Is The Sri Lankan Government Under The Dominance Of A Powerful Cabal?

We the people of this country are suffering from the very same betrayal, if not, even worse

by Zulkifli Nazim-2019-06-11

 

There is a saying that “A fish rots from the head” – that is the expression used when a country’s leadership is seen as responsible for violence and unethical behaviour of its supporters and the citizens in general - agitating the majority community causing anger and resentment with ill- founded jealousies and false alarms, kindling animosity of one part against another, fomenting an occasional riot and insurrection.

 

The recent accusations, averments and plots against the Muslim community is a heinous conspiracy to stigmatize the community - This has been proved, without any doubt, that the government of Sri Lanka is in the hands of a powerful CABAL.

 

A cabal is a secret clique that plots and contrives to seek power through intrigue - crafty and involved plots to instigate and carry out politically oriented harmful and devastating illegal acts to achieve their sinister ends.

 

During the past decade and a half we have witnessed the deterioration and polarization of party politics. The current challenges and crises, have increased apathy and distrust among voters. It has also encouraged many to support alternative paths of political action—thus triggering the rise of ideologically extremist parties and movements.

 

Citizen trust is broken when politicians make lofty campaign promises or ‘fact-free’ statements that are spun by a biased media in polarized public debates.

 

If there is one thing about politics that unites the Citizens of Sri Lanka these days, it is their contempt for political parties and partisanship.

 

Let us draw attention to our law enforcement and justice system.

 

If a head of a justice system or law enforcement can be appointed and removed at will by a political stakeholder, the appointee has an incentive to defer to the will of the appointer – the appointee is prepared to show servility. We have seen how unquestionable servility can be as much a vice as arrogance.

 

They have become a byword for a spineless sellout, an epithet of servility.

 

We the people of this country are suffering from the very same betrayal, if not, even worse.

 

Sri Lanka after the Independence in 1948, the power of political parties has risen and fallen, reaching their nadir in the last couple of decades. Party leaders in the political arena are held in disrepute, criticized by one side for being too soft and condemned by the other for being too partisan.

 

Parties were dramatically weakened, however, in the past three decades, this has coincided with profound cynicism about the state of our political system today.

 

By understanding how Sri Lankan Political system has functioned throughout after the independence, we can see that parties are much less effectively organized to accomplish their aims today than they were half-a-century ago. As a result, we no longer enjoy the benefits that they once brought into our political system.

 

Political parties in Sri Lanka, for instance, are dedicated not to the common good of the whole country, but to the advancement of a specific class interest.

 

Because they were vehicles for the fundamental conflict between the people – communities, religions and caste – A heinous conspiracy to incite violence and discord.

 

They understood that conflicts would continue to divide people into different parties and factions. Factions are always a threat to popular government, but they are able to impose their will on others only if they have a majority. The problem of faction, was and is the most significant obstacle to establishing good governance on a firm foundation. It has always been and is, a majority faction, or majority tyranny.

 

To prevent majority tyranny and consolidated power, it is vital that our constitution be tailored and strengthened in the interest of the nation as a whole.

 

Constitutions play an important role in articulating standards, guaranteeing rights, and establishing institutions and processes which safeguard normative aspirations such as respect for human dignity, ethnic and religious diversity and social harmony, political freedoms, and basic standards of material welfare. Added to this is the task of structuring a government strong enough to govern and to facilitate human welfare and economic development as national priorities.

 

The need to address the fears and aspirations of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, threats to their identity and autonomy and structuring a government strong enough to govern and to facilitate human welfare and economic development in relation to should take precedence over any other consideration.

 

We are aware, that it is difficult to secure unity in the face of disintegrative tendencies of profound ethnic and cultural conflict. Divided societies pose a deep problem not only for the government but to the whole society. It is crucial to nation-building and economic development, which facilitates basic standards of living, to succeed in the continuing endeavour to resolve inter-group conflict which disrupts social stability, advocates and fuels separatist sentiments.

 

The imposition of a mono-ethnic state on a multi-ethnic society or a uniform religion on a religiously diverse society would be a futile and dangerous route to tread. This is because those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters.

 

Civil liberties and human rights are the basic freedoms entitled to the members of the human race. State actions should stand against the infringements of these rights and freedom. Peace and a just order are integral to a state based on the rule of law.

 

So the part the Constitution of a country should play is extremely important in the implementation of Unfettered Justice.

 

Just to make a point so that our citizens and especially the politicians will take note:

 

Abraham Lincoln the 16th President of the United States was honest, wise, intelligent, compassionate and hard-working. Moreover, he had a rare combination of integrity, persistence and political skill that would be difficult to overpraise and he conveyed this awesome, brilliant and meaningful message:

 

“Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”

Mangala challenges the politics of division

by Harim Peiris-June 10, 2019, 7:43 pm 

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera, who recently celebrated 30 years in public life, is certainly no ordinary politician. He has always, throughout his career, been more of a leader, than a follower and generally challenged conventional political wisdom and done so, mostly successfully. During his youthful beginnings in politics, during the second JVP insurrection, he fought hard for human rights and the cause of the disappeared. When the southern SLFP leadership was toying with boycotting the 1989 general election, he jumped into the fray. As a young freshman SLFP parliamentarian in 1989, he was a key operative in seeking the easing upstairs of the iconic Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike and the induction of the next generation of leadership under Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. As CBK then resolutely swung the SLFP, from the opponent of provincial councils, into an enlightened political party presenting a political package of accommodation and inclusiveness, Mangala Samaraweera was at the forefront of that change through the "Sudu-Nelum" movement.

In more recent times, he was one of the earliest nay-sayers about the Rajapakse regime’s excesses, from its own front benches as Foreign Minister and his critique of its human rights and forecast of its international consequences was almost prophetic in their accuracy and remarkable in its foresight. During the current post 2015 dispensation, Mangala took the leadership on the delivery of national reconciliation as Foreign Minister and now as Finance Minister, he is spearheading the next generation of essential reforms and our tortuously slow economic recovery from the expensive Chinese debt funded, allegedly corrupt, budget busting white elephant projects of the previous era.

