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.

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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

By Nallur Murugan

Dear Sir,

I thought of writing you this letter because you have become the custodian of democracy, rule of law and constitution of Sri Lanka and at the same time you are always in the news. Internal party dispute between you and the Northern Chief minister is now debated in the open and discussed in the media. Local authority election results conducted in 18 Feb 2018 have clearly shown there is nothing between you and EPDP leader Douglas Devananda whom your party and Tamil media supportive of you character assassinated Devananda. It has been proved your permanent interests prevail. Your feud with former Chief Minister also is not seriously taken by ordinary Tamil people. Moreover 16 SLFP MPs met you and discussed current political situation with you. On top of that you met the American delegation and complained to them about the other members of the National Executive Council of Good Governance of which you are also a party as members of National Executive Council. Tamil people over several years gave you a mandate to solve their problems but you are making petitions and complaints to the foreign  forces which are inimical to Sri Lankan interests. This is no surprise because your leader S.J.V.Chelvanayagam fondly known as Ceylon Ghandhi sent a telegram to Queen Elizebeth not to withdraw the British Air force base from Sri Lanka when former Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranayake in 1956 had demanded the British Air Force bases to be withdrawn from Sri Lanka. No one would dispute if supporters honour S.J.V.Chelvanayagam as Ceylon Ghandi. But the truth remains the original Ghandi the Mahathma was the face of the Anti-colonial movement  in India which demanded full freedom from British. Original Ghandi demanded closure of British military bases but the so called  Ceylon Ghandi demanded the  other way. Still you fascinated  the policy of venerating imperialist forces without any shame. History of your party is full of contradictions, manipulations and betrayals which the majority of Tamil population failed to grasp. It has been the consistent party (Federal Party) policy to fan the communal flames and grab parliamentary seats. Majority of the Tamils were not aware of the theme at election meetings and campaign conducted by major national parties UNP and SLFP. The theme was economy, unemployment, development and so on. However, you and your party along with the so called independent Tamil media manipulated and told the Tamil that the national parties fanned communal flames. Tamil people generally believed what was told by your colleagues. To make your memory fresh, in `1970 parliamentary elections SLFP coalition promised to bring rice even from moon. In 1977 parliamentary elections UNP under JRJ promised to distribute 8 KG food stuff on ration basis.

The manner in which Tamil National Alliance led by you untiringly engage in what some media describes hate speech”(propagate communal felling ) is clearly indicating your obsession with parliament seats and ensuring your party winning the seats without any opposition from the other political  parties  such as  United National Party, Sri Lanka Freedom party and the newly organized Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and host of other parties. It is not a secret the hate speech syndrome was orchestrated by the Official weekly organ, Suthanthiran  of Ilankai Tamil arasu katchi (ITAK)the  or Ceylon Federal Party under the stewardship of S.J.V Chelvanayagam. TNA has been the most powerful political alliance in the  north and somewhat diminished status in the East. Of course the federal party is the strongest single party in the alliance. Federal party was formed in 1949  as a breakaway faction of All Ceylon Tamil Congress led by G.G.Ponnampalam. Breakaway was attributed to G.G.Ponnampalam’s decision to join the D.S.Senanake’s government as a minister and also your party  blamed  G.G.Ponnampalam  for his support to disfranchise (Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 ) the upcountry Indian Tamils. This Act was aimed at weakening the influence of leftist parties, particularly LSSP among the Indian Tamils. Unchallengeable leader GG was instrumental along with Prime Minister D.S.Senenayake for the disfranchisement of Indian Tamils. Gradually your party  ITAK became the  political force in north and east of Srilanka. It is very fitting description to conclude that father of communal politics in Ceylon was none other than G.G.Ponnampalam leader of Ceylon Tamil congress who demanded for 50/50 parliament representation for the minorities of this island. I would like to remind you that late  M.Thiruchelvam became minister of local government in the 1965 UNP government led by Dudly Senenayake. M.Sivasithamparam of Tamil Congress was given the Deputy speaker position. Now  you became the opposition leader positon in the present Good governance coalition which is very controversial due to the fact you are part of the National executive council formed by the advocates of the Good governance along with many parties UNP, SLFP, JVP, JHU SLMC ACMC, Democratic party of Sarath Fonseka .It is not a rocket science to conclude that you are the Government sponsored opposition leader. We all boast Sri Lanka is a vibrant democracy which have resorted to a stupid precedent by selecting you as the Leader of the Opposition. Meanwhile your followers and the so called independent Tamil media never bothered about this aspect of governance and busy disseminating hate speech, (pure communalism) which has been the bread and butter of Tamil media in Srilanka notably since Independence.

I am eager to direct some questions at you as the leader of the TNA and the inheritor of the mantle of leadership from the leaders such as S.J.V.Chelvanayagam and late Appapillai Amirthalingam.

(i). Tamil mainstream leadership in the early seventies created the Tamil militancy and brainwashed and encouraged young innocent Tamil youths to take up arms against the Sri Lankan state. Government of Sirimavo Bandaranayake  in 1970s introduced the new University entrance system called standardization aimed at providing higher education opportunities to students from backward areas,  the main  accusation  by your party  was standardization had been introduced to deprive the Tamil students of higher education. Tamil youths of those years without  understanding the pros and cons blindly believed and the rest is history. The experience witnessed in the last three decades proved the benefits achieved by  Tamil students from Trinco your area Ampara, Batticaloa, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya. The  achievement of the students from these areas have been excellent. Don’t you think the Tamil leadership intentionally misguided the Tamil youths with the long term plan of  sustaining the parliamentary seats?

