Monday, April 8, 2019

The new science of psychedelics: How hallucinogens provide a tool for changing our minds

By Vanessa Bates Ramirez This article originally appeared on Singularity Hub, a publication of Singularity University. As our prosperity rises, our mental health is on the decline—and fast. Rates of…

By Vanessa Bates Ramirez-April 7, 2019

This article originally appeared on Singularity Hub, a publication of Singularity University.

As our prosperity rises, our mental health is on the decline—and fast. Rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, addiction, and other psychological disorders have skyrocketed in recent years, and nobody knows what to do about it.

Enter psychedelics: LSD, magic mushrooms, mescaline, ayahuasca—drugs you’d expect to find at a rave or a music festival, not in your psychologist’s office. But that may be about to change, as research in psychedelics increasingly shows their potential for treating psychological conditions.

Previously known as a food and nutrition expert thanks to books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, author Michael Pollan switched tracks a bit for his latest project. His newest book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, published last year, has been an integral part of de-stigmatizing the psychedelics conversation.

In a fascinating talk with The 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferris at South By Southwestearlier this month, Pollan shared insights from his research and his personal experiences.

Some History

The word ‘psychedelics’ was coined in 1957 by English psychiatrist Humphry Osmond. It combines the words for mind (psyche) and manifest (delic, from the Greek dēlos). “It’s vague in a way, but it’s suggesting that these drugs bring the mind into kind of an observable space,” Pollan said. “I tried in my book to rescue the word from all the encrustation of 60s Day-Glo acid rock and see if we could reclaim it, because it means the right thing.”

It was their association with 60s counterculture, Pollan explained, that ultimately caused psychedelics’ decline as a scientific tool. By the time the public first heard about the drugs in the 60s, researchers in Europe and the US had already been studying them for 15 years, and using them to treat conditions like addiction and depression, with positive results. “The standards for scientific drug research then were different,” Pollan said. “The double-blind placebo controlled trial didn’t exist until 1962.”

The anti-establishment subculture embraced psychedelics. But in 1965—the year the US first deployed troops to Vietnam—the government and the media started demonizing the drugs. They were labeled as immoral, and stories abounded about people having bad trips, ending up in psych wards, or staring at the sun until they went blind (the first two did happen, but the last was made up).

“Nixon regarded LSD as one of the reasons that boys weren’t willing to go fight in Vietnam,” Pollan said. For most of history, he explained, young men sent to war to defend their country just went—they didn’t ask questions. But suddenly, young American men were asking questions—big ones, like “Is this a just war?” and “Is this something I want to fight for?”

“LSD encourages people to question all sorts of frameworks in their lives, and may have contributed to that,” Pollan said. “It was a very threatening drug.” At least, Nixon thought so, and as a result he started his war on drugs. Psychedelics research gradually ground to a halt, and the drugs stopped being taken seriously as having any medical potential.

Until now, that is.

Changing Our Minds

Pollan shared that what really got him interested in psychedelics was hearing about their effects on people who’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer. “They were paralyzed by fear of death, and they had these transformative experiences that in many cases completely removed their fear. It was the most astonishing thing,” he said.

The drugs have shown promise for alleviating a host of other disorders, including anxiety, depression, and addiction. Psilocybin is being used (“with striking success,” as Pollan put it) in a study of smokers at Johns Hopkins and a study of alcoholics at NYU, and has potential to treat eating disorders as well.

If it seems surprising that one type of drug could treat so many different disorders, consider their common link: they all involve repetitive loops and destructive narratives. The part of the brain where this takes place—called the default mode network—is the part of the brain psychedelics affect, in the sense that the drugs quiet the network, thereby giving users a chance to escape destructive patterns of thought.

The default mode network is a group of structures in the brain that connect the cortex to the areas involved in memory, emotion, and other inwardly-focused thinking, like self-reflection. The default mode network is least active when you’re focused on a task, and most active when you’re at rest without any external stimuli—which is when you start to daydream, remember things about the past, imagine things about the future, and simulate or replay your interactions with other people.

“When they image the brains of people on psychedelics they expected to see a lot of activity, but they were surprised to see that the default mode network was suppressed, with less blood flow and less energy going to it,” Pollan said. “If the ego has an address in the brain it’s somewhere in this network. And this is the region that gets quiet.”

Though we do know this much, we don’t know a lot more, about either how psychedelics work or how the brain works. “Our understanding of the brain is really primitive,” Pollan said. “We know psychedelic drugs bind serotonin to a receptor, then there’s a cascade of effects leading to synesthesia.” What takes place during that cascade, though? No idea.

There may be modes of communication going on in the brain that we don’t even know about yet; Pollan cited a 2018 study where a hippocampus—the brain region associated with memory—was sliced in half, and neurons on either side could still interact without direct contact.

“It’s really important to be humble in anything we say about the brain,” Pollan said.

