Saturday, December 8, 2018

'I don't want to go back': what's next for the Central American migrant caravan?

A migrant, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the US, plays with a ball as she shelters on the street in Tijuana. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Amanda Holpuchin Tijuana @holpuch-Sat 8 Dec 2018 09.00 GMT

While some have returned home, many members seek a better life as they seek local jobs and await word from US authorities

Inside the Tijuana migrant shelter that has become a home for thousands of Central American migrants, 55-year-old Carlos Gómez approached some strangers asking if they knew where he could find a job.

Gómez was one of thousands who fled Honduras with the migrant caravan that arrived in Tijuana one month ago. He would still like to seek asylum in the US, but with thousands of people ahead of him in the line to submit an application, he would be content to stay in Mexico, he says.

“I need the work, I don’t want to go back to Honduras,” said Gómez in El Barretal’s enormous open courtyard, where the few spaces not occupied by tents are filled with lines of people waiting to receive donated sandwiches and piles of warm winter clothes.

Despite the open hostility of Donald Trump, most members of the recent migrant caravans headed north in the belief – fed by rumors and often bolstered by their deep Christian faith – that they would quickly be granted asylum.

Now, after a cold welcome in Tijuana – where they have faced xenophobic reactions from local people and been tear gassed by US border officials – some migrants have chosen to head home.

But most have remained in Tijuana, intent on building a life more tenable than one defined by the violence and unrest back home.

A man emerges from a tent advertising phone recharges at the former concert venue Barretal in Tijuana. Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Gómez made the 2,000-mile journey to Mexico alone, after his family was forced off their property and targeted by gangs. “I couldn’t live in that country anymore,” he said.

He accepted the Mexican government’s offer to provide work permits to the migrants but said he had been waiting two weeks for his application to be processed.

Until that happens, Gómez – along with thousands of others – remains at Barretal, a concert hall turned refugee camp. The migrants were transferred here last week after a previous facility – a sports center – was flooded during torrential rains and health workers warned of dangerous, unsanitary conditions.

In Barretal’s multi-story indoor facility, children’s chatter bounces off the walls endlessly as kids stampede down staircases and through corridors, turning any structure, including the music venue bar, into a playground.

Adults hold hushed conversations, rustle through backpacks and suitcases to find a certain shirt or hat and empty plastic bags of donated bathroom supplies to examine on their blankets.

Denis, 31, said the only quiet in the camp came late at night.

He traveled alone from Guatemala, planning to seek asylum in the US, where his mother became a citizen several years ago. Denis said she applied for him to join her more than two years ago, but he does not know what has been happening with the application and is skeptical her attorney will actually help him. He asked that his name not be used so his chances of getting to the US wouldn’t be jeopardized.

“I could be close to getting papers, but if I cross I could be close to ruining it,” Denis said. “There’s a lot uncertainty.”

According to Denis, El Barretal is a better place to figure out his next move than the unsanitary conditions at the sports stadium.

But in exchange for improved sanitation, space and shelter, migrants were forced to accept being much farther from the border. The location is about 11 miles from the San Ysidro port of entry, where asylum seekers manage an unofficial, handwritten list to determine who is next in the line to apply for asylum in the US.

Denis, 31, said the only quiet in the camp came late at night.

He traveled alone from Guatemala, planning to seek asylum in the US, where his mother became a citizen several years ago. Denis said she applied for him to join her more than two years ago, but he does not know what has been happening with the application and is skeptical her attorney will actually help him. He asked that his name not be used so his chances of getting to the US wouldn’t be jeopardized.

“I could be close to getting papers, but if I cross I could be close to ruining it,” Denis said. “There’s a lot uncertainty.”

According to Denis, El Barretal is a better place to figure out his next move than the unsanitary conditions at the sports stadium.

But in exchange for improved sanitation, space and shelter, migrants were forced to accept being much farther from the border. The location is about 11 miles from the San Ysidro port of entry, where asylum seekers manage an unofficial, handwritten list to determine who is next in the line to apply for asylum in the US.