(ii).  Tamil leadership boasts of 70 long years of struggle for the rights of the Tamil citizens-Is it true that you have struggled other than retaining the parliamentary seats. Can you deny that the Tamil leadership aligned with UNP and alienated the SLFP and other progressive forces? It was the policy of the Tamil leadership to instigate the Tamil youths to oppose the  so called Sinhala government when the SLFP came to power. Can you adduce a correct answer why your party aligned with UNP, part of which your party shouted, was responsible for 1983 communal riot and the burning of Jaffna Public library? You and your colleagues never made self-inquiry whether it is right to carry out the so called struggle against the so called  Sinhalese governments while you and your team comfortably live in Colombo and visiting north and east only during election times. The 70 years political journey of ITAK and TNA gave you and your group excellent comforts. Have you ever thought of the untold sufferings of the former Tamil combatants who had made tremendous sacrifice for their cause they deemed right? They are now nobody, they depend on meagre government assistance and other well-wishers support for survival. Still their plight has also become a scoring point for you at election meetings.

(iii). who is responsible for the three decades of mayhem and agony of the Tamil people in north and east? The so called Tamil freedom fighters were the creation of the Tamil leadership and they believed what the Tamil leaders discoursed to them and the Tamil youth at the beginning of the struggle had faith on you. The Tamil leadership betrayed the Tamil youths, Tamil people and the country. When the LTTE turned against you, you and your colleagues without shame pleaded to the government and the security forces against whom you made lot of noises, protected you in fortified houses in Colombo. You and your party is responsible for the action and atrocities of the so called liberation fighters as you were the creators. Being a professional lawyer I don’t need to remind you about aiding and abetting.

(iv).The other day you were flanked by the SLFP 18 MPs who left the Government and the photographs illustrated how honorably these MPs were interacting with you. Don’t you feel ashamed of your many guided visits to Kilinochchi and sitting before LTTE political commissar as slaves when the LTTE was de facto rulers in the Vanni area? The whole world   is aware that that you and your colleagues were impotently watching the sufferings of the entrapped Tamil people in Vanni.

(v). during the last episode of Ealam war at Mullivaikal more than 300,000 Tamil people were protected by the security forces (including some of your MPs). Despite limitation of resources the security forces handled the situation diligently. During the former President’s tenure thousands of former combatants were rehabilitated and integrated with society. Vast amount of land under the control of the security forces were returned to the owners. Constructive programs were initiated to provide livelihood to the families of former combatants. Of course those programmes are still continuing.

Do you have credible evidence of the civilian deaths other than just repeating thousands?   Do you accept that credible evidence is lacking for dispassionate observers seeking truth? Geneva and other forums with the close cooperation of the selfish diaspora groups have become another stage for you betraying the Tamil people for your sole objective of retaining the parliamentary seats.

(vi). Are you not ashamed to use the word Sinhala Buddhist hegemony to incite the Sinhala people and the state? Can you raise your finger and say at least a single Tamil Hindu citizen was converted to Buddhism? Can’t you appreciate the fact that Srilanka in the past centuries were protected by the wise counsel of the Buddhist monks during time of invasion by Indian and European invaders? Why do you and your colleagues paint a wrong picture about Buddhism and Buddhists monks to the innocent Tamil population? How more than a million non-Buddhists cohabit with Buddhists in western and other provinces? I like to remind you that Buddhism associated with tolerance made the cohabitation so peaceful and smooth. Please tell the people what happened to the Sinhalese people lived in Jaffna and have you made any sincere efforts to relocate our Muslim brethren in Jaffna and other places in north who were ethnically cleansed in early nineties? Can you remember the displaced Tamils during the 1983 communal riots having temporarily dispatched in the government ships to Jaffna and other places returned to their original homes in Colombo and suburbs within one year? Returnees  did not encounter any problems as such other than some minor nature.

(vii). I would like to present you a question many people have been asking-what is the logic behind supporting former successful Army Commander who led the security forces to wipe out terrorism, Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka at the 2010 presidential election? You have been showing the face as the protector of Tamils rights and on many forums denounce the regime of former president (though you have good relationship privately with him) for killing thousands of innocent Tamils at Mullivaikal. Field Marshall Sarah Fonseka was the Commander of the Sri Lankan army which totally annihilated the LTTE and brought peace to Srilanka. How come you and your team decided to support the candidature of the leader of the  alleged killing force?

(viii). The other day former Minister of Economic development Basil Rajapakse during an interview with Tamil media in Jaffna told that TNA never extended any support to  the Government of Mahinda Rajapakse to solve  problems encountered by the northern people. While you and your party leaders were provided full security along with other parliamentary perks by the Mahinda ‘s Government your party chose not to extend support to the Government of Mahinda.

(ix). It is very strange  you have become the custodian of Sri Lanka constitution. I put it to you, have you or your party participated in the constitution making process in 1972 and 1977. Present generation may not be aware; you have boycotted 1972 constitution enacting process. Real reason was you were worshipping British colonialist and you were against Sri Lanka becoming a real independent country. Your political bankruptcy has been exposed. Now you are the custodian of the constitution which you denounced.

Before concluding I like to reiterate Sir, You cannot fool the Tamil people forever because they have started to think differently as illustrated by the results of the February 2018 Local authorities’ election. They are ready to vote for national parties even though you label the national parties as Sinhala chauvinist parties. I want to remind that the Tamil speaking people have been living in all 25 districts in Srilanka and you may find Hindu temples, Islamic mosques, Tamil medium schools  throughout the country. However you and your colleagues try to amplify isolated incidents.

Sir, Sri Lanka, our motherland has been a unique one and the free education and other welfare measures like free health facilities uplifted and emancipated impoverished citizens irrespective of race and religion.

Please abandon your communal politics which would not bring anything other than misery to Tamil people and as a responsible political outfit try to give up communal politics and lift the Tamil people from their poverty, landlessness and unemployment.

Thank you

Dr. Palitha Kohona

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has always been firstly a patriot. His priority has been Sri Lanka and its essential interests.

As a politician he proactively reflected the wishes of the people who elected him. This is abundantly clear in the way he conducted Sri Lanka’s international relations during his tenure as President.

This is the reason why he chose to confront the entrenched terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers, whose primary objective was to dismember the country, contrary to the highly vocal counsel to the contrary from different quarters, mainly from diplomats and NGOs. The Tamil Tigers who controlled significant parts of the country at the time, possessed frightful military capabilities, including feared naval and elementary air arms and were described by the CIA as the most sophisticated terrorist group in the world. Their pioneering use of suicide bombers had instilled a sense of uncertainty and  fear throughout the country. He succeeded, and eliminated them from Sri Lanka and brought thirty years of brutal terror to an end. Once the conflict within the country was ended, he was willing to share the expertise and experience of his battle hardened military with other friendly countries confronting terrorist challenges. He was also willing to provide military forces to the the United Nations which has always been short of well trained military personnel for its peace keeping operations.