Keeping Them Changed

If what takes place during psychedelic use is a temporary rewiring of the brain—the compounds are out of the brain within four to eight hours—why is it that using the drugs has an enduring effect on so many people?

“It’s not a purely psychopharmacological effect that they’re having, it really is the experience,” Pollan said. “It’s kind of like a reverse trauma. Many people who undergo this treatment say it’s one of the two or three biggest experiences of their lives.”

The most positive and lasting effect of psychedelics, he explained, is the experience of ego dissolution. It’s our egos—our sense of ourselves—that write and enforce destructive narratives. “The ego builds walls. It isolates us from other people, it isolates us from nature, it’s defensive,” Pollan said. “And when you bring down those walls in the psyche, there’s less of a distinction between you and that other, whether that be other people in your life or the natural world or the universe. There’s this incredible flow, and powerful feelings of love and re-connection.”

Though the experience may last just a few hours, people often feel that the insight or epiphany they have isn’t just a subjective opinion or idea, but a deeper revealed truth; the mind can be reset in a way that would take years of sessions with conventional therapists or psychiatrists. Just as a single trauma can put your mind on a new path, perhaps permanently, a single mystical experience may be able to do the same.

“The mind has certain moments where right angle turns happen, and perhaps it can happen in a positive way as well as a negative way,” Pollan said.

Moving Forward

The psychedelics renaissance is coming at a time when new tools for mental health are sorely needed.

Other branches of medicine—cardiology, oncology, infectious disease—have made huge strides in the last 50 years, both in reducing suffering and prolonging life. But mental healthcare has essentially been at a standstill since the introduction of the antidepressants known as SSRIs in the 1980s.

To go from their current classification as Schedule 1 drugs—high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use—to getting approved as a medicine, psychedelics need to go through the standard three-phase FDA approval process: first an open-label, no-placebo pilot study, followed by a placebo-controlled trial, then a larger placebo-controlled trial.

Pollan believes MDMA and psilocybin could be approved within five years; the FDA has granted breakthrough therapy status to both, which means they actively help researchers design trials that will move the drugs to approval. MDMA is already in Phase 3 trials.

The biggest bottleneck is funding. The studies are expensive and controversial, and the National Institute of Mental Health has a minuscule budget compared to that of the National Institute of Health. Thus far, psychedelics research has been privately funded.

“It’s not a right-left issue, especially when it comes to treating soldiers with PTSD,” Pollan said. But there is the issue of how to incorporate the drugs into mental healthcare as we currently practice it. The pharmaceutical industry isn’t interested in a drug people only need to take once; likewise, the therapy business model depends on people coming back every week for years. Even if this shifted, therapists would need extensive training before being able to administer psychedelics.

“I think we’ll figure it out, but it’s a whole new structure, a whole new paradigm, and that may take a little while,” Pollan said. After all his research, though, he for one is highly optimistic.

“One of the things that excites me most about psychedelics is that yes, there’s a treatment here—but they’re also very interesting probes to understand the mind,” he said.

“[Psychiatrist] Stanislav Grof wrote that psychedelics would be for the study of the mind what the telescope was for astronomy or the microscope for biology. Now that is an audacious claim—but I no longer think it’s crazy.”

Note: A video of the full session, well worth watching, is available here.

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Sunday, April 7, 2019

PLANTATION WORKERS RIPPED OFF IN SRI LANKA : TUS COLLECT OVER 130 MILLION IN MEMBERSHIP FEE

07/04/2019

Despite the struggle by tea estate workers to get their daily wage increased to Rs 1,000 in a bid to come out of their appalling living conditions, a Right to Information request filed with the Labour Department has revealed that a major trade union in the estate sector accrues over Rs 77 million as membership fees each year.

It has been tabulated that, Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) led by Arumugam Thondaman, has collected a membership fee (Sandapanam) of Rs 77.7 million (Rs 77,751,933) between 1 April 2016 and 30 March 2017.

This was revealed through a Right to Information query sent out to the Labour Department by Maartram website. The CWC charges Rs 150 per upcountry worker monthly and the RTI reveals it has approximately 43,000 members.

The second largest trade union, the Ceylon National Estate Workers Union (LJEWU) led by Suresh Vadivel has cashed in Rs 22,437,558.53 for the same period and they have also charged a fee of Rs 150 per person.r Department. He alleged that there could be a discrepancy due to the membership details provided by the trade unions not being verified or the age old data available with the Department not being updated.

“The membership lists are those obtained from far back as the 1980s or ‘90s because when we calculate the total membership with the funds received, it looks as though the CWC membership is around 42,000 to 45,000 and likewise with the other trade unions too,” he opined.

He noted that the Labour Department has failed to update the number of members despite the fact that the funds collected from the trade unions stands accurate based on their latest report submitted to the Department.

