Courtesy The Daily Mirror

The government today rejected that there was a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Minister Dinesh Gunawardane said they wont accept the motion which was submitted by the JVP as it was not taken up for a proper debate.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Office of the Speaker stated that a no confidence motion and a letter signed by 122 parliamentarians against the Prime Minister and the new Cabinet appointed by the President have been presented to the Speaker at the parliamentary session today (14).

Issuing a press release, the Speaker’s Office said that, the Parliament sat at 10.00 am today (14) in terms of Gazette Extraordinary No. 2095/50 dated 04 November 2018 issued by the President.

After the Speaker has made the announcements as the Business for the Day, MP M.A. Sumanthiran from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), moved that the business of the House be proceeded suspending the Standing Orders of Parliament.

Accordingly, a division had been moved for suspending the Standing Orders and then the Standing orders were suspended with the approval of the majority of the Members.

Thereafter, MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake from Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), moved a no confidence motion against the government and MP Vijitha Herath from the same party, seconded the motion. They further moved that a division should be held for the same today itself”, read the release.

The presented motion read that,

The Gazette Extraordinary Nos. 2094/43, 2094/43A and 2094/44 dated 26th October 2018 promulgated by His Excellency the President, and the purported acts and appointments referred to therein, are unconstitutional, and are null and void and of no force or effect in law.

For the aforesaid reasons, this House has no confidence in the Prime Minister Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa or the Cabinet of Ministers and government appointed on or after 26th October 2018.”

The release read that, Then the Opposition party moved a division for that, and after the division bell has been rung, the Speaker ordered for voting.

A majority of the Hon. Members of Parliament voted in favor of the No -Confidence Motion and accordingly the Hon. Speaker announced to the House that the No -Confidence Motion was passed with a majority.

Subsequently, MP Lakshman Kiriella proposed that the House should be adjourned until 10.am tomorrow (15) and the House gave its approval for it.”

The Speaker will take steps to send the President a copy of the No -Confidence Motion and the decision of the House in that regard along with a copy of the letter signed by 122 Members of Parliament to the effect that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers appointed by him recently are unconstitutional, in order to take appropriate action according to the Constitution, further stated the press release.

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Ratanapala

14 Nov 2018

The Way Forward and What is to be done?

It is time the SLFP died its natural death and so too the UNP. These two geriatric political parties though brought into existence on lofty ideals, have over the years failed to bring peace and prosperity to the citizens of Sri Lanka. The only thing that they did famously is to divide the Sinhala polity in the middle. Together they have impoverished Sri Lanka, made politics in Sri Lanka the most corrupt in the region and the corrupt politicians rich and powerful. They also brought in the minority racists and religionists to the fray and made them kingmakers of Sri Lanka. The end result is for all to see – our past political history- the machinations and the deleterious effects of the doings of Chevanayakams, Amirthalingams, Sambandans, Thondamans, Ashroffs and now Hakeems, Mano Geneshans and Baithuddeens and add to this the Senanayakes, Bandaranaikes, Jayawardeens and Wickramasinghe.

Rajapakses too had a hand in that they failed to consolidate the war gains. Winning a war is not just the battles – it includes maintaining the peace. This is the reason the victorious Allies are still stationed around the world in strategic locations. Mahinda Rajapakse failed in this score because he is the one who commenced the withdrawal of Armed Forces from strategic locations in the North and East. No one within Sri Lanka or outside should dictate where Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces should be present or not. Then Army Commander – Sarath Fonseka’s assertion to increase the army was in fact correct strategically  as it takes more to maintain peace than fight wars. It took 30 years to finish off the war because we did not have enough soldiers to keep and defend the peace in the liberated areas! Finally, the war was won, because  the President Mahinda Rajapakse took a firm stand, the then Defence Secretary – Gotabhaya provided the necessary manpower and war logistics to hold onto and defend liberated areas while prosecuting the war elsewhere. In the immediate aftermath of the war ending Indians managed to break up the Sri Lankan the war winning team and Sarath Fonseka and Rajapakses parted ways!

After 70 years what the nation needs is time and space to move forward as one nation leaving behind the enmity and divisiveness. For this to happen the unity of the Sinhalese is paramount. Minority politics and their aspirations will never see daylight with only half of the Sinhalese agreeing. This is why the unity of the Sinhalese be they UNP or SLFP is of paramount importance for the good of all concerned, minorities included.

What ailed Sri Lanka during the last 70 years is the constant demands of minority Shylocks asking for their pound of flesh and more. In their own words, it is – Little now and More later! Even as we speak, these forces are at play 24/7 finding ways to keep Sri Lanka destabilized and a failed state. Even after making the TNA with only 16 seats in the Parliament the main Opposition Party, did they have anything to do with the governance of the nation? They abstained with scorn and enmity in their eyes, from every parliamentary activity that had to do with the governance of Sri Lanka and only participated in legislating actions that would lead to the balkanization of Sri Lanka and in the end her destruction as an independent political entity in South Asia. Their main purpose of occupying the position of the Opposition was to prop up the unpopular, traitorous, mega-thief Ranil and his cohorts – now famously referred to as the Butterflies”!

And so it goes for the Islamists spreading Wahabbism throughout the length and breadth of SrI Lanka. Just at the eleventh hour when there was a clear need for ousting mega-thief Ranil they left to Mecca indicating that they will return to enjoy the spoils! Patriotic UNPers and SLFPers should see this reality and leaving aside their petty differences unite to save Sri Lanka. This why they all must join forces under Pohottuwa, not because it is the best, but because it is ground reality and the only existing  common place where all from different political hues can gather and unite to end once and for all the tyranny of  Minority Politics. We must be in a position to muster a 2/3^rd majority to bring about the necessary constitutional changes as well as provide for reasonable minority demands that do not infringe on the security, wellbeing and continued existence of Sri Lanka as a separate, unitary and independent political and geographical entity south of the Palk Straits!

It is time, all those well-meaning Tamils and Muslims leave the divisive politics and join the mainstream to achieve their realistic aspirations. Division of the country into fiefdoms or giving land and police powers to Eelamists is no way to achieve lasting peace in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka simply does not have space nor the security measures necessary to entertain such wishful thinking that only bring luxuries to a selected few!

It is time, Sinhalese of all hues, be they UNP, SLFP, Buddhist or Christian unite behind Pohottuwa to take the country away from the cannibalistic politics of today, for together we can prosper as a nation. It is time the Sinhalese demanded from Pohottuwa that it cannot be ‘Politics as Usual’ as it used to be. It is time they got rid of the useless riff-raff, the traitorous, self-serving and the bribe-taker lot among them and move forward with only those who can be trusted to make way for progress. Pohottuwas must leave space only for the best in the SLFP, the UNP and those among minorities who aspire to prosper together.

Other nations such as Malaysia and Singapore sorted similar problems right at the beginning of their independence from Colonial Powers. This is why these countries prosper and Sri Lanka not! Big and powerful nations respect their strengths and politics!

UNLESS THE SINHALESE UNITE AS ONE, BECOME SELF SUFFICIENT IN THEIR BASIC NEEDS AND SECURITY. THERE IS NO SOLUTION TO THE MINORITIES. THIS IS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH BEHIND POLITICS IN SRI LANKA. This is what ailed Sri Lanka for the last 70 years. It is only the United Sinhalese who can accommodate those peaceful intentions of the minorities and take the nation towards progress! No solution or agreement, call it what may provided by 50% Sinhalese will be valid in the days, months and years ahead!

The so-called International Community are at the door calling for ‘democracy and human rights’.  This bogus cry is now seen to be fake as the fake news their media propagate.  It is their system of governance that made  the 1% own the 99% of world’s wealth. They would rather make Sri Lanka unstable, divided,  a failed state and divide the spoils rather than try to negotiate with a weak state. On the other hand they would support a country that is strong politically and militarily. They say Nature abhors a vacuum and so is politics. They are onto Sri Lanka because they find Sri Lanka divided, unstable and vacuous. United we can stand, divided certainly it is oblivion, death, and destruction a la Libya, Iraq and Syria!

We must provide India the security she needs south of the Palk Straits! It is only a strong Sri Lankan military which can provide this assurance and not a weak Sri Lanka! Senior Indian politician Subramaniam Swamy put it succinctly – We can trust the words of Mahinda Rajapakse. He is a strong man and we can depend on what he promises”.

 Time is of the essence, let us not bungle it this time! All patriots, be they UNP or SLFP, who wish well for Mother Lanka, unite behind Pohottuwa! Mahinda Rajapakse, Gotabhaya Basil are better leaders than any other currently in Sri Lanka. They can deliver what all Sri Lankans needs today – Peace and Prosperity!

By Noor Nizam – Peace and Political Activist, Political Communication Researcher, SLFP Stalwart and Convener – “The Muslim Voice”. 13th., November 2018.

An INTERIM ORDER is a temporary court order, intended to be of limited duration, usually just until the court has had an opportunity of hearing the full case and make a final order. The stay orders have been issued effective until December 7. The Supreme Court has fixed the case for argument on December 4, 5 and 6. On the 7th., December, the court will give the verdict. “WE HAVE TO WAIT TILL THEN TO THE HEAR THE VOICE OF JUSTICE”. The learned judges of the Supreme Court have acted very wisely on this matter by giving and “interim stay order” on the dissolution of parliament for now. This wise judgement has eased  the tense political situation in the country and will allow “JUSTICE” to be “FAIR” by everyone.

They have created an opportunity to all to place their arguments before the 3 member bench of judges for 3 days (4th., 5th., and 6th., November 2018) before giving the final decision of the court.

The 19 submissions in SUPPORT of the DISSOLUTION submitted on the 12th., November 2018 as stated by the media, will now be taken for consideration/deliberation/argument by the 3 bench judges on the 4th., 5th., and 6th., November 2018.

As an experienced “Political Communication Researcher” and my 49 years of experience in Politics in Sri Lanka, I can see that the Learned Supreme Court Bench of Judges will “NOT SHUT DOWN” the Constitutional Right of the Elected Head of State of Sri Lanka – President Maithripala Sirisena. The verdict on 7th., November 2018 will “LEAN” towards in “FAVOUR” of the President’s decision, by the grace of God AllMighty. This is my personal view and expression. THE VOICE OF “JUSTICE” IS NOT OVER YET”.  WE HAVE TO WAIT. Muslim Politicians like Rauf Hakeem, Rishad Bathiudeen, Mujeebu Rahuman, Marikkar and Azad Sally or the ACJU or National Shoora Council should “REFRAIN” from making “DRASTIC” statements on this issue, WHICH CAN BE DETRIMENTAL to our community at large, whatever political party we maybe, till such time, the verdict is announced, Insha Allah.

By Dr Kamal Wickremasinghe Courtesy The Island

November 13, 2018, 8:59 pm

The political events of the last fortnight that created a change in power structures in the country may bear significance in the short term, but will be unlikely to mark a significant turn in historical terms. In a nutshell, the events marked a simple ‘path correction’ triggered by the apparent dawning on the President of the dishonesty and anti-national agenda of the 2015 conspiracy. The realisation appears to have prompted him to use his executive powers to free the country from the hold of foreign-financed NGOs and local political agents of foreign vested interests.

The President’s sacking of the former prime minister and the appointment of a new one is ‘water under the bridge’ now and the focus is firmly on the upcoming elections. Judging by recent displays of political will by the people, the impending elections are likely to put the current complaints and debates to rest. The outgoing government has no worthy record of performance to base an election campaign on, and their inability to prove charges of large scale financial corruption and crimes of the Rajapaksa regime in courts of law have eaten in to their credibility in the eyes of the people. The robbery of the Central Bank as well as their protection of its perpetrator in Singapore has reduced any remaining chances of winning votes at an election. The broad public response of apparent relief, and even celebration at community level, points strongly to an electoral ‘bloodbath’ for the UNP and its friends at the election.

In contrast to the reaction of the general public, sundry NGO operators have been reacting to the President’s actions ‘madder than cut snakes’, adopting abusive, vitriolic language. The reaction of the former prime minister has been typically immature, essentially throwing a tantrum by way of squatting at Temple Trees. Further complicating matters, the parliamentary speaker brought his partisan behaviour from within Parliament to the wider political arena. In fact, the structure of the ‘forces’ against the measures adopted by the President and the strategy adopted by them have gone a long way to justify his actions.

The strategy adopted by the UNP and the NGOs appears an attempt to redress the lack of popular sentiment behind their ‘protests’ by pointing to alleged violations of a largely ‘imaginary’ democratic ideal: they keep alluding to a particular conception of democracy that is a meaningless caricature when viewed against their own behaviour in power. Attempts to absurdly mischaracterise the sacked government as one that responded to the wishes of the majority — on salient issues like the proposed new constitution and trumped up US charges of war crimes — has only drawn the ridicule of the people.

Evaluating the charge that the President’s actions somehow violated the ideals of democracy needs to be done against the background of democracy as a system of government that primarily concerns popular sovereignty through collective decision making, more broadly than under aristocracy or monarchy, for example. At the heart of the charge that the President somehow usurped the powers of the legislature is the issue of the relationship between people’s sovereignty that represents the true ideal of democracy, and the legislature that came into existence as a workable apparatus and mechanism to bring peoples’ sovereignty into operation: it needs to be remembered that the first Athenian democracy that came about around 550 BC involved a direct democracy in which ‘every’ eligible citizen — free men who had completed military service, and no women or slaves — was allowed to vote on each piece of legislation. It was this ‘direct democracy’ that later evolved into parliamentary democracy, essentially as a workable mechanism that enabled exercise of popular sovereignty as a physical act by the people in larger populations, by delegating it to a smaller group of representatives.

By their objections to the dissolution of parliament and declaration of an election, the UNP and the NGOs appear to have conveniently forgotten that government conducted through representatives is only a substitute designed to overcome the impracticality of carrying into effect ‘the will of the people’ by the entire body of qualified citizens. Denouncing the dissolution of parliament and declaring an election as an undemocratic act therefore, essentially disregard the central institution of democratic representative government, derived solely from the consent of the governed, through the mechanism of free and fair elections. Viewed in this light, the dissolution of parliament and holding elections are the ultimate restoration of democracy.

The alleged unconstitutionality of President’s actions

A considered look at the second line of attack launched by the UNP, the JVP and the NGOs, of the alleged unconstitutionality of the dissolution of parliament by the President shows they have no legal or political ‘leg to stand on’.

It needs to be noted that views on the constitutionality or otherwise of governmental action depends on certain ‘methods’ or ‘modes’ of interpretation of a particular meaning of a provision within the constitution; As has been noted by the legal writing educator Professor James Raymond — after dissection of the sharply divided opinions of judges of the High Court of Australia in Kartinyeri v Commonwealth, relating to the interpretation of the meaning and ambit of the ‘races’ power in s 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution as amended by referendum in 1967 — ‘the canons and rules of interpretation are soft logic’, persuasive only to people who prefer the result they support or at least have no reason to resist them.

Such largely subjective interpretations of constitutions however, take place within the boundaries set by certain conventions: one such highly relevant convention to the interpretation of the currant Sri Lankan constitution is that legal texts of the constitution ought to be given the original public meaning. Another such principle is ‘purposive’ interpretation that prescribes that the instrument being considered must be treated as an integrated whole, without resorting to narrow or pedantic constructions that limit the amplitude of its powers.

It was settled by the US Supreme court case of South Dakota v. North Carolina that ‘no single provision of the constitution is to be segregated from the others and to be considered alone but that all provisions bearing upon a particular subject are to be brought into view and to be so interpreted as to effect the greater purpose of the instrument’. Similarly, an exclusionary clause in any of the entries should be strictly and therefore narrowly construed;

The reliance of the UNP, JVP and the NGOs interpretations of the constitution solely on the 19th Amendment they engineered in 2015 ignores the highly relevant legal principle that the constitution is irreducible to a single amendment. The 19th Amendment may have structurally modified the constitution, but does not systemically abolish the sovereignty of the people, signified through a Presidency directly elected by the populace as a whole.

Good management needs freedom to operate

A reasonable critique of the particular measures adopted by the President, however, needs to be based on a broader view of his functions as the president elected by the people, beyond the confined framework of the constitution. Viewed in this light, though it is frightening to speculate at times, there are strong parallels between the running of a state and the running of a large business, albeit with some crucial differences relating to the primary objectives: a national leader is required to create and maintain the optimum conditions for the perpetuation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by the population whereas a company executive’s sole aim would be to make money for its shareholders. Also, what is considered ‘efficient’ in the private sector is usually defined by profit, and social programmes a political leader may be required to deploy would be rarely profitable.

In broad terms, however, the roles of a nation’s president and its prime minister are analogous to the roles of a chairman of the board and the chief executive officer (CEO) of a large business organisation: chairman of the board at the head of the company sets the infrastructure and agenda necessary to ensure the effective working of the group while the CEO has the responsibility for the day-to-day management of the company and putting into effect the decisions and policies of the board. Just as national leaders are bound by a constitution, a company CEO is bound by corporate governance codes covering the superintendence of management responsibilities and accountabilities, strategic plans and work programmes.

Monitoring of CEO performance around performance targets and formal and informal performance reviews of the CEO is one of the main functions of the chairman of the board. Performance-related CEO departures caused by company performance and the board’s wish for a new CEO to reinvigorate the company are quite common.

The sacking of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe by President Sirisena is broadly similar to this situation, and few would disagree that the Prime Minister would not have survived for longer than three and a half years under performance review mechanisms in the private sector. This view provides a more sober view of the President’s actions as well as providing an argument for increased ‘degrees of freedom’ he should have in terms of unfettered constitutional powers to ‘hire and fire’ prime ministers as necessary to achieve national economic development.

There is little doubt that the president’s actions are in the best interests of the nation and focus now needs to be on the future.