Unifying rather than dividing

So, Minister Mangala Samaraweera is a clear opinion leader and a catalyst for change. Recently, especially in the aftermath of the horrendous Easter bomb attacks, he has been articulating a unifying vision of us coming together as a nation to face our common enemy. This is in the context, where the predominant political response, after the initial calm created by the Christian community’s resolute decision to forgive and not retaliate, has been to divide and hate monger. He has also not been reluctant to take on the sacred cows of our religious leaders, when they are engaging in more temporal pursuits such as "fasts unto deaths" and open support for the same.

Sri Lanka is a deeply divided society. We are divided along every possible social fault line imaginable. We are divided along ethnic, religious, linguistic, caste and class lines. Sri Lanka has essentially failed post-independence to forge a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-lingual national identity which over aches our more parochial ethno-religious identities. In fact, our giant neighbour India has done a remarkable job in creating such a national Indian identity from a mosaic of different ethno-linguistic groups. The goal of a Sri Lankan identity remains elusive and the task of reforms towards a Sri Lankan state which accommodates the diversity of her peoples is challenging.

Sri Lankan politics and politicians, and not least allied industries such as media, basically at some level play off on the divisions in our society, to seek leadership. As Mangala wrote in his recent essay of 5th June titled The Cardinal Sin. I quote, "When a political party, media organization or religious leader depends for their survival on one group of Sri Lankans becoming afraid of another, we must be wary of them".

Identifying the real enemy

Sri Lanka’s post-Independence history has witnessed people fighting. At the outset we disenfranchised the Tamils of Indian decent, then we got rid of the Burghers, then fought along economic class lines under the JVP banner, simultaneously engaging in a near ruinous civil war with the Tamil community and post-war launched an assault on the Muslim community’s business interests under the guise of anti-halal, poisoned toffees and every other imagined paranoia we could come up.

Sri Lanka and specifically the Christian community, in both their Roman Catholic and non-Roman traditions were the victims of a radical Islamic group’s terrorist attack. Mercifully and with full credit to our security forces, no further attacks were allowed and the terror network degraded beyond offensive capability. However, as Mangala Samaraweera so clearly articulates, the response to violent Islamic extremism is not anti-Islamic extremism or Islamophobia. In fact, the wave of anti-Muslim violence has been distracting and diverting the attention of the law enforcement and the security forces. Further violence and discrimination against an entire community for the actions of a few, is a sure recipe for radicalizing the majority. It is the path we trod in the 1980s vis-a-vis Tamil militants and the Tamil community and we must not repeat those mistakes. As the reports from the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) probing the attacks are revealing, we had information on the terror cells developing in Kathankudy from the Muslim community itself. But the state chose to take no action, until an attack took place and have now closed the stable door once the horse has bolted. We are now obsessed with chasing red herrings of sterilizing gynecologists, rather than tracking down any remaining foreign-trained ISIS terrorists and hate mongers and rabble rousers of whatever hue and persuasion.

The real enemy of Sri Lanka, are those that seek to divide us. For united in our diversity we stand and divided we fall.

BY DECLARING THAT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WILL BE ON 7 DEC THE PRESIDENT USURPED THE POWERS OF THE EC -S.R.H. HOOLE

Image: Prof. S.R.H. Hoole speaking wearing a Sufi hat in solidarity with Sufi Muslims.

11/06/2019

GA and District Secretary Vedanayahan, Prabhus assembled here, including women, friends: When I accepted appointment as a Member of the Commission, it was on a happy day. We had come out of a hellish, brutish period when many men and women had been disappeared and our freedoms diminished. They knuckled us on the head. We did not bend down. We stood up. We won our freedoms back in 2015.

Today should be a happy day, as we begin building this monument to democracy and the freedoms that come with it. However, I do not feel so happy. Why? Because our democracy is in ill-health and we have little to celebrate. We failed to stand up after winning our freedoms. Our choices are made for us by others. Democracy is in trouble.

I have always declined to light a lamp for Muruha’s cockerel but today I am thankful for a lamp without it, that I could light without violating my faith. However, the foundation stones are before a god and coconuts, all pointed in red and yellow. We protest that this is claimed as a Buddhist country, ignoring the rest. How are we different from the Sinhalese in forcing our religion on others without giving choice? As minorities, we must be better than the Sinhalese and show them the way to be democratic. (Without digressing, I note that the pressure to go with the majority is so great, that at the Anglican Christ Church Dehiwela, the priest – who in our theology is marked indelibly as Christ’s own forever – prayed last week to the Buddha to come and save us, and sang Hare Krishna songs, ignoring all thoughtful opposition).

Most recently, after the bombings of Easter Sunday, Muslims were targeted, and continue to be so. Recently the police said Tigers are Tamils and therefore Tamils are Tigers. All Tamils were targeted.

Today they say the bombers were Muslims, so Muslims are bombers, and therefore Muslims are targeted and searched and interrogated, more just because they are Muslims. It is to express solidarity with such oppressed Muslims that I am wearing my Sufi hat, presented to me when I visited my daughter in Turkey. Search me too, I say to our brutal guardians, since I am dressed as a Muslim.

Supposedly to find bombs carried under clothes, the Ministry of Public Administration has introduced a uniform where men may wear Western or Eastern clothes, but women only the sari, so that men may give release to their voyeuristic instincts. The Election Commission, at our meeting on 4 June, decided to reject the male voyeur-dictated dress code, and told our officers that they may dress as they always did, and decided to ask the authors of the code to lay off. Even the Prime Minister and HRC have decried the code, the latter calling it sexist. They knuckled us on the head, we protested. The code will not be implemented, we are assured, but I harbour suspicions as to why it is still listed among valid circulars on government websites.

Next it will be you

Democracy is about our freedom to make choices – what language we will speak, what religion we will practice, whom we will elect as our leaders, whom we may have as guests in our homes, etc. These choices are being lost. Muslims seem to have lost their choice of attire. Next it will be you and I that will lose that choice. These losses occur when people try to expand – aggrandise – power by taking over authority assigned to others. Our sartorial choices in dressing were attempted to be usurped by the Secretary for Public Administration when he told us how to dress. That came a-cropper when we refused to knuckle under his knocks to our heads.