His emphasis has always been Sri Lanka and all his initiatives were taken with the objective of advancing Sri Lanka’s interests, including the interests of its labour force. The well being of the people of his country was his first priority. He sought  financial assistance from China because China was the only available source of financing for the massive development projects he had planned for post conflict Sri Lanka. Chinese assistance was sought only after unsuccessful overtures had been made to other friendly countries. But at no stage did he compromise the nation’s sovereignty or integrity. Similarly, he was not going to create situations inimical to the interests of other countries in the region while seeking assistance from China. In many instances, he invited other friendly countries to participate in Sri Lanka’s development efforts prior to seeking Chinese assistance.

By nature he has also been an internationalist who, as executive President, insisted on maintaining warm relations with all countries. He visited many countries with a view to consolidating Sri Lanka’s network of friends. During his tenure as President, he visited the US every year. While he made friends easily, they were never at the expense of the country’s essential interests. His engaging nature made it easy for him to make friends even at the personal level. As Prime Minister, he could be expected to follow a policy that emphasises the primacy of Sri Lanka’s interests while maintaining warm relations with all friendly countries.

By M D P DISSANAYAKE

Mr Jayampathy Wickremaratne’s reputation as a President Counsel is now in tatters.  He sneaked through the legislation process, by passing Supreme Court decisions, during the late mid night hours of 19^th Amendment.  He drafted Regulations approved at the Committee Stage during nights, to include the provisions Supreme Court did not give consent.   In doing do, Mr Jayampathy Wickremaratne’s shot himself in the foot. Sinhala version of the Amendments differs with the English contents as already clarified clearly by Mr Gammanpila.  In such a situation, the Sinhala version is legally enforceable, as it supersede the  English wordings.

CARD 1:

Frustrated and almost made him look like a fool for 3 years, the President Sirisena must be awarded the Best Actor prize for 2018 This mentally and physically exhausted man pulled his first Card in the Pack, sent Clayton Prime Minister Mr Wickremasinghe into doldrums. Extremists Tamils, Muslims and disgruntled few leftists in the JVP are now regularly checking their heart beat levels.

CARD 2:

The President simultaneously  installed Mr Mahinda Rajapakse as the  Second Executive Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.   The group in exile petitioned to the Supreme Court against the appointment.   The application was rejected.  .

The President  had suffered mentally and physically, the photos of President before October 26  and today, clearly display sadness vs. happiness on his face.  Mr Mahinda Rajapakse saved his life and he should be indebted to our great leader going forward.

CARD 3:

Gazetted to recall the Parliament on 14^th.  Byuing time, in the process managed to get several minor parties and UNP few members to cross over, with  announcements that working majority has been established. The genuine desire of the new Cabinet Ministers of minor is still to be tested.  In the meantime, Mr Mahinda Rajapakse is doing what he does best, just to according to your plan.  He is now a member of SLPP.

CARD 4:

At a meeting with the former Speaker Karu, President instructed the Speaker to make all arrangements to make necessary seating arrangements to the newly crowned PM.  Speaker Agreed.  Parliament staff obeyed both President’s  and former Speaker”s orders.

Karu took a U turn, as he  was blasted by expelled PM Ranil. Karu issued a statement indirectly recognizing the expelled PM.

CARD 5:

President immediately dissolved, with the strongest advise from the Prime Minister.

CARD 6:

What if in the most unlikely event the Supreme Court determine the dissolution of Parliament as null and void?

The President can call for a Referendum to be held within 36 days, to ratify the legality of dissolution and seek a mandate to hold the General Election.

සාකච්ඡා කලේ වෛද්‍ය රුවන් එම් ජයතුංග 

රෝහිත මුණසිංහ සුප්‍රකට  ලේඛකයෙකි. ඔහු ජවිපෙ හිටපු ක්‍රියාධරයෙකි. මීට මාස කීපයකට උඩදී මට රෝහිත මුණසිංහව ප්‍රංශයේ පැරිස් නගරයේදී හමු විය. පහත සාකච්ඡාව හරහා  ඔහු ජවිපෙ අභ්‍යන්තරය පිලිබඳව කතා කරයි.

1. ඔබ ජවිපෙ සාමාජිකයෙකු වන්නේ ඇයි? 

