourism that coexist with the incredible hardship faced by estate workers are not unusual or new. In fact, such particularly crass recreation of the living conditions of Sri Lankan tea plantation workers, for the pleasure of those who can afford it, serves as an especially jarring manifestation of a deeply flawed global and local economy.

What is overlooked in these marketing campaigns are the long hours of back-breaking labour that do not amount to a fair living wage. They ignore the plantation owners’ demand for a daily minimum of 15 kilos of pluckings, which these women must carry on their backs as they navigate rocky paths to hilltops. In contrast to the luxurious replicas of workers’ quarters that places like Jetwing offer – with “contemporary amenities”, “attached toilets” or “hot water” – the workers return home to line rooms that have barely changed since the colonial period. They have poor access to running water and sanitation, and the homes sometimes house three generations of the same family even today.

These living conditions are especially burdensome and unsafe for women and children, exacerbating their vulnerability to sexual abuse and violence. A 2014 report published by the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) revealed that 66 percent of line houses, comprising over half of the accommodation occupied by estate workers, consist of one bed room, contributing not only to frequent illness, but also to domestic violence and sexual abuse exacerbated by high levels of alcoholism. The potency of the line room as an embodiment of a loathsome space and its ethnicised, discriminatory connotations continue to manifest in colloquial slurs against members of the Indian-origin Tamil community even today.

For the most part, the families do not have legal entitlement to these basic lodgings. Their ability to continue to live in the estate is contingent on at least one family member continuing to work there, even though they have been living there for generations. Those who are unable to meet this condition are relegated to the rather permanent ‘temporary shelters’, which are even less habitable than the line rooms. As they do not own their land and property but live in plantation accommodations, which are not necessarily visited by state-welfare officers, many are denied welfare services. Poor access to healthcare and emergency medical services has resulted in high rates of maternal and infant mortality, and child malnutrition. One in three babies born in the estates have a low birth weight and a third of women of reproductive age are malnourished.

Trade unions and activists since Independence have played a significant role in advocating for improvements in the wages, and living and working conditions of plantation labourers in Sri Lanka. Notable among these are the Institute for Social Development (ISD) in Kandy and the Red Flag Women’s Movement Sri Lanka, an independent women’s wing of the Ceylon Plantation Workers Union. The ISD in particular has long worked for the UTZ certification – an Amsterdam-based agricultural certification aimed at standardising sustainable farming and better labour practices – of tea estates, aside from founding The Tea Plantation Workers’ Museum and Archive in 2007. With this initiative, a few line rooms in Gampola, Kandy, were transformed into a museum that aims to preserve the community’s social and cultural history. There have been some improvements in the wage levels, too. In October 2016, after weeks of negotiations, tea-estate owners and trade unions agreed to a minimum daily wage of LKR 730 (USD 4.50), up from the previous rate of LKR 620 (USD 3.87) per day. The government has also pledged to provide some land and housing to plantation workers.

Still, enduring structural inequalities – poor access to education, underemployment, poverty and personal debt – have limited the opportunities for the members of this community. For some, urban informal labour and migrant work in West Asia has afforded considerable mobility. But for the vast majority of estate sector residents, line rooms continue to be a part of their lives. Many from the community who live in the hill country were also impacted by landslides in the past few years. Large groups from these areas have been compelled to live in tents with minimal access to water and sanitation for many months with little to no support from the estate management or the state to relocate and rebuild new houses.

Continued complicity

In a 1900 guide to the tea industry, Golden Tips: A Description of Ceylon and its Great Tea Industry, Henry W Cave writes, “Freedom they will always enjoy under British rule; but a just and almost paternal control, and a hand almost sparing in the direction of philanthropy are best suited to their needs.” He adds, “injudicious benevolence towards the Tamil coolie renders him useless for any purpose.” This paternalistic ethos still exists among the management of plantations even today, along with ethnic, casteist and classist bias against Indian-origin Tamil plantation workers. Reading Jetwing Hotels’ chairman’s response to the criticism of their ‘line rooms’ – his claim that the estate workers do their work “lovingly” and “are benefiting equally from the guests who stay at the line rooms” – the hospitality industry’s attitude to the workers doesn’t appear much different. Given this, the tourism industry’s packaging and presenting of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable among us as curiosities is callous and wilfully oblivious to their continued exploitation, making them complicit in this, too.