Then our language. Tamil is the language of administration and of the courts in the North-East, according to our Constitution. All of us in public service, including MPs, had to take oath to uphold the Constitution, and there was a time when Tamil MPs were hiding in India to avoid this. Now look what is happening. The Police in the North speak no Tamil. Recently when I went to meet Headquarters Inspector Prasad Fernando, he leathered off in Sinhalese to me, when I know no Sinhalese. The public cannot take grievances to him, because he cannot understand us. He and his likes are sent to Jaffna in violation of the Constitution to show us who is boss and to lord it over us.

How can the Police uphold simple laws when they are breaking our highest law, our Constitution?

Then our judges! If you are charged with anything, the police will come and speak to the judge in Sinhalese. Poor clueless us! We need to hire a lawyer when we go to court even for simple matters.
 Judges are co-opted into breaking the Constitution and robbing us of our right, and lawyers make hay while the sun shines. They represent clients who most often need no lawyer, and need only to plead guilty (but cannot for not knowing Sinhalese), pay the fine and go away. By not revolting, we will continue to lose our democratic choices. We need to stand up as we are knocked on our heads even by judges who need to uphold the law.

Democracy is gasping

Likewise, we have the power to elect provincial representatives and a Chief Minister. We are denied that power, and like counterfeit currency, we have Governors usurping the powers of our right to provincial representation, and lording it over us with that counterfeit power, rightly belonging to Provincial Government. Suren Raghavan, the counterfeit Governor of the North, even sits in the Chief Minister’s chair (when he has his own office), and plays lord, working closely with the Jaffna HQI Prasad Fernando to prevent us from hosting refugees we chose as our guests in our homes. Democracy is gasping.

Then look at our system of democratic governance. We exercise our franchise, we elect representatives, the party commanding a majority of representatives forms a Government with a Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister in consultation with the President appoints Ministers with subjects. Thus every walk of our life is governed by our representatives whose power flows from our franchise. That was our happy way of life. But now?

Gnanasara Thero was let loose on us by the President, and is able to decide who shall be Ministers. Rathana Thero, an unelected Member of Parliament, goes on a hunger strike, and in fear that he might pop the Government seems to have persuaded Ministers and Governors to resign.

We should recall how the IRA’s Bobby Sands went on hunger strike, and Margaret Thatcher let him starve to death. By not happily letting Rathana Thero commit suicide, we have empowered him to override the genuine electorally established administration. We are ruled instead by them, not by our representatives. After all, which is more important – the life of one taking his own life by his free will, or our system of constitutional governance? Democracy has a bad case of life-threatening asthma. Our Parliament is being vetoed by monks.

Robbery of our franchise

The progressive robbery of our franchise does not end there. The Presidential Elections Act prescribes how the date of elections is set. The date is to be set by the Election Commission. Recently, all three Commission Members (yes, unlike Sunday Times portrayals, all three are members and one a chairman), met the President (not just the Chairman as in ST) about the long-overdue Provincial Elections and the soon-due Presidential Elections. The said Act prescribes certain rules for setting dates. We told the President that the dates will be any time in the period 15 November to 7 December. It is now tradition that if a sitting President does not contest or loses, he or she vacates office as soon as another is elected. Almost the day after our meeting, the President went to India and announced that the elections will be on 7 December. Whether to be President for as long as possible or for some such reason, the President usurped the powers of the Commission.

He knocked us on the head with his knuckles. The Commission will not bend down out of respect because if we did so, a future President may choose to decide all kinds of things for us. When we meet to set the date, I will vote for any date other than 7 December, perhaps even for November 15.
Is our democracy in its last gasp? Not as long as we can take these knocks without bending down. Is the foundation stone we laid a gravestone for democracy? No, we must in Tamil tradition ensure it is a hero-stone on which we swear to fight with our all for democracy, and our God-given rights as free men and women.

(This is a summary text of the speech by Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole, Member of the  Commission at the laying of the foundation stone  for Jaffna election commission office on 5 June 2010. – Daily FT)

Alarms were sounded from 2013 – Salley

Parliamentary Select Committee probing Easter Sunday attacks:

Rukshana Rizwie-Wednesday, June 12, 2019

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Easter Sunday attacks. Pictures by Wasitha Patabandige

Former Governor of the Western Province Azath Salley, appearing before the Parliamentary Select Committee for the first time, testified that during 2013 and 2014, he had informed the then Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa several times about the threat posed by the extremists elements including the breakaway National Thowheed Jamaath to no avail

“We have produced a video which shows Zahran hoisting an ISIS flag. Yet there was no action taken,” he told the committee. “In 2017, Zahran led a group that destroyed 120 homes in Kattankudy and until people protested, the police did nothing.

The only Officer in Charge of the Police Station who wanted to have him arrested, was transferred,” he said.

Salley said that a week prior to the Easter attack on April 21, he had accompanied President Maithripala Sirisena on a official tour in Batticaloa. “At the meeting, the Inspector General of Police was sitting behind me. I told him that the Sri Lanka Thowheed Jamaath members were holding prayers at mosque in Malwana. The IGP called the Assistant Superintendent of Police who replied that there was nothing the police could do and prayers would be held the following Friday. Zahran was among those seven individuals.”

He questioned why Abdul Razick was still at large even after having claimed on many videos that Islam is ISIS in Sri Lanka. “When there is an individual who is spewing hate speech and when there is ample evidence against him, no one seeks to apprehend him. His latest video was released three days before my resignation where he states that the name Baghdadi, the head of the IS caliphate, gives him goose bumps because he is so revered.”

When asked by the committee if he poses a threat, he replied it was “possible.”

The former governor produced a document stating that there were 11 complaints at the Kattankudy Police Station against Zahran and his accomplices. When the Health Minister queried from the witness if he was aware that Zahran could have been among the 25 individuals who were paid for providing intelligence information, Salley replied that they were aware that Abdul Razick was among the 25.”

“The force that prevented the arrest of Abdul Razick is now one of the voices which gave approval and sanctioned the efforts of extremists such as Zahran,” he said. “When I asked to arrest him, I was arrested on a detention order and offered five million to leave the country. Or to take the money and divide it among my party members to initiate a political campaign, so that I would keep myself busy.”