According to the RTI the members of these TUs are as follows: CWC – 382,007, LJEWU – 148,242, and NUW – 212,380 which does not tally with the amounts received last which cannot be possible as in the recent study it shows that the workers in the plantation sector has drop drastically to a mere 150,000. According to this calculation, CWC alone exceeds 150,000 (CWC has 382,007 as shown by RTI) and LJEWE had almost 150,000 members and union’s total number of members is surpassing 550,000! Maatram requested information based on the most recent documents that the Labour Department had received from the six TUs. The information that the Department provided was based on reports from 2017.

The website requested the Labour Department to provide the following information:

Number of members in each Union, and a breakdown by gender;
The membership fee levied from one worker;
Total membership fees obtained by unions in the year 2017;
Total membership fees obtained by unions in September 2018;
Total membership fees obtained by Unions in December 2017;
Total amount spent by Unions in 2017, and what amount was spent on;

Total amount spent by Unions in 2017 specifically on issues related to tea plantation workers, including but not limited to campaigns, welfare, health, and education.

Maatram editor Selvarajah Rajashekhar told Ceylon Today that the CWC members reading as 383,007 given in the RTI, is most likely to be that of the 90s, the funds obtained by them during those years would have amounted to a thumping sum.

He noted that it looks like the deceased persons’ memberships have unlikely been removed from the membership list and that is why the membership count does not tally as the old reading still remains in the ledger of the Labour Department. He noted that as of now he does not know what to do with the RTI results but the fact remains that these TUs are receiving funds in millions. He noted that the Labour Department did not disclose the expenditure incurred by these TU’s annually and the TUs should maintain transparency on these matters.

Maatram filed the RTI request with the Labour Department for information on subscription fees for six trade unions that represent plantation workers. The other trade unions were UPF – Upcountry People’s Front; JPTUC – Estate Sector Workers Alliance (with 8 unions); SRFU – Sri Lanka Red Flag Union. The JPTUC charged Rs 300 as membership fee and had not revealed how many members they have.

By Sulochana Ramiah Mohan / Ceylon Today

Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice

War crimes accused Silva appointed colonel of commando regiment

Shavendra Silva colonel commando regiment.jpg

07 April 2019

Sri Lanka has appointed its chief of staff of the army, Major General Shavendra Silva as the new colonel of the commando regiment, despite international calls for him to face a trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The appointment follows criticism of his elevation to chief of staff, the second highest position in the army.

In her statement last month at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, described his initial appointment as “a worrying development”.

In a 137-page dossier published earlier this year the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) said there was “more than enough evidence” to suspend Silva and charge him with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The dossier detailed several of the crimes Silva oversaw as commander of the 58 Division during the armed conflict, including attacks on hospitals, the use of white phosphorus and cluster munitions, summary executions and sexual violence.

“Many successful cases at international tribunals or the International Criminal Court had less to work with. There is now no excuse for this man to remain as number two in the Sri Lankan Army; he must be suspended immediately and a criminal investigation instituted," ITJP executive director, Yasmin Sooka said.

Read more: ITJP releases dossier of evidence of Silva’s crimes

An Open Letter To The High Commissioner For Human Rights – IV

By Brian Senewiratne – APRIL 5, 2019

Dr. Brian Senewiratne

The 6th Amendment to the Constitution must be scrapped

Introduced in August 1983 by Sri Lanka’s first dictator, J.R Jayawardena, the 6th Amendment states that:

“No person shall directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment f a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka”.

In other words, one cannot even discuss a separate state for the Tamils.

The penalty for violating this Constitutional Amendment is severe. It includes confiscation of movable or immovable property.

While those outside Sri Lanka do not need to worry about this nonsense, those in Sri Lanka do have to worry because the full force of the law can be applied. It might, in fact, even be applied to those outside Sri Lanka who have property in Sri Lanka.

It is imperative that this absurd Constitutional Amendment is removed.

A Referendum in the North and East

It is important to have a Referendum in the North and East to ask the people what they want. Are they happy with what is going on or do they want a separate State, Tamil Eelam? It has to be a proper Referendum. A poorly conducted Referendum could be more dangerous than no referendum. It has to be a UN conducted Referendum with UN Forces replacing the Sri Lankan Armed Forces as was done in East Timor. If the result is “We want a Separate State,” then the UN will have to deliver, as was done in East Timor.

For an effective Referendum to take place in the North and East, the Sri Lankan government will have to cooperate. I cannot see any Sri Lankan government, now or in the future, conducting a proper Referendum as set out above.

The only way an effective Referendum will take place is if there is massive pressure from other countries. I cannot see this happening. The only country that might do so is India, or to be more specific, Tamil Nadu. However, India is run from Delhi, not from Tamil Nadu. As such, hoping that India will act is a futile thought.