Seven decades after Independence, the past and present-day contribution of Sri Lanka’s Indian-origin Tamil in building and sustaining an industry, which has become synonymous with the country remains unacknowledged and inadequately recompensed. Estate residents continue to live in some of the harshest living and working conditions, and suffer from a range of socio-economic problems, from underemployment and malnutrition to alcoholism and sexual violence. Yet, in the words and pictures of companies like Jetwing, which seek to sell picturesque colonial nostalgia, they remain pinned to the emerald hillsides of the island’s mountains like jewel-toned Lepidoptera, exotic specimens of an old empire preserved by the new. They invite us to forget the tempest in each cup of tea.

~Vindhya Buthpitiya is a PhD candidate in Visual Anthropology researching the relationship between popular photography and articulations of Tamil identity and citizenship in post-war Sri Lanka. She has held numerous consultancy positions in social and policy research within the public, private and non-governmental sectors in Sri Lanka, with a focus on postwar reconciliation and development, and community-environment relationships.

Tariff War & IS Strategy

By Ameer Ali –AUGUST 22, 2018

Dr. Ameer Ali

A targeted tariff war declared unilaterally by the Trump administration while disrupting the free flow of global trade and destabilizing currency markets, may, quite inadvertently, provide a new lease of life to import substitution (IS) as strategy for economic development for smaller nations. Sri Lankan policy makers may well be advised to consider this possibility, not as perfect substitute to export promotion but as partner in the free market model.     

When IS was promoted as an alternative model by ECLA (Economic Commission for Latin America) in the early 1960s, to counter the inequities of free market capitalism, it unfortunately earned a socialist tag and came under intense criticism from free market economists and export promotion strategists. No doubt, the Soviet-Mao-Castro triumvirate at that time coloured IS with a revolutionary brush. In fact, there was nothing revolutionary about IS but simple common sense especially for smaller economies that were struggling to earn sufficient foreign exchange to meet the rising cost of importing manufactured products. Economic diversification and reduction of domestic unemployment were other targets which they wished to achieve through IS. In fact, the so called South East Asian economic miracle touted by the World Bank actually emerged out of a sensibly utilised IS strategy by those economies. Yet, that strategy in general got enmeshed with Cold War geo-economics and geo-politics and began to lose its lustre from the last quarter of the 20thcentury. 

With the end of Cold War and collapse of the socialist regimes, economic liberalism became the global universal mantra for growth and development and developing nations like Sri Lanka had no choice but to join the bandwagon. Yet, after more than three decades of its unchallenged reign economic liberalism has not delivered the promised Valhalla to a number of developing economies. In the name of level playing field globalization actually created many humps and dips and widened the gap between a few Goliaths and many Davids. For Sri Lanka, the situation was worsened by a costly civil war financed by borrowed funds. Increasing foreign debt and falling export revenue has forced the government to mortgage and even sell part of the country’s assets to foreigners. At the same time uncontrolled corruption has aggravated the financial woes. Is there a way out under the current economic model?    

The Prime Minister recently called for an export drive through increased foreign investment to improve the nation’s foreign balances. At the same time his Finance Minister, in the wake of a price hike on kerosene fuel, promised launching a gamperaliya to ease the economic difficulties of the rural poor. Foreign balances can be improved through a mixture of increased exports and decreased imports. While the Prime Minister talked of exporting he seems to have has forgotten the import side of the balance. A recent complaint by the Governor of Central Bank that import of motor vehicles are taking undue toll on foreign exchange is only part of the story. Reducing imports and improving the condition of the rural sector can be achieved through selective use of the IS strategy.                   

What went wrong with IS in the nineteen seventies was that it was driven more by a fanatical commitment to ideology rather to use it rationally and selectively towards achievable targets. If such targets could be identified and promoted the finance minister can realise his gamperaliya and Prime Minister his positive foreign balance.   

Liberal economics has come to a dead end after nearly four decades of unchallenged reign. Dissatisfaction over its unfulfilled promises is heard from all corners. This ideology and its economic model were promoted by the big powers not to benefit the poor but the rich. Just as Britain in the 19thcentury advocated Laissez-faire when that country was the economic hegemon, so also did US and her agencies after 1980 preach open economies and free trade when they were in a dominant potion. As a result the world is now ruled by big capital and mega companies. Small nations like Sri Lanka are mere pawns in the chess board of big players.       