He alleged that there are nearly 100,000 such followers of extremism and that the situation had not been adequately dealt with yet. “It started with Aluthgama and then went on to Digana, Mawanella, Minuwangoda. Innocent Muslims are classified as terrorists and arrested on arbitrary charges. This induces hate.”

He said Zahran had offered help for political parties in the Eastern Province, but many had questioned how he could help several parties within a precinct. “Ameer Ali was offered but he refused, he finally signed up with Eastern Province Governor M.L.M Hizbullah for the parliamentary election campaign in August 2015, he said.

Carpentry industry Goes into panic mode

12 June 2019

Undertaking the theme ‘Minimising of air pollution through sustainable forest management’ on ‘World Environment Day 2019’, President Maithripala Sirisena made a quite a surprising statement at a ceremony held at BMICH. He said  that his government would soon ban carpentry sheds popularly known as ‘wadu maduwas’ and thus instructed carpenters and sawmill owners to find new jobs within five years. These utterances have raised concerns among people across the country, especially among people engaged in carpentry.

The Mayor of the Moratuwa Municipal Council Saman Lal Fernando and another councillor yesterday (June 11) commenced a fast unto death outside the council building in protest against the President’s proposal which would ban registering new carpentry shops in the future.


It is apparent that carpentry has become one of the most popular livelihoods in Sri Lanka while also becoming one of the main traditional occupations. The people in the Moratuwa area- where there are plenty of sawmills and carpentry workshops- have already agitated against this move by threatening to go on hunger strikes if the President didn’t revoke his statement.

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• Chainsaws could cause huge damage to forests
• Environmentalists and carpenters are of the opinion that banning of mobile sawmills is commendable
• After registering, a special licence and a number will also be issued for identification purposes
• The Government should implement a proper forest conservation programme to control deforesting instead of taking ad hoc decisions

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When considering as to why the President took such a decision, he himself pronounced that it was in a bid to protect the environment - in particular, owing to the depletion of forest cover.

As a further measure to put an end to this destruction, the President said that he would also prohibit the import of chainsaws, tree cutting machines and maintaining of carpentry shops.

President Sirisena went on to say that if these measures were taken and implemented for a ten years, the forest density of Sri Lanka could be increased to an environment friendly 32% from the current not so satisfactory 28%.

Let’s examine to what extent this becomes a fair-minded decision in a move to minimise tree cutting and to conserve the environment.

Traditional sawmills won’t be banned: Govt.

Mahaweli Development and Environment State Minister Ajith Mannapperuma told the media that the prevailing sawmills were adequate for the country and added that setting up new sawmills would be banned.
He said that traditional sawmills would not be banned under the proposed amendments and that only mobile sawmills would be banned with effect from December 31, 2022.

The President is to amend the 1896/26 Timber Mill Registration Special Gazette dated 2014.12.03, the ministry said in a statement. The Government announced that new sawmills or carpentry workshops would not be registered in future. However, those carpentry workshops that are currently functioning, which amounts to about 300, will be able to continue functioning.

If the Government is looking for a quick solution to this problem, we suggest that it scraps the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) as soon as possible

Controlling sawmills is the last segment of forest conservation 

Speaking to Daily Mirror, Lawyer and Environmental Protection Activist Jagath Gunawardena said that it was conceptually erroneous to penalise a legitimate business like carpentry in order to stop an illegal trade like tree cutting.
In order to conserve forests in Sri Lanka, the following steps can be followed.

• Import furniture with zero tax 
• Creating woodlots
• Make forest conservation effective by controlling sawmills

“What is going to be implemented is something that should be done when all the steps mentioned above have become unsuccessful. Sawmill is the last segment of the process. Hence, closing of sawmills is not the solution and rather what should be done is to cease the ways and means that boost tree cutting,” Gunawardena said.

“We can add new value to the lumber industry by opting for sustainable solutions like creating woodlots and forest plantation,” he added.

Meanwhile, when asked his opinion on the registering of chainsaws,  Gunawardena said that he totally agreed to it and it was an effective move because chainsaws could cause huge damage to forests.

Banning mobile sawmills a good move

Environmentalists and carpenters are of the opinion that banning of mobile sawmills is commendable and a good decision.

Environmentalist Gunawardena said that he totally agreed to the decision of banning mobile sawmills as their use was illegal.

The Environment State Minister said that currently there are around 300 mobile sawmills registered in the country. “A Mobile sawmill is something that evolved five years ago. At the moment, the licence for the registered mobile sawmills can’t be banned thus they will be banned with effect from 2022,” he added.

Withanage said that mobile sawmills were a great danger and it was really good that they would be banned.

Useless move as far as deforestation is happening legally

Deforestation in Sri Lanka is one of the most serious environmental issues that has appeared rapidly for past few years. Sri Lanka’s forest cover, which was around 49% in 1920, has fallen to approximately 17% by now.

Although Sri Lanka’s forest cover is said to be 28% of the land area, the actual percentage is estimated to be about 17% besides the area that covers rubber, pinus, eucalyptus and teak trees.

Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) Executive Director Hemantha Withanage told the Daily Mirror that the loss of forests in Sri Lanka was primarily a result of massive projects like Port City, Uma Oya, the construction in Wilpattu, and the Rideemaliyadda Sugar Factory where plenty of trees were felled.

“The Government should first regulate such activities rather than going for a move of this nature which deprives the livelihood of people engaged in carpentry,” he said.

The rate of deforestation between 2000 and 2016 was growing 1.46% per annum. Sri Lanka’s natural forests are in severe danger due to deforestation; for purposes like massive development projects, large scales of plantations and resettling programmes, Withanage said.

“Natural forests are mainly situated in the dry zone of the island. Now, the natural forests are being gradually cleared for particular reasons with the utmost approval of the Government,” he added.

How about importing furniture?

The President said that the people would have to import items as deforestation and tree cutting would be fully banned.

Gunawardena said that he did not see any wrong in importing timber and logs, but however importing furniture was not a good move and it would also reduce job opportunities.

However, CEJ Executive Director Hemantha Withanage said that Sri Lanka would not get furniture with best quality when they were imported.

“Imported furniture is of low quality and also expensive. Therefore, ordinary people can’t afford to buy furniture at such costs,” Withanage said.