About 20 million Yemenis food insecure amid war, UN agencies say

War and economic collapse has left 53 percent of population facing 'severe acute food insecurity'; famine looms if action is not taken

Mother holds malnourished child as they wait for treatment in medical centre in western Yemen (AFP/file)

Saturday 8 December 2018

About 20 million Yemenis are food insecure, UN agencies said on Saturday, adding that the conflict ravaging the impoverished country is the key driver behind rising hunger levels.

"As many as 20 million Yemenis are food insecure in the world's worst humanitarian crisis," a joint statement by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the children's fund UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) said, according to AFP.

Yemen's war and the ensuing economic collapse has left 15.9 million people, 53 percent of the population, facing "severe acute food insecurity" and famine is a danger if immediate action is not taken, Reuters reported.

“In a war waged by adults, it is the country’s children who suffer first and suffer most,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore, in the statement. “Thousands of Yemeni children could die from severe malnutrition if conditions, including conflict and economic crisis, do not improve soon. Warring parties must choose whether to end the fighting, and save lives, or fight on, and cause more children to die.”

The latest report comes as Yemeni government representatives and a rebel delegation were holding UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden. On the table at the talks is the fate of Hodeidah, the last rebel stronghold on Yemen's Red Sea coast and the conduit for 90 percent of vital food imports.

WFP head David Beasley said: "We need a massive increase in aid and sustained access to all areas in Yemen in order to rescue millions of Yemenis. If we don't, we will lose an entire generation of children to hunger," he warned.

According to an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) whose analysis is necessary to decide whether to declare famine in countries - the 20 million people facing "severe acute food insecurity" represent 67 percent of Yemen's population.

"What the IPC tells us is alarming," said Lise Grande, UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

A WFP spokesman said the organisation aims to scale up its support programme in Yemen from the current level of about 8 million people to reach 10 million by the end of December and 12 million by end January.

"This scale-up is an ambitious undertaking for WFP, which will demand massive resources both logistical and financial," said Herve Verhoosel.

"WFP has enough food stocks in country for now but will need $152 million a month to sustain its scale-up into next year."

READ MORE ►

Yemen on brink of 'major catastrophe' says visiting UN aid chief

The world's worst humanitarian crisis escalated in Yemen after a Saudi-led coalition launched an offensive to support the government against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in March 2015.

It has killed at least 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.

The armed conflict was at the top of a list of the "key drivers of food insecurity", which has been further exacerbated by a protracted economic crisis in the impoverished Gulf Peninsula country.

Yemen's finances have been devastated by the conflict, with the World Bank reporting the economy has contracted by about 50 percent since 2015.

Unemployment is running at more than 30 percent and inflation is projected at about 42 percent, while most state employees are not paid.

A slide in the value of the riyal also has caused food prices in the famine-threatened country to soar.

"A large proportion of the population, even in more stable areas, cannot access basic food commodities because food prices have jumped by 150 percent compared to pre-crisis levels," the statement said.

The world is ending wars Middle-income countries are more warlike than very poor or rich ones

Democracies do not go to war with each other

Countries most prone to war are not democracies or autocracies, but countries in between

2018-12-08

We need jaw jaw not war war”, said Winston Churchill rather hypocritically. Still, he would be glad to see that the number of wars around the world has fallen dramatically since the end of World War II, despite the conflicts in Korea, Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Pakistan versus India, Central America, Cyprus, ex-Yugoslavia, Syria and now Yemen.

Compared to centuries past this has been a remarkable era, yet one not often acknowledged.

Interstate wars, apart from India versus Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen, have vanished off the map. The wars that remain are civil wars.
The democracies do not go to war with each other, as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher long ago observed.

A detailed study made by the Economist last month, analyzed all international wars since 1900, along with the belligerents’ wealth and degree of development.

It counted all conflicts in which at least 100 people per year were killed, excluding deaths from terrorism, massacres of civilians outside combat, starvation or disease.

The data showed a strong correlation between democracy and peace, with the exception of the US.

The countries most prone to war these days are not democracies or autocracies; they are countries in between.

A similar finding applies to prosperity. Middle-income countries are more warlike than very poor or rich ones.

Why? Wars are expensive, and citizens in tyrannies struggle to organize uprisings. Perhaps a little political competition or wealth makes it easier to take up arms.