Weimar Republic, Plato and yahapalana regime

Looking back at the events that precipitated between November 2014 and the election of the previous government in August 2015, and the time since then, conjure up images of a bad dream from which the nation has just woken up.

In historical terms, the yahapalana government closely resembled the experience of the Weimar Republic, the short-lived government of Germany formed in 1919 — at the chaos after the 1918 defeat of Germany in WW1 and the Kaiser’s abdication, named after the assembly that adopted its new constitution met at Weimar— to 1933, promising to give Germany a government that truly represented the views of the whole country.

The defeat in the war came as a huge surprise to the German people, and accusations that the German army had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by the politicians. Many Germans resented the government for signing the armistice agreeing to its conditions in November 1918 – they called them the November criminals. The yahapalana governments notorious co-sponsoring of the US war crimes allegation bears resemblance to this particular act of the Weimar Republic

Another similarity relates to the hurried action on drafting a new constitution at the behest of external forces. In the Weimar republic, after quelling the initial violence, 25 men including the famous sociologist Max Weber and politician Friedrich Naumann hurriedly crafted a new constitution between February and July 1919 which became law on August 11. Sri Lankans are fortunate that the process remained incomplete at the time of the sacking of Ranil.

The spirit of Weimar combined moods of extraordinary liberalism with a sinister willingness to search for and worship strange gods and occasional flashes of perverted vileness that are almost beyond description. On the positive side, it was a period considerable achievement in science and technology – Einstein worked in Berlin, and the next generation of scientists including Werner von Braun.

Similar to the yahapalanaya government, the Weimar Republic rejected traditional morality. It was a series of countercultures, communes and ‘alternative societies’ including nudism, dissociating itself from cultural conventions, and traditional values. Ironically, it was such attitudes and the values, that enabled the taking root of National Socialism immediately after, with many young Germans seeing National Socialism as the actualisation of their dreams of an alternative society. Sri Lanka was fortunate that the large scale perversion of the traditional Sri Lankan social system by some elements within the yahapalanaya government was averted before it caused extensive social damage.

In another sense, the demise of the yahapalanaya government signifies the worst fears about certain forms of democracy expressed by Plato who came to despise democracy following his friend and mentor Socrates was put to death by hemlock by a jury of 500 Athenians in 399 BC. Plato would later describe the trial of Socrates in his first essay, The Apology, as being judged by a jury of children.

Plato predicted in Republic a common trajectory democracy follows, containing within it what he considered serious dangers. He predicts that the people in a society with an enormous socioeconomic gap, where the poor remain poor and the rich become richer off the blood and sweat of others will long for freedom and liberty, sparking a revolution rallying behind one man, or a few men, whom they believe to be their saviour.

The people will supplant a democracy with sacred responsibilities to bring liberty to the land, making the newly appointed leaders nervous about the longevity of their own regime. The democratic leaders will then resort to projects aimed at managing expectations by distracting the people. To ensure their power, the leaders will create laws to bolster their position. Leaders will eventually become unpopular, with those who once supported this ruling class beginning to rebel against it. Hated by the people, these leaders will request heavy personal protection, elected by the people, yet protected from them. The leader born from democracy and propped up by the demand for liberty becomes a tyrant, creating another phase of the vicious cycle.

The yahapalanaya government broadly confirmed to Plato’s vicious cycle of democracy, worsened by its awful or non-existent economic management skills or programs. The president was right to act the way he did.

Continuing on the path of correction

The events of the previous fortnight proved the need for a constitution that empowers the executive to act decisively, rather than creating chaos through weakening of the executive by stealthily transferring executive powers to prime ministers who do not have the ability to win the trust of the people. Those who clamour for abolishing the executive presidency, without exception, are doing so due the realisation that they will never be able to win the position.

The President needs to continue on the path of correction he began. The first step should be reversal of the 19 Amendment to the constitution, restoring the presidential powers. Only a strong president could be expected to effectively launch and manage a national development programme that meets the countries dire needs.

Those who oppose executive presidency while literally ‘worshiping’ the neon lights of Singapore should be asked to study the model of government administered by Lee Kwan Yu.

Editorial Courtesy The Island

November 13, 2018, 9:37 pm

The Supreme Court has issued an interim order suspending the dissolution of Parliament till Dec. 07. This is not what President Maithripala Sirisena and his allies bargained for. His rivals have declared victory prematurely. People are agog with curiosity; thankfully they remain calm and quiet. The sooner this dispute is brought to an end, the better. It has overshadowed all other issues. Nobody seems to care two hoots about the economic front.

Parliament has to be reconvened today as scheduled prior to its dissolution, and what the situation will be in the House is anybody’s guess. Will President Sirisena prorogue it further? Will the UNP and its allies try to secure a division and/or thwart such an attempt?

The court case at issue is not yet over and the SC judgment is likely to be given next month. What is justice to the winner is not to the liking of the losing side, which always cries foul. Judicial verdicts may help resolve disputes legally but do not lead to reconciliation. Hence the need for settling disputes through negotiations without taking them to courts if consensus is to be achieved! However, as for the issues consequent to the Oct. 26 government change, one may argue, the disputants remained intransigent and Parliament found itself in a gridlock and, therefore, the matter had to be taken to courts. It behoves all of them to sheath their poniards, swallow their pride and discuss a future course of action to hoist the country from the current political mire of their making, for, as things stand, the crisis is not like to go away in the foreseeable future. The warring politicians owe it to the people who stump up colossal amounts of money to maintain them.

The unfortunate situation which has led to the ongoing divisive legal battle arose because men of mature years in politics failed to act wisely. They let their personal animosities take precedence over their duty by the country. The Oct. 26 government change would not have happened but for a personality clash between President Sirisena and ousted PM Ranil Wickremesinghe. The outcome of the current legal battle is bound to complicate the political situation further. One can only hope that sanity will prevail.

In countries, blessed with statespersons, difficulties the people face make rulers sink their differences and join forces to find solutions, but in this land like no other, political leaders’ personal differences cause difficulties for the people.

Democracy and progress derive sustenance from the wisdom and altruism of rulers. When selfish, power hungry leaders are elected it is only natural that democracy and progress elude a nation. This, we have seen under successive governments during the last several decades.

This legal battle may be over with the SC determination, but all will not be quiet on the political front. Speculation is rife that President Sirisena is coming under increasing pressure from his allies to go for a referendum to consult the people directly on the issue. The general consensus is that the President is constitutionally empowered to do so. Whether this is possible or the President will consider this an option remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, there were some ugly scenes near the Superior Courts Complex in Colombo, on Monday, with groups of restive political activists shouting. Last so many years have seen protests, silent or otherwise, near courts in Colombo and in other parts of the country. No organised crowds must be allowed to enter court premises and areas adjacent thereto under any circumstances.

By Neville Ladduwahetty Courtesy The Island

Dr. Jayampathy Wickrmaratne is reported to have stated: “President Maithripala Sirisena cannot dissolve Parliament to overcome the current constitutional crisis caused by the unconstitutional sacking of PM Ranil Wickremesinghe”. The report also states: “It is a golden rule that in interpreting a Constitution, the Constitution as a whole must be looked at, not one provision in isolation” (The Island, 10th Nov. 2018).

If the Constitution is to be looked upon as a whole, there is a need to visit the very foundation on which the Constitution is founded. It starts with sovereignty being with the People. Article 3 of the current Constitution states: “In the Republic of Sri Lanka sovereignty is in the People and is inalienable. Sovereignty includes the powers of government, fundamental rights and the franchise”. Thus, the fundamental premise is that the sovereignty of the People is to be held in trust by their elected representatives, and implemented through the organs of government.

Article 3 of the 1972 Constitution also stated that “Sovereignty is in the People and is inalienable”, but it did not include fundamental rights and franchise. Furthermore, Article 4 of the 1972 Constitution stated that “The Sovereignty of the People is exercised through a National State Assembly of elected representatives of the People”. Consequently, the National State Assembly as the “the supreme instrument of State power” exercised the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the People thus making Sri Lanka a Parliamentary Democracy.

This, however, is not the case with the current Constitution. Article 4 that spells out the “powers of government” states that the legislative power of the People shall be exercised by Parliament (Article 4 (a); the executive power of the people shall be exercised by a President directly elected by the People (Article 4 (b) and the judicial power of the People shall be exercised by Parliament through courts, tribunals etc. Article 4(c).

Furthermore, since sovereignty is inalienable each of the above powers must and should remain separate and equal. In addition, they cannot be transferred, relinquished or removed without the expressed consent of the People. This makes Sri Lanka a presidential democracy. This then should be the starting point to address the charges made by Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne.

The inability to appreciate the difference between the two systems has caused legal and academic experts to keep on describing Sri Lanka as a Parliamentary democracy, when in fact it has been a Presidential democracy for the last forty years. A key aspect of this difference is that while parliamentary democracies cannot function without a majority presidential democracies could function independent of a majority since powers are separate. In such an instance the lack of a majority in Parliament only hampers the passage of legislation.

The perception that Sri Lanka is a parliamentary democracy is perhaps the reason for interpreting Article 33A that states: “The President shall be responsible to Parliament for the exercise, performance and discharge of his powers, duties and functions…” to mean that the Executive is “answerable” to Parliament. Such an interpretation is seriously flawed because it ignores the inalienability of the sovereign powers of the People.

SACKING of PRIME MINISTER

The so-called “unconstitutional sacking” of Ranil Wickremesinghe must be viewed from the background material presented above. Chapter VIII titled “The Cabinet of Ministers” in the 19th Amendment sets out the relationship between the President as the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Cabinet. Accordingly, it is the President who appoints the Prime Minister as one “who in the President’s opinion is most likely to command the confidence of Parliament”, Art. 42 (4). However, it is the President who “determines the number of Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministries and the assignment of subjects and functions to such Ministers (Art. 43(1). The only change in the 19th Amendment from what existed earlier is that the appointment of Cabinet Ministers, State Ministers and Deputy Ministers “shall be on the advice of the Prime Minster”.

Notwithstanding this, Article 43 (3) states: “The President may at any time change the assignment of subjects and functions and the composition of the Cabinet of Ministers. Such change shall not affect the continuity of the Cabinet of Misters and the continuity of its responsibility to Parliament”. Since the identical provision was provided in the 1978 Constitution the comment by late Prof. A. J. Wilson was: “This section therefore empowers the President to even dismiss his Prime Minister and or reshuffle his Cabinet without consultation with the former, because it states that ‘such changes shall not affect the continuity of the Cabinet of Ministers and the continuity of its responsibility to Parliament” (The Gaullist System in Asia, The Constitution of Sri Lanka, 1978, p.44).

The President did not arbitrarily “sack” PM Ranil Wickramasinghe. The sacking occurred as a result of the National Government with an Executive of 93 ceasing to exist following the withdrawal of the UPFA from the coalition. This precipitated a constitutional necessity to reconstitute the Executive and limit it to 70 and assign new subjects and functions. This necessity coupled with the deep discontent in the country regarding the direction and control of the government, unparalleled corruption and the sale of national assets, motivated the President to appoint a new Prime Minister who had the proven ability to give a new direction to his government. Therefore, the sacking of the Prime Minister is not a political coup or political crisis but a precipitation of a series of events that required Presidential intervention in keeping with the Constitution.

DISSOLUTION of PARLIAMENT

Article 70 (1) of the 1978 Constitution entitled the President to “summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament” until paragraph (1) was repealed and substituted with the provision that the President “shall not dissolve Parliament until the expiration of a period not less than four years and six months … unless the Parliament requests the President to do so by a resolution passed by not less than two-thirds of the whole number of Members…”. This means that Parliament could secure a two-third majority at anytime within the four and half years, and “request” the President to dissolve Parliament This amounts to powers the President has as Head of State being transferred to another organ of government, i.e., the Parliament thereby violating the inalienability of the executive powers of the People. However, the fact that 33 (2) (c) is incorporated within Article 33 (2) means the President’s power to dissolve Parliament was not restricted and the repeal of Article 70 (1) has no relevance.

Despite this, there are three special circumstances, namely, “If Parliament rejects the Statement of Government Policy, or the Appropriation Bill or passes a vote of no confidence in the Government the Cabinet of Ministers shall stand dissolved …and for the President to appoint a new Executive” (Article 48 (2). How many times is this process to continue before Government operations break down and the country comes to a standstill? The inclusion of Article 33(2) (c) in Article 33(2) enables the President to overcome such challenges (SLR -2002 Vol. 3, para. 102). Since Article 33(2) states that the powers listed are “In ADDITION (emphasis added) to powers, duties and functions expressly confirmed …” Article 33(2) (c) overrides Article 70. Furthermore, it could also be applied to 33 (2) (f). This empowers the President, if he so chooses, to engage in “acts of appointment of Prime Minister and other Ministers, the Chief Justice and this other judges of the Supreme Court, the President of the Court of Appeal…” thereby overriding limitations imposed on such appointments by the 19th Amendment. Clearly, under no circumstances could the entirety of Article 33 (2) be categorized as “general powers”, as asserted by Dr. Wickramaratne.

CONCLUSION

The flawed understanding that the system of Government in Sri Lanka is a Parliamentary Democracy is the reason for the outcry to reconvene Parliament to establish who has the majority. The fact that the Constitution provides for the “powers of government” to operate separately under the collective rubric of the sovereignty of the People makes the system in Sri Lanka a Presidential Democracy. It is a matter of deep regret that this distinction is not understood.

It is unrealistic to expect the International community to be aware of Sri Lanka’s constitutional complexities when such awareness does not exist among Sri Lanka’s own legal and academic fraternities. Their common shrill is that Parliament should be reconvened to establish majorities and minorities in the misguided hope that establishing majorities would resolve all issues. This has caused the situation in Sri Lanka to be internationalized and to be described as a political coup or a political crisis on grounds that the measures adopted by the President were undemocratic and unconstitutional.

The explanation for the prevailing constitutional confusion is the ad-hoc incorporation of new provisions into what had existed, with the objective of transforming a Presidential Democracy into a Parliamentary Democracy without the consent of the People at a Referendum. Another parallel is the incorporation of provisions for devolution from a Parliamentary Democracy in India into a Presidential Democracy in Sri Lanka, notwithstanding the inherent incompatibilities. It is only through an understanding of these fundamentals that Sri Lanka could hope to emerge from this confused state.

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA .

The UNP suffering from perennial electrophobia and utterly fearful of facing voters in elections its Paroxetine JVP ,JHU Muslim Com-gross TPA. Dollar voracious NGO vultures and pro-tiger terrorist sympathiser Rajan Hoole, despite being a member of the so-called Independent election commission (perhaps on behalf of the Tamil diaspora) and some others have submitted petitions at the Supreme Court against the dissolution of Parliament and calling for ele4ctions by President Sirisena.  Hoole should have resigned from his post before he submitted the petition and if fail to so even now belatedly the government should take swift action to remove him as otherwise people will lose faith on the independent nature of the Election Commission. Reports indicate that this pro terrorist Hoole has refrained from signing the letter authorising officials to proceed with carrying out election related activities and thereby creating a conflict between Election and Commissioner General of Elections and hence Hoole should not only be dismissed but also taken into custody on the charge of obstructing legitimate government activities.

The hearing of the petitions by a three-member panel of Judges led by the Chief Justice Nalin Fernando started yesterday and is being continued.  Despite these petitions of election phobia addicts Maha Nayake Theroes, prelates of other religions have wholeheartedly and enthusiastically welcomed the election saying that it has offered an opportunity for them to get rid of the butterfly clan and the foreign slavish quislings from the political arena of this country and replace them with national minded, patriotic and progressive people and revive the country as it was in the yore.

In the Supreme Court the Attorney General Mr. Jayantha Jayasuriya making his submission ns asserted that the action taken by the President was legal and was in consistent with the constitution and has asked the Courts to dismiss all petitions.  During his submission the AG has cited all constitutional clauses that validate the action taken by the President to ensure the law and order sovereignty of the people.

The Supreme Court, in the meantime gave it ruling this evening by issuing a Stay Order on the gazette dissolving Parliament and calling for elections until 7^th December and said that they will take up hearing of the petitions on 4^th, 5^th,and6^th of December. Many political analysts and politicians have welcomed this decision as the time frame given to call for nominations from 19^th to 26^th November and hold election on 5^th January were insufficient for selection of candidates and prepare for a detailed Manifesto.  Government sources said that thy are in the process of presenting a joint manifesto and the relevant works are being carried out.  They said that the new Manifesto will have many concessions including granting of car permits every five years, expediting the work of development projects which had been suspended by the Ranil Wickremasinghe government and extensive review of foreign slavish trade agreements. .

Government sources indicated that there will be no more Ranil era even if the Supreme Court gives a verdict in favour of the UNP and its proxies.  Legal experts apprised that in such an event the government can call for a referendum for they people to express their franchise and it will only delay the election by about one month or by a maximum 40 – 50 days.

Meanwhile Ranil Wickremasinghe has said that Parliament will resume sittings tomorrow the original date of reconvening the Parliament by President Sirisena before he issued a gazette notification to dissolve parliament and call for a snap election. He has said in his usual arrogance that he will prove his majority when they meet tomorrow despite the fact that the can appoint anyone regardless of majority as the Prime Minister as he did so om 9^th January in which he appointed Ranil who had only 41 clears as Prime Minister instead of Mr. D.M,.Jayaratne who had 146 members with him at that time.