Tamils without a leader

After the death of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam in the 1977, there has been no Tamil civilian leader worth talking about. The TNA (Tamil National Alliance) is a joke and the Sri Lankan government treats it as such. The TNA spokesman is effectively supporting the Sri Lankan government, not the Tamil people who elected him.

For several years the Roman Catholic Bishop of Mannar, Rt Rev Dr Rayappu Joseph was the unofficial leader of the Tamil people. I was worried about his survival and wrote an entire booklet: “Sri Lanka: Rt Rev Dr Rayappu Joseph and others in danger”. He had a devastating stroke and is unable to speak. Whether this was due to medical causes or whether he was poisoned I do not know. What I do know is that the Tamils lost an invaluable leader,

An upcoming leader is the former Chief Minister of the Northern Province, a former Supreme Court judge, C.V. Wigneswaran. I gather that M.A. Sumanthiran, the spokesman for the TNA, has demanded that Wigneswaran be removed from his position.

At a recent event in the Jaffna Hindu College, three young Tamil boys with exceptional courage, got on to the stage and said, “Sumanthiran must resign from Parliament since he does not represent the Tamil people any more. He is with the Government”. These are, hopefully, the future leaders of the Tamil people.

The absolute need to have human rights monitors in the Tamil areas

When there is a violation of human rights such as rape by the Armed Forces, Police or paramilitary Tamil groups working with the government, there is nowhere that the victim, a Tamil woman or girl, can lodge a complaint. To go to the Police is not only useless but might even be dangerous. In my book on Sexual Violence of Tamils by the Armed Forces, I have said that if the victim goes to the Police station or the Army Camp, there is a risk that the victim or whoever accompanies her, getting raped or the details taken, not for any action but for a midnight ‘visit’ by the Police or the Armed Forces.

The claim that international human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group are allowed into the country is not good enough. For a start, if/when these organisations visit the Tamil areas they are accompanied by members of the Armed Forces or Police who take notes of who was visited and what was said. This even happened when the former UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Navaneetham Pillay, visited the area. Before her visit, people were told that any complaints to her would be noted and the consequences could be serious.

There is no alternative to having set places manned by Tamil civilians to whom victims of human rights abuse could complain without fear.

It will take years before this serious problem is resolved and it will not be resolved until the Armed Forces are removed from the area and Sinhalese Police are replaced by Tamil Police.

The potential for development of the Tamil North and East

There are several economists who have said that the Sri Lankan North and East have the greatest potential for development. It is this that has been, to a large extent, taken over by the Armed Forces to run commercial projects.

The Sinhalese Armed Forces in the North own a 180 acre farm, many hotels and resorts, a golf course, three cricket stadiums, a ferry service, two whale watching tours, two air lines and numerous cafes that dot the roads in the North and East. These are just the ones we know about. Many have been opened after President Sirisena got into power.

Some of these can be seen in the outstanding publication by the British Tamils Forum that I have referred to.

The land for all this has been seized from the Tamil people without the payment of compensation.

New witness supports allegations against military chief

BY MANESHKA BORHAM-7 April, 2019

The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) this week further strengthen its case against Sri Lanka’s top military chief, Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne after he was linked to the now famous case of 11 missing youth believed to have been abducted by a ‘Navy abduction for ransom gang’between 2008 - 2009.

Arrested by the CID and now out on bail, Wijegunaratne has been further implicated in the gruesome case through recent revelations made by a new witness supporting the allegations levelled against him by the CID.

OIC of the Gang Robberies Unit of the CID, IP Nishantha Silva presenting the explosive B-report before Colombo Fort Magistrate, Ranga Dissanayake this week said through the latest witness statement the CID can prove without a doubt that Hettiarachchi was protected and hidden within the premises of SLNS Parakrama, Colombo by the former Naval Chief, Admiral Wijegunaratne when the CID was hot on Hettiarachchi’s heels in March 2017.

In her statement, the witness identified by the CID as an individual who had constantly kept in touch with Hettiarachchi when he was on the run claimed Hettiarachchi revealed to her that he was in hiding within the Naval Command and would be in trouble with the Commander of the Navy if he leaves its premises.

The statement has more importantly corroborated the statements provided by two key witnesses in the case which claimed that Chief of Defence of Staff, Ravindra Wijegunaratne during his tenure as the Naval Chief protected the main suspect of the case, Lieutenant Commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi aka Navy Sampath. The CID has also accused Wijegunaratne of
aiding and abetting Navy Sampath to flee the country as the CID closed in on the suspect.
The CID also requested the courts to issue an order allowing them to investigate how Hettiarachchi had nearly 5000 USD on his person when he fled to Malaysia in 2017.

Conducting investigations into the mobile SIM cards used by Hettiarachchi within the confines of SLNS Parakrama in March 2017 and on his return to Sri Lanka last year, the CID was able to identify several mobile numbers and their owners who had constantly kept in touch with main suspect Hettiarachchi during the time. Among these was a mobile number identified as belonging to Jayasinghe Arachchilage Shirani, a beautician from Mirihana, Nugegoda.