එය හේතූන් කිහිපයක එකතුවෙන් සිදුවෙන්නක්. මම හැදුනේ වැඩුණේ විශාල ඥාති මිත්‍රාදීන් පිරිසක් නිතර ආව ගිය දේශපාලන සංවාද ඇතිවුන මගේ මවගේ මහගෙදර. මේ පිරිසෙන් මගේ පියා ඇතුළු වැඩි දෙනෙකු ශ්‍රී,ල,නි,ප, පාක්ෂිකයෝ. කොමියුනිස්ට්, සමසමාජ අයත් හිටියා. මගේ පුංචි මාමා හබරාදුවේ “ප්‍රින්ස් ගුණසේකර” මහත්තය සමග දේශපාලනය කළ සමසමාජ කාරයෙක්. අපේ පරම්පරාවටම මම දැනගෙන හිටපු එකම යු,එන්,පී, කාරී මගේ අම්මා. මට මතකයි මහා මැතිවරණ වලදී අම්ම ජන්දේ දාන්න යනකොට මගේ ආච්චිලා අම්මට කියනවා “බත්ගොට්ටි, උඹ ඉතින් අලියට ගහල ඒවි. ඊට වැඩිය හොඳයි ගෙදරට වෙලා ඉඳපන්” කියල.  යමක් කමක් තේරෙන කාලේ ඉඳලම මට හිතුනේ සමාජවාදය හොඳ දෙයක්. යු,එන්,පිය නරක මිනිස්සු ඉන්න පක්ෂයක් කියලයි. දෙවනුව, මම මාතර ශාන්ත තෝමසයේ 10 වැනි ශ්‍රේණියේ ඉන්න කොට ජවිපෙට සම්බන්ධ වුන යාලුවෙක් මගේ පන්තියේම හිටිය.( එයා 71 කැරැල්ල ට සම්බන්ධ වෙලා අතුරුදහන්ව ඉඳලා අවුරුදු 10 කට පස්සේ ජවිපෙ කළුතර දිසා ලේකම් ලෙස මට හමුවුණා. මම එතකොට වැලිගම සංවිධායක)  තෙවනුව, පාසල් වියේ ඉඳලම මම සෝවියට් සාහිත්‍ය පොත පතට ආශක්ත වුණා. “වානේ පන්නරය ලැබූ හැටි” කියවලා “පාවෙල් කොර්චාගින්” වගේ අපේ රටත් සමාජවාදෙන් ගොඩ නගන්න ඇත්නම් කියල හිතුනා.  වයස අවුරුදු 12 දී මගේ හොඳම යාලුවා උනේ හේවිසි ගහන පරම්පරාවක ළමයෙක්. දවසක් ඔහු අපේ ගෙදරට කැඳවා ගෙන ඇවිල්ල ඉස්තෝප්පුවේ ලොකු පුටුවක වාඩි කරවපු දවසේ මගේ වැඩිහිටියෝ මට දොස් කියපු වෙලාවේ  මගේ හිත හොඳටම රිදුන. ඒත් මම යාළුකම අත් හරියේ නෑ.( ඔහු පිළිකාවක් හැදිලා වයස 40 දී විතර මියගියා. නැත්නම් අදටත් ඔහු මගේ හොඳම මිත්‍රය) එසේම, අපේ ගෙදර කිළුටු රෙදි ගෙනියන්න එන උස-මහත ඩොබි මාමට වාඩිවෙන්න පුටු භාගයක් දෙන කොටත් මගේ හිත තදට රිදුන. මම එයට විරෝධය ත් පෑවා. ඒ අභිමානවත් මනුස්සය හිටගෙනම ඉඳල ගියා මිසක් කවදාවත් පුංචි පුටුවේ වාඩි උනේ නැහැ. සිව්වෙනි හේතුව මම අත් දැකපු ඒ වගේ සමාජ අසාධාරණ වෙන්න ඇති.  පස්වෙනුව, අපේ අසල් වැසියෙකුව හිටපු කොස්තාපල් කෙනෙක් පුද්ගලික කාරණාවකට මා සමග තරහ වෙලා මම චේගුවේර කාරයෙක් කියල  හංවඩු ගැහුවා.  හයවෙනුව, 1976 දී ගමනායක සහෝදරයා වැලිගම ට ඇවිල්ල අපේ ගෙවල් ළඟ පිට්ටනියේ රැස්වීමක් තිබ්බ. එතැනදී “කතරගම සිරිපාල නෙත්තිකුමාර” කියන හොඳ සහෝදරයා මට හම්බ වුණා. කොහොමටත් ඒ වෙනකොට මට විප්ලවවාදී ගාය හැදිලයි තිබුණේ.  

2.ඔබ ජවිපෙ පූර්ණ කාලීනයෙකු වෙන්නේ කොහොමද? 

මම එවිට අර්ධ කාලීනව වැඩ කළ සාමාජිකයෙක්. 1980 දී විතර පක්ෂයේ නායකයන්ගේ ගමන් බිමන් සඳහා කාර් කිහිපයක් ගත්තා. රෝහණ සහෝදරයට එකක්, බෝපගේ සහෝදරයට එකක් වශයෙන්. දවසක්, මාතර උයන්වත්ත පිට්ටනියේ පවත්වපු මහා රැස්වීමකට ආපු රෝහණ සහෝදරයා මේ කාර් එකෙන් රැස්වීම් භූමියටම ඇවිල්ල බැස්ස. “පොල්හේනේ යසන්තල” වගේ මෝටර් සයිකල් තිබුණ සහෝදරවරු කාර් එක ඉදිරියෙන් සහ දෙපසින් ආරක්ෂක භටයෝ වගේ ආව. කවුද සහෝදරයෙක් පැනල ලොකු මහත්තයට බහින්න දොරත් ඇරලා දුන්න. මේවා රෝහණ සහෝදරයා කියල කරපු දේවල් නෙවි. අනිත් අයට හිතිලා කරපු දේවල්. හැබැයි එයා ඒවා ඉවසුවා.   ඒත් මේ අපි පාරවල් ගානේ කැටවලට සල්ලි එකතු කරන කාලේ නිසා සාමාන්‍ය මිනිස්සුන්ට පේන්න රැස්වීම් භූමියටම ඇවිල්ල කාර් එකෙන් බහින එක මට ලස්සනට පෙනුණේ නෑ.  එතකොට වැලිගම සංවිධායක” නෙත්තිකුමාර.” මම මේ කාර් ප්‍රශ්නය ගැන නෙත්තිට තද විවේචනයක් ඉදිරිපත් කරලා ඒ විවේචනය පක්ෂ මුලස්ථානයට ලිඛිතවත් ඉදිරිපත් කළා. ඒක පත්තු වෙලා ගිහින් මාතර දිස්ත්‍රික් කමිටුවේත් ලොකු කැළඹීමක් ඇතිවෙලා. ඊට පස්සේ මාතර දිස්ත්‍රික්කේ ආසන හතේම අර්ධ කාලීන- පූර්ණ කාලීන සියල්ල රැස් කරලා අභ්‍යන්තර සාකච්ජාවක් තියල රෝහණ සහෝදරයා පැහැදිලි කළා ඇයි වාහන පාවිච්චි කරන්නේ කියල. “සහෝදරවරු කියනවා නම් මම වෙනද වගේ කෝච්චියේ, බස් එකේ යන්නම්. මට දුක මේවා අපේ සහෝදරවරු ම කියන එකටයි කියල හොඳටම ඇඩුවා. අපිටත් කඳුළු වැටුණා. ඊට පස්සේ රෝහණ සහෝදරයා මට කිව්වා,” රෝහිත සහෝදරයා අද ඉඳන් පූර්ණ කාලීනව පක්ෂේ වැඩ කරන්න ඕන” කියල. මම මේ කියන කතාව ඇත්ත බව දන්න කිහිප දෙනෙක් ඉන්නවා. ලයනල් බෝපගේ, කතරගම නෙත්තිකුමාර, අමරදාස කුරුප්පු, ආරියදාස රණවක යන සහෝදරවරු සහ කුසුමා බුද්ධිකෝරාළ සහෝදරිය.   