IS is no substitute to the market but can be a partner in achieving growth with equity. In fact, the so called East Asian Tigers achieved their ‘economic miracle’ by starting with IS-based industries.

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A Fresh Aproach To Devolution

By Neville Ladduwahetty-August 21, 2018, 9:18 pm 

The Island of August 11, 2018 reports an attempt by State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Wasantha Senanayake, "to overcome (the) devolution impasse". The main thrust of his approach is to repeal the 13th Amendment and devolve power to District Councils. The State Minister’s "Proposal for Devolution" states: "… those for whom devolution seemed most vital now grant that Provincial Councils, as they exist today, do not significantly bring about devolution as intended".

The fact that devolution as intended is not working from the stand point of serving the People is an accepted fact by the overwhelming majority of all communities except for the political leadership involved in the operation of Provincial Councils. Therefore, while the State Minister should be commended for the bold and courageous step taken by him to initiate a fresh approach to devolution, he has concluded that the primary reason why devolution is not working is because the unit of devolution is the Province. This has led him to recommend the District as the unit of devolution.

According to the State Minister the reason why smaller Districts are disadvantaged over larger and more dominant Districts is "…made worse by the existing system of election to Provincial Councils, since members are elected not by the province they are supposed to represent but by the district. They work therefore for the district to increase their popularity so they can be re-elected, and this reinforces a situation where the larger/dominant district gets exaggerated importance over the smaller and less dominant". In addition to the members to Provincial Councils being elected by District, even the operation of Provincial functions are undertaken by the Districts. Therefore, the Province as the unit of devolution does not make any sense whatsoever.

Notwithstanding all of the above reasons, the most compelling reason is that the District assures greater territorial integrity whereas the Province is a real threat to the Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity, particularly with the provision for the merger of two or more adjoining Provinces in the Draft Constitution to the Steering Committee, because the proposed constitutional safeguards such as the State being "undivided and indivisible" is a "thin reed to lean on".

Sri Lanka’s experience with devolution is with the Province as the peripheral unit. However, it needs to be appreciated that the current system functions under a dual system where Line Ministry functions and Provincial functions operate concurrently through the District to the level of the Divisional Secretary. If such an arrangement is to continue with the District as the unit, the dual arrangement that currently exists would also continue. And if the existence of a dual system is the primary cause as to why devolution is not working as intended, changing the size of the unit from Province to a District may turn out to be as ineffective as the existing Provincial system. Therefore, there is an urgent need to select a suitable unit of devolution within a structural arrangement that eliminates the dual system which currently exists, and facilitate Line Ministry and devolved functions to be extended to the People.

DEVOLUTION in the CONTEXT of SRI LANKA

Devolution is the transfer of political power from the center to the periphery. Such transfers are justified on the basis that since peripheries are more familiar with their needs and priorities than the center, the structure of the State should be so organized as to facilitate the realization of the needs determined by the peripheries. When transferred powers are subordinate to the center, meaning that the center could exercise its authority over the periphery, the structure of the State is described as being Unitary. On the other hand, if the powers devolved are independent and free of the center meaning that peripheries are sovereign within their respective spheres of influence the State is described as being Federal.

Powers transferred to Provinces under the 13th Amendment are supposed to be subordinate to the Center. This fact is attributed as the primary reason why devolution is not working as intended. This flawed reasoning has caused the Draft Constitution to the Steering Committee to transform Sri Lanka into a de-facto Federal State thereby making the Provinces independent of the Center within their spheres of influence to the greatest extent possible. The resistance to such attempts is because of the inherent opposition to Federalism as a system of government, because it makes the state vulnerable in regard to its territorial integrity. Therefore, in the particular context of Sri Lanka, the nonnegotiable facts are that the structural framework of Sri Lanka has to be Unitary which means whatever powers are devolved must necessarily be subordinate to the authority of the Center or the devolved unit should be sufficiently small (as for instance the District), to guarantee that territorial integrity remains inviolate.

The reason why devolution in its current form does not work in Sri Lanka is because powers of Line Ministries act concurrently with powers devolved to the peripheries, whether it is the Province or the District. The primary reason for the influence of Line ministries at the periphery is because of the financial dependence of the periphery on the Center, because whether it is the Province or the District neither is financially independent of the Center. A further reason for this dependence is the shortage of human resources by way of skills and expertise available to the peripheries. This dependence invariably results in the Center making its presence felt at the periphery; a fact that makes the existence of two parallel systems for the exercise of devolved powers inevitable. Since this is a reality one has to live with, the transfer of power should be to units small enough such as Local government units wherein powers are assigned by the Center to Local Government entities such as Pradeshiya Sabhas (PS), Municipal Councils, Urban Councils etc., while the District continues to administer Line Ministry functions since it is best equipped to do so by way of finances, skills and expertise. Under such an arrangement, the Local government activities could be coordinated by the Districts and the peripheral units would be free of the Center to carry out their assigned functions, thus minimizing the negative impact of two parallel systems operating concurrently.