Reports said that the double-tongued dollar voracious JVP leadership held their Il Maha Semarum” November commemoration in Colombo today)(Nov. 13^th). They hold two commemoration events – April 5th– in respect of those idea in 1971 and Nov. 13^th in respect of over 60,000 died in 88 – 90 period, including some of my relations, school mates and neighbours.  A neighbour of mine became insane when his two sons got killed reported by Rajitha Senaratne’s PRRA outfit and subsequently died in that status. Many eye witness accounts have said that JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera was thrown into  Cremation Chamber alive when he was arrested at Ulapane St. Mary’s Estate and brought to Colombo.   On the day he was supposed to have been killed the then Minister of National Security Ranjan Wijeratne in an interview with BBC and in response to a question whether Wijeweera’s  killing has been informed to the President said that they do not need to inform President about the killing of a dacoit.  The JVP current leadership despite their collaboration with the UNP has not taken any action to verify about this death.  The JVP hold these commemorations for their self aggrandizement and for fooling their village members and make them hire buses spending from their hard-earned money to ferry the people to them in Colombo and other main towns.

The last genuine leader of the JVP the late Mr. Somawansa Amerasinghe told media once the present JVP leadership under dollar voracious Anura Kumara and his cabal is shamelessly money slavish and Anura Kumara who is reportedly owns a palatial residence in Ireland was given Rs. 25 Million by UNP stalwart and UNP financier Malik Samarawickrema to help their party in the 2015 General Elections.  Ranil also helped Anura Kumara in numerous ways and he functioned as an advisor to Ranil having an office in the Temple Trees and Anura Kumara has allegedly advised Ranil on persons to be prosecuted by the notorious FCID and on what charges.  NFF leader Mr. Wimal Weerawansa, PHU leader Mr. Udaya Gammanpila and the famous Buddhist monk Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera had to serve long terms under custody perhaps due to instigations of Anura Kumara.

(To be continued)

කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන්

පාර්ලිමේන්තුව මැතිවරණය පැවැත්වීමට නොහැකි තත්වයක් උද්ගත වන්නේ නම්, ජනාධිපති සහ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ කණ්ඩායම සතු දුර දිග අවිය ‘ලංකාවේ පළාත් සභා සහ පාර්ලිමේන්තු මැතිවරණය එක වර පැවැත්විය යුතුය ද?‘‘ යන ජනමත විචාරණය (ලාම්පු කළ ගෙඩි සෙල්ලම) කරළිය පැමිණෙනු ඇත.

මෙම සති අන්තයට පෙර ජනාධිපතිවරයා අවාසිදායක තීන්දුවක් ලැබේ නම්, නොවැ. 16 දින ජනමත විචාරණ ගැසට් නිවේදනය අපේක්ෂා කළ හැකිය.  අඩුම කාලයකින් පැවැත්විය හැකි මැතිවරණය ජනමත විචාරනය බැවින් එය ද, ජනවාරි මුල් සතියේ දී පැවැත්වීමට හැකියාව ඇත.

සටහන – 1982 දී ලංකාව ඡන්ද එපා යැයි ඡනමත විචාරණයක දී ඡන්ද 31,41,223 ක් ලබා දී ඇත.  ඡන්දය අවශ්‍ය බවට පැවසූවේ 26,059,83 ක් බැවින් ලංකාවේ මැතිවරණ සිතියම වසර 5 කට අකුළනු ලැබීය. 

Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge

Freddie Mercury ‘s  musical hit Bohemian Rhapsody carried a numerous metaphors and symbolism that transformed the band into a global phenomenon. Bohemian Rhapsody” song was written by Freddy Mercury which had no chorus but consisted of   six sections: introduction, ballad, guitar solo, opera, rock and outro. Bohemian Rhapsody could be considered as an enigmatic philosophical song that was not decoded completely. Up-to-date Bohemian Rhapsody remains a puzzle.  This song has fatalistic lyrics. Some argue that Bohemian Rhapsody echoes Mercury’s personal traumas reveling the complexity of his inner mind. This song represents a self-explanatory portion of Freddy. Perhaps Bohemian Rhapsody could be the musical version of Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger.

Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger involves a complex character named Meursault. For Camus, life has no rational meaning or order. As Albert Camus stated, the nakedness of man faced with the absurd was highlighted in his novel. Meursault’s philosophy of absurdism, atheism, determinism, nihilism, and stoicism are well marked in Bohemian Rhapsody. Bohemian Rhapsody divulges a life and attitude, which possess no rational order.

Bohemian Rhapsody begins with the powerful vocals of Freddy, which describes the clashes between his inner fantasies and realities. He was born in Zanzibar to an Indian Parsi Family and raised in England. He was exposed to three different cultures and in each culture; his biopersona (biological component of his personality) was suppressed creating a colossal guilt in him.  The society that he lived expected him to live an artificial life less then his expectations. Mercury felt trapped and found no escape.

Is this the real life
Is this just fantasy
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I’m easy come, easy go,
Little high, little low
Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me – to me

In the second part Freddy talks about a murder which could be treated as a metaphor. Metaphor and allegory were powerful literary and conceptual tools which often used by him to create melody, rhythm and philosophy. Like Meursault he reaches self-knowledge by committing a murder.

Mama, just killed a man,
Put a gun against his head,
Pulled my trigger, now he’s dead,
Mama, life had just begun,
But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away
Mama, ooo,
Didn’t mean to make you cry
If I’m not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters

In the third section, Freddy talks about his destitution and hidden death wish contrary to his insensible desire to live. In Bohemian Rhapsody Camus’s philosophy of the absurd is written in every line.

The imaginary character of Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger – Meursault was a social deviant. He was an absurd man. The struggle to find meaning where none exists is what Camus calls, the absurd.  The absurd man will not commit suicide and he wants to live, without renouncing any of his incongruous hopes. The doomed character recounts in Bohemian Rhapsody reminds a nihilistic man that was narrated in Camus’s novel The Stranger.

Too late, my time has come,
Sends shivers down my spine
Body’s aching all the time,
Goodbye everybody – I’ve got to go –
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, ooo –
I don’t want to die,
I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all –

The Opera Section begins with a powerful  vocal presentation. Freddy Mercury uses the name of a fictional character – Scaramouch that was created by Rafael Sabatini.

I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the Fandango
Thunderbolt and Lightning – very very frightening me-
Gallileo, Gallileo,
Gallileo, gallileo,
Gallileo Figaro – Magnifico –
I’m just a poor boy nobody loves me
He’s just a poor boy froma poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity
Easy come, easy go – will you let me go

In the subsequent part, the singer utters a name Bismillah which means the God. It is a poetic phrase translated as in the name of the God, most gracious and most compassionate.

Bismillah! No, – we will not let you go – let him go –
Bismillah! We will not let you go – Let him go
Bismillah! We will not let you go – Let him go
Will not let you go – Let me go
Will not let you go – Let me go
No, no, no, no, no, no, no-
Mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go –
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me.

The final part of the song is the rock section. In this branch Freddy’s emotional struggle and apathy is emphasized. However, he is ready to accept the consequences.

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh Baby – Can’t do this to me Baby
Just gotta get out- just gotta get right outta here –
Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters, nothing really matters – to me

In Bohemian Rhapsody the meaninglessness of all endeavors are emphasized in the final line.  According to the theory of Absurdism that was introduced by the French Algerian philosopher Albert Camus there is a fundamental disharmony that arises out of the co-presence of man and the universe. Man has a desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life, but the universe is indifferent and meaningless; the Absurd arises out of this conflict. Meursault was always aware of the meaninglessness of all endeavors in his life so as the nihilistic man of the Bohemian Rhapsody.

Lanka Lead News

අතිගරු ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මහතා විසින් පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරීම නිත්‍යානුකූල නොවන බවට ශ්‍රෙෂ්ඨාධිකරණය තීන්දු කළහොත් වහාම ජනමත විචාරණයකට යා යුතු බව මහාචාර්ය පූජ්‍ය මැදගොඩ අබේතිස්ස හිමියෝ පවසති.

අද(13) පෙරවරුවේ විද්වත් භික්ෂු සංසදය විසින් පැපිලියාන සුනේත්‍රාදේවී පිරිවනේ කැදවා තිබූ මාධ්‍ය හමුවකට එක්වෙමින් උන්වහන්සේ මේ බව කියා සිටියේය.

මෙහිදී අදහස් දැක්වූ ආචාර්ය පූජ්‍ය කපුගොල්ලැව ආනන්දසිරි හිමි

”මැතිවරණ කොමිසම ස්වාධීන ආයතනයක්. කොමිසමේ සාමාජිකයෙක් වන රාජන් හූල් කියන නිලධාරියා ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට ගිහින් තියෙනවා ඡන්දයක් එපා කියලා. කොහොමද ස්වාධීන ආයතනයක සාමාජිකයෙක් පක්ෂපාතී වෙන්නේ.”

නීතිවේදී ශාස්ත්‍රපති පිටවල උපාලි හිමි

අපේ මතකය දිව නොව එදා 974 පටන් ගත්තේ ධර්මයට පාලනයකින් අවසන් කළේ ”අ” යන්නත් එකතු කරලා. යහපාලනය පටන් ගත්තේ යහපාලනය කියලා. මේ තීන්දුව යම් විදියකින් ඔවුනට අවාසි වුණොත් ඔවුන් කියනවා ජනතාවට බලන් ඉන්න අත්විඳින්න පුළුවන් දරුණු ඉරණම කියලා. ඔවුන් කියනවා ලේ ගංගාවක් මතින් හරි වුන්ගේ ජයග්‍රහණය කෙසේ හෝ ලබා ළඟා කර ගන්නවා කියලා. ලේ ගංගාවක් කියන්නේ යහපාලනය අවසානයේ යම්ක් යමපාලනයක් බවට පත් වෙනවා.

තවද මෙම මාධ්‍ය හමුව සඳහා ජාතික විද්වත් භික්ෂු සංසදයේ සාමාජික භික්ෂූන් වහන්සේලා වන ශාස්ත්‍රපති හෑගොඩ විපස්සි හිමි, ශාස්ත්‍රපති මතුගම සුමන නන්ද හිමි, ශාස්ත්‍රපති මාවනැල්ලේ පවර හිමි සහභාගි විය.

lanka C news

පාර්ලිමේන්තුව හෙට (14) දිනයේදි නැවත රැස්වන බව හිටපු අගමැති රනිල් වික‍්‍රමසිංහ මහතා පවසයි.

තමන් හෙට දිනයේදී පාර්ලිමේන්තු බහුතරය පෙන්වීමට සූදානම් බවද ඔහු සදහන් කරයි.

වික‍්‍රමසිංහ මහතා මේ බව කියා සිටියේ අරලිය ගහ මන්දිරයේදි මාධ්‍ය අමතමිනි.

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

UPFA MP Namal Rajapaksa said the Supreme Court’s interim order on the dissolution of parliament was not the Court’s final decision.

In a tweet he said he had never seen politicians get ‘so excited’ over postponing of elections.

The UNP has a history of postponing polls but eventually voters will decide,” he said.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Supreme Court has issued a stay order temporarily suspending the Gazette notification issued by the President on the dissolution of Parliament.

The highest court in the country also issued a stay order on the Elections Commission preventing the holding of a general election.

The stay orders have been issued effective until December 7.

Delivering its much-anticipated decision regarding the fundamental rights petitions filed challenging the president’s decision to dissolve parliament and calling for fresh polls, the three-member judge bench decided to take up the petitions for hearing.

The case has been fixed for argument on December 4, 5 and 6.

The decision was announced by the judge bench comprising Chief Justice Nalin Perera and Supreme Court judges Priyantha Jayawardena and Prasanna Jayawardena after two days of deliberation.

The Supreme Court had concluded the consideration of petitions at around 3.30 p.m today after which court was adjourned until 5.00 p.m. while the decision of the court was announced moments ago.

Thirteen fundamental rights petitions were filed at the Supreme Court asking it to declare that the President’s order to dissolve the parliament is illegal.

The petitions have been filed by political parties including United National Party (UNP), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) and the All Ceylon People’s Congress.

Organisations and activists such as the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Attorney Aruna Laksiri and also a member of Elections Commission Prof. S. R. H. Hoole have also filed petitions.

The Attorney General this morning requested the Supreme Court to dismiss all petitions filed against the dissolution of Parliament as the President’s decision is consistent with the Constitution of Sri Lanka.

Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya, making submissions to the court when hearings of the petitions resumed today, stated that the Gazette notification issued by the President dissolving the Parliament was constitutional and that the President had done so through the executive powers vested in him.

The Attorney General referred to article 33 (2) (c) in the 19th Amendment, which states in addition to the powers, duties and functions expressly conferred or imposed on, or assigned to the President by the Constitution or other written law, the President shall have the power to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament.”

Meanwhile intervene petitions filed challenging the fundamental rights petitions were also taken up for consideration by the court today.

Several individuals including ministers Udaya Gammanpila, Vasudeva Nanayakkara and former minister G.L. Peiris had filed the intervene petitions supporting President’s decision to dissolve the parliament.

Keerthi Godayaya

ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ නිදහස් චතුරශ්‍රය පිහිටා තිබෙන්නේ ටොරින්ටන් චතුරශ්‍රයේය. එහි විශාල ප්‍රමාණයේ දොන් ස්ටීවන් සේනානායක මහතාගේ පිළිරුවක් තිබේ. අප කුඩාකල පාසල් සවාරියක් සඳහා නිදහස් චතුරශ්‍රය වෙත ගිය කල අප සමග අපට වඩා පහල පන්තිවල සිටි එක්  කුඩා ශිෂ්‍යයෙක් අර සුද්දා කවුදැයි සේනානායක පිළිරුව පෙන්වා ගුරුවරියකගෙන් ඇසුවා මට මතකය. එවිට “ඒ සුද්දෙක් නෙවෙයි ළමයෝ, එයා තමයි අපේ නිදහසේ පියා යැයි ගුරුවරිය පිලිතුරු  ලෙස පැවසුවාය.”

“එහෙනම් ඇයි එයා සුද්දෙක් වගේ ඇඳගෙන ඉන්නේ” යැයි අර සිසුවා පෙරලා ඇසු කල ගුරුවරිය සැර  වුවා මිස කිසිදු පිලිතුරල් නොදුන් බව මට මතකය.

අධික ශීත දේශගුණයෙන් පරිපීඩිත බටහිර ජනයාට ටයි කෝට් එක  යනු ඇඳුමක් වුවද, ෆැරන්හයිට් අංශක 100 ක  උෂ්ණත්වයක් ඇති ශ්‍රී ලංකාව වැනි රටකදී ටයි කෝට් යනු යටත්විජිතවාදී සංස්කෘතික සංකේතයක් බවට පත් වන බව වටහා ගැනීම මෙහිදී වැදගත්ය. අපගේ නිදහස උදුරා ගත් ආක්‍රමණික ජනඝාතකයාගේ ඇඳුම වන ත්‍රී පීස් සුට් එකකින් සැරසී සිටින මේ පිළිරුව එම ආක්‍රමණිකයාගෙන් නිදහස් වීම සැමරීම සඳහා ගොඩ නැගු මෙම නිදහස්  ස්මාරකය ඉදිරියේ පිහිටුවීමත්, එම පිළිරුව නිදහසේ පියා ලෙස නම් කිරීමත් කෙතරම් හාස්‍ය ජනක විහිලුවක්ද  යන්න කිසිවකු නොසිතු බව පෙනී යයි. මෙය වැරදීමකින් සිදුවූ දෙයක්ද එසේ නැතිනම් නිදහසින් පසු බලය ලභාගත් කොළඹුන්  විසින් ගැමි සිංහල ජනයා වෙත එල්ල කල තවත් එක් ඔලොක්කුවක් දැයි අප සිතා බැලිය යුතුය.

අපගේ නිදහස් ස්මාරකය මෙලෙස සැලසුම් කිරීම අත් වරදක් නොවන බවත්, සුද්දාගෙන් නිදහස් වීම සඳහා දිවි පුදා සටන් කල සිංහල ජනතාවට හිතා මතා කල අවමානයක් බවත් මට සිතෙන අනෙක් කරුණ වන්නේ අපගේ නිදහස් ස්මාරකය පිහිටුවා තිබෙන්නේ සුදු ආණ්ඩු කාර වරුන් අතරින් එක් අතිශය ම්ලේච්ඡ ජනඝාතක ආණ්ඩුකාර වරයෙකුගේ නමින් ඇති චතුරශ්‍රයේ වීමය.  ජෝජ් ටොරින්ටන් George Byng, 7th Viscount Torrington (9 September 1812 – 27 April 1884) යනු 1848 මාතලේ නිදහස් සටන අතිශය ම්ලේච්ච ජනඝාතනයකින් කෙළවර කල ආණ්ඩු කාර වරයෙකි.

වසර 400 ක් යටත්ව පැවති රටක ප්‍රධාන දේශපාලන ස්මාරකය සැලසුම් කරනවුන් මෙතරම් අසංවේදී විය හැකිද? තම නිදහස වෙනුවෙන් සටන් කල ජන නායකයින් ඝාතනය කල ජන ඝාතකයාගේ නමින් පවත්නා චතුරශ්‍රයක නිදහස් ස්මාරකය පිහිටුවීම කල හැකි දෙයක්ද? නිදහස් ස්මාරකය පිහිටුවීමෙන් පසුව වත් ටොරින්ටන් නම වෙනස් නොවුයේ කාගේ උවමනාවටද?

ජනාධිපති සිරිසේන මහතා පැවසූ පරිදි සංස්කෘතික විභේදනයක් රජය තුල පැවතියානම්, එතුමා වටහා ගතයුතු කරුණ වන්නේ එම විභේදනය මුළු රටේම සෑම ක්ෂේත්‍රයකම පවතින බවය. එම පිළිකාව ඉවත් නොකර කිසිවිටෙක ප්‍රශ්නය නිරාකරණය නොවන බවද වටහා ගත යුතුය. ශ්‍රී ලංකා දේශපාලන හා සංස්කෘතික දේහය වෙත කොලඹුන් විසින් ගෙනවිත් ඇති මෙම පිළිකාව සදාකාලිකව කපා ඉවත් කිරීම මෙවර වත් කල යුතුව ඇත්තේය. එම කාර්යය ආරම්භ කලයුතු වන්නේ කොලඹුන් පැටව්  ගසන අධ්‍යාපන ආයතන වෙනස් කිරීමෙනි.  රටේ ඉතිහාසය, භාෂාව  හා සාහිත්‍යය ඉගැන්වීම නැවත අධ්‍යාපනය තුලට ගෙන ඒමෙනි.