“Countries like Malaysia and Indonesia are nations that exported timber for us,” Withanage added.

Sri Lanka’s natural forests are in severe danger due to deforestation; for purposes like massive development projects

Chainsaw machines should be registered

The Government announced that all the chainsaws used to cut trees should be registered and the holders should obtain a licence for them.
Accordingly, the registration process of all chainsaw machines being used in the country happened between February 20 to 28 and the deadline for registration was extended till March 15.

This was according to a decision taken on the orders of President Sirisena.

The President said that when laws to register chainsaws were made effective, 82000 chainsaws had been registered island-wide within three weeks.

He said cutting of hundreds of trees using chainsaws in many parts of the country around the year was a common sight everywhere. “If you want to stop cutting of trees in a haphazard manner, you must do something about this,” the President added.

This decision aims at controlling deforestation caused by illegal felling of trees using chainsaw machines, and regulating the felling of trees.

Accordingly, all state-owned, semi-government, private-sector institution or privately owned Chainsaw Machines, should be produced at the nearest police station before a registration permit is obtained.

After registering, a special licence and a number will also be issued for identification purposes.
However, CEJ Executive Director Hemantha Withanage said that according to a research they had conducted, they found that about 32,000 to 35,000 of chainsaws were coming to Sri Lanka.
“It is only 50 percent of chainsaws that have been registered while the rest is still to be registered,” Withanage said.

Nevertheless, he said that the registering of chainsaws was a good move and added that it was essential that the Government carries on with this same spirit to conserve forests which would be in jeopardy.

Banning carpentry sheds can result in huge price hike in furniture: Civil society 

The President’s decision to ban carpentry sheds within five years has raised fears that there would be a huge price hike in furniture items in the market, President of the National Movement for Consumer Rights Protection (NMCRP), Ranjith Withanage said. He said that furniture had become an essential item for home owners as it is the first item on the agenda after they complete building or moving into their place of abode. Therefore this begs the question what damage this move by the Government could do to the furniture industry and to those struggling to make supply meet demand.

The Government should implement a proper forest conservation programme to control deforesting instead of taking ad hoc decisions that would hurt many industries that are already struggling to survive.

If the Government is looking for a quick solution to this problem, we suggest that it scraps the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) as soon as possible. The reason for this is that the CEA had become an authority that is only concerned about making money and maintain silence in the face of deforestation that is taking place on a large scale, he added.

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Carpenters’ comments 

When Daily Mirror spoke to some of the carpenters living in Moratuwa and catchment areas, Shantha Rodrigo who maintains a carpentry shop said that carpenters were not informed in this regard and feared losing their occupation.

“We all depend on this industry. There are nearly 20 workers working with me. It is not only we as carpenters who will suffer but also people who transport, load and shift logs are also at risk,” he said.

There are nearly 20 workers working with me

“We have been engaged in carpentry since our childhood. We don’t know to do any jobs other than this. Hence, we humbly request the authorities to let us carry on with our work,” he added.

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Nishantha who is a worker at Shantha Rodrigo’s carpentry shop asked as to how they would live without carpentry shops and asked how they could possibly find another job in five years.

“I have four children. I have to feed them. I don’t know any other work to do,” he said sorrowfully.

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Edward, who is also a carpenter by profession, said that the President’s questionable decision would desert a lot people leaving them with one option i.e. committing suicide.

“I have been engaged in this field for twenty years. We have not had such a threat for the last twenty years,” he said.

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Nimalsiri working in the same carpentry shop said that the authorities should consider the alternatives prior to banning of carpentry sheds.

“Six of my family depend on the wage I earn from this. If I lose this, what should we do,” he asked.
“There is a decrease in business as well. We have not received sufficient orders after the announcement of this move,” he said.

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Susantha Kumara said it was good that new carpentry shops
would be banned, but authorities should not ban the existing ones.

Nipuna Chamath, who is engaged in transporting dry rots, told Daily Mirror that he did not attend school as he had been engaged in carpentry since he was an adolescent. “It was good to ban mobile sawmills but they should not ban traditional wadu madu,” he said.

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Meanwhile, Pradeep said he would not think that this would be implemented in the long-run and added it was another ineffective move.

“We as carpenters do not get fixed salaries unlike government servants. They get the salary even it they do not work. The case is different with us. We have to sweat to earn the daily wage of Rs. 1000,” he added.

In conclusion, it is worthy to note that there are more things to be done before banning carpentry sheds which would deprive the livelihood of poor people.  As an example, the President should see the high individuals who are engaged in tree cutting with utmost approval and intervention of politicians. In addition, strict actions should be taken for illegal tree cutting. Last but not least, I would like to propose that it was better to bring in laws that make it mandatory to plant three plants when cutting one tree. 

To be a child is to be a dreamer

• Not be breadwinners or burdened with adult responsibility

 Wednesday, 12 June 2019

One in a hundred! That is how many children in Sri Lanka are in child labour, skipping out on regular schooling. These young ones and teenagers are foregoing basic education or tertiary level vocational skill-set attainment; unwittingly pushed and pulled into earning an income to buoy family finances or care for needy family members.

That is some 40,000 children, the vast majority unable to find a way out of the hazardous nature of their work as recorded in the Child Activity Survey Report, 2016. That being said, Sri Lanka has made significant strides in tackling child labour. Getting children back to the classroom helps harness the transformative possibilities of education, which also has a knock-on effect on the health and wellbeing of the community and nation as a whole.

On the bright side, the contentious issue of child labour is no longer as prevalent here as it is among some of her neighbours in the region. With concerted and sustained effort Sri Lanka can well be on its way to achieve a future of zero child labour – a status in line with its pathfinder country strategy that commits to fast-track the attainment of the goal by 2022; well ahead of the year 2025 global target set in the Sustainable Development Goals.

In recent months in Colombo, an International Labour Organization (ILO) supported initiative to reduce child labour brought to my attention an instance of children losing out on their childhood. A boy aged 13 and his sister of 9 years were missing out on school to sell incense sticks, eking out a living to buy their one meal a day of rice and dhal. I could not but wonder – the aromatic stick lit by thousands of devotees to invoke blessings from prayer and worship released its fragrant smoke as a sweet-scented childhood was turning to ash.