The development and growth of international law have undoubtedly had a cooling impact. Grotius, the great Dutch philosopher, wrote in the early 17th century: “Where judicial settlement ends, the war begins”.

The data showed a strong correlation between democracy and peace, with the exception of the US. The countries most prone to war these days are not democracies or autocracies; they are countries in between

To wage war was not a criminal act. It was what States did to uphold the law. Grotius was a clever man but in fact, his writings sanctioned the two terrible world wars.

We now realize that “legalizing war legitimized violence and blocked routes to peace”, as written by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro in their seminal book, The Internationalists.

It was a successful Chicago Corporate lawyer, Salmon Levinson, who wrote in 1917, “The only real way to bring an end to the war is to outlaw war”.

All the plans made before assumed the legality of the war. Levinson drew up a plan to outlaw war unlike any other peace plan than under discussion.

Levinson organized a global social movement around the idea of Outlawry. He made an impact. At a special conference in Paris of major countries on August 27th, 1928, the French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, declared that the day would mark “a new date in the history of mankind” and the end of “selfish and willful warfare”.

By signing a treaty, soon to be known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the nations of the world would no longer treat war as a lawful means to resolve disputes.

Briand said the treaty would “attack the evil at its very root” by depriving war of “its legitimacy”.

That day, 15 nations signed the Peace Pact, and within a year nearly every nation in the world did the same. For the first time in history, a war was considered to be illegal. Tragically, the Pact didn’t survive the pressure of events and the selfish, nationalistic, views of antagonistic countries.

The first challenge came from Japan when it invaded Manchuria in 1931. The League of Nations was paralyzed. The other important institution, the International Court Of Justice, whose charter said that disputes had to be submitted to it, was ignored.

The US Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, started to think about sanctions- “Sanctions of peace” to replace the “sanctions of war”. In January 1932 Stimson delivered diplomatic notes to Japan and China, saying, “The US Government does not intend to recognize any situation, treaty or agreement which may be brought about by means contrary to the covenants and the obligations of the Pact of Paris.”

The League allowed that Japan might take Manchuria but Manchuria would not belong to Japan. Later, other signatories of the Pact- Germany, Japan and Italy- ignored it.

At the end of the Second World War, the United Nations Charter included the words of the Pact verbatim:

“All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” There was one exception- if the Security Council authorized force to keep the peace.

Today we look at a world where territorial conquest has all but disappeared. Immunity for Heads of States no longer exists.

The International Criminal Court can prosecute those accused of war crimes. Before 1928 the average State could be expected to be conquered once in a person’s lifetime. Now, it is once or twice in a millennium.

Progress?

Yes, a lot of it. Most people, especially politicians, are blind to this momentous achievement.

Towards a better world: How to change the story on child poverty

shutterstock_367635593-940x580 — A group of children in Raub, Pahang, watch cartoons on a tablet. Source: Shutterstock.

By Gill Main | 7th December 2018

A VAST body of research shows us that child poverty has devastating effects – on children, on families, and on societies.

Researching poverty imbues us with an ethical responsibility to contribute to its reduction and ultimately its elimination.

But in the face of powerful structural forces which perpetuate the status quo, this task can feel overwhelming. The scale of change that is needed to eliminate poverty is beyond the scope of any individual. This raises the question of how research evidence can be used to effect real-world change.

The Fair Shares and Families research project was conceived in an atmosphere of increasingly hostile policy and rhetoric towards those in poverty in the UK – much of it similar to narratives seen in Australia.

These narratives suggest families in poverty are responsible for their own situation – and specifically that they think, act and are motivated differently to those in more privileged situations.

The assumption from these narratives is that to address poverty, we must change the individuals who are poor. The purpose of the research was, therefore, to examine how children and families from across the socio-economic spectrum went about obtaining, negotiating, and sharing resources.

The work drew on in-depth qualitative research with eight families, as well as a three-wave representative survey of 1,000 parent-child pairs in England (with the children aged 10-17). The goal was to identify what – if any – differences there are in how families go about their use of resources according to their socio-economic status.

As well as generating academic evidence, we aimed to identify some practical actions which we can take as individuals, practitioners, and political actors.