DHARSHAN WEERASEKERA, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW

The newspapers report that six Political Parties will challenge President Sirisena’s dissolution of Parliament before the Supreme Court.  Meanwhile, there is a great deal of commentary by public intellectuals, academics and other pundits as to whether or not the dissolution is justified.

Many of the persons who are arguing back and forth about this matter do not appear to be practicing lawyers, i.e. persons who have argued a case before a court of law, especially the Supreme Court, and therefore are not familiar with some of the practical difficulties involved in a case such as the present one.

In my view, the challenges will fail in limn, and it is important for lay readers especially international readers to understand why, so that there will not be undue criticism of the court if and when the ruling that I predict does come down.  In this article, I will briefly explain the reason that I think the challenges will fail in limn as aforesaid.

As far as I am aware, the persons who support the dissolution base their argument on Article 33(2)(c) of the Constitution as amended, which says in essence that in addition to the powers granted by the Constitution and other written laws, the President has the power to ‘summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament.’[1]

On the other hand, the critics of the dissolution base their argument on Article 70 of the Constitution as amended, which states that, ‘The President may by proclamation summon, prorogue or dissolve Parliament provided that the President shall not dissolve Parliament until the expiration of four years and six months from the date appointed for its first meeting, unless Parliament requests the President to do so by a resolution passed by not less than two thirds of its members including those not present.’[2]

Clearly, there is a clash between Article 33(2) (c) and 70.  And presumably, according to the pundits, the cases that are going to be filed will call on the court to resolve this conflict, that is to say, give a definitive interpretation for Article 33(2) (c) or 70, or both.  In my view, the cases will never get that far, but will be dismissed in limn because of the following reasons.

As far as I am aware, the only way that private parties can approach the Supreme Court on a matter such as the present controversy is under Chapter 3 of the Constitution, i.e. Fundamental Rights.  Fundamental Rights are individual rights—for instance, the freedom of thought and conscience, freedom from unlawful arrest, right to equal protection of the law, freedom of speech and expression, and so on.  There are 14 specific fundamental rights set out in Chapter 3 of the Constitution.

What the court is called on to do in a fundamental rights case is to see whether the particular facts and circumstances cited by the petitioner demonstrate a violation of one or more of the 14 rights set out in Chapter 3, or conversely, whether one or more of those rights can be expanded in such a way as to permit the petitioner to seek personal relief under them.

The point is that, in an FR case, the court can only interpret one or more of the 14 rights set out in Chapter 3.  Court cannot, by definition, interpret other provisions of the Constitution.  This is because, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and an interpretation of any particular provision of the Constitution has the potential to affect all the citizens of Sri Lanka.  Court cannot, in the course of providing personal relief to a particular petitioner, create a situation where the same said relief has the potential to harm the interests of other citizens.

Therefore, as a general matter, I don’t think court will be able to interpret Articles 33(2) (c) or 70 in the course of a fundamental rights application. The following more specific matter should also be considered in this regard.

It seems to me that, if Political Parties are filing the proposed challenges against the dissolution of Parliament, they will probably base their argument on the claim that their fundamental right under Article 12—right to equal protection of the law—has been violated.  In other words, they will claim that the President’s action has deprived them of their right to enjoy a full term of office as MP’s for the duration specified in Article 70 of the Constitution as amended by the 19^th Amendment.

However, to succeed in a case under Article 12, one has to show that one was subjected to discrimination of one sort or another.  Our courts have now established that the essence of Article 12 is that ‘equals must be treated equally,’ in other words, for a person to succeed in a claim of discrimination he or she must show that they were treated differently in comparison with their peers.

So, the petitioners in the proposed cases, petitioners who are all MP’s, must show that the President’s actions have caused them a harm or disadvantage to which their peers have not been subjected.  But, in this case, the dissolution of Parliament has affected all the MP’s—they have all in effect lost their jobs.  In short, equals have been treated equally.  Therefore in my view, an appeal to Article 12 cannot be made.

I concede that, the Political Parties aggrieved by the President’s action might be able to challenge the gazette dissolving Parliament by way of a writ application. But, in that case the application must be in the Court of Appeal and not the Supreme Court.  However, the problem for the petitioners if they resort to a writ application at this stage is that they probably will not have enough time to prevent the General Elections from taking place on 5^th January 2019 as scheduled.

This is because, if a writ application to annul the gazette dissolving Parliament is taken up by the Court of Appeal, the State will immediately argue that the case involves a Constitutional matter and hence as per Article 125 of the Constitution must be forwarded to the Supreme Court.  If the matter is forwarded to the Supreme Court, then the issues raised earlier in this article come into play, and the case will be dismissed in limn for the reasons cited earlier.  In short, Sirisena has won.  He has checkmated Ranil and his gang.

I have said some nasty things about Sirisena in the past including in articles published on lankaweb and still stand by much of what I said.  But, it is difficult not to admire Sirisena.  He is a clever, clever man. As far as I am concerned, he is the cleverest and boldest politician in Sri Lanka at present, perhaps ever.  Watching him in action is like watching a great athlete—say, someone like Ali, Jordon or Michael Phelps—in action:  one watches for the sheer beauty of the performance.  Bravo Mr. President!  Give ‘em hell!

[1] See Section 5 of the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution

[2] See Section 17 of the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution

14 fundamental rights petitions were filed at the Supreme Courts today 12 November 2018 against the dissolution of Parliament. One petitioner was Prof. S. R. H Hoole & who is Prof Hoole? He is a member of a supposed to be independent Election commission set up by the 19^th amendment in April 2015. Now, you may ask why is an independent commission member dashing to the Supreme Court to file an FR against the dissolution of Parliament? Good question, this is what we demand to know too. The whole world was told that independent commissions were the answer to all ills. We were told ‘distinguished’, unbiased, professional, super civil society individuals were picked to be members of these independent commissions. However, not only has Hoole shown his bias we are now questioning the conflict of interest & flouting of public position for personal gain of all other appointees of the other 11 independent commissions too.

Elections Commission was set up via the 19a amending Article 103. The Election Commission was to have 3 members recommended by the Constitutional Council & appointed by the President. These appointees were to be ‘distinguished’ persons. Hoole has proved how ‘distinguished’ he is.

The Chairman of the Election Commission is Mahinda Deshapriya who was appointed in November 2015, prior to his appointed he was the Elections Commissioner from March 2011 to November 2015. The annual budget allocated to the Election Commission is Rs.4.6billion.

Besides Mahinda Deshapriya, N J Abeysekara & Prof. Hoole make up the 3 member Election Commission manned by 674 staff. R M A L R Rathnayaka functions as the Director General Elections.

Very strange & unusual powers have been vested to the Constitutional Council via the 19a “Subject to the provisions of Article 126, no court shall have the power or jurisdiction to entertain, hear or decide or call in question, on any ground whatsoever, or in any manner whatsoever, any decision of the Council or any approval or recommendation made by the Council, which decision, approval or recommendation shall be final and conclusive for all purposes.” (what kind of democracy is this, if their decisions cannot be questioned)

What is noteworthy about the petitions filed are the personalities & parties filing them – UNP, JVP, TNA, CPA, Transparency International, were all part of the umbrella alliance that campaigned vigorously to promote Maithripala Sirisena as the common candidate thereby facilitating Ranil to become the PM and UNP to enter Parliament virtually from the backdoor as is the case from January to August 2015.

Let us presume that Hoole was so disturbed by the unconstitutional act of dissolving parliament that he was compelled to file a FR against the dissolution, was he deaf, blind & dumb when Ranil was elected PM without removing the sitting PM, where was he when after August 2015 there was no election till February 2018 – and he was a member of that Election Commission! Where was this Hoole when Mohan Pieris was unceremoniously removed as Chief Justice? We had a foreign Governor who robbed our Central Bank, where was Hoole then? The public have every right to question this Election Commission member, a person who completely ignores these violations & dashes to the Supreme Court against the dissolution of parliament only. This is not what a person who is paid by tax payers money should be doing. Fine, if he disagrees, first resign from portfolio & then file FR, but how dare he abuse his office, abuse the Commission of which he was selected as a Member? Politicians and public officials have to serve the nation not their personal interests or conscience. If that is more important than serving the nation, then they must honorably leave their public role & uphold their personal interests. They cannot mix up both – this is a major conflict of interest & a dereliction of duty.

Moreover, how fair is it for a US citizen to be a member of an independent election commission when dual citizens are specifically denied from contesting elections?

From the appointments since 2015 to the amendments to laws, penal codes etc we can see that a planned network of individuals have been placed in strategic roles to damage the system & cause mayhem. Notice that all the groups that galvanized to bring yahapalana to power are now in a frenzy to salvage it from the conundrum it has fallen to largely as a result of its own making. 19a was brought with the hidden intent to usurp the people’s power from a political catspaw of a common-candidate President who was too naïve to pick up on the larger plans being laid out by these groups.

What Hoole’s action has done which is really a blessing in disguise is to expose the fascade that was built around these independent commissions as having distinguished personalities with untarnished records. Pick all the members of the commissions even the new appointees as well as the constitutional council members and they all have bleak & tarnished record against their name – we can now see the allegations against the Human Rights Commissioner too. These commission members can be likened to the quote ‘just like one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ – no wonder they are all ganging up to now save those that they helped bring to power, while the rest of us can now cry out ‘we told you so, they are a bunch of biased hypocrites playing a bigger & treacherous role’ against the interests of the State.

Shenali D Waduge

On 26^th October 2018 a President elected by 62lakh citizens decided to sack the Prime Minister & appoint a new prime minister. He also decided to prorogue Parliament & days later dissolved parliament. All these decisions were taken within the country & had no public protest except for the hysteria from the usual culprits that included the Western/Indian diplomatic circles & their media not leaving out the locals funded by them. It was nothing unexpected too. All nations need not be reminded that Sri Lanka is an independent & sovereign country. We do not need to get permission from any foreign country when taking domestic decisions. We no longer have Viceroys. There was no bloodbath that media desperately wanted to promote & the majority of people wanted an election. It was the best way of voicing their choice. What better democracy is there than giving people the opportunity to have their say via vote.

Why have some nations set their pants on fire over what is clearly a domestic matter? Have the foreign ministries of these countries not trained these diplomats on protocols. We know that fairly junior officials are sent to our part of the world though intelligence officers are also part of the diplomatic contingent. We don’t tell these countries who to elect, how to elect, who not to elect. We don’t even issue statements when they are facing internal calamities too. It is for these countries to decide on their internal affairs.

We are following what these gentlemen white former colonists taught us as democracy, or maybe we have got it all wrong! Maybe like the Queen sending letters to Idi Amin, or West funding dictators & murderers & propping puppet states while also bombing countries to the stone age is what democracy really stands for! However, this is not Sri Lanka’s cup of tea. Declassified files on Uganda show UK support for Idi Amin’s coup in 1971, dissolving parliament & going on to killing 500,000 people! & UK is singing hosannas for democracy now! We can give countless more examples of the violations committed by these countries pretending to be paragons of virtue in the international arena.

https://sputniknews.com/military/201801221060969957-idi-amin-british-support/

Sorry to disappoint you, but most of our people are well read, they keep abreast of happenings around the world, they look at the larger picture & they are able to see the miscreants at play & the invisible actors & their agendas. Thankfully, we are not a nation that falls for candle lit vigils.

8 diplomats (Britain, Netherlands, Norway, France, Australia, South Africa, Italy, and Canada) decided not to attend the meeting called for by the new Foreign Minister to ‘register their protest’ over President Sirisena dissolving parliament. The likely instigators US, EU, India, Germany sent junior representatives which is virtually the same as not appearing – now what does the dissolution of parliament have to do with these diplomats? They are not sent to Sri Lanka to determine if we can dissolve or not dissolve parliament. If so, then why do we need to elect a President?

None of these 8 countries would wish to be reminded of their obnoxious record sheet of ‘democracy’ so please before pointing a finger remember there are 4 fingers pointing back at you!

Why do western media keep referring to Rajapakse as pro-China, does that indirectly mean that any leader in Sri Lanka has to be only pro-West? This is rather silly especially when these are very countries promoting international relations. And if all leaders are pro-West there is no problem & everything is honky dory!

Diplomats need to be re-read their job description, they need to be reminded of diplomatic protocols & the no-go areas for interference & intervention. It is not that their own countries are 100% perfect either – they preach law & order to us & more gun holding maniacs are shooting innocent people than the terrorists they are going after, they preach about democracy & their MPs are caught in welfare expense scandals, they preach human rights & are keeping people in secret torture chambers denying even a lawyer. So, please don’t preach what you do not practice.

It is a farce to plug rights into trade concessions which force countries to commit to permanent legal changes while the trade concessions can be removed as per giver’s whims and fancies – GSP is one such example. Force countries to change penal codes claiming to give trade concessions once given after a period of time remove that concessions feebly citing violation of rights! We can see through all these tricks!

We appreciate that at least 20 heads of mission including China, Pakistan, Cuba, Turkey & Afghanistan turned up for the meeting and for attending these nations will end up getting the West’s bricks! Super democracy.

Let us remind these countries that President Sirisena hurriedly dissolved parliament in June 2015 just 160 days after becoming President. At the time it was rumored that the decision to dissolve parliament came following advice by US envoy to prevent the tabling in Parliament of the COPE REPORT which would have held the ousted PM & the foreign Governor Mahendran directly responsible for the Central Bank Bond Scam. With that dissolution the bogus national government also ceased to exist. Why didn’t these envoys make the same drama in June 2015 as they are now doing especially when the 100 day promise was to dissolve parliament on 23 April 2015!

The envoys complaining about a minority government now was silent when in January 2015 the elected President appointed RanilW as PM without removing the sitting PM & allowed a minority government of 42MPs to run the country!

Sri Lanka is an independent country. We have regular elections. Governments come & governments go – the same government is not required to stay in power & no western envoys can expect only their puppets to be voted to power.

Apart from the locals that are funded by foreign governments/NGOs and the cronies of parties, the general public whatever party they belong to are happy that parliament has been dissolved. There is absolutely no public unrest, no ‘bloodbath’ as is being drummed by western media. So what is their problem if Parliament is dissolved & elections are announced.

We have never heard anything as bizarre as democracy preachers going to courts to oppose people going to vote! If they have an issue with the removal of PM why did they not dispatch their local cahoots to courts against that decision instead of dispatching them to file FR’s against holding an election.

By their actions, the world is only laughing at the conduct of the diplomats representing the US, UK, EU, India, Canada, Australia, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, France & South Africa probably their citizens do not know the embarrassment these diplomats are causing their countries by their tantrums interfering in the internal affairs of nations!

Shenali D Waduge

https://in.reuters.com/article/sri-lanka-politics/western-diplomats-shun-meeting-with-sri-lanka-minister-on-political-crisis-idINKCN1NH1E6?rpc=401&fbclid=IwAR0x4bu-kNS9Fl3DfcUtWGtV4zmZGOm8rdkknM1sXpyEbh8oOsIDr-N2SpQ

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/bond-scam-full-text-of-interim-report-of-cope-inquiry/ (Bond Scam Report)

Nallur murugan

Many questions have been raised on the recent decision of the Secretary General of the UN   to appoint a Panel of Experts to advise him on alleged incidents said to have occurred during the final phase of the humanitarian operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam(LTTE) last year. The SGUN appointed a three member panel of experts to advise him. It is understandable the Government of Sri Lanka was strongly opposed to this move. In an era of unqualified condemnation of terrorism, particularly after the September 11,2001 the whole world united and focused on elimination of terrorism in any form at any cost. Terrorism in Sri Lanka has a long story spanning to nearly thirty years. The terror unleashed by the LTTE has been adequately recorded.

LTTE profile

The LTTE was banned by more than 30 countries, including Sri Lanka,India,USA,United Kingdom, Canada, European Union as a terror outfit. It was declared the world’s most ruthless terrorist organization by US Federal Bureau of Investigation because they committed the highest number of suicide attacks in the world, through the use of Black Tigers. They trained ground, sea and air cadres. They acquired technology to carry out a prolonged campaign of terror and violence in Sri Lanka and abroad. The Tigers systematically hunted down and assassinated prominent Tamils who supported a united, multi-ethnic Sri Lanka.They assassinated Rajiv Ghandhi,former prime Minister of India,R.Premadasa,former President of Sri Lanka,former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Kadirgamer and many other renowned people. They butchered civilians destroyed public and private properties and methods and tactics adopted by them defies imagination of an average person. This form of terrorism was pioneered by the Tigers even before the Al-Qaeda and made extensive use of child soldiers and of child suicide bombers. Prabhakaran,the leader was personally responsible  for forced recruitment  of minors to the “Black Tigers” suicide bomb squads.

It is not an exaggeration to describe LTTE as a terrorist organization which conceptualized terrorism in contemporary political and military history. It is left to the historians and political scientists to make in depth researches on the LTTE’s conceptualized terrorism and its impact on the political systems and human society. The nature of the terrorism propelled by LTTE has become a subject matter for research, study and mitigation to many   defence authorities across the world.