I have spent close to 20 years working to bring an end to child labour as part of the ILO, hand-in-hand with hundreds of perse and dedicated partners. It only took a simple intervention for the brother and sister to be re-schooled and not working. Alternatives existed for them to afford the seemingly prohibitive school associated costs, for meals, family counselling and other social services.

As a middle-income country, Sri Lanka has discernible patterns of children engaged in the largely informal services sector. Surprisingly not as extant in rural areas but having the highest numbers in Kurunegala, Gampaha, Colombo, Monaragala, and Batticaloa Districts. Though not widespread, such occurrences are scattered across urban and peri-urban localities and this often makes detection difficult. Which is why it is vitally important to have sustained coordination among the gamut of actors in order to maintain an effective referral system: education authorities and pisional officers or probation units, and social welfare and monitoring officers must have strong liaison to assess and follow-up on low school attendance, dropouts and re-enrolment.

The greater part of the load is to keep the wheels in motion to ensure that coordination mechanisms function to drive the effort forward – to deliver on the promise to have no child labour and a country where kids can pursue their dreams, and school life a never-ending vacation of flying kites colouring the sky, painting brilliant hues into life. Sri Lanka must show resolve to have reached the peak come 2022. The demonstrated commitment will gather impetus for being part of 8.7 – a 200 plus organisations around the globe – strong coalition tasked to work for a world without child labour, giving Sri Lanka a strong footing to harness resources to see the country through the last mile of the journey.

Having made impressive gains in steeply reducing child labour, over the past few decades Sri Lanka stands tall and well placed to attain the declared target of eradicating child labour. The highly visible international commitments toward the same not only take the country toward a brighter horizon but also inspire others to chart a similar and driven course.

As the World Day Against Child Labour is marked on 12 June, it is a timely reminder for us all that the problem will not solve itself. It will take time, dedication and cooperation. You can become part of the solution. Care for a cause that brings good to all. Be observant. Report violations to 1929 – the dedicated hotline at the Ministry of Labour. The consequences of a child forced to work without schooling or after hours far outweigh the impact that stopping such work has on his or her family. Remember that child labour has no place in the 21st century.

(The writer is Country Director, ILO Country Office for Sri Lanka and the Malpes.)

Alleged Medical Malpractice: Time Is Nigh To Adopt Informed Consent 

By Ruwan Laknath Jayakody –JUNE 11, 2019

Ruwan Jayakody

For patients in Sri Lanka, the medical profession, for the most part, unless due to ignorance or naivety concerning the complexities of diagnosing and treatment, or some genuinely ghastly tale of horror and woe experienced at the hands with the healing touch, generates reverence and to its practitioners, especially the doctors, is bestowed godlike status, and afforded godly veneration with all the associated spoils. Thus, any breach of this duty of care, is deemed tantamount to a mortal sin. A crisis of this magnitude is presently unfolding in two State/Government Hospitals in the Kurunegala and Dambulla areas, where a doctor is alleged to have performed a procedure on hundreds of women seeking to be mothers for the second time, which rendered them sterile and thus unable to conceive a second time. Whilst a criminal investigation is presently underway and a full blown political and media circus is in parallel going gung ho, all guns blazing, the situation beggars a long term solution for the health care service sector in general, a solution which lies in informed consent.

The adoption by the Lankan judiciary of the relevant principles expounded in Montgomery v. Lanarkshire Health Board decided by the Supreme Court (SC) of the United Kingdom (UK), primarily that of informed consent, will not only help to protect patients autonomy and their right to self determination but also increase healthcare standards and preserve the medical profession’s sanctity. This latter view was put forward by legal researcher G.D. Gunawardena in his research paper ‘Implications of adopting the principle of Informed Consent in Sri Lankan Medical Malpractice law: A critical analysis in light of Montgomery v. Lanarkshire Health Board (2015) UK SC 11’, in which he added that it is high time for legal reform or at least judicial review through the expansion of the prevailing principles to afford more predictability and certainty to the law.

Background 

Gunawardena had also interviewed, for the purpose of this research, five practicing doctors, two final year medical students and persons involved in hospital administration. He noted that the said doctors had stated that they usually encountered problems when communicating with the older population of the lower class while on the other hand, youth from the same social class were quite competent with regard to these matters and even those who were less so would understand a procedure once time was taken to explain it to them in simpler terms. The doctors, Gunawardena observed, also indicated that presently, there is increased concern on the part of patients with regard to what treatment is performed and also that they expect a higher standard of care, especially in the private sector.

Further, Gunawardena’s interviews with the practicing doctors revealed that most just mention the name of the procedure or explain it in a single sentence before asking the patient to give their written consent. The doctors had argued that a detailed explanation would prove redundant because a majority of patients in Sri Lanka would not understand and also that such an explanation would usually scare a patient into refusing even low risk treatment. 

Informed consent: The applicable legal regime  

On consent and bodily integrity, physical autonomy and the right to self determination, Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, when in the New York Court of Appeals, in the case of Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital (1914) 105 N.E. 92 211 N.Y. 125 wrote that “Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his/her own body and a surgeon who performs an operation without his/her patient’s consent, commits an assault”. Incidentally, the Nuremberg Code’s first point when conducting permissible medical experiments is that voluntary consent of the subject is absolutely essential.

Informed consent, on the other hand, as Professor Paul Stuart Appelbaum observed in ‘Assessment of patient’s competence to consent to treatment’, is the process by which the treating health care provider discloses appropriate information to a competent patient so that the patient may make a voluntary choice to accept or refuse treatment. The 1972 United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case of Canterbury v. Spence (464 F.2d. 772. 782), Judge Spottswood W. Robinson the III was of the view that a doctor must disclose all risks which might materially affect a patient’s decision and thereby founded the doctrine of informed consent in law for the first time even though the jury’s verdict was in favour of Dr. Spence, where the doctor in question had taken the position that the disclosure of minute risks of complication was not sound medical practice since it potentially deterred patients from availing of necessary surgery and had thereby only informed Canterbury that the surgery might result in weakness and omitted to mentioned paralysis, avoiding the more specific warning so as not to deter the patient from pursuing the operation.