SEE ALSO: In wealthy Kuala Lumpur, the tragedy of child poverty in its public flats

The key findings from the project pose a robust challenge to current policy.

We identified a strong message of similarity between families across the socio-economic spectrum in our qualitative data – in how they thought, spoke about and shared their resources; in their hopes and dreams; in the support parents wanted to provide for their children; and in the multiple diverse interests pursued by children to enable them to enjoy childhood and to prepare them for a fulfilling adult life.

An unidentified homeless woman sleeps on a bench in Manila. Over 12 million Filipinos live in extreme poverty in the Philippines, according to 2015 estimates. Source: Shutterstock

Despite determined efforts to find any evidence to the contrary, across both our qualitative and quantitative data the message was clear and powerful: the difference between poorer and better-off families was in the resources they had access to, not in their motivations or actions.

The key implication of this finding echoes a large body of previous research: the best way to address poverty is to increase the incomes and resources available to poor families.

This is not new, yet policymakers remain stubbornly deaf to the message.

We, therefore, tried to identify how we can still work to address poverty in a context within which evidence does not appear to be persuasive to dominant policy and media actors.

SEE ALSO: Op-Ed: Why Malaysia is leading the way in Asean for poverty eradication

Changing the story

Poverty – and concepts which are closely associated in the public consciousness like ‘worklessness’ and ‘benefits claimants’ – is a popular topic of conversation.

While our day-to-day interactions about poverty may not mention it by name, there are many ways that the notion of poverty is invoked, and these often draw on the long-standing but inaccurate narratives of difference.

This was true among our participating families. One mother bemoaned the fact that other families who she assumed to be on benefits owned a TV, while another family discussed how some children may have fewer opportunities because their parents might be out of work and spending their money on drugs rather than on their children.

We can all take action to change how we think and speak about poverty, and to challenge such negative and inaccurate stereotypes when we hear them or see them in print.

Changing practice

Practitioners working with children and families – teachers, youth workers, social workers, charity workers, and many more – can contribute to mediating the effects of poverty.

Even where there is no overt link between the practitioner’s role and addressing poverty, the issue will still present itself.

In our research, we heard families talk about schools with a ‘bring your own device’ policy – and about how children in families who could not afford to buy them a tablet were excluded from formal and informal educational and social experiences as a direct result of this policy.

We also heard about children having to make do with their better-off friends’ cast-off craft materials so that they could engage with their hobbies and take part in the activities of their friendship groups.

We even heard about children who were excluded because there was simply no way to find the money to travel to and participate in the activities enjoyed by their peers – and about children who were provided with the financial support needed to engage but in the process were identified as ‘poor’ and therefore made to feel ashamed and different.

Children from lower-income households are often left out of fun activities because they are unable to afford paying for certain facilities. Source: Shutterstock

Practitioners can help by ‘poverty-proofing’ activities so that no child is either excluded because of their family’s income, or identified as ‘different’ by the mechanisms intended to ensure their inclusion.

What we need is a rights-based approach, based on advocating for better provision, breaking down the stigma that surrounds claiming social entitlements, and helping families to claim the resources to which they are entitled.

SEE ALSO: 5 girls and a tale of hope, despair in Kuala Lumpur’s public housing

Changing policy

The ultimate goal remains to change policy.

Through changing the story we can contribute to developing more accurate and empathetic narratives around poverty. Through changing practice we can create an environment that is inclusive of those in poverty.

These actions ultimately have the potential to help eliminate poverty by softening public attitudes and ensuring that policymakers have no option but to respond to the evidence, and not just listen to negative narratives.

You can read the Fair Shares and Families Research Project Report here: https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/resources-and-publications/fair-shares-and-families-report

This piece was first published at Policy Forum, Asia and the Pacific’s platform for public policy analysis and opinion.

Yemen food survey finds majority in 'dire' crisis, famine a danger

A nurse holds a hand of malnourished two-month-old Jood Motaher two days before her death at a malnutrition treatment centre in Sanaa, Yemen November 22, 2018. Picture taken November 22, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

DECEMBER 8, 2018

GENEVA (Reuters) - Yemen’s war and the ensuing economic collapse has left 15.9 million people, 53 percent of the population, facing “severe acute food insecurity” and famine was a danger if immediate action was not taken, a survey said on Saturday.