3. ඔබ ජවිපෙ තුළ කොපමණ කාලයක් හිටියද? ඔබගේ ප්‍රධාන අත්දැකීම් මොනවාද?

1976 සිට 1993 දක්වා. අවුරුදු 16 ක් පමණ. 1984 සිට 89 දක්වා සිටියේ ත්‍රස්තවාදයට හා පුද්ගල ඝාතන වලට එරෙහි වූ පාක්ෂිකයකු ලෙස. එසේ සිටිමින් එවිට පැරිසියේ ගොඩ  නැගෙමින් තිබු ජවිපෙ හිතවාදී කණ්ඩායම සහ පක්ෂය අතර සම්බන්ධීකරණ කටයුතු කළේ මම.  අද පරපුර නමින් හා පින්තුර වලින් පමණක් දැන සිටින “රෝහණ විජේවීර, ලයනල් බෝපගේ, දයා වන්නිආරච්චි, සෝමවංශ අමරසිංහ, ඇල්ගිරියේ ප්‍රේමචන්ද්‍ර මුණසිංහ, කතරගම සිරිපාල නෙත්තිකුමාර, තල්පාවිල ධර්මේ, සහ වෙනත් නායකයන් සමග වැඩ කිරීමට ලැබීම. පොලිසි,හිරගෙවල්,හමුදා කඳවුරු, වධකාගාර වල අත්දැකීම් ලැබීම. (භාවිතාව) = ජවිපෙ දෙස පිටත සිට බලා සිටින කෙනෙකුට පෙනෙන ඉහළ තක්සේරුව මායාවක් බව එහි අභන්තරයට ගියවිට අත්විඳ ගැනීමට ලැබීම ප්‍රධානයි.    

4. ජවිපෙ අභන්තරය විස්තර කරන්න පුලුවන්ද? 

පොතක් ලියන්න ප්‍රමාණවත් කරුණු තියෙනවා. ඉහළම නායකයාගේ සිට පහළම සාමාජිකයා දක්වා තිබුණේ අධිතක්සේරුව, අතිශයෝක්තිය, ප්‍රදර්ශනාත්මක බොළඳ බව හා  තමන්ම ඒ සිහින මායාවේ  ගිලී සිටින ස්වභාවය. ගුණ යහපත්, අවංක, එඩිතර සහෝදර සහෝදරියන් රාශියක් හිටියා. කාගේත් ඉංග්‍රීසි දැනුම, න්‍යායික දැනුම අන්තිම දුර්වලයි. තර්ක ශාස්ත්‍රය සහ කටින් ගසා ජය ගැනීම හරි ඉහළයි. කැපවීම අනර්ඝයි.  ප්‍රධාන සූත්‍රය තමයි නායකයන් කියන දේවල් කමිටු හරහා පහළට ගලා එමින් පුනරුච්චාරණය වීම සහ යට තියන සංක්‍යා ලේඛන ඉහළට ගොස් නායකයන් මුලාවීම. පහළ සාමාජිකයන්  හිතාගෙන හිටියේ නායකයන් සියලු දේ දන්නවා කියල. නායකයන් හිතාගෙන හිටියේ පහළ සාමාජිකයන් හැමදෙයම ඉටු කරයි කියල. අන්තිමට බලන කොට දෙගොල්ලන්ම දන්නේ නැහැ.   

5. බිම් මට්ටමේ සාමාජිකයන් සහ නායකයන් අතර වෙනස කුමක්ද?

 නායකයන් ළඟ නිලධාරිවාදය ගොඩ නැගීමේ මූලික අවස්තාව ඇතිවී තිබුණා. පසුව ඝාතනයට ලක් උනත් 88-89 කාලේ වුවත් නායකයෝ තම දරු පවුල් සමග ගෙවල් දොරවල් වල හොඳින් හිටියා. ඔවුන්ට පහසුකම් සැපයීම වෙනුවෙනුත් සාමාජිකයෝ දිවි පිදුවා. එක් අයෙකු තමයි “තල්පාවිල ධර්මේ” බිම් මට්ටමේ සාමාජිකයෝ කන්න දෙයක්, නිදා ගන්න තැනක්, අතේ සතයක් නැතිව මාරාන්තික දුකක් එක්ක නායකයෝ කියන කියන විදියට සටන් කළා.  ඒක අදත් එහෙමයි. බලන්න අද ජවිපෙ නායකයෝ දිහා! පත්තරවල යනවා ඔවුන් පෙට්ටි කඩේකින් බත් පාර්සලයක් අරගෙන බෙදාගෙන කනහැටි! ඒත් “වෝටර්ස් එජ්” වගේ  හෝටල්වල ඉන්න පින්තුර වැටෙන්නේ නැහැ. නිර්ධන පන්ති ජනතාවගේ දහදිය සුවද විදින්න බස් එකක තෙරපිලා යන එක නායකයෙක් කාටවත් හමුවෙලා තියනවද? ආණ්ඩු පක්ෂෙ එවුන් මහජන මුදලින් රට සවාරි යනවා වගේම, බැලුවොත්  ජවිපෙ නායකයන්ගෙන් කවුරුම හරි කොහේ හරි පිට රටක! ඒවා සම්මන්ත්‍රණ! විදේශීය ශාඛා වලින් ලැබුණ ආරාධනාලු! 

6.රෝහණ  විජේවීර පිලිබඳ ඔබේ තක්සේරුව කුමක්ද? ඔහුගේ දක්ෂතා සහ දුර්වලකම් මොනවාද? 