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The Function of Your Appendix

By Sadira Sittampalam- MAY 19 2019
Ceylon Today Features

The appendix has so far been thought to be completely useless to humans. The only thing it seems to do well is get inflamed and threaten to burst, creating all sorts of havoc in your body. However, it appears that there actually is a reason for its occasionally inconvenient existence.

The appendix is an organ that makes up a part of your gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The GI tract is a group of complex organs, each designed to help your body absorb and digest food. Your appendix is located in the lower right part of your abdomen, and is a thin, roughly four inch long tube, attached to a part of your large intestine called the cecum. The cecum is a small pouch typically considered to be the beginning of the large intestine. Charles Darwin presumed that the appendix was a shrivelled up portion of the cecum. He came to this conclusion as the cecum is much larger in herbivores compared to modern humans. Thus, he assumed that our distant ancestors also had a large ceca which allowed them to dine on leaves like herbivores do today.
 However, as these ancestors moved on to having more of a fruit based diet; the cecum shrank but was not completely eliminated, resulting in the appearance of the appendix. However, as we examined the appendix more closely, we found that it was made up of material that was quite different to the cecum and could therefore not be a part of it.

Thereafter, people assumed that it simply was an organ that had a purpose originally, but is no longer useful today, labelling it as a vestigial organ. However, the modern argument is that if this was the case, evolution should have eliminated this organ already. Thus, a study was conducted by researchers at Midwestern University, which examined the evolution of 553 mammal species over 11 million years.
 It attempted to pinpoint where the appendix had emerged as a new trait as well as well as when it disappeared entirely. In order to support the common belief that the appendix was just a vestigial feature with no real benefit, the researchers would have to see a trend indicating that it only evolved a few times while disappearing quite regularly. However, the evidence pointed to another conclusion, as it had appeared to evolve between 32 and 38 times, disappearing only six times. This indicated that the appendix was in fact of use to certain mammals, concluding that it could not be defined as vestigial.

Therefore, many scientists believe that it does provide us with some function.
This was indicated through other studies which found that the appendix contains a type of tissue associated with the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system’s primary function is to carry white blood cells throughout the body in order to fight infections. Thus, recently scientists have been able to discover that this lymphatic tissue in the appendix encourages the growth of some beneficial gut bacteria.
This healthy gut bacteria usually plays an important role in human digestion and immunity. Thus, the ‘safe house’ theory was developed, illustrating how the appendix protects this bacteria in its long tube-like structure, only to emerge when certain diseases wipe out the gut bacteria that were already in the GI tract. Therefore, once the immune system has fought off the infection, the bacteria exits the appendix and re-colonises the GI tract.
 This theory was further supported as people who have had their appendix removed are more likely to suffer from bacterial infections. However, most people still tend to live a long and healthy life after an appendectomy which points to both how the immune system probably picks up after its absence, and to perhaps the effectivity of modern medicine.

However, if you are still not convinced by the appendixes value and would rather take it out now than risk it bursting, know that it is also useful for reconstructive surgery. If the urinary bladder ever has to be removed, a section of the intestine is formed into a replacement bladder, with the appendix used to recreate the ‘sphincter muscle’ so that the patient remains continent or able to retain urine.
It can also be used as a replacement for a diseased ureter, which allows urine to flow from the kidneys to the bladder. Thus, even if it’s inherent uses are not much of an advantage in modern times; it can still be used if healthy as a backup of sorts. Therefore, although Darwin may have prematurely disregarded the appendix, this long dismissed organ is finally getting some deserved recognition for keeping us relatively healthier which can finally balance out it’s overwhelming negative press for giving almost one in 20 people appendectomies.

 

He called on the pope to resign. Now this archbishop is in an undisclosed location.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, then the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, delivers a sermon at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington in March 2016. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

By Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli-June 10 at 5:00 AM

 

ROME — In the instant he became one of the most controversial figures in modern Catholic Church history, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò went dark.

The retired Vatican ambassador to Washington wrote a bombshell letter last summer calling on Pope Francis to resign on the grounds that he had tolerated a known sexual abuser. As that letter was published, Viganò turned off his phone, told friends he was disappearing and let the church sort through the fallout.

Nine months later, in his first extended interview since that moment, Viganò refused to disclose his location or say much about his self-imposed exile. But his comments indicate that, even in hiding, he is maintaining his role as the fiercest critic of the Francis era, acting either as an honorable rebel or, as his critics see it, as an ideological warrior attacking a pope he doesn’t like.

Viganò corresponded by email with The Washington Post over two months, writing 8,000 words in response to nearly 40 questions. He was blistering in his criticism of Francis, saying “it is immensely sad” that the pope is “blatantly lying to the whole world to cover up his wicked deeds.”

[Read Viganò’s exchange with The Washington Post]

 

McCarrick expelled from Catholic priesthood

 

On Feb. 16, the Vatican announced it had defrocked ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick after finding him guilty of sexual abuse while in the priesthood. (Reuters)

The Vatican has had little official response to Viganò. A communications official declined to comment for this article. But Francis last month responded for the first time to Viganò’s letter. The pope said he knew “nothing, obviously nothing” about the misconduct of then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and could not remember whether Viganò had warned him about McCarrick in 2013. Viganò said he told Francis that McCarrick had “corrupted generations of seminarians and priests.”

“How could anybody, especially a pope, forget this?” Viganò wrote to The Post.

Viganò addresses a crowd during a Palm Sunday mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in April 2014. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

McCarrick was defrocked in February, after the allegations exploded into public view and he was found guilty in a Vatican proceeding of “sins” with minors and adults.

[Former Vatican ambassador says Popes Francis, Benedict knew of sexual misconduct allegations for years]

In his correspondence with The Post, Viganò offered detailed thoughts about church dealings, but he resisted personal questions — and he declined requests to meet in person. Viganò wrote that he has become “more careful about whom I meet and what I say.” He said questions about him were “irrelevant to the serious problems facing the Church.”

“My life is quite normal, thank you for asking,” he wrote.

Viganò wrote “n/a” in response to questions about where he is living, whether he believes his safety is under threat and how his actions in August have otherwise altered his life.

He wrote that the Catholic Church has not contacted him since several conservative church news outlets initially published his accusations. He described himself as an “old man” who “will be appearing in front of the Good Judge before too long.”