The report was released as the United Nations brought Yemen’s warring sides together for the first peace talks in two years. Humanitarian groups say peace is the only way of ending the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

While war was the main cause of the hunger crisis, it was exacerbated by extremely high food prices, a liquidity crisis, disrupted livelihoods, and high levels of unemployment, the report said, adding food aid was not enough to plug the gap.

“Immediate responses are required to save lives and livelihoods of millions not to slide to the next worse case which is famine,” it said.

The survey was conducted by Yemeni officials and international experts according to the international IPC system, which uses a five point scale where 3 is “crisis”, 4 is “emergency” and 5 is “catastrophe” and possibly famine.

The release of the report, which is based on a survey completed in October, was delayed several times without explanation and is planned to be updated in March.

It showed many pockets of extreme hunger across Yemen, concentrated in areas with active fighting, and especially affecting the 3 million displaced people, their host families, landless wage labourers and other marginalised groups.

The governorates of Hodeidah, Amanat Al Asimah, Dhamar, Hajjah, Ibb and Taiz each had more than one million people in a crisis situation or worse, and without humanitarian aid 13 governorates would be in a food catastrophe, the survey showed.

The 15.9 million people in phases 3-5 could hit 20.1 million people, 67 percent of the population, if there is not adequate food aid. The number in “catastrophe” would triple to 238,000.

Some of the figures were released by the U.N. on Thursday.

Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Alexander Smith

Zainab Mughal: Toddler with cancer spurs hunt for rare blood

Zainab Mughal was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare type of cancer

7 December 2018

A two-year-old US girl who needs several blood transfusions to fight cancer has spurred a global campaign to search for compatible donors.

Zainab Mughal has one of the rarest blood types in the world, which makes it difficult to treat her condition.

Campaigners say more than 1,000 people have been tested, but only three so far have the blood she needs.

Doctors say seven to 10 donors will be needed over the course of her cancer treatment.

Earlier this year Zainab was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, an aggressive and rare form of cancer that mostly affects babies and young children.

Blood transfusions will be needed for the duration of her treatment, but Zainab's blood is "extremely rare" because it is missing an antigen - "Indian B" - that most people carry in their red blood cells, says OneBlood, a non-profit blood centre that's spearheading the search for donors.

The only donors likely to be a match are people of exclusively Pakistani, Indian or Iranian descent with blood type O or A, OneBlood says.

But even within these populations, fewer than 4% of people will be missing the Indian B antigen.

Zainab with her mother and father

Zainab's body will reject any blood which doesn't match all the requirements.

Two matching donors have been found in the US, and another in the UK.

"This is so rare that honestly this the first time I've seen it in the 20 years I've been doing this," said Frieda Bright, a laboratory manager with OneBlood.

OneBlood is working with other blood banks and the American Rare Donor Program (ARDP), a program that finds donors of rare types of blood around the world.

"Blood is not going to cure her, but it's very important for her to survive cancer treatment," Ms Bright said in a campaign video.

At least seven to 10 suitable donors are needed

'We cried a lot'

Zainab's father Raheel Mughal said his daughter was diagnosed in September.

"We were all crying, this was the worst thing we were expecting," he said in the OneBlood video.

After he and Zainab's mother offered to donate their own blood, doctors discovered neither of them was compatible.

"And then a lot of people from my family, they went around and donated blood and that's when it became more of an alert."

A baby picture of Zainab Mughal, who was diagnosed with cancer in October

According to OneBlood, treatment with chemotherapy is already reducing the size of the Zainab's tumour, but she will eventually need two bone marrow transplants.

"My daughter's life very much depends on the blood," says Mr Mughal.

"What [donors] are doing to save my daughter's life is amazing. The work you are doing, I will never ever forget it."

Friday, December 7, 2018

Mannar mass grave: shackled skeleton unearthed

A skeleton with its leg in a shackle was unearthed today at the mass grave site in Mannar.

Over 250 whole skeletons have been recovered from the site to date.