මම මේ ප්‍රශ්න දෙකටම එක පිළිතුරක් දෙන්නම්. රෝහණ විජේවීර  කියන්නේ (අපිට) සිංහලෙනුයි ග්‍රීක් වලිනුයි ලියපු පොතක් කියවනවා වගෙයි. ඔහු අසාමාන්‍ය චරිතයක්! අපි සාමාන්‍ය මිනිස්සු කොහොමත් සාමාන්‍ය වගේ ඒ වගේ අසාමාන්‍ය චරිත ඇතුළේ තියෙන්නෙත් අසාමාන්‍ය චරිත ලක්ෂණ. ඔහු අතිශය දක්ෂ වගේම දුර්වල මනුෂ්‍ය ආත්මයක්! මොන විදියකින් හරි ඔහු රටේ පාලකය වුණා නම් කවදාක හරි ලියවෙන ඉතිහාසයේදී ඔහු ජනතාවගේ ආදරණීය මතකයක් වෙන්නේ නැහැ.  

7.ඔබගේ පොතෙන් හෙළි කරනවා විජේවීරගේ අනියම් බිරිඳක් ව සිටි “මොරීන්” නම් කාන්තාවක් ගැන! ඇයව ලිංගිකව සූරා කාගෙන අවසානයේ ඇයට CIA කාර්ඩ් එකක් ගසා පලවා හරිනවා. මොකක්ද මේ සිද්ධිය?  

රෝහණ සහෝදරයා මුහුණ හෝදපු වතුර බේසමට වස දාලා ඔහු මරන්න යොදවපු CIA කාරියෙක් අහුවුණා. ඔහු මුහුණ හෝදන්න කලින් බේසමෙන් වතුර බීපු පොල්කිච්චෙක් මැරිලා වැටුණ නිසා ඔහුගේ ජීවිතය බේරා ගන්න පුළුවන් වුණා. මේ 1981 හෝ 82 දී අපේ කමිටු හරහාම පක්ෂයේ ඉහළින් අපිට එවූ කතාවක්. පක්ෂයේ සාමාජිකයන් සියයට 99ක් මේ කතාව විශ්වාස කළා. ඒත් මෙතැන තියෙන්නේ වෙන කතාවක් කියල මට තොරතුරු ලැබුණේ මගේ මිතුරෙකු ගෙන්. ඔහු තමයි එවිට ජවිපෙ “RED POWER ” ඉංග්‍රීසි පත්‍රයේ සියලු ලිපි සකස් කළේ. ඔහු පක්ෂෙට දුන්නේ මමයි. 2006 දී මගේ “ජවිපෙ සැඟවුණ ඉතිහාසයන් බිඳක්” පොත පිට වුණා. එහි මෙම සිද්ධිය ඇතුළත් වුණා. ඕස්ට්‍රේලියාවේ පළ කරන “සන්නස” සිංහල පුවත් පතේ මගේ පොත කොටස් වශයෙන් සම්පුර්ණයෙන් පළ වුණා.” ලයනල් බෝපගේ ” සහෝදරයා පදිංචි ඕස්ට්‍රේලියාවේ නිසා මගේ පොතේ ඔහු ගැන වූ වෙන සටහනකින් සිත රිදවා ගෙන අපි දෙදෙනා අතර ඇතිවූ විවාදයේදී මේ සිද්ධියේ අපි නොදැන සිටි කරුණු සම්පුර්ණයෙන් හෙළි කරමින් “විජේවීර-මොරීන්” පොල්කිචි කතාවට සුජාත භාවයක් ලබා දුන්නේ ඔහුයි. බෝපගේ එහිදී ප්‍රකාශ කරනවා එවිට සිටි ප්‍රධාන ලේකම් වශයෙන් විජේවීර සහෝදරයට විරුද්ධව විනය පරීක්ෂණය පැවැත්වුයේ ඔහු බව හා දෙදෙනාගේම කැමැත්තෙන් ඒ අනියම් සම්බන්ධය පවත්වා ගෙන ගිය බව රෝහණ සහෝදරයා පිළිගත් බව. නිකම් නෙවෙයි, එය සාධාරණීය කරන්න තර්ක රාශියක් ඉදිරිපත් කරලා බැරි උනාට පස්සේ. ඒත් වැඩේ වැරදුනාම පව් කාරිය කරලා ගල් ගැහුවේ මොරීන්ට. මගේ “මර්දනය සඳහා කැරැල්ලක් ඕනා කර තිබේ”  පොතේ බෝපගේ සහෝදරයා හා මා අතර සිදුවූ විවාදය පළවී තිබෙනවා. විජේවීර විතරක් නොවෙයි විප්ලවීය සදාචාරයේදී මුහුණු දෙකක් පැළද ගෙන දෙබිඩි රඟපෑම් කළ ජවිපෙ මනමාල  නායකයන් ගැන මම තව තොරතුරු දන්නවා. ඇතැම් ඒවා අදහන්නත් බැරි, කියන්නත් ලජ්ජා ඒවා. බලය ලැබුනට පස්සේ මේ ආණ්ඩුවල ඉන්න සල්ලාලයෝ කරන දේවල් වලයි බලයක් නැතුවම ජවිපෙ නායකයෝ කරපු දේවල් වලයි වැඩි වෙනසක් නැහැ.(හැමෝම නෙවෙයි) ඒ අතින් ලයනල් බෝපගේ කියන්නේ පක්ෂේ හිටපු චරිතවත්, අවංක පෙම්වතෙක්. නෙත්තිකුමාර වගේ සහෝදරයෝ අදහන්න වටින චරිතවත් මිනිස්සු! 

8. ඔබ කියන්නේ ලිංගික අපගමනීය චර්යාවන් තිබු පුද්ගලයන් ජවිපෙ නායකත්වය තුළ සිටියා කියාද? මේ සඳහා ඔබ ඉදිරිපත් කරන සාධක මොනවාද? 