Final phase of the military/humanitarian operation

GOSL appealed to the LTTE leadership when the security forces captured Kilinochchi to stop fighting and surrender.Susequently at regular intervals  gave ultimatum to the LTTE for surrender. If the LTTE wanted to surrender this could have been facilitated by third parties. Given the courage and decision of the two top LTTE activists Daya master,media boss and Jeorge,translator of the Leader to surrender to the security forces, surrender of others would have completely altered the situation and the huge human tragedy would have been avoided.Daya and George master were not harmed.  Respected Senior Tamil politician,leader of Tamil United Liberation Front Anandasangare time to time wrote open letters to the LTTE leader to change his  violent and intransigent attitude and help protect the innocent civilians trapped by the LTTE cadres.Sangaree was very critical of his former colleagues in Tamil National Alliance, for their blind and deaf attitude and self imposed silence to the suffering of the Vanni Tamil people .The TNA  failed to speak to the LTTE leadership to free the people whom the LTTE forcibly kept as human shield. During the final stages of the military operation against LTTE Sangaree further charged that the entire Tamil Nadu was totally misled by a group of TNA Members of Parliament from Sri Lanka who had no moral right to speak on behalf of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. He further accused them that they acted only as proxies of the LTTE and therefore lost their credibility. Actually the TNA  earned the displeasure of the Tamils by condoning  the most wicked and atrocious activities of the LTTE.

Bishop of Jaffna urgently requested the Tamil Tigers not to station themselves among the people in the safety zone and fire their artillery-shells and rockets at the Army. He warned that it would only increase more and more death of civilians thus endangering the safety of the people. He insisted that both parties, military and the LTTE should observe the safety zone strictly.

Humanitarian agencies warned of an impending human tragedy with about 3.5 lakh civilians trapped in the battle zone, and the LTTE was accused of using them as a human shield.UN Office of the Resident Humanitarian Coordinator in Colombo urged the LTTE to immediately permit all UN staff and dependents to freely move from the Vanni, warning that denial of safe passage was a clear abrogation of   international humanitarian law.  UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy, urged the LTTE to allow all children and their families to move to safe areas. She emphasized that a significant number of LTTE fighters were children. Many countries including USA urged the LTTE to avoid the human tragedy and allow the entrapped Tamil civilians to safety .LTTE continued its defiance. The LTTE’s denial of safe passage was a clear violation of their obligations under international humanitarian law.So the truth was that the plight of Tamil civilians was due to the LTTE’s callousness.

Strangely, some foreign  NGO’s (who funded the LTTE) were silent on these aspects. They were the first to complain of human rights violations by Government of Sri Lanka. They did so because their existence was dependent on acquiring funds from their foreign masters only if they shouted loudly for human rights against Sri Lanka. These were the anti national, anti social organizations that were supporting the LTTE under cover of protecting human rights. Amnesty International (AI)   was unfortunately another organization attempted to distort the factual situation pertaining to the conditions of the civilians.  Regrettably, AI  failed to present an objective analysis of the challenges and successes of the Sri Lankan Government in addressing the needs of Sri Lankans affected by the conflict.

The role of the Tamil print and electronic media needs special mention. Generally the  Tamil(private) media chose to portray the LTTE as freedom fighters  and glorified their acts as heroism. They  conveniently avoided  publishing the news such as massacres,abductions ,child conscriptions and other terrorist activities. They twisted the news. The LTTE forcibly chased the  Jaffna people out of Jaffna  towards other parts of the Jaffna peninsula in end of October 1995 and this was recorded as great exodus”. The tactic adopted by the LTTE in Vanni was not different from what they did   when the security forces were advancing to Jaffna city area from Palaly military base in September 1995. On that occasion the LTTE was retreating to vanni area.LTTE wanted a human shield.The sufferings of the people amounting to more than 300,000(1995) were not less than sufferings of the Vanni displaced civilians in May 2009.Tamil print and electronic media twisted the great exodus and diluted the event as  merely a displacement of Tamil civilians from Jaffna and adjoining areas. Tamil media played a significant role as projecting the Sri Lankan state and the Sinhala people as racists.The irony is the owners of the private Tamil media have been living among Sinhalese people in Colombo and other places. There are thousands of Hindu temples, mosques and Tamil medium schools outside north and eastern provinces. Tamils and Muslims own residential and business properties in plenty outside North and eastern provinces. A minor incident is enlarged and blown up out of proportion by the Tamil media and marketed abroad for the consumption of the global media. The principles of ethical journalism truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability have been dumped by them . The Tamil media was publishing inaccurate news  on the civilians deaths  during the last stages of the  military operation quoting unknown websites and non existing welfare workers from the war zone.   The  Sri Lankan media activists loudly shout that the  Sri Lankan media does not have freedom. It is not acceptable. Our media habitually publish news criticizing the government and leaders and go to the extent of publishing offensive articles of even the family members of the Sri Lankan president. International media organizations awarded Sri Lankan journalists for couragely exposing the misdeeds of the government. None of the Tamil journalists so awarded wrote any thing about the atrocities of the LTTE ,but still they were commended for journalism.

Silent revolution of the Tamil civilians

The aid to the war zone was usurped by the LTTE and distribution to the civilians was done under the strict control of the LTTE. It was a well known fact that LTTE had been exploiting the aid distribution to extend control over civilians. LTTE kept their own community in starvation and also they recruited the same starved children as child soldiers.  LTTE carried out forced child recruitment, forcing elderly people to join the fighting cadres and using civilians as shield against advancing troops by controlling food for them. This method alienated the people from the once powerful LTTE and people realized LTTE were really anti people forces, not freedom fighters. This situation tarnished LTTE’s image and respect among their own community. The LTTE lost their   important base, the peoples support.This was mainly the starting point of the end of the LTTE. Despite the LTTE goons’ oppression and suppression Tamil civilians started flowing into the area controlled by the security forces in their hundreds, indicating that the LTTE was no more able to exercise tight control over them.The entrapped people had the courage to risk their lives and cross over to the government controlled areas.In other words the Tamil civilians entered the war on the security forces side against their one time rulers LTTE.

The alliance of the Tamil civilians of Vanni and the Sri Lankan security forces successfully defeated the evil forces. Hopefully this had created the ending of LTTE dreams in the north and east.Many analysists failed to comprehend this factor. What would have been the position of the security forces if the Tamil civilians chose to stay with the LTTE during the last stages of the operation?. Security forces could not have mounted military attacks at the LTTE.It is the people who decided the outcome of the military operation. Rejection of LTTE by the Tamil civilians and defeat of terrorism was self made by the powerful tigers which were proved to be paper tigers at the end.

Resettlement of IDPs –a massive challenge

Having liberated the Tamils from the clutches of the LTTE the GOSL had to face a bigger challenge  to provide the urgent and basic amenities to the 300,000 internally displaced population.GOSL had to face twin problems of liberating the Tamil civilians from the terrorists and attending their  immediate  needs.The challenges were huge.With many logistical and financial constraints, the GOSL was successful in attending the immediate needs of the displaced cilvilains to  a somewhat satisfactory level.Of course the Herculean task was not without shortcomings. It is understandable. It is very unfortunate that the stake holders, international community,UN and other powers should have intervened to extend a helping hand to GOSL which proved to the world that terrorism could be eliminated while protecting the civilians more than 300,000,entrapped under the LTTE control.Instead the responsible  head of the UN chose the wrong path which only satisfy the sympathizers of terrorism and the unseen elements working under the guise of champions of human rights.However the GOSL showed the world how a tiny island with limited resources could handle a huge humanitarian crisis within a comparatively short period.Of  course the experience gained in rehabilitation of IDPs for the last two decades and the Tsunami rehabilitation  contributed towards rehabilitating the currently displaced,

War crimes

Paul Harris, one time Jane’s Intelligence Review correspondent in Colombo said  there was a chance emerging for the international criminal court to bring Velupillai Prabhakaran before justice for personally choosing boys aged 14- 16 as suicide bombers, among other crimes. During the last decade the global press particularly the western extensively carried articles on the Cambodian communists under the Polpot leadership and loads of stuff were written about the killing fields of  Polpot.The  terrorist cult propelled by LTTE is much dangerous, venomous and lethal than the Polpot clique. Though many countries banned the LTTE, western countries failed to grasp the nature of the Sri Lankan problem and the front organizations of the LTTE were permitted to operate in those countries. Ethnic cleansing was a key word of the LTTE campaigners to criticize the GOSL through their manipulations.  Truth is, LTTE was solely responsible for ejecting the Muslims from their traditional homeland in 1990s.The muslims people are still languishing in many places. There is no more strong case than this to charge LTTE for crimes against humanity.

Pro LTTE Tamil Diaspora

Despite being banned in over 30 countries, pro LTTE Tamil Diaspora and propaganda machinery enabled the LTTE to promote themselves as freedom fighters who were the ‘sole’ representatives of the‘oppressed’ Tamils in Sri Lanka.LTTE foreign branches raised vast funds from Tamils in Canada, Britain, Switzerland, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia.Assortment of weapons  were procured from these funds.It was estimated that   by some accounts they collected $1 million a month from expatriate Tamils. They also operated petrol stations, restaurants and small shops around the world. They even owned ships through front companies.Human smuggling  was masterfully orchestrated by the LTTE with the active participation of pro LTTE diaspora.The liberal attitude  of western countries towards granting asylum status to refugees was totally abused and misused by economic asylum seekers.There were instances even Sinhalese,Muslims of Sri Lanka and south indian Tamils sought asylum in the western countries with forged and manipulated documents posing as Sri Lankan Tamils.However the western countries did realize after a long period the true nature of asylum seeking enterprise.

Panel of Experts

It is a fact that none of the decision-making bodies of UN, the Security Council or the General Assembly  asked the Secretary General to appoint such a panel of experts. In fact when a resolution was moved in the Human Rights Council it was defeated by substantial majority 29 to 12. In the circumstances one can not understand how the Secretary General appointed a panel to advise him on issues alleged to have taken place towards the end of the conflict in Sri Lanka. The Secretary General seems to have been influenced by certain individuals and parties that are hell-bent with applying pressure on Sri Lanka rather than with finding out how the conflict ended. One has to remember that terrorism was defeated after nearly three decades of fighting and there was jubilation among  all the people of Sri Lanka.The whole country  particularly the northern Jaffna has started to reap the benefits in the new environment after  the successful elimination of terrorism.

It was indeed  a humanitarian operation where a very large number of civilians were rescued from a very organized terrorist outfit. This humanitarian mission was an unprecedented one in the history of mankind. It is obvious that there have been many attempts by certain countries and NGOs and groups to stop the last onslaught and save the LTTE leadership.The GOSL  did not cave into the pressure. The vast majority of members of United Nations have either opposed the appointment of a panel or have not expressed their views. The Non Aligned Movement (NAM) objected to this proposal of the Secretary General. The NAM consists of 117 members of United Nations. That’s a significant majority of the total UN membership of 192 nations. It is very distressful that human rights violence is occurring on a daily basis in many theatres of conflicts.  There are no moves being made to take constructive steps to prevent these. But steps like the one UNSG  has suggested  expose the dilemma of the office of the SG.There have many global conferences,forums and workshops  on terrorism.The only successful country in the world to have completely eradicated terrorism is insulted and abused by the UNSG.Instead,GOSL should be  supported politically and economically to fulfill the tasks of rehabilitating the IDPs and developing the war torn north and east of the country.

Before concluding I deem it appropriate to quote the last para of an article penned by the  writer and appeared in the Sunday Times in December,2007 under the caption of Louise Arbour’s visit to Sri Lanka-A view from Jaffna.

UN Officials in Colombo have to share a significant portion of the blame in their contribution towards the formulation of policy positions and options on Sri Lanka.A typical example was the condolence message issued by the UN at the demise of a senior member of LTTE, Kausalyan who was believed to have been killed by their rival group. Where in the world could you witness the UN, mandated with the solemn duty and responsibility of maintaining world peace and security issuing Condolence message on the demise of a terrorist. As a person living in Jaffna who has undergone untold hardships, I am optimistic peace will dawn in the near future in our motherland. The terror outfit which is being cornered by the international community should not be provided with much needed oxygen by responsible organizations, particularly by UN. I have strong faith in the importance of the rule of law, democracy and good governance. But these noble ideas and concepts should not be in any way place impediments to the elimination of terrorism and bringing to book the leaders of the LTTE for their crimes against humanity.’

By Garvin Karunaratne  former G.A. Matara

Instead of reflecting back on their ignominious past, the Ambassadors of the UK, the USA among others have thought it fit to at first declare that the decision of the President of Sri lanka to remove the Prime Minister and replace him with another as unconstitutional. Later once our President had dissolved Parliament, they yet state that it was unconstitutional. According to the Constitution it is only the President that has the right  to change or appoint a Prime Minister. Former Supreme Court  Chief Judge Sarath Silva and Minister Wijeydasa Rajapaksa have proved that the Presidents decisions are in keeping with the Constitution.

.  If a Prime Minister appointed by the President  is not acting in the interests of the country and its people, by opening up the country for foreigners and foreign countries to rule, selling family silver,  neglecting the masses- relegating them to the depths of poverty, then is it not better  that the President  took action before the masses had their say in an open revolt by storming the Bastile. Sri Lanka experienced mass uprisings in 1971 and again in 1987. That bloodbath had better be avoided.

The Ambassadors of the countries-the USA, the UK, the EU etc should actually be hanging their heads in shame, if they only know their past.

The  riches of the USA was built on the sweat and blood of the slaves from Africa. The real inhabitants of the USA, The Native Indians, from whom the land of the USA was wrested, are yet  held in reservations and  even today suffer from severe hardship- deprived of basic health and education. Deprivation was  etched into my batchmates that came to Michigan State University from among the American Indians..

The UK  of all countries should realize that their wealth today was derived from the riches accumulated from the colonies. In my words, the accumulation of wealth from the colonies was vast… When  Robert Clive, of the East India Company, acting on a charter from  Britain, defeated the rule of Bengal,  2750 million pounds sterling  was sent to Britain…. in the first eight years of company rule, 5.9 million pounds was extracted out of Bengal….In the 1770 famine when a third of the Bengal population died, more tax was collected than in the earlier year.”From How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development)

In Sri Lanka the colonial British were ruthless. When the people rebelled in 1918, the British adopted a scorched earth policy killing all cattle, destroying paddy fields and tanks(reservoirs). They killed all males over 18. years of age.

That is all in the past, a past that can never be forgotten or forgiven.

In most recent times too the major powers have,  when they decide,  ignored democracy. Take the 2000 US Presidential Election, where the victory  was clinched by the US Supreme Court decision to stop the counting of votes in Florida. As Alexander Cockburn said, Back in the 1980s we radicals used to write about  ‘demonstration elections’  conducted in countries like El Salvador at the instigation of the US management and micromanaged by the CIA…. We have just had a peaceful and non lethal version of these ‘demonstration elections’ in Florida and no calls for closure will erase that national disgrace, least of all in the minds of those  who were denied their democratic rights.”(LA Times, Dec 15, 2000)(From Garvin Karunaratne: The Administrative Bungling that hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election(The University Press of America)

This disgrace was followed by an additional disgrace in the 2004 US Presidential Election when the election was decided by faulty voting machines. It was clear that the voting machines were really doing the voting and not the people who voted. Though it was evident there was no back up documents to check. The winner was decided by the Voting Machines. My book: The Electronic Stealing of the 2004 US Presidential Election (Amazon.com)  tells it all.

The USA as well as the UK stand tainted with being the most undemocratic countries one can find when it is in their interests. Read through what the USA did when they wanted to grab the islands of the Chagossian Archipelago in the Indian Ocean to build up a naval arsenal:

The Chagossian Islanders were the original inhabitants of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean. They  were thrown  out of the Chagossian Islands  when Britain decided to have an uninhabited island to hand over to the USA  to have a military base Britain then moved 2000 Chagossians by force from 1967 to 1973 first to Peros Banhos, a hundred miles away and later to Mauritius. By a Court Judgement, Justice Ousley of the High Court denied the right of the Islanders to return to the Chagos islands.. This was overturned by the High Court on May 11, 2006 and the islanders were authorized to return to the islands. At last it looked as if the islanders won to get beck to their homes. But the British Government  appealed to the House of Lords against that decision and the Court of Appeal on October 22, 2008 and the Law Lords ruled that the islanders had no right to return.

Let me quote the accepted British Journal, The New Statesman:

…”No sooner do the Chagossian islanders achieve victory in one legal case, then the Government (of Britain) appeals and the heavy legal machinery once again clunks into gear. And this time the reason as the Foreign and Commonwealth office spokespersons are very keen to explain to anyone prepared to listen, is that there is an urgent need to defend the  status of all British overseas territories including Bermuda, Gibraltar and Cayman Islands.

The  Court of Appeal Judgement in May this year ruled that the British Government had abused its power in evicting the Chagossians from their paradise islands.”(New Statesman 20/11/2007)

The United States of America yet rules the waves of the Indian Ocean with its base at Diego Garcia, equipped now with the 30,000 lbs bunker buster bombs loaded onto B2 bombers, while the Chagossians- 2000 of them are lingering in far off countries as refugees- now in their second generation. This is the Human Rights Record of Great Britain and while all this did happen the United Nations did not move one finger to help them. Please read the New Statesman: …”A resolution to the long running British injustice to the Chagos islanders could have signaled a switch in UK Foreign Policy’.20/11/2007

It would behove of our Ambassadors to speak on the democratic rights of people, after finding facts. It is on record that the USA  spent  $ 585 millions to subvert the voice of the people in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Sri Lanka(Statement by John Kerry in 2016:Quoted in The Island:7/11/18). It was to get Sri Lanka to change towards Western ideals, rather more to make our Third World countries to continue to contribute to the wealth of their countries by following the Open Liberalized Economy forced on the countries since the days of President Ronald Regan and Margarate Thathcher. Following that IMF teaching has made countries like Sri lanka that did not have a foreign debt to become debted so that they can be controlled like colonies once again- this time the conquest was not with the gun but with financial missiles. (From: How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Kindle)

It would be good for our Ambassadors from the USA, UK, Canada, the EU and Australia to realize that by your current actions too you are subverting the democratic voice of the people.