Viganò, 78, was two years into his retirement when he came forward with his letter, a stunning break for a lifelong church representative who had held major bureaucratic posts inside the Vatican and represented the Holy See in several countries as a diplomat.

“My silence would make me complicit with the abusers, and lead to yet more victims,” he said.

Viganò, the Vatican’s then-ambassador to the United States, listens to remarks at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' annual meeting in 2015. (Patrick Semansky/Associated Press)

Although Viganò’s letter focused on one case — McCarrick’s — it became a touchstone for a wider and fierce struggle over internal corruption, the role of homosexuality in abuse and whether Francis is leading the church astray.

Viganò wrote last year that both Benedict XVI and Francis had known about McCarrick’s misconduct. But he portrayed the former pope as attempting to take quiet disciplinary action against the then-cardinal and Francis as patently ignoring those sanctions.

Last month, private letters disclosed by a former McCarrick aide supported Viganò’s claim that the Vatican had told McCarrick to retreat from public life during Benedict’s papacy. But it is also clear that McCarrick swiftly ignored his orders from Rome, even while Benedict remained pope. No documents have surfaced showing whether Francis knew of the sanctions against McCarrick by the time he became pope in 2013.

[Despite denials, D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl knew of sexual misconduct allegations and reported them to Vatican]

Viganò said the “truth will eventually come out” for Francis, as it had for Cardinal Donald Wuerl, a former archbishop of Washington who portrayed himself last summer as being unaware about complaints against McCarrick — a claim that documents subsequently proved false. Viganò suggested to The Post that Francis is covering up other cases, “as he did for McCarrick.”

For Catholic traditionalists — a group that includes some bishops and cardinals, as well as pundits, journalists and everyday members of the faith — Viganò has become a revered symbol, although an absent one.

“He’s certainly acquired a very strong moral leadership in the Catholic world,” said Virginia Coda Nunziante, president of Italy’s March for Life committee.

Viganò frequented conservative church conferences and antiabortion events before the release of his testimony; now, he is a no-show. He keeps in touch with people only on his own terms, calling them from a Skype account that does not resemble his name.

Many in the Catholic world think that Viganò — long known for his hot temper and inner-
Vatican rivalries — is neither credible nor interested in stopping sexual abuse. They note that documents show he tried to quash an investigation of a Minnesota archbishop accused of misconduct, an accusation Viganò denies. They also say that his testimony last summer was a barely veiled attack against gays in the upper ranks, and that his real goal was to weaken Francis rather than to help the church.

“There is an element of Machiavellian exploitation” with Viganò, said Austen Ivereigh, a papal biographer.

Even before his public criticism of Francis, Viganò was a figure of controversy. As ambassador to Washington, he took heat for arranging a meeting between Francis and Kim Davis, a county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky. He was recalled from the post in 2016, amid allegations that he had become entangled in the conservative marriage fight in the United States.

Viganò was among the senior clerics to have received money from Michael J. Bransfield, a West Virginia bishop accused in a mass corruption scandalrevealed this month by The Post. Viganò said aides told him it would be an affront to decline the money, so he donated it to charity.

Viganò, then the Vatican's ambassador to the United States, blesses the altar at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in March 2016. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

 

Viganò, in his responses to The Post, made it clear that he is watching even smaller moments inside the Vatican. He cited an exchange from a Vatican news conference in February in which a journalist asked Archbishop Charles Scicluna, who has handled church sex abuse cases, about a case in Argentina. Scicluna began to answer, and the Vatican spokesman cut in, saying the news conference — held during a landmark abuse summit — was not a time to “focus on individual cases.” Results of an investigation of the case would later be released, the spokesman assured.

[Private letters indicate the Vatican imposed, but didn’t enforce, restrictions on former cardinal McCarrick]

“One may be forgiven for wondering whether the results of an honest and thorough investigation really will be released, and in a timely fashion,” Viganò wrote. “There is a certain irony here: This exchange happened while [the summit organizers] were discussing what they themselves called transparency.”

As far as the McCarrick case, the Vatican pledged in October to conduct a “thorough” study of its archives and reveal what it finds out about who knew what. The church has since said only that an investigation is ongoing.

“The results of an honest investigation would be disastrous for the current papacy,” Viganò wrote to The Post. He also acknowledged that such an inquiry may harm the reputations of more traditionalist pontiffs, Benedict and John Paul II, who presided over McCarrick’s rise.

“But that is not a good reason for not seeking the truth,” Viganò said. “Benedict XVI and John Paul II are human beings, and may well have made mistakes. If they did, we want to know about them. Why should they remain hidden? We can all learn from our mistakes.”

Viganò did not respond directly to a question about whether he has documents to back up his claims.

“The time has not yet come for me to release anything,” Viganò said, instead calling on the pope and other Vatican officials to release documentation, “assuming they have not yet destroyed it.”

Viganò also spoke in detail about one of his most contentious beliefs: that the sexual abuse crisis would be “far less severe” if the “problem of homosexuality in the priesthood were honestly acknowledged and properly addressed.”

[When the Vatican faces a major sex-abuse scandal, he’s the man the pope sends in]

The question of whether homosexuality has anything to do with abuse has divided the Vatican hierarchy. Studies show that there is no correlation between sexual ­orientation and the likelihood to commit abuse. Francis has emphasized not homosexuality, but the vast power chasm that priests take advantage of when abusing younger victims. But people such as Viganò raise the point that 80 percent of clerical abuse victims are male, and that the majority of those are 14 and older.

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is mind-boggling that the word ‘homosexuality’ has not appeared once, in any of the recent official documents of the Holy See” on events dealing with abuse and youth, Viganò wrote.

He said a “gay mafia” among bishops, intent on protecting themselves, was “sabotaging all efforts at reform.”

Viganò referenced only two regrets about his letter last summer. He said that he wished he had spoken out sooner. He also said that, “in retrospect,” he would have softened the call for Francis to resign — a demand that even Viganò’s supporters said was far-fetched and distracting.

Viganò now leaves open the possibility that Francis could repent, and says the pope should step down “if he refuses to admit his mistakes and ask for forgiveness.”