ඔව් දේශපාලන මණ්ඩලයේම හිටියා. සාධක තිබුණත් හැමදෙයම කියන්න බැහැ. දැන් ජීවතුන් අතර නැති ඔවුන්ට මට පිළිතුරු දිය නොහැකි නිසා නම් වශයෙන් කියන එක සාධාරණ නැහැ. නායකයා ජීවතුන්  අතර නැතත් ඔහු පවත්වපු අනියම් ලිංගික ඇසුර දැන් ප්‍රසිද්ධ කාරණාවක් නිසා  ඒක කියන්න බාධාවක් නැහැ. තව නායකයෙක් ඝාතනය වනවිට ඔහු අතින් තරුණියක් ගැබ්ගෙන සිටියා. රෝහණ සහෝදරයාගේ අංක එකේ සගයෙකු වන දිසා ලේකම් කෙනෙකු 80 ගණන් වලදී පක්ෂ නායකයෙකුගේ නංගි කෙනෙකුගෙන් මට කිස් එකක් දෙන්න පුලුවන්ද කියල අහල ඒ සහෝදරී එය මම හිටිය ආසන  කමිටුවට පැමිණිලි කළා. පසුව දිස්ත්‍රික් කමිටුව තීරණය කළේ එය ඒ සහෝදරීගේ බොරුවක් කියල. මේ සටහන දුටුවොත් ඒ සහෝදරී පිළිගනීවි මම කියන්නේ ඇත්ත කියල. නිකමට හිතන්න රාජපක්ෂ සහෝදරයෙක් තමන්ගේ “පුංචි අම්ම ” එක්ක විවාහ වෙලා  හිටිය නම් ජවිපෙ මොනවා නොකියයිද? 

9. ජවිපෙ නායකයෙකු වූ නලින්ද ජයතිස්ස සමරිසියන් ගේ අයිතිවාසිකම් හෙලා දකිනවා. මේ තත්වය ඔබ දකින්නේ කොහොමද?

ඒක එයාගේ පුද්ගලික මතය හෝ ජවිපෙ මතය උනත් ඒක ලංකාවේ දුප්පත් ජනතාවගේ දැවෙන ජීවන ප්‍රශ්නයක් නෙවි නිසා මට නම් එය වැදගත් නැහැ.එහෙම ඇසුරකට කවුරු හරි කැමති නම් ඒක එයාගේ පුද්ගලික ප්‍රශ්නයක්. ඒවා මිනිස්සුන්ගේ නිදන කාමරවල ප්‍රශ්න! පැරිසියේ, ශතලේ ප්‍රදේශයේ “මෝවේස් ගාර්සොන්” මාවත තියන  මුළු කලාපෙම ප්‍රසිද්ධ සමලිංගික ඇසුර ප්‍රිය කරන අය මුණ ගැසෙන කලාපයක් ලෙස. ප්‍රංශයට ඒවා ප්‍රශ්න නෙවෙයි. මොකද මේවා නියම සිස්ටම් එකකට දුවන දියුණු රටවල්. ලංකාවටත් ඕන හොඳ සිස්ටම් එකක්. එතකොට ඕවා ප්‍රශ්න නෙවෙයි. මම පොඩි කතාවක් කියන්නම්. ජවිපෙ හිටපු දිසා ලේකම් කෙනෙකු වන “රන්ජිත් පීරිස්” සම ලිංගික ඇසුරට තදින් ඇබ්බැහි වුවෙකු බව විජේවීරත් දැනගෙන හිටියා. විජේවීරට එය ප්‍රශ්නයක් වුණේ නැහැ.දවසක් මොකක් හරි වැඩකට රන්ජිත් පීරිස් හෝ  තවත් අයෙකු යවන්න ඕන උන වෙලාවේ ” හරි කවුද යන්නේ කියල බලන්න අපි ගලද? මලද? කියල බලමු.” කියල අත් දෙක මිට මොලවා ගෙන කතිරයක් වගේ තියා ගත්ත විජේවීර, “තමුසේ නම් ඉතින් කොහොමත් තෝර ගන්නේ ගල තමයි කිව්වලු. විජේවීර ඒ වගේ විහිළු කරන  කෙනෙක්.  

10. ජවිපෙ ෆුල් ටයිමර් කෙනෙකුගේ ජීවිතය විස්තර කරන්න පුලුවන්ද?

ෆුල් ටයිමර් කෙනෙක් කියන්නේ පක්ෂේ සංවිධාන ව්‍යුහය ඇතුළේ ඉන්න කාඩර්වරයෙක්. ඔහු අඩුම තරමින් ආසන කමිටුවේ නියෝජිතයෙක් වෙන්න ඕන. මූලික පන්ති පහට පස්සේ දින 8 අද්‍යාපන කඳවුර, හැකිනම්, සති 4 ජාතික කඳවුර ට සහභාගී වෙන්න ඕන.පක්ෂය කියන ඕනෑම ප්‍රදේශයක වැඩට යා යුතුයි. පවරන  ඕනෑම කාර්යයක් කළ යුතුයි. කිසිම ගෙවීමක් නැහැ. පුළුවන් තරම් “කොකු” ගහල සාමාජිකයෝ එකතු කරගෙන ඔවුන් දෙන කෑම බීම වලින්,ඇඳුම් පැළඳුම් වලින්, බස් ගාස්තු වලින් යැපෙන්න ඕන. ධර්මය ප්‍රචාරය කරන ගමන් පිණ්ඩපාතයෙන් යැපෙන භික්ෂූන්ගේ ආදර්ශ චර්යාවෙන් තමයි පූර්ණ කාලීනයා කියන චරිතය ගොඩ නැගුවේ. අද විහාරස්තාන වලට වෙලා දානය ලැබෙන තුරු බලා ඉන්න හාමුදුරුවරු මිසක් පිණ්ඩපාතේ වඩින්නේ කීයෙන් කී දෙනෙක්ද? විවාහ නොවුන තරුණ සාමාජිකයන්ට ෆුල් ටයිමර් දුක කාලයක් දරා ගන්න පුළුවන්. විවාහක, දරුවන් ඉන්න, වෙන ආදායමක් නැති අයට හැමදේම අනුන්ගෙන් ලැබෙන තුරු බලාගෙන ඉන්න පුලුවන්ද? ඒක මොන ජීවිතයක්ද? ජවිපෙ නායකයෝ තමයි තමන් යැපෙන්නේ  එහෙමයි කියන්නේ!!!. ඒක පට්ටපල් බොරුවක්. කිසිම ප්‍රායෝගික බවක් නැති, තර්කානුකූල නැති කතාවක්. 