It would behove of all countries to respect the sovereignty of independent countries.

Garvin Karunaratne,

PhD Michigan State University   10/11/2018

Author of:

The Administrative Bungling that Hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election,(The University Press of America)

The Electronic Stealing of the 2004 US Presidential Election (Amazon.com)

How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Godages/Kindle)

ආචාර්ය වරුණ චන්ද්‍රකීර්ති

අපේ රටේ විධායක බලය වගේ ම ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක බලයත් අයිති ජනතාවට. ඒත් අපට එකතුවෙලා ඒ බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න අමාරුයි. ඒ හින්දා, අපි ඒ වැඩේ කරවගන්න කට්ටියක් පත් කරගන්නවා. ඒ කට්ටියට අපි කියන්නේ පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරු කියලා. මේ කාරණය අපි නැවතත් හොඳින් හිතලා තේරුම්ගන්න ඕන. ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක බලය අයිති ජනතාවට. අපි ඒ බලය පාවිච්චිකරලා අපිට ඕන නීති සම්පාදන වැඩ කරවගන්න තෝරාපත් කරගන්න කට්ටිය තමයි පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරු කියලා කියන්නේ. අපි මේ අයට භාරදෙන්නේ නීති අණ පනත් පනවන වැඩේ. අපේ විධායක බලයට අදාළ වැඩ කරලා දෙන්න කියලා අපි මේ කට්ටියට කියලා නෑ. අපේ විධායක බලයට අදාළ වැඩ කරවාගන්න අපි වෙනත් කෙනෙක් පත් කරගන්නවා. ඒ තමයි අපේ රටේ ජනාධිපතිවරයා.

අපේ විධායක බලය තනියෙන් ක්‍රියාත්මක කරවන්න බැරි හින්දා ජනාධිපතිවරයා තමන්ගේ හවුලට කට්ටියක් පත් කරගන්නවා. ඒ අයට අපි කියන්නේ අමාත්‍යවරු කියලා. ඊට අමතරව අගමැතිවරයකුත් පත්කරගන්නවා. අගමැතිව පත්කරනවා කියන්නේ, අමාත්‍යවරු පත්කරනවා කියන්නේ නීති රීති සම්පාදනයට අදාළ ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක කටයුත්තක් නෙවෙයි. ඒක විධායක කටයුත්තක්. ඒ හින්දා, පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ට මේ වැඩේ කරන්න පුළුවන්කමක් නෑ. ඒක කරන්න ඕන අපි අපේ විධායක බලය නියෝජනය කරන්න පත් කරගත්ත තැනැත්තා. ඒ කියන්නේ විධායක ජනාධිපතිවරයා.

අපේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව සංග්‍රහ කරලා තියෙන්නේ මේ කටයුතු අවුලක් නැතුව කරගෙන යන්න පුළුවන් වෙන විදිහට. ඉතින් විධායක ජනාධිපතිවරයා අපේ බලය නියෝජනය කරමින් කරන්න ඕන කටයුතුත් පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් අපේ ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක බලය නියෝජනය කරමින් කරන්න ඕන කටයුතුත් බොහොම පැහැදිළිව අපේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ දක්වලා තියෙනවා.

ජනතාවගේ විධායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක වෙන්නේ ඉහළ සිට පහළට. ඒ කියන්නේ අපි ජනාධිපතිවරයාට පවරපු විධායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමේ වගකීම තමන් යටතේ පත් කරගන්න නියෝජිතයන්ට පවරන්න ඔහුට පුළුවන්. ඇමැතිවරු තමයි ඒ විදිහට පත් කරගන්න නියෝජිතයෝ. මේ අයට ජනතාවගේ විධායක බලය පැවරෙන්නේ ජනාධිපතිවරයා හරහා. ඒ කියන්නේ ඉහළින් පහළට.

එතකොට කතානායකවරයා?

කතානායක කියලා කියන්නේ අපේ විධායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරවන්න අපි පත් කරගන්න කෙනෙක් නෙවෙයි. කතානායක තනතුරට පත්වෙන්නේ ජනතාවට අයිති ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරවන්න පත් කරගන්න අයගෙන් එක් කෙනෙක්. ඔහු විසින් කරන්න ඕන ප්‍රධාන ම කාර්යය වෙන්නේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ මූලාසනය දැරීම. මේ ගැන කියන්නේ අපේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ තියෙන 64. (5) වගන්තියේ.

එතකොට කතානායකට ජනතාවගේ විධායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න බැරි ද?

කතානායකට ඒ තනතුරේ ඉඳගෙන ජනතාවගේ විධායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න බෑ. හැබැයි කතානායක තනතුරට පත්වෙච්ච කෙනාට ජනාධිපති පුටුවේ වාඩිවෙන්න යම් ඉඩකඩක් ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ නැහැයි කියලා කියන්න නම් බෑ. අපේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 31. (3), 31. (4), 37. (1), 37. (2), 37. (4), 38. (1), 38. (2), 39. (2), 40. (ඇ) කියන වගන්තිවල මේ ඉඩ ගැන විස්තර පැහැදිළි කරලා තියෙනවා.

කතානායකවරයාට මේ වරම ලැබෙන්නේ ජනාධිපති ධූරයත් අගමැති ධූරයත් දෙක ම හිස්වෙලා තියෙන අවස්ථාවක. එහෙම වෙලාවට කතානායකට පුළුවන් ජනාධිපති ධූරයේ වැඩ බලන්න. ජනාධිපති ධූරයේ වැඩ බලනවා කියලා කියන්නේ අපේ විධායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන වැඩේට කරගහනවා කියන එකනේ. ඉතින් අන්න ඒ වෙලාවට මේ විදිහට ජනාධිපති ධූරයේ වැඩබලන කතානායකවරයාට පුළුවන් අගමැතිවරයෙක් පත් කරගන්න. ඇමැතිවරු ගැන තීරණගන්න.

හැබැයි මේ සෙල්ලම කරන්න අර විදිහට තමන්ට ඉහළින් තියෙන තනතුරු දෙක ම හිස්වෙලා තියෙන්න එපායැ. ඒ හින්දා කලබල වෙලා බෑ. ටිකක් ඉවසන්න ඕන. මොකක් හරි චාන්ස් එකකින් ඒ තනතුරු දෙක ම හිස් වුනොත් කතානායකටත් පුළුවන් අපේ විධායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරවන්න.

පහුගිය දවස්වල කලබැගෑනියක් ඇතිවෙච්ච වෙලාවේ මෙහෙම ඉඩක් ඇතිවුනේ නෑ. ජනාධිපති ධූරය දරන කෙනෙක් හිටියා. ජනාධිපතිවරණයේ දී ජනතාව පවරපු විධායක බලය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරලා ඒ පුද්ගලයා හිටපු අගමැතිවරයාව ඉවත්කළා. අලුතින් අගමැතිවරයෙක් පත්කළා. මේක දැක්ක ගමන් අපේ කතානායකතුමා කලබල වුනා. එතුමා හිතුවා අගමැති පත්කරනවා කියලා කියන්නේ ජනතාවගේ ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක බලයට අයිති කටයුත්තක් කියලා. අගමැතිවරයෙක් පත්කරනවා කියලා කියන්නේ, ඇමැතිවරු පත්කරනවා කියලා කියන්නේ නීති සම්පාදනය කරන වැඩේට අදාළ වැඩක් නෙවෙයි කියන එක ඒ මහත්තයාට අමතක වුනා. අඬන්න ඉන්න මිනිහාගේ ඇහැට ඇඟිල්ලෙන් අනිනවා වගේ ඇමෙරිකානු ජනපද සංගමයේ, යුරෝපා සංගමයේ, ඕස්ට්‍රේලියාවේ කට්ටිය මේ අවුලට පොහොර දාන්න පටන්ගත්තා.

අන්තිමට ජනාධිපතිවරයා කළේ ජනතාව පවරපු විධායක බලය පාවිච්චි කරලා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවලා දාන එක. දැන් ඉතින් පාර්ලිමේන්තු මැතිවරණයකට කාලය උදාවෙලා. මේ මැතිවරණයේ දී තමන්ගේ ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක බලය නියෝජනය කරන්න පිරිසක් තෝරා පත්කරගන්න ජනතාවට පුළුවන්.

අපේ ඡන්දය ලබාගෙන තේරි පත්වෙන අය ඒ පමණකින් ම මන්ත්‍රීවරු බවට පත් වෙනවා ද? මේ කාරණය නම් ටිකක් අපැහැදිළියි. යම් අපේක්‍ෂකයෙක් වැඩි ඡන්ද ප්‍රමාණයක් ලබාගෙන පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරයෙක් බවට පත්වෙන්න අවශ්‍ය වරම ලබාගන්නවා. ඒත් ඔහු පාර්ලිමේන්ත්‍ර මන්ත්‍රීවරයෙක් බවට පත්වෙන්නේ ඒ සඳහා අවශ්‍ය මූලික ප්‍රතිඥාව (දිවුරුම) පාර්ලිමේන්තුව ඉදිරියේ ලබාදීලා ඒකට අත්සන් තිබ්බාට පස්සේ. අපේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 63 වැනි වගන්තියේ මේ ගැන කියනවා. මේ ප්‍රතිඥාව (දිවුරුම) ලබාදීලා අත්සන් කරන තාක් කල් අපි තෝරා පත්කරගත්ත අයට කරන්න පුළුවන් කතානායක තෝරා පත්කරගන්න වැඩේට සම්බන්ධ වෙන්න විතරයි. ඒ හැරෙන්න “පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අසුන් ගැනීම හෝ පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ දී ඡන්දය දීම” මේ අය විසින් “නොකළ යුත්තේ ය” කියලා 63 වැනි වගන්තියෙන් කියනවා.

ඉතින් 2015 අගෝස්තු 17 වැනි දා පවත්වපු මහ මැතිවරණයේ දී පාර්ලිමේන්තු ආසන හිමි කරගත්ත අය 2015 සැප්තැම්බර් 1 වැනි දා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට එක් රැස්වුනා. එහෙම රැස්වෙලා මුලින් ම කළේ කතානායක තනතුරට කරු ජයසූරිය මහත්තයාව තෝරා පත්කරගන්න වැඩේ. ඊට පස්සේ රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහත්තයා නිමල් සිරිපාල ද සිල්වා මහත්තයා එක්ක එකතුවෙලා කරූ ජයසූරිය මහත්තයාව මූලාසනයට එක්කරගෙන ගියා. මූලාසනයේ වාඩිවෙලා එතුමා මුලින් ම කළේ තමන්ව කතානායක තනතුරට තෝරා පත් කරගත්ත එක සම්බන්ධයෙන් හැම දෙනාට ම ස්තූති කරන එක.

ඊටත් පස්සේ තමයි සභාවේ හිටිය අපේ ඡන්දයෙන් තේරුණු අයට ප්‍රතිඥා (දිවුරුම්) දෙන්න අවස්ථාව ලබාදුන්නේ. ඒ අවස්ථාවේ රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහත්තයා ඇතුළු දෙසිය විසි දෙන්නෙක් (222 ක්) මන්ත්‍රී තනතුරුවල දිවුරුම් දීලා තියෙනවා. සහභාගී නොවූ දෙන්නා ගැන සඳහනක් හැන්සාඩ් වාර්තාවෙන් හොයාගන්න අමාරුයි. ඒකට කමක් නෑ.

කොහොම වුනත් මෙතැන නොතේරෙන කාරණයක් තියෙනවා. සමහර විට මේක පාර්ලිමේන්තු සම්ප්‍රදායට අයිති කටයුත්තක් වෙන්න පුළුවන්. ඒ මේකයි. 2015 සැප්තැම්බර් මන්ත්‍රී ධූරයේ දිවුරුම් දුන්න රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහත්තයා ඊට දවස් 11 කට කලින් – ඒ කියන්නේ 2015 අගෝස්තු 21 වැනි දා; අගමැති තනතුරේ දිවුරුම් දීලා තියෙනවා. ඒ විතරක් නෙවෙයි. ඒ වෙනුවෙන් ජනාධිපති ලේකම් කාර්යාලයේ පවත්වපු උත්සවයේ දී විදේශ කටයුතු ඇමැතිවරයා විදිහට මංගල සමරවීර මහත්තයාත් අධිකරණ ඇමැතිවරයා විදිහට විජේදාස රාජපක්‍ෂ මහත්තයාත් පුනරුත්ථාපන සහ නැවත පදිංචිකිරීමේ ඇමැතිවරයා විදිහට ඩී එම් ස්වාමිනාදන් මහත්තයාත් දිවුරුම්දීලා තියෙනවා. ඊට පස්සේ ඒ උත්සවය අවසානයේ දී එක්සත් ජාතික පක්‍ෂයත් ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්‍ෂයත් එකතුවෙලා ජාතික ආණ්ඩුවක් පිහිටුවන්න ඕන කරන අවබෝධතා ගිවිසුමට අත්සන් කරලා තියෙනවා.

දැන් ගැටලුව මේකයි. අලුතින් කතානායක තනතුරට පත්වෙච්ච කරූ ජයසූරිය මහත්තයා තමන්ගේ ඇස් දෙකෙන් ම දැක්කා තමන් ඉස්සරහා රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහත්තයා ඇතුළු 222 දෙනෙක් මන්ත්‍රී තනතුරුවල දිවුරුම් දෙනවා. ඒත් එහෙම දිවුරුම් දෙන්නත් කලින් රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහත්තයා අගමැති තනතුරේ දිවුරුම් දීලා. හැබැයි අපේ ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ හැටියට ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසින් අගමැතිවරයා ලෙස පත් කරගනු ලැබිය යුත්තේ තමන්ගේ මතයේ හැටියට පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ විශ්වාසය උපරිම වශයෙන් ඇති පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරයා. මේ ගැන කියන්නේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 42. (4) වගන්තිය.

පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ දිවුරුම් දුන්න මන්ත්‍රීවරු එක් කෙනෙක්වත් 2015 අගෝස්තු 21 දා වෙද්දි හිටියේ නෑ. මොකද රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහත්තයා ඇතුළු 222 දෙනෙක් මන්ත්‍රී තනතුරුවල දිවුරුම් දීලා තියෙන්නේ 2015 සැප්තැම්බර් 1 වැනි දා.

මේ කාරණයෙන් පැහැදිළිවෙන්නේ මොකක්ද?

අගමැතිවරයෙක් පත්කරද්දි කතානායකවරයෙක් ඉන්නවා ද නැති ද කියන එක ගැනවත් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ මන්ත්‍රීවරු දිවුරුම් දීලා ද නැති ද කියන ගැනවත් හිතන්න ඕනකමක් ජනාධිපතිවරයාට නෑ කියන එක නෙවෙයි ද?

එහෙම නම් මේ වෙලාවේ අගමැතිවරයෙක් පත්කරද්දි කතානායකතුමා කලබල කළේ ඇයි? ඒක ඉතින් ඒ මහත්තයාගෙන් ම තමයි අහන්න ඕන.

ආචාර්ය වරුණ චන්ද්‍රකීර්ති

iamwaruna@yahoo.com

2018 නොවැම්බර් 12

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA .

The first part of this article focused attention to highlight the stupid activities of the defunct and demented former speak calling on western ambassadors to urge their governments to protest against the legitimate and constitutionally permissible action taken to dismiss Ranil   Wickremasinghe from the post of Prime Minister and the commendation and appreciations extended by patriotic Sri Lankans for saving the country and about the popularity of the current Prime Minister Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa.

This article to begin with intend to focus on views and comments presented by the Island political columnist the veteran journalist C.A. Chandraprema who is also an Attorney at Law.

In this week’s political column, he has written a lengthy article titled Resolution of Parliament is legal or illegal?” in which he makes an extensive explanation on the legal and constitutional positions relating to the dissolution-of parliament and calling for fresh elections. Chandreprema points out that under Articles e 33(2)(c), 70(5 62(2) the President is legally and constitutionally empowered to take the prudential action he has taken to overcome the crisis precipitated by the speaker’s defiance to accede to his directives as the Head of State and Head of Parliament and the government.

Chandraprema points out that Article le 70(5)stipulates among other things that upon the dissolution of Parliament by virtue of the provisions of paragraph (2) of Article 62, the President shall forthwith by Proclamation fix a date for the election of Members of Parliament, and shall summon the new Parliament to meet on a date not later than three months after the date of such Proclamation. The Gazette notification dissolving Parliament also mentions Section 10 of the Parliamentary Elections Act No.1 of 1981 which stipulates that The President shall, in every Proclamation dissolving Parliament or in any Order requiring the holding date of an election, specify the period during which nomination papers

shall be received by the returning officer; and the date on which the poll shall be taken, and all those requirements have been met in the President’s proclamation dissolving Parliament. The duty conferred on the Elections Commission by Article 104B (1) of the Constitution is that The Commission shall exercise, perform and discharge all such powers, duties and functions conferred on the Commission or the Commissioner-General of Elections, by the Constitution, and by the law relating to the election of Members of Parliament…”

He explains that Dr Jayampathy Wickremaratne had written to the Colombo Telegraph recently, arguing that the President cannot dissolve Parliament because the 19th Amendment had amended Article 70 of the Constitution so that the President cannot dissolve Parliament until the lapse of four years and six months from the date of its first meeting, unless Parliament requests the President to do so by a resolution passed by a two-thirds majority. To this he says President’s Counsel Manohara de Silva hand argued that the 19th Amendment

added to Article 33 of the Constitution the following passage – 33(2) (c)In addition to the powers, duties and functions expressly conferred or imposed on, or assigned to the President by the Constitution or other written law, the President shall have the power…to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament.”, and this provision in Article 33(2)(c) did not exist in the earlier Article 33 and had been specifically introduced by the 19th Amendment to the powers vested in the President. Hence the argument is that this provision had been specifically placed there to confer the power on the President to dissolve Parliament.