According to Shirani’s statement to the CID, she was introduced to Hettiarachchi through a mutual friend in 2007 and they had engaged in various business ventures since. “Based on his assurances a Prime Mover truck was purchased in my name which was hired out to the Colombo harbour,” she had told the CID revealing the extent of their close relationship.

Shirani claimed she had on numerous occasions in 2009 also met other key suspects in the case - Lt.Commander Sampath Munasinghe, Lt. Commander Sumith Ranasinghe and Former Navy Spokesman, Commodore D.K.P Dassanayake, identified as fellow members of the abduction ring.
Shirani also told the investigators that Hettiarachchi claimed Munasinghe was having an extra-marital affair with a niece of his boss, former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda at the time.

Calling Hettiarachchi on one occasion in March 2017, Shirani had told the CID that Hettiarachchi informed her that he was now in hiding within SLNS Parakrama as the Police were sweeping the country for him. In fact, by then the CID had already written to the administrative branch of the Naval Headquarters, for the attention of Navy Commander Ravindra Wijegunaratne on March 1, requesting the Navy to produce Hettiarachchi at the CID Headquarters on March 2, only to be told that the Navy is unable to locate Hettiarachchi. While the CID once again informed the CID on March 28 requesting that Hettiarachchi is presented at the CID on March 31, the investigators received the same response. However, the witness’ statement now proves he was within SLNS Parakrama at the time, the CID told the courts this week.

“During our conversations in March 2017, Prasad said he is unable to meet me in public as the CID is in search of him and therefore I should visit him along with his wife at the Naval Headquarters,” she had told the CID.

However, it was the damning evidence provided by Shirani against Wijegunaratne that was the most crucial to establishing that Hettiarachchi was harboured at SLNS Parakrama with support and blessings of the Naval Chief. Requesting to meet Hettiarachchi elsewhere at the time, Shirani says she was turned down by the suspect. “He said the Naval Chief would scold him if he leaves the Naval HQ,” Shirani told the investigators.

Remarkably this statement made by the latest witness corroborates with the evidence provided by Lt. Commander Laksiri Geethal to the CID on a previous occasion. In his statement to the authorities, Laksiri claimed, Hettiarachchi was housed in the adjacent room to his, in the officers’ mess at the time. Once encountering both Wijegunaratne and Hettiarachchi in the lift, Laksiri told the CID that he was witness to a damning conversation between the two.

As he had put it, seeing Hettiarachchi, then Navy Commander Wijegunaratne had inquired as to where he was heading off to, only to be told Hettiarachchi was visiting the Light House to meet his wife. “I will not be held responsible if the Police nab you if you jaunt about,” the Commander had retorted.

Accusing Wijegunaratne of assault and attempted abduction in November 2018 after the Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Wijegunaratne allegedly attacked Geethal at the Naval HQ, forcing the witness to go underground, the statement made by Shirani has only reinforced the evidence given by him against the country’s top military chief.

OIC Silva also told the courts that Shirani’s statement also corroborated with the information provided by Hettiarachchi’s wife. Giving a statement to the CID, the wife had admitted that she visited him at SLNS Parakrama on several occasions in March 2017 while at the same time the Navy had told the CID that it had no knowledge of the suspect’s whereabouts and failing to produce him before the CID on two occasions.

Meanwhile cooperating with the CID sleuths, Chathurika Nadeeshani Weerawickrama, Hettiarachchi’s wife this week accompanied the investigations team led by OIC Silva to SLNS Parakrama where she showed the investigators the various locations she met her husband during the time.

“My husband was unable to leave the HQ as the Police were looking for him,” she told the investigators. Therefore, she along with her children visited him on several occasions.

According to investigators, the Navy had also allowed Hettiarachchi to use a special VIP entrance at SLNS Parakrama for his numerous rendezvous as revealed by Weerawickrama during the recent visit to the location with the CID.

The source of the 5000 USD amounting to nearly Rs. 500,000 Hettiarachchi had in hand when he fled to Malaysia in 2017 remains a mystery. According to key witness Lt. Commander Geethal, who witnessed Hettiarachchi stashing a bag full of cash prior to fleeing Sri Lanka said Hettiarachchi claimed the money had been provided by the Navy Commander. On a previous occasion, the CID requested the courts to issue an order to investigate if the money had been provided to Hettiarachchi through a fund in the Navy controlled by its Commander.

However, OIC Silva told the court that they are still on the hunt to trace the origins of the 5000 USD mentioned on the bank account details provided by Hettiarachchi to obtain a visa fraudulently. Presenting documents in the name of Laksiri Amarasinghe, yet another suspect accused of harbouring him, a bank account statement from the Bank of Ceylon to the Malaysian High Commission claimed the account had 5000 USD meant for travel expenses in the country. The account too had been opened in the name of Amarasinghe.