A FRESH APPROACH

The primary objective of a fresh approach should be to minimize consequences arising from two parallel systems being associated with providing goods and services to the People. Such an approach would make Center/periphery relations healthy without getting in each other’s way as it is with current arrangements. The primary structures in the periphery should be the District and the Pradeshiya Sabhas. Since there are 25 Districts and nearly 250 PSs, each District would be coordinating activities of an average of 10 PSs.

This approach would make the District the operating unit for Line Ministry functions with the District Secretary responsible for coordinating Line Ministry activities in the Districts. Funds for each District would be allocated by the Finance Commission to the District Secretary as the Chief Accounting Officer for distribution to the Divisional Secretaries in each PS. The District Secretary would also be monitoring and coordinating functions and activities assigned to Local Governments within each District. The Local Governments would be exercising its assigned powers within the budgetary provisions allocated from the Central Government to each PS. The Divisional Secretary would be the Chief Accounting Officer in each PS.

The District Council would be made up of the Chairman and the Leader of the Opposition of each PS being appointed as ex-officio members of the District Council along with the Members of Parliament associated with each respective District.

Activities of the District Council would be coordinated by the District Secretary. Each PS would make its determinations relating to the assigned subjects with the Divisional Secretary as the Chief Accounting Officer responsible for implementing the determinations made by the PS.

The above proposed arrangement would result in enormous savings since it would totally eliminate the cost of maintain Provincial Councils with all its attendant overheads. In addition, it would also eliminate the cost of conducting Provincial Council Elections or District Council elections. Furthermore, since the structure at the District level would only be that needed by the District Secretary, the proposed arrangement would save the cost of maintaining 25 District Councils with all its attendant overheads.

CONCLUSIONS

The State Minister for Foreign Wasantha Senanayake in his proposal to the Steering Committee for Constitutional reform has submitted a fresh approach to the question of devolution by way of repealing the 13th Amendment and reviving the concept of District Councils to overcome the "devolution impasse". In the background of the inevitability of having to live with Provincial Councils despite awareness that they do not work as intended, for the State Minister to take this bold and courageous initiative is indeed a glimmer of hope in these dark days.

Despite the many benefits of District Councils over Provincial Councils, a word of caution is needed if power is devolved to District on lines similar to Provincial Councils, because it would only continue to perpetuate two parallel systems, one operating Line Ministry functions and the other fulfilling devolved functions. The need for Line Ministries to be involved in the Districts is not only because of their financial dependence on the Center, but also because of shortages in human resources by way of skills and expertise at the peripheries, whether it is the Province or the District. This dependence would continue even if the structure is de-facto Federal as proposed in the Draft Constitution before the Steering Committee.

Under these particularities, that are unique to Sri Lanka what is proposed herein is to make the District Council the hub to coordinate Line Ministry functions and Local Government functions, and in particular, the Pradeshiya Sabhas. The District Council should NOT be another elected body. Instead, it should be created by the elected Chairman and Leader of the Opposition of the PSs being ex-officio members of the District Council along with Members of Parliament associated with the District. Thus, the only elections would be to Parliament and to Local Governments. The activities of the District Council would be coordinated by the District Secretary as the Chief Accounting Officer, and the activities of the PSs would be coordinated by each Divisional Secretary as its Chief Accounting Officer.

The cost benefit of eliminating a third tier election would be considerable. In addition, since the District Council would be made up of ex-officio members, the savings arising from not having to bear the cost of maintaining a body of elected members at the District level would be considerable too. Above all, devolution under the scheme proposed would be meaningful. Therefore, it is imperative that what is proposed is given serious consideration.

Notwithstanding the decided merits of what is proposed by State Minister Wasantha Senanayake, or what is proposed herein, at the end of the day the political ambitions of the leaderships in all communities is what would override all other considerations such as the human development of the People. As long as that culture remains, devolution would continue to be at an impasse.