Chandraprema states that as it may, Parliament has now been dissolved by the President, the dates for the nomination period and the election have been fixed and the date for the new Parliament to meet has also been fixed,  I f someone goes to the Supreme Court against this dissolution, he will have to ask the SC to declare the dissolution to be illegal because article 70 says that Parliament cannot be dissolved until the lapse of four and a half years and that the 19th Amendment is more important than the right of the sovereign people to exercise their franchise. The judges of the Supreme Court no doubt observe the way the yahapalana government tried to dodge holding elections and the strenuous efforts that were made to get them to finally hold the local government elections after a delay of nearly three years. The judges of the Supreme Court will also observe the way the yahapalana government delayed provincial council elections by more than one year. They will also observed the manner in which the yahapalana government brought committee stage amendments to Bills that had been introduced in Parliament for completely different purposes, in order to completely change the system of elections to the local government and institutions and provincial councils for the purpose of indefinitely putting off elections to those bodies on the excuse that delimitation issues were causing the delay. Chamdraprema points out that the Supreme Court knows that this reluctance to hold elections was itself adding to the unrest in the country. Now at long last an election has been declared. In a context where there was dissension spreading throughout society due to the continuous postponement of elections by the yahapalana government, and he asks can anyone expect the Supreme Court to say that the holding of an election to allow the sovereign people to exercise their franchise is illegal and that the Parliamentary election should not be held?

Chandraprema also states if  any political party goes to the SC to obtain a declaration that holding a Parliamentary election is illegal and that the people should not be allowed to exercise their sovereign right through the franchise, simply because the election is being held before they completed their full term of office, what will that sound lie to the voting public who have been complaining for more than three years about long delays in holding elections? The arguments the yahapalanites will have to make in court against holding an election and the response from the other side will be worth listening to!

The UNP suffering from election phobia, fearful of facing the voters as a result of serious crimes committed by them during the last 3 ½ has said that it would mount a legal challenge against t Maithripala Sirisena’s sacking of the legislature. This has been told to AFP News Agency by the leading butterfly Quisling Mangala Samaraweera. Flaying Pre4sident Sirisena in very low derogatory manners he has said the UNP along with its allies had an absolute majority in the 225-member assembly and despite the sacking of the assembly, the party would publicly demonstrate its majority to the people. He has further stated that the will fight Sirisena in Courts, fight him in parliament and will also fight against Sirisena’s tyranny at the polls. `-This agnostic quisling who is notorious for humiliating people and was branded as the late Prime Minister Madam Sirimabvo Bandaranaike as a male prostitute has said that Sirisena was brought forward to be a Nelson Mandela of Sri Lanka, but he has become a Robert Mugabe.

The political chameleon and ship owner Rajitha Senaratne who unsuccessfully attempted to get back the Health Ministry portfolio by paying several hundred million rupees to some politicians has adopted the story of the jackal and the grapes and in their election, phobia has said there is no need for elections and they will go to the Courts against holding elections. He said that the international community (their international community is a few western countries in the world) does not recognize the new gove3rnment and they will impose sanctions against this country in the future. Together with Pa. Cha.Ranawaka, who has allegations relating to frauds in coal imports and establishing Air Pollution Testing Centres Rajitha has said that they will form a coalition if it becomes necessary for them to go to polls.

The Mahanayake theroes chief incumbents of temples throughout the country, several prelates of other religions have hailed the action taken by the President and have pointed that the President’s commendable action prevented imposing a federal constitution and dividing the country to eight provinces, denying the prime place for Buddhism which existed since the time of King Devanampiyatissa, destruction of agricultural lands and local agriculture, making the country dependent on imported food, sale of national assets, and water in th4e  tanks, entering into slavish trade agreements, and spiralling food and fuel prices etc.  General public too have expressed these sentiments.

Meanwhile, President Sirisena made a special statement to the Nation yesterday (11^th) to explain about that forced him to dissolver the Parliament and call for fresh elections.  He said that the Ranil Wickremesinghe government’s complicity in the multi-billion-rupee Central Bank robbery” and the defiant and questionable conduct of parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, forced him to dissolve parliament and order fresh elections. He said

Despite persistent demands, the Wickremesinghe government made no serious attempt to get Mahendran extradited from Singapore.

Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, who belongs to the UNP, refused to recognize the sacking of Ranil Wickremesinghe from the Premiership and the appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa by the President on October 26.

Jayasuriya declared that the sacking of Wickremesinghe was unconstitutional, as according to him, the President had no unbridled power to sack a Prime Minister who enjoyed majority support in parliament.

The Speaker further said that the seat allotted to the Prime Minister in parliament would not be given to Rajapaksa. He also opposed the prorogation of parliament from October 27 to November 15 and said that he would summon parliament on his own on November 7^th

(to be continued)

An Anguished Citizen

Recently Ranil has been going around the country doing Pooja’s and celebrating his 40 years in politics. As far as I can see he was a miserable failure as a politician. It was like 40 years of mayhem. He failed to win elections 29 times, tried to win in 2010 with Sarath Fonseka in front and failed. Then in 2014 he and CBK started a campaign of lies via social media against incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa with funding from foreign NGO’s. He promised cars for all, WiFi for the youth and free cell phones. Our idiotic voters fell for it and elected My3 the SLFP traitor who had hoppers with MR and then left him to contest as President of a joint front. They had secret talks with TNA and the Tamil diaspora attended by Mangala Samaraweera in Singapore and at the elections had 94% turn out of Tamils for the joint party. In spite of all these efforts, they won by a very small margin (449,072 votes). There was a lot of cheating as was shown by Dilrook Kanangara and Ravi Randeniya.

See: https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/08/14/cheating-at-the-election/

See Maithripala then and now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvntVXWtoII

My3 broke the law when he appointed RW as the Prime Minister while the Parliament already had D. M. Jayaratna. The reason he gave was that “the West wanted it so”. I assume the West was Britain/USA nexus. In turn, Ranil changed the Cabinet when there was an existing cabinet and appointed his own henchmen. He brought the Finance Ministry under his control and then appointed Arjun Mahendran as head of Central Bank while he was still a Singaporean citizen. He also appointed Paskaralingam whose bad reputation is well known by all Sri Lankans, as head of Treasury. Arjun then did the Rs. 5,000 Million insider trading bond scam. Very little has been done to investigate this matter and bring the miscreants to justice. Ranil is the chief perpetrator since he appointed Arjun Mahendran. My3 could have prevented the gigantic second bond scam that took place in 2016 if he had removed Arjun Mahendran. He is too weak to say no to Ranil.

See: https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2017/02/07/bond-scam/

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd43BclpYWo

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogefGxwseWg

See: https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/arjuna-mahendran-is-innocent-another-betrayal-by-yahapalanaya/

Even in the August Parliamentary election, My3 broke the law. First, My3 brought a court action to prevent the CC of UPFA from a meeting. Then he got information from National Intelligence that UPFA is going to win 113 seats. According to his own words in order to prevent his own party SLFP/UPFA from winning and to ensure that UNP wins, he wrote a 5-page letter to MR telling him that he will not be appointed as Prime Minister under any circumstances. He then went on tv and read it out to the public to reinforce his letter. He then removed the General Secretaries of both parties (UPFA & SLFP) and appointed his own. He removed the 13 members of the CC and appoints his own. All this was done during the period where the Election commissioner has said there should be no electioneering.  Was this not electioneering by My3 for the UNP during that period? All these actions confused our voting public. On top of that many have pointed out false ballot papers, counting errors etc. Democracy is a laugh in Sri Lanka. Nowhere else in the world will the party leader work for the opposition so strenuously. The election in January was flawed due to an unbelievable number of voter increase in North, East and Nuwara Eliya. As far as I can see both elections have been cheated. After the elections, the members of the gazetted National List were removed and My3 appointed people who had lost the vote to the National List.

See:  https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/08/25/i-wrote-that-letters-sacked-secretaries-because-i-received-intelligence-reports-that-upfa-is-on-the-verge-of-winning-president-%E0%B6%BD%E0%B7%92%E0%B6%BA%E0%B7%94%E0%B6%B8%E0%B7%8A-%E0%B6%BD/

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX_RF6_jQzw

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Z2fwfgC8s

Prof. Nalin de Silva proves that My3 only got 40% of the Sinhala vote. See:  https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/01/14/press-conference-of-chinthana-parshadaya-held-on-13th-january-2016-on-the-new-constitution-and-theravada-kathikavatha/

Some of the crimes against the Sinhalese committed by CBK, My3 and Ranil are as follows:

• When 1000 soldiers were cut off without water at Elephant Pass, CBK and her nephew Rohan Daluwatte who was the army commander, did nothing to help those men who died of thirst. She could have done so many things to help these men. Instead as Chief Commander, she did nothing !! When the LTTE blew up 11 air Lanka planes the insurance money is supposed to have gone straight into her personal account. This is unforgivable. Also read about CBK’s robbery. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/081012/News/sundaytimesnews_20.html With all this money she gathered she was able to go abroad and live in U.K. for 10 years and educate her children. She is a member of Club de Madrid which is an international group with ex-leaders from all over the world. You can read a full account of her crooked activities in Victor Ivans brilliant book “Rogue Queen”.

• RW kept trying to hand over the North and East to appease Prabhakaran. He even stopped a crucial military operation in 2001 where the army knew the exact location of Prabhakaran and was ready to take him out. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZWO5fWDikQ  See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjmw8kxbMPU

• Between him and CBK they prolonged the war by listening to the so called mediators from Norway who were brought in by CBK. The Norwegians were more interested in making the LTTE win than bringing a peaceful resolution. Under their direction container loads of equipment and may be even armaments were brought in through the customs without inspection on Ranils instructions and send directly to the LTTE. Ranil demoralized the army be limiting them to the barracks and ensuring that they were not given enough money to even maintain the vehicles and munitions. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxbGojMb1xc

• Ranil tried to give 2/3 of the land to LTTE along with the Norwegians on a bogus Peace deal which was used by the LTTE to strengthen their defense systems. Entire container loads of equipment were allowed to go to the Wanni to LTTE on Ranil’s instructions. See: http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=1146733.

• He was involved in the release of the names of the 80 odd long range Military Intelligence group to the Parliament which resulted in the names going public. The LTTE then hunted them down and killed every one of them. Some of them were captured and tortured by them to get more names. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_City_incident

• Gonawela Sunil was in jail for 10 years for rape of a doctor’s daughter. As soon as JR came into power, on the advice of RW, he released G’Sunil. After that wherever RW went Gonawela Sunil went too as his “body guard”. Sunil was collecting “kappam” from the bagging plant operators at the Fertilizer manufacturing plant. Was he sharing this with RW? Since he was protected by RW he must have, at least to buy voters? Gonawela Sunil also managed to drill into a pipeline from the refinery which was sending gasoline to Kolonnawa. He was sucking it up and selling it on the black market. Again who protected him from prosecution? !!  Finally, a rival gang member shot him. That was the end of the strange relationship between Gonawela Sunil and RW.

•  During the uprising of the JVP both in the 1970’s and the 1988-90 period it is estimated at almost 80-90,000 youth was killed most of them who were innocent. Most of the killing was done by the UNP regime while Ranil was one of the Ministers who was in charge of bringing the JVP uprising under control. He is supposed to have set up the Batalanda torture chamber under one Douglas Pieris. It is estimated that at least 15,000 youth were tortured in the most bestial manner and then killed supposedly under the direction of Ranil Wickremasinghe. The commission which was set up to inquire into these crimes recommended that Ranil’s civic rights be removed. This was not implemented by CBK. Why? All these innocent Sinhala children are crying out for justice. There are no UNHRC officials to inquire into these crimes by the UNP and Ranil. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9t4Tv9cy60

• He was also involved with Batalanda murders of mostly JVP lawyers, I believe, from what I heard. At the Fertilizer plant housing scheme one of the houses was acquired by RW for interrogating suspected JVP members. Many people apparently heard the screams from this house in the middle of the night when people were tortured. People also used to see bodies floating down Kelani river. The Batalanda Commission report recommended that RW’s civil rights be removed. As usual, in Sri Lanka, nothing happens to Colombians and those with memberships in International Organizations like the International Democratic Union of which Ranil is a member.

See Maithri talking against RW in 1994:  https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/01/10/batalanda/

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqSW3cKNb7k

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Av-d2qJ0Ys

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV6_o9txURc

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgVyaHJGhc45.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9t4Tv9cy60

• Ranil has been insulting to Buddhism. He pretends to be Buddhist but is actually neither Buddhist or Christian when one looks at his actions at Batalanda. Anyone with an iota of humanity would not have what he is supposed to have done.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RddXfSU0aSE

• Ranil has always been trying to sell Sri Lanka to foreigners. Every time he got some power into his hands he set about trying to convert our economy to a capitalist economy not withstanding the fact that Sri Lanka is designated as a Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. When he was elected as the PM he started privatizing almost 991 profit making state enterprises. Some places like the Sevanagala Sugar factory was privatized and the new owners removed the assets and ran it to the ground. Then when MR came into power he brought most of them back to being state enterprises. Now before Ranil leaves he wants to sell the most important strategically important ports to Chinese and Indians. As soon as he came into power the first step he took was to change the law which prohibited the sale of land to foreigners so that foreigners could buy large acreages of land.

• Pure Capitalism does not work. There are many top economists who have written on the topic. One of the most outspoken has been Dr. Richard Wolf. His famous talk Capitalism hits the fan is given below. His solution for ills of pure capitalism is to have democracy in the work place. The Mondragon Corporation in Spain is actually a large number of Co-operatives under the umbrella of Mondragon. This was set up with the blessings of the Catholic Church. In the USA there are many companies which are run as co-operatives where the employees participate in the decision making of the company affairs by being on the board. In Germany which has been very successful any company with over 2000 employees have to have at least 50% of employees on the board. This is why unlike USA Germany is very successful. In 2008 when the recession hit many companies in the USA laid off people in millions. In Germany, the Govt informed the companies not to lay off any one. They suggested that they can reduce the number of hours of employees but keep all employed. In return, the German Govt paid the wages of the companies who had reduced the number of hours of employees so that no one lost any money. The net result was that the people had money in the pocket and were spending it thereby keeping the economy rolling. They hardly felt the recession, unlike the stupid USA Corporations.

Please watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZU3wfjtIJY ( Capitalism Hits the Fan – Richard Wolff)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WhZXhRS3F4 ( Austerity and Neoliberalism in Greece with Richard Wolff and Barry Herman | The New School)

• Ranil is supposed to have agreed to a bridge to Sri Lanka from India in 2002. We can be sure it is on his agenda if he remains as PM. In an export oriented economy which is what Ranil wants one of the main requirement is cheap labor. In order to do that, he has destroyed the agrarian economy and impoverished the rural folk. MR was trying to make the country self-sufficient in food and most commodities. In fact, before the Yahapalanaya came into power Sri Lanka was self-sufficient in rice. Now we are importing rice from Thailand, Burma, and even Bangladesh. How pathetic.

See:http://www.atimes.com/article/sri-lankans-oppose-bridge-with-india/

• The UN has become just a puppet of the powerful countries to bully small defenseless countries. Sri Lanka has been pummelled by the UN and the UNHRC on bogus War crimes charges without any proof. Please see this excellent article on this subject: https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/09/06/who-monitors-the-monitors-iii/ On his instructions presumably, Mangla Samaraweera co-sponsored a resolution against Sri Lanka.

• It is very obvious that Ranil Wickremasinghe has no love for the country or the people. He has been a stooge of the powerful countries right from the beginning. He came into power as the PM illegally on Jan 8’15 after the Presidential election when the spineless My3 was elected as President and he then appointed RW as PM when there were an existing PM and a Parliament with a cabinet.

• Ranil then caused the Central Bank bond scam by appointing a foreigner as the Governor of Central Bank who proceeded to do a bond scam which has cost Sri Lanka a massive amount of money. Part of this money was used by him for the General Election in Aug 2015 which the UNP won only narrowly. Again the spineless My3 created a so-called National Govt as a coalition of the UNP and all the MPs who were rejected by the people who were brought in under the National List by the spineless My3.

•  The current Parliament is a comedy since the TNA which got only 16 seats is the Opposition while the 52 SLFP members who did not join the coalition are in the wilderness without any official recognition. All the JO group members are harassed at every turn by another illegal group called the FCID created by RW. He seems to get all these brilliant ideas which are obviously coming from the think tanks of the powerful countries.
•  Ranil is supposed to be trying to bankrupt the country so that we are helpless like Greece and he is also supposed to be trying to lease out 5000 acre lots of land to foreigners for 100-year leases. This will enable the Tamil diaspora to lease out most of the North and East for exclusive use by the Tamils thereby creating a separate state. He has already given 15,000 acres on a 99-year lease to a Chinese company based in Hong Kong presumably with British interests. This is a great crime against the country since if it was managed the way MR was doing it would have paid for itself in about 5 years. In the days of the King of Kandy traitors like this were pulled apart to pieces by elephants which is what he deserves.

The biggest problem Sri Lanka has is that the entire Colombo group are more or less very Westernized. They are so Westernized that they are more Western than the Westerners themselves! They talk with a big accent and if you go to any of the clubs you find the men and the women are like from another age of the West. They drink only whiskey, brandy, and imported liquor. You see girls dancing and with girls and kissing each other trying to emulate the West. They travel in luxury limousines like BMWs and Benzes. The children are sent to International Schools, as a result, they are completely divorced from the realities of Sri Lanka. The poor go to the middle east to make the foreign exchange which is used by these Colombians to maintain their life style at the expense of the development in the country. If you look at the number of luxury vehicles you cannot imagine that the country is paying 94% of its earning to pay the foreign debts. These parasites are the biggest supporters of the UNP and Ranil.