11. විප්ලවය පිට දමා කළ මිනීමැරුම්,, මංකොල්ල කෑම් සහ පුද්ගලික උවමනාවන් වලට ඒවා කළ පිරිස් ගැන ඔබගේ අදහස? 

පුද්ගල ඝාතනය ත්‍රස්තවාදයක් කියල මම පිළිගන්න නිසා කොන්දේසි විරහිතව එයට විරුද්ධයි. ජවිපෙ විප්ලවය වෙනුවෙන් මංකොල්ල කෑම් වලින් මුදල් හොයන්න පටන් ගත්තේ JR ගේ පාලනය ඔවුන් අසාධාරණ ලෙස තහනම් කරලා, නීත්‍යානුකූල මාර්ග අහුරපු නිසා. අවසාන අරමුණ යහපත් නිසා විප්ලවය වෙනුවෙන් ගන්න ඕනෑම පියවරක් සාධාරණයි කියන මතයකුත් තියෙනවා. 1988-89 කාලේදී ජවිපෙ හැර පාදඩ නිර්ධන පන්තියේ විවිධ කොටස් මේ මංකොල්ල කෑම් කෙරුවා. හොඳයි! කොහොම වෙතත් මංකොල්ල කෑම් අනුමත කරන්න බැහැ කියමු.  විප්ලවය වෙනුවෙන් මංකොල්ල කෑම් කරන මිනිස්සු ඒවා කරන්නේ තමන්ගේ ජීවිතය පවා විප්ලවය වෙනුවෙන් පූජා කරමින්! ඒක සෙල්ලමක් නෙවි. එතකොට, මහජනයා ගේ ජන්ද වලින් බලයට ඇවිල්ල නීත්‍යානුකූල විදියට තෙල් සංස්ථාව, සතොස, මහා බැංකුව සහ රටේ වෙනත් දේවල් කෝටි ප්‍රකෝටි වලින් මංකොල්ල කාල කිසි දඩුවමක් නැතුව යහතින් ඉන්න දේශපාලුවෝ ගැන මොනවාද හිතන්න ඕන? ඒ දෙකෙන් වඩාත් අවලස්සන, නිර්ලජ්ජිත, පාහර වැඩේ මොකක්ද?     

12)  ජවිපෙන් ඉවත් වන පුද්ගලයන් ද්‍රෝහියන් ලෙස ලේබල් කිරීම සහ සමහරක් විට ඔවුන්ව ඝාතනය කිරීම ගැන ඔබ සිතන්නේ කුමක්ද? 

එය ජවිපෙට තියන බරපතල රෝගයක් සහ භීතිකාවක්. සාමාන්‍යයෙන් ලංකාවේ වෙන දේශපාලන පක්ෂවල ද්‍රෝහියෝ නැහැ. ඔවුන් වෙන් වෙනවා. එකතු වනවා.තරහ වෙනවා. යාලු වෙනවා. සදාකාලික වයිරක්කාරයෝ නැහැ. ඔය ද්‍රෝහියෝ කියන වචනය තොග ගණනින් නිෂ්පාදනය කරන ෆැක්ටරිය අයිති ජවිපෙට. නායකයෝ කිව්වම සාමාජිකයොත් ගිරව් වගේ ඔහේ කියනවා. තේරුමක් නැහැ. 1971 ලොකු අතුලගෙන් පටන් අරගෙන 1989 දී ජවිපෙ නියෝග නොතකා බස් එලවපු ඩ්‍රයිවර්ලා, තේ දළු නෙලපු කම්කරුවෝ, ගෙවල් වල ලාම්පු පත්තු කරපු මිනිස්සු සේරම ද්‍රෝහියෝ වුණා. ඒත් සැබෑම ද්‍රෝහියෝ හිටියේ ජවිපෙ ඇතුළෙමයි. දිගට හරහට පාවා දීල මුළු දේශපාලන මණ්ඩලයයි, මද්‍ය කමිටුවයි හමුදාවට අල්ලලා දුන්නේ කවුද? ජවිපෙම නායකයෝ. එතකොට එයාල ද්‍රෝහියෝ නෙවෙයිද?  හමුදාවෙන් පඩි අරගෙන පාවා දෙන ජොබ් එක කරපු වාස් තිලකරත්න කවුද? ජවිපෙ නිෂ්පාදනයක්! හිටපු දේශපාලන මණ්ඩල සභිකයෙක්! සෝමවංශ අමරසිංහ ජවිපෙන් ගිහිල්ල අනුර කුමාරට ප්‍රසිද්ධියේම තක්කඩියෙක්, බොරුකාරයෙක් කියල බැන්න. (දෙරණ 360) වෙනම පක්ෂයකුත් හදාගෙන අන්තිමට මහින්දගේ වේදිකාවටත් නැග්ග. අන්න එතැනදී විතරක් සෝමවංශට ද්‍රෝහියා කියන්න ජවිපෙ බයවුණා. කුමාර් ගුණරත්නම් ආණ්ඩුවට අල්ලලා දෙන්න අනුර කුමාර ගෝටාභය රාජපක්ෂට ඔත්තු දුන්න. එතකොට අනුර කුමාර මොකෙක්ද? හබරාදුවේ ජෝර්ජ් රත්නායක, නන්දන මාරසිංහ, විජය කුමාරතුංග, ප්‍රේමකීර්ති ද අල්විස් ද්‍රෝහියෝ කියල මරල දාන්න ජවිපෙට තිබුන අයිතිය මොකක්ද? ඒ කරපු කාලකණ්නි අපරාධ වල සාපය අද පවා ජවිපෙ පසු පස්සේ