06 December 2018

The remains are being held at a special chamber in the Mannar Court Complex. Though samples of the remains were supposedly due to be sent to a laboratory in the United States for carbon dating, the decision to send them lies with Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Justice. The ministry is yet to reply, and is only expected to respond in December.

There has also been controversy over the announcement in August by the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) that the office would fund the excavation, with concerns being raised about the independence of the office.

Last week the German ambassador to the Sri Lanka visited the mass grave site.

Related Articles:

03 December 2018 : German ambassador visits Mannar mass graves

14 November 2018 : Mannar mass grave excavation temporarily suspended

07 November 2018 : Over 230 skeletons and counting unearthed from Mannar mass grave

Where are the PEOPLE ?

Hectic behind-the-scene manipulations, manoeuvrings, scheming and negotiations taking place

2018-12-07

Searching for ‘truth’ is not searching for what you like-Albert Camus
Sri Lanka now lives with two temporary Stay Orders from the Judiciary; the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court. Sri Lanka now lives with a Parliament that is dysfunctional and in chaos every time it meets.

It is now without a proper elected Government with a cabinet of Ministers. This would drag on for a few more days at least, with speculations as to what the outcome of the presently deliberated FR petitions in the Supreme Court would be. It is now expected the Supreme Court would provide a final answer within the “Constitution”, early next week, perhaps on Monday.Meanwhile, hectic behind-the-scene manipulations, manoeuvrings, scheming and negotiations take place as never heard of, in post independent Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.

The crisis or rather the political brawl erupted is over the Premiership that President Sirisena changed from Wickramasinghe to Rajapaksa on 26 of October.The first such tussle for Premiership in post independent Ceylon emerged within the UNP after the untimely death of Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake in March 1952.
With Bandaranaike out of running having left the UNP in July 1951, Sir John Kotalawala was a strong contender to the PM post.
That saw many deals being bargained and negotiated by Senator and Minister of Home Affairs and Rural Development Sir Oliver Goonatilleke, a formidable figure among elites in Colombo politics and a strong and an efficient negotiator, the diminutive General Secretary of the UNP, Sir Ukwatte Jayasundera QC.
They were obliged to honour the request made by DS to have his son Dudley as PM.
The deals were done and over within a few days and Dudley was sworn in as PM in a week. A crisis around appointing a new PM, never felt by the people, never stalled the Parliament and the need of judicial intervention never arising nor even thought of.

"Supreme Court expected to provide a final answer within the Constitution, early next week"

Those were good old days where politicians were far more civilised than now and political parties behaved with decency.
Today, with a group of people’s representatives that can teach how street brawls should be fought, this conflict over who the constitutionally and rightfully appointed PM is, have gone out of the Legislature into the Judiciary, it keeps the ExecutivePresident working right round the clock and political leaders split hairs working out their Plan B in case things go out of their hands.
In this rush, perhaps for the first time in independent Sri Lanka, most saintly and honourable public personalities had their respected images exposed in public.The soft but emotional public speaker Sirisena, who came as the Common Candidate against President Rajapaksa and was voted as President in 2015 January, was then hugged by the Colombo middleclass as the Asian reincarnation of Mandela.

Today he is left ridiculed and detested by the very same urban middleclass.
PM Wickremesinghe was the trusted political leader, the Western allies wanted in charge of the Government and was dubbed Mr. Clean.Today he is with a heavy baggage accused of mega corruption beginning with the CBSL Bond Scam and is accused of a badly run economy fast on the decline.The conflicts between the two main partners in a Government that was installed to keep Rajapaksa permanently at bay, has failed in every aspect of governing (2017 GDP growth slumped to an all time low in a decade to 3.7%) and has bred frustration among people.
The two leaders that came together on a rainbow revolution are thus responsible for Rajapaksa’s return to centre stage.The return of Rajapaksa to the main stage, exposes the few Western diplomats, who advise Sri Lanka as friends to behave democratically.
In this post WW II world, many countries they walked through are living with bleeding tragedies despite their preaching on democracy.
With no lack of funds, the Colombo civil society is on the streets, also demanding democracy but does not want Parliament dissolved, denying the people of their sovereign right to elect a Government of their choice.