The other groups are the Christian Catholic groups who want to convert the entire island to their religion (which is a mythology) as has been done in South Korea, etc. The foreign companies who have now put deep roots in Sri Lanka also want to make sure they are secure so they support the UNP and Ranil. One of these days the dominoes will fall and when that happens there will be a massive upheaval hopefully for the better for all who are truly patriotic and love Sri Lanka.

Any other Govt which comes into power after this ridiculous puppet Govt must carry out a plan to correct all the mistakes that have been done over the years by successive Govts. We must rename the country as “Sinhale” which was the name of the country in the Treaty the British signed with the Chieftains of Sri Lanka in 1815 when they handed over the country to them.  They must have an inquiry into the activities of Ranil Wickremasinghe over the years and prosecute him. When the Batalanda commission found him guilty and removed his civic rights how did he manage to run for PM? Why is that no one raised any arguments against him?

“Sad Citizen”.

India and China are making rapid strides in Solar and Wind energy generation. When Mahinda Rajapaksa was in power he set up a Solar village and was taking steps to create renewable energy generation in Sri Lanka. Then the Yahapalanaya goons came in and stopped everything Mahinda Rajapaksa had done including the Port City and shut down the Hambantota Harbor which just beginning to make a profit. Ranil the idiot and his goons should be charged for treason for doing what they did. Various Yahapalanaya officials were more interested in coal commissions from India than in generating renewable energy. Please see below how advanced India is in generating renewable energy.

දිනසේන  රතුගමගේ

වවුනියාව දිස්ත්‍රික්කයෙන් ඉහළම ලකුණු ලබාගෙන මෙවර පහ  වසර ශිෂ්‍යත්වයෙන් සමත් වූ ළමුන් දෙදෙනෙකුට විශේෂ ශිෂ්‍යත්ව දෙකක් පසුගියදා පිරිනැමුණි.

වන්නි ආරක්ෂක සේනා ආඥාපති මේජර් ජෙනරාල් කුමුදු පෙරේරා මහතාගේ ඉල්ලීමක් මත ඔවන්ගේ අධ්‍යාපන කටයුතු අවසන් වන තෙක් ශිෂ්‍යාධාර මුදලක්  ලබා දීමට කැනඩාවේ ශ්‍රී ලාංකික යුවලක් වන වෛද්‍ය අශෝක වීරසිංහ මහතා හා ඔහුගේ බිරිඳ වෛද්‍ය නන්දනී විරසිංහ මහත්මිය ඉදිරිපත් වී එම විශේෂ ශිෂ්‍යත්ව දෙක  ලබා දෙන ලදී.

වන්නි ආරක්ෂක සේනා මූලස්ථානයේදී පසුගියදා මුල්ම ශිෂ්‍යාධාර මුදල සිසු දැරියන් හා ඔවුන්ගේ දෙමාපියන් වෙත භාරදුන් අතර මසකට රුපියල් 2500/ බැගින් මෙම අධාරය අඛණ්ඩව ලබා දිමට නියමිතය.

වවුනියාව සිවපුරම් පදිංචි ශිෂ්‍යත්ව ලකුණු 197ක් ලබාගත් හරිතිකා හසුන්ජා දියණියට හා ගනේෂපුරම් පදිංචි ලකුණු 189 ක් ලබා ගත් අර්.නිවර්සනා දියණියට මෙම ආධාර මුදල හිමිවිය.

මෙම අවස්තාවට මේජර් ජෙනරාල් කුමුදු පෙරේරා, බ්‍රිගේඩියර් ජයම්පති තිලකරත්න යන මහත්වරුන් පාසල් විදුහල්පතිවරුන් හා ළමුන්ගේ දෙමාපියන්ද එක්ව සිටියහ.

????????????????????????????????????

දිනසේන රතුගමගේ

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මහමැතිවරණය සදහා නාම යෝජනා ලබා දීමට පෙර සියළු දෙමළ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ එක මිටියකට ගැනීමට උත්සහ කරණ බව දෙමළ ජාතික සන්ධානයේ නායක ආර්.සම්බන්ධන් මහතා පවසයි.

යාපනයේ දෙමළ මාධ්‍ය කීපාය්ක් විසින් රටේ වත්මන තත්ත්වය පිළිබදව  සම්බන්ධන් මහතාගෙන් කරුණු විමසූ විට ඔහු මෙසේ පවසා ඇත.

තව දුරටත් අදහස් දැක්වූ සම්බන්ධන් මහතා මෙසේද කියා සිටියේය.

”දකුණේ රජයන්  මේ රට තුළ සිටින දෙමළ වැසියන්ගේ  ප්‍රශ්න විසදීමට වඩා ඔවුන් බලයට පත්ව ඒ බලය රදාපවත්වා ගන්නේ කෙසේද යන්න පිළිබදව දැඩි විමසිල්ලකින් සිටින බව පසුගිය ඔක්තෝබර් 26 වෙනිදා සිට මේ දක්වා ඉතාම පැහැදිලිව පෙනෙන්නට තිබෙන කාරණයකුයි.

දකුණේ පවතින මෙවැනි බල ලෝභී දේශපාලනයක් තුළ රටේ දෙමළ ජනතාවගේ ප්‍රශ්න විසදන බවක් පෙනෙන්නට නැහැ.ඔවුන් හිතුමතේට  බලය සොයාගෙන යන ගමනක නිරතව සිටිනවා.මේ දේශපාලනඥයින් උදේ ප්‍රකාශ කළ දේ දහවල් කාලයට වෙනස් කරණ පිරිසක් වෙලා.මේ අය කියන කරණ දේවල් විශ්වාස කළ නොහැකියි.

දේශපාලන ගමනක් යාමට දැඩි විශ්වාසයක් තිබිය යුතුයී.මේ විශ්වාසය  දකුණේ දේශපාලාන්ඥයින්ගෙන් ප්‍රකාශ නොවන විට දෙමළ දේශපාලනඥයින් ඉතාම තරයේ කලපනා කළ යුතු කාරණයක් තිබෙනවා.

දකුණේ දේශපාලනඥයින් අතර සමගියක් විශ්වාසයක් පැහැදිලි ඉදිරි ගමනක් නොමැති නිසා ඔවුන් කුලල් කා ගනිමින් ඉතාම අසීරු ගමනක් යමින් සිටිනවා.මේ තත්ත්වය උදාහරණයට ගනිමින් දෙමළ දේශපාලනඥයින් කළ යුතුව ඇත්තේ සියළු ප්‍රශ්න මතභේද අවසන් කොට සියළු දෙමළ දේශපාලනඥයින් එක්ව කටයුතු කිරීමයි.

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මැතිවරණයක් පැමිණ තිබෙනවා.මේ තත්ත්වය සියළුම දෙමළ  දේශපාලනඥයින්ටත් දෙමළ ජනතාවටත් ඉතාම බුද්ධිමත්ව කටයුතු කිරීමට හොද අවස්ථාවක් වී තිබෙනවා.

පසුගිය කාලයේ දකුණේ දේශපාලනයේ පැවති අස්ථාවරභාවය  ඉදිරියේදී පාර්ලිමේන්තු  මැතිවරණයක් පැවැත්වීමෙන් තුරන් වන බවක් පෙනෙන්නට නැහැ.

එක් දේශපාලන පක්ෂයකට විශාල බලයක් ලබා ගෙන ඉතා ශක්තිමත් හා තනි රජයක් පිහිටුවීමට මෙවරත් හැකියාවක් ලැබෙන්නේ නැහැ.මේ නිසා රජයක් කරගෙන යාමට මී ළග අවස්ථාවේදීත් සුළුජන පක්ෂ වල සහය අනිවාර්යෙන්ම ලබා ගැනීමට සිදුවනවා.මේ තත්ත්වය සියළුම දෙමළ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ තේරුම් ගත යුතුයි.

මේ අවස්ථාවේදී උතුරෙන් සිදුවිය යුත්තේ  නව නව දේශපාලන පක්ෂ පිහිටුවමින් දෙමළ දේශපාලානඥයින් භේද බින්න කිරීමත් දෙමළ ජනතාව භේද භින්න කිරීමත් නොවෙයි.උතුරු නැගෙනහිර දෙමළ ජනතාවගේ අයිතිවාසිකම් සුරක්ෂිත කරගැනීමට හැකි නව දේශපාලන විසදුමක් මේ ප්‍රශනයට ලබා ගැනීමයි.මේ උත්සාහයේදී දෙමළ ජනතාව ලබා දෙන බලය එක්තැනකට ලබා ගෙන ඒ බලය ඔස්සේ රජයෙන්  දෙමළ ප්‍රශනයට විසදුමක් ලබා ගැනීමට සෑම දෙමළ දේශපාලනඥයෙකුම කටයුතු කළ යුතු වෙනවා.

දැනට ක්‍රියාත්මක දෙමළ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ සියල්ල එකට එකතු කිරීමේ උත්සාහයක් මෙවර නාම යෝජනා ලබා දීමට  පෙර සිදු වියයුතුයි.මේ පණිවුඩය සියළුම දෙමළ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ අතරට මේ වන විට යැවීමට දෙමළ ජාතික සන්ධානය පියවර ගෙන තිබෙනවා.මේ අවස්ථාවේ ඇත් බැරෑරුම් තත්ත්වය අවබෝධ  කරගෙන දෙමළ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ ඉතා සාධනීය අන්දමට කටයුතු කරණු ඇතැයි බලාපොරොත්තුවෙන් සිටිනවා.”

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

The CHANGE that came in January 2015, let us all recall, came as a result of a campaign that concentrated on highlighting the corruption & lack of good governance by the previous government. Naturally, those that voted for the CHANGE expected good governance. We take the example of the removal of 2 Chief Justices & leave it to you to determine who followed due process & who was treated unfairly & the hypocrites & hypocrisies that prevail. International outcry for one CJ & unabashed condemnation for another.

What is important in discussing this topic is not to consider the pros & cons of the person, we are not going to consider any of their judgements, or even legal loopholes or other matters. We are not even going to evaluate the trial but we are only going to be concerned about whether a due process was followed for the removal of a Chief Justice. You can determine whose removal followed a process (even some sort of process) & whose removal did not.

Our next question is, how can the removal of one Chief Justice get international attention & the removal of the other Chief Justice be completely ignored, because we are dealing with countries who present themselves to be beacons of rule of law & good governance?

Removal of CJ43 & Removal of 44

Chief Justice 43 (Shirani Bandaranayake)

Appointed on 18 May 2011 by then President Rajapakse.

It was against this Chief Justice that an impeachment motion was brought in November 2012.

Did the Government comply with provisions in the Constitution & Standing Orders for the removal of CJ 43?

Did the Government follow Articles 107(2) & 107(3) of the Constitution that sets the procedure to be adopted to remove a Chief Justice, President of the Court of Appeal or any other judge of the Supreme Court & Court of Appeal on ‘grounds of proved misbehavior or incapacity”?

Was there a resolution presented to Speaker or placed on the Order Paper of Parliament signed by 1/3 of total members of Parliament giving the alleged misbehavior or incapacity?

Was such a resolution given to the Speaker – 78A(1) to act in accordance with Article 107 of the Constitution?

Thereafter, did the Speaker accept the resolution & place it on the Order Paper of Parliament & appoint a Select Committee of not less than 7 members to investigate & report to Parliament on the allegations against the Chief Justice?

Did the Select Committee hand over to the Chief Justice a copy of their deliberations & seek a written statement of defense from the Chief Justice?

Was an opportunity given to the Chief Justice to appear before the Select Committee to give her version?

Did the Select Committee take a month to conclude their findings as is required

Was the findings & decision presented to the President by the Speaker on behalf of the Parliament?

The answer to all the above questions is YES – every required procedure was followed.

The previous government followed all of the above procedures. 117 MPs of Parliament handed over a petition on 1^st November 2012. Standing Orders of Parliament & Constitution was upheld. A 11-member Select Committee was appointed on 14 November 2012 comprising – Anura Priyadarshana Yapa (Chairman) Nimal Siripala de Silva, Susil Premajayantha, Rajitha Senaratna, Dilan Perera, Wimal Weerawansa, Neomal Perera, John Amaratunga, Lakshman Kiriella, Vijitha Herath, R Sampanthan.

Their report was handed over on 8 December 2012. It was debated in Parliament on 10^th & 11 January 2013 & passed by 155 votes in favor 49 against on 11 January 2013.

In conclusion, what needs to be clearly accepted is that every legal & constitutional provision & procedure was followed.

1^st November 2012 a petition was handed over & on 11^th January 2013 Parliament voted for the impeachment. (almost 2 ½ months was taken for the due process)

Let’s look at the international response

18 January 2013 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said impeachment “further eroded the rule of law in the country and could also set back efforts for accountability and reconciliation”

15 November 2012 Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma issued 3 separate statement denouncing the impeachment “The dismissal of the Chief Justice will be widely seen..as running counter to the independence of the judiciary, which is a core Commonwealth value.”

18 January 2013 European Union – High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton “the independence of the judicial branch cannot be made subject to actions by any other branch of government”

11 January 2013  Canada – Foreign Minister John Baird “highly politicized, lacking basic transparency and respect for the guarantees of due process and fair trial”

11 January 2013  United Kingdom – The Foreign and Commonwealth Office “respect democratic principles”

2 November 2012 United States – The United States Department of State “guarantee due process, and to ensure that all investigations are conducted transparently and in accordance with the rule of law”.

15 January 2013 State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland expressed concern about the impeachment’s impact on the democratic process, saying “we were concerned about the perception of reprisals against somebody for independent thinking and action”

6 December 2012 International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) stated that the impeachment process ignored “international standards and practice”

On 15 January 2013 ICJ issued a statement which condemned Mohan Peiris’ appointment as chief justice, describing it as a “further assault on the independence of the judiciary” and called for Bandaranayake’s re-instatement

23 January 2013 44 senior judges and jurists from around the globe wrote an open letter to President Rajapaksa which condemned Bandaranayake’s removal, urged her re-instatement, saying that the impeachment was “in contravention of the Constitution, international human rights law and standards, including the right to a fair hearing, and the rule of law”

Removal of Shirani was void from the beginning- Saliya Pieris (Chairman Missing Persons Commission)

As you can see by the statements – not only are they intrusive, interfering but they are demanding a sovereign government to install their persons to positions while they have no qualms to denounce people who do not fall into their gambit of preference.

Locally too, lawyers, accountants, engineers, civil society, all claimed the impeachment as unfair. There were even public polls & surveys. Given that these professionals are taking a stand not in favor of the person but the process of impeachment, our next question is why did the same groups not cry foul over the removal of CJ44? How can they as professionals favor CJ43 or CJ44? How professional is this? If the argument is about fair trial – CJ43 had a trial but did CJ44 have any trial against him?  

Keep these thoughts in mind when we next look at how CJ44 was removed now that you are aware of the process followed for the removal of CJ43

CJ43 impeached on 11 January 2013 and CJ44 appointed on 15 January 2013.

9^th January 2015 the government changed.

28 January 2015 the President’s Secretary by letter informs CJ44 quoted void ab initio to claim his position as CJ was considered null & void as it was never valid from the beginning.

There was no resolution conforming to Article 107 passed in Parliament starting a process for CJ44’s removal as was seen in the procedure followed for removal of CJ43.

January 2015

• A group of lawyers protested at Hulftsdorp demanding CJ44 step down from office
• They gave CJ44 48 hours to step down as CJ
• CJ44 was not allowed into his Chambers
• 28 January 2015 Secretary to the President sends letter to CJ44 claiming his position as void ab initio & thus his removal.
• 28 January 2015 CJ43 was reinstated for only a day & made to resign the same day
• 30 January 2015, Justice K. Sripavan was appointed Chief Justice. Ironically, he is included as CJ44 not CJ45.

Question is can the President alone remove the Chief Justice at his will & that too through a letter sent by his secretary?

If international & local groups clamored to claim CJ43 was dismissed unfairly why did the same groups not come forward to do the same for CJ44? He was simply not allowed into his chambers then delivered a letter that he was never considered the CJ – how fair is this? Is this how a country’s CJ is removed from office? So where were all the parties that were quoting the laws & international standards on removing a CJ.

A victim is a victim irrespective of the face! So where were these unbiased, impartial, rule of law, due process, upholders of law & constitution for victim CJ44?

Anyone debating this – please keep to the main facts. Was a procedure followed for the removal of CJ43 & CJ44? Irrespective of any legal loopholes. Was there a process that was followed for both?

As you can see there was blatant bias & it is so obvious in the statements issued internationally & by their local representatives.

CJ43 is ShiraniB

CJ44 – MohanP & Sripavan (we have 2 CJs)

CJ45 – Priyasath Depp

CJ46 – Nalin Perera

Additionally, if void ab initio term is used it next raises another more important question of the legal validity of every judgment made by CJ44 from his appointment in January 2013 to his removal in January 2015? When this question arises – Sri Lanka is in for bigger problems.

Moreover, how can there be two CJ44? The scenario reminds of the present tassel of 2 PMs and we know the procedure that was followed for the removal of the former PM by gazette which again was not followed when he became PM in 2015 & the sitting PM was not removed. But, where was the ‘rule of law, democracy, due process’ bandwagon during these legally & constitutionally questionable incidents?

This selective & partisan approach by the usual culprits is really embarrassing them. Not that they are bothered about gaining credibility of the people so long as their agendas are fulfilled. But their rhetoric in pretending to be upholders of good governance is turning their statements into an international farce & soon they will come a time they will not be taken seriously whatever campaigns they fund. While all these bias & international reactions fall under the gambit of intervention & interference into the internal/domestic affairs of a sovereign state, it is our duty to highlight these violations & leave it for you the reader to decide.

Shenali D Waduge