The CID, therefore, requested the courts this week to issue an order requesting the Bank of Ceylon to provide the necessary documents relating to Amarasinghe’s account with its Taprobane branch and a statement from an official employed at the same branch. The CID is yet to reveal any information they elicited from the previous court order regarding the funds.

In conclusion, the CID informed courts that it is currently in search of more individuals who were connected to Hettiarachchi during his time in hiding. However, more explosive revelations on the case are expected this week, after Former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda also named as a suspect in the case provided yet another lengthy statement to the CID on Thursday.

Hitting ‘deep pocket’ polluters where it hurts

The casually irreverent manner in which state entities such as the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) and the Board of Investment (BOI) treat issuance of mandatory environmental approvals received a sharp reprimand by the Supreme Court in this week’s ruling on the pollution of ground water in Chunnakam as a result of a private company operating a power plant without conforming to statutory procedures.

Excellent warning to violators of the law

The polluter, (Northern Power Company (Pvt.) Ltd), was directed to pay an appreciably high compensatory award of Rs. 20 million to the affected communities. It was allowed to continue its operations on condition that it would take immediate steps to prevent contamination or pollution of the area and that it would adhere to criteria and standards stipulated in the National Environmental Act and Regulations made thereunder, subject to monitoring by the CEA/BOI. The approach taken by the Court is an excellent warning not only to state entities which renege on their duties but also private companies motivated by profit who flout the law with impunity, leaving communities and citizens helpless in the face of state apathy and/or collusion. This ruling hits those with ‘deep pockets’ precisely where it hurts the most. That is to the good.

Several innovative aspects of the judicial reasoning in this case merit scrutiny. It was considered by the Court that the project to construct and operate a thermal power station in Chunnakam was a “prescribed project”, requiring approval under the relevant provisions of the National Environmental Act(as amended), the relevant “project approving agency” being the CEA and/or the BOI. The company had contended that an Initial Environmental Examination Report [IEER] or Environmental Impact Assessment Report [EIAR] was not needed as the thermal power station in issue generated only 15 MW in its initial stage while the environmental reports were needed only in respect of projects generating an excess of 25 MW.

However, the Court dismissed this contention on examination of the documentation before it clearly indicating that the power generation capacity of the thermal power station had increased to over 25 MW during its operation. Despite this, the requisite environmental reports had not been done nor had they been called for by the CEA or the BOI.

CEA/BOI severely faulted by the Court

Further, the station had been operating on a commercial basis from 10th December 2009 even though an Environmental Protection License [EPL] had been issued by the CEA only on 20th May 2010 for one year. Thus, it had been operating in violation of the law for more than five months, with the CEA not activating itself in any manner whatsoever. It was cause for judicial concern that even thereafter, the company had been operating without an EPL in place, at specific points of time. The Court did not find the CEA defence that ‘subsequent EPLs were issued by the BOI…and the BOI is statutorily empowered to issue EPLs with the concurrence of the CEA’, convincing.

Both the CEA and the BOI were faulted for not looking into persistent complaints by Chunnakam residents that “noise, air emission and discharge of wastewater containing oil causing pollution to the surrounding environment” had been caused by the operation of the station. Following an exhaustive examination of several reports, including particularly the findings of the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, the contamination of groundwater from 2008 onwards with decreasing levels in the years thereafter but still ‘significant’ enough by 2016/2017 was ruled as being established.

Interestingly, though the company’s actions impugned in this case was determined not to be the ‘sole cause’ of oil contamination of groundwater and soil in the Chunnakam area, the Court’s position was that it ‘had been discharging oil contaminated wastewater onto an adjoining land’, its waste management treatments were thoroughly inadequate and leakages of oil from machinery were likely. The categorical declaration therefore by Prasanna Jayawardene J, writing for his colleagues on the Bench, that purely because there were other polluters, the impugned company could not be ‘given the licence to pollute’ and that the CEA/BOI could not be excused from performing their statutory duties is important.

Using the doctrine of public trust

The CEA position that pollution in the area could not be ‘definitively’ traced to the activities of the company in issue was dismissed with force. Using the well established public trust doctrine to good effect, the ruling emphasises ‘the duty placed on the State and its agencies to protect the environment and the fact that this duty is vested in the State and its agencies as the trustees of the public.’ Emphasising the right to clean water, the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution were referred to not as ‘wasted ink’ but as a ‘living set of guidelines.’