"People should be brought back as the final Decision Makers"

As argued in these pages before, this political brawl for power that allows access to everything profitable in this open market economy, cannot be resolved to a finish through constitutional and legal processes.
The Constitution itself is flawed, more after the much venerated 19A, and is reflected in how the two parties in this political brawl use different Articles and Clauses from the same Constitution.Despite such contradictions and confusions over who is right and what is right, the whole conflict is yet restricted to higher judicial forums and to a wild and corrupt parliament that no more represents the People.
The Supreme Court (SC) decision is the most important decision awaited for on Monday and can only be one of two; accept the November 09 Gazette Notification dissolving Parliament as valid, or ruling it unconstitutional, on whatever grounds the seven-member bench reads as right and justifiable.
It could even be a divided decision, but the majority ruling goes as the SC decision when read out in open Court.

While one could only keep guessing what their decision could be, on a hypothetical note, if the SC decides “the Gazette is invalid and is unconstitutional”, then the ‘status quo’ that has to be accepted is that of November 08, the day before the Gazette was issued.
That brings back Rajapaksa as PM and the Cabinet of Ministers sworn in after the October 26 Gazette that appointed him as PM.
In fact, that Gazette has not been challenged in any Court of Law and also moving two “No Confidence Motions” against PM Rajapaksa meant the UNP, the TNA and the JVP accepted him as PM, they only argued had no majority in Parliament.
Yet, there are two more hurdles Rajapaksa has to clear, before he emerges as the constitutionally accepted head of government in such political scenario.His appeal to the SC against the temporary stay order issued by the Appeal Court on a Quo Warranto writ application and the hearing of the same writ application on 12 December in the Appeal Court, if the SC leaves the decision for the Appeal Court to decide.A Quo Warranto is one exclusively used to test a person’s legal right to hold a public office.

"A Quo Warranto is one exclusively used to test a person’s legal right to hold a public office."

In this case, what is tested is the post of Prime Minister and posts of Cabinet Ministers. The interpretation of a Public Officer in Article 170 of the Constitution, says, “Public officer means a person who holds any paid office under the Republic other than a judicial officer, but does not include – (a) the President (b) the Prime Minister (c) the Speaker (d) a Minister (e) a Deputy Minister (f) a Member of Parliament” and also all members of the Constitutional Council and members of independent Commissions.
Be that as it may, whatever decisions the judiciary finally reach, this parliament cannot get back to decent and civilised handling of business, unless there is a sound compromise between the two main contenders, the UNP leadership and Rajapaksa. The only possibility of a compromise now lies with Wickramasinghe publicly saying, the UNP would agree to a Parliamentary election under a legitimate Government.

What he basically says is, he would agree to an election if he is allowed to head the Government as PM, with his Cabinet of Ministers.There no doubt is a barrier for now. President Sirisena with his illogical and angry statements made against Wickremesinghe remains to be tamed for a compromise. Sirisena’s empty and angry statements apart, there is no reason why Rajapaksa cannot and should not agree to Wickremesinghe’s offer with a public statement.
If an election is what Rajapaksa and his SLPP wants, who heads the Government is not one that should scare him from compromising with Wickremesinghe.Elections are held under the National Elections Commission (NEC) and not under any Government.Rajapaksa did face the 2018 February LG elections held by the NEC with a UNP government in office headed by Wickramasinghe as PM and President Sirisena also against his SLPP. One only needs an immediate Resolution in Parliament presented by Wickramasinghe as PM to dissolve itself and hold elections in three months for a compromise to take effect.Bottom line is, as I have previously argued in these pages, people who were completely left out of this political brawl, should be brought back as the final Decision Makers at an election for some stability and civility to be achieved in a new parliament.

"This political brawl for power that allows access to everything profitable in this open market economy, cannot be resolved to a finish through constitutional and legal processes."

Whatever the outcome of judicial interventions would be next week, whatever placards the funded democracy activists in Colombo may raise, it is Wickremesinghe’s offer for an election under his Government that should be compromised upon for sanity to prevail and personal egos to die.
Wish Rajapaksa and his SLPP would seize that opportunity to end this ugly political brawl.