Meanwhile the judicial direction to a wholly private company to pay compensation in a fundamental rights petition will undoubtedly lead to enjoyable points of contestation and debate. The reach of the Court is of course, limited to the violation of fundamental rights by executive or administrative action and/or private actors that ‘instigate’ the same. While acknowledging that ‘the acts or omissions’ of the offending company cannot be brought within the ambit of Article 17, the Court contented itself with a tantalizing reference to the effect that, even so, ‘this would not affect’ its jurisdiction to direct compliance ‘with an Order giving effect to a remedy for loss or damage’ which may have been caused by the acts or omissions of a private company. The order itself may have benefited from a more considered discussion on this particular aspect.

Regardless, the weight of this ruling must go beyond the facts of the particular case. First, this precedent may form a basis to initiate public interest litigation in respect of myriad other instances where environmental protections have been flouted by state and non-state entities. Second, public pressure must be exerted against the CEA and the BOI to ensure strict conformity with statutory environmental approvals as a matter of course. Its compliance in that regard must be publicly monitored.

Stopping the ‘blame game’

Moreover, where the concurrence of the CEA is needed for the BOI or indeed another state entity to issue the go-ahead for a project,the burden on the CEA must be as high as where it directly issues the approvals. This device of employing the term ‘concurrence’ to imply that the burden is somehow lighter in those cases is entirely unacceptable. The CEA is the primary state authority tasked with ensuring environmental protections are adhered to. Lapses thereto cannot be met with any indulgence whatsoever. And this ‘blame game’ between state entities must stop.

Third, in the context of the intense power crisis that has gripped the country, this week’s decision is a salutary caution to private power stations setting themselves up to sell power to the State that, they must adhere to the country’s law and regulations and must not take advantage of a desperate situation, brought about by the imbecility and culpability of Sri Lanka’s brawling politicians.

Indeed, this ruling could not have come at a better time.

NEC Chairman writes to Speaker on holding PC elections

Camelia Nathaniel and Menaka Indrakumar-Saturday, April 6, 2019

National Election Commission (NEC) Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya has informed Speaker Karu Jayasuriya in writing that the Commission would be compelled to take legal action if the necessary amendments to hold the Provincial Councils Elections were not presented to Parliament by yesterday.
UPFA MP Dullas Alahapperuma told the House that the Speaker presented the NEC Chairman’s letter at the last Party Leaders’ Meeting held in Parliament.

In the letter, Deshapriya has stated that the amendments to hold the Provincial Council Elections must be presented in Parliament at least by April 5 (yesterday) if the elections are to be conducted prior to August.

“We do not see any amendment related to the PC elections before the House today. Parliament is meeting again on May 7-8 and the agenda for those days have already been finalized. The next sitting will be on May 21-22 and even if the amendments were presented during that sitting, it would be impossible to hold the PC elections prior to the Presidential Elections. A Presidential Election must be declared by October 5 at the latest according to the law. It is now crystal clear that the PC elections will not be held this year,” MP Alahapperuma remarked.

Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, briefing the House on the current position with regard to reaching a consensus over PC election system, said two Party Leaders namely Ministers Mano Ganesan and Rauff Hakeem wanted to meet President Maithripala Sirisena to clarify certain issues with regard to it.

“We gave them time for that. Again last week, the Party Leaders were of the opinion that the President must convene a meeting to discuss this problem and I informed this to the President verbally as well as in writing,” the Speaker said.

Leader of the House and Minister Lakshman Kiriella pointed out that the UNP has always held that the PC elections must be held under the old electoral system until the problems with the new system are sorted out. “It was the UPFA which demanded to hold it under the new system. Had the UPFA agreed to the old system, the PC elections could have been held six months ago. The new system is incomplete. We need to bring in an amendment even if we are to hold the PC elections under the old system. Let’s inquire about the position of the President and take a collective decision,” he noted.

UPFA MP Mahinda Amaraweera said their initial attempt was to adopt an electoral system sans preferential votes as many in the country preferred. “When that failed, we too agreed to hold the PC elections under the old system. We are ready to support the Government to pass the legislation immediately. We can even hold a special sitting for that purpose,” he said.

UNP MP Chaminda Wijesiri said the postponement of PC elections was connected to the SLPP and the SLFP discussions on the next Presidential candidate.

JVP MP Bimal Rathnayake said his party prefers the new electoral system sans preferential votes.

On false covers

Sanjana Hattotuwa-April 6, 2019, 12:00 pm

A false front page in a leading English daily newspaper last week highlights two significant and inter-related problem sets. The false page advertised the campaign against illegal drugs by the President. On Twitter, I quipped that it was a collector’s edition. The English is so bad, it borders on the poetic and inadvertently sublime, featuring words that don’t exist and sentences that are utterly meaningless. For good effect, there is even mention of a spy service to save children. It is unclear how much public money was spent on this advertising Titanic. It was so bad, the newspaper took the unprecedented and extraordinary measure of distancing itself from the false front page, noting that the Editorial team wasn’t involved in the content creation. This revelation captured the second issue, around journalistic integrity and ethics. That all print and electronic media rely on advertising for their existence is well-known, as is the fact that the state is the largest advertiser in the country. Controlling media by curtailing advertising is a silent weapon to contain the spread of inconvenient truths wielded by all governments. One is sympathetic to traditional media that relies on false front covers for financial viability. But especially when public money is involved, it is not unfair to ask questions around integrity, accountability and ethics. If the newspaper’s Editorial, faced with the sheer inanity of the false cover, was forced to distance itself from its content, the question was asked by many on social media as to why the newspaper allowed it to run in the first place.

A crack at an answer takes us to a dark theatre of operations where out of fear or seeking favour, government courts and engages with a vulnerable media open to its parochial agenda or advances. The vulnerability is not evident. By all measures, media owners are prosperous. They set the frames through which millions perceived domestic affairs. It used to be the case that social media was thought of as an alternative domain, entirely distinct from and immune to the corporate, statist, partisan or parochial framing of traditional media. I am unconvinced this was ever the case. It is certainly not true today. Traditional media has a large, influential footprint on social media, under their own brands and mastheads or through a plethora of associated web platforms and social media accounts. The hidden and complex economy that sustains this is complexbut underpinned by – aside from favouritism and nepotism - a simple equation around access to advertising.

One newspaper – Ravaya – provides the only exception to this rule, where an ownership and profit model pegged to the journalists who work in it provides a bulwark against bias creep and elusive ethics. The disastrous false cover flags a culture where one dares not edit or deny publication to content sent from the most powerful political office in the country. To edit would be to insult the intelligence of an incumbent, even when available evidence provides little to no indication of its existence. To deny publication would be to risk the enduring ire of both person and political party, risking immediately or when back in power sometime in the future, the direst financial consequences.

Connected to this is news from February that should have got far more traction than it did. In just around a month after it was constituted, four out of seven members appointed by Minister Mangala Samaraweera to monitor state media institutions resigned. There is no news of the committee since. In an email exchange with an erstwhile member of the committee seeking to know why the resignations took place and so soon, I learnt that there was no real interest by the Prime Minister and government to make state media truly independent. This is despite the inglorious behaviour, output and take-over of state media during the constitutional crisis late 2018, following a long, sordid tradition of partisan servility anchored to the government of the day. Quick to decry one private newspaper not known for its professionalism and ethics, a more established, larger culture and context of corrosive relations, corruption and control was less discussed.

All this aside, serious questions around the incumbent President’s intentions abound and endure. On social media, photos of the salute made by the President, PM and other senior political figures at the launch of a new drug prevention programme resulted in both significant concern and convulsion. Though entirely unclear how the symbolic association with Nazi Germany can help in the President’s war on illegal drugs, the photos reveal a mentality and intent that are frightening. Material published online suggests large-scale investments by the Presidential Secretariat in surveillance equipment from Israel, which ostensibly bought for one purpose today are in effect turnkey solutions that can easily and invasively target critics, dissidents and activists tomorrow. This is the same clandestine process, risible justification and self-serving acquisition that was vehemently condemned during the Rajapaksa regime, but is now countenancedwithout any resistance from the Prime Minister and government.A rotting carcass of Yahapalanaya, led by a President who has no demonstrable awareness of or interest in constitutional governance, is also allowed to reintroduce the death penalty. Though by no means unpopular, the reintroduction places both President and Prime Minister – as self-styled custodians of Buddhism,with wrists perennially covered in thick white thread– in a hypocritical bind, unable to explain how ahimsa is compatible with the gallows.

The great and growing himsa of the country’s political culture and traditional media’s inability to hold it in check charts a disturbing course ahead, with no signs of correction. Faced with the prospect of an electoral candidate whose campaign is pegged to unyielding discipline over a lenient democracy, the incumbents seek to sell an image of zero tolerance and populism, going after votes they never had and will never get. Last week’s false front cover is a metaphor for an inter-dependent political and media culture we are unable to grow out of. Optics over reform, expediency over principles, populism over principle. Using the protection of women and children as an excuse for all manner of intrusions into and erosions of privacy. Safeguarding Buddhism as a cloak. Using the media to promote propaganda, knowing that big media is dependent on the state for its survival, Sirisena uses a tried and tested political recipe. The tragedy is not in what he is doing, but in how far removed it is from the promise of what he was elected to do.With elections leading to a windfall of revenue, it is unlikely a single traditional media platform will on principle deny space for or refuse to give voice to those in power, or anyone likely to regain it. What we are left with is the illusion of a vibrant public discourse, when in fact, so much of it is vacuous and akin to airport fiction – consumed by many to escape a more dreary reality.

I see last week’s false front cover, in the manner it was published, as a revealing and rare moment of honesty – where an essential ugliness, when exposed, is so repugnant, everyone profiting from it disavows responsibility, only to do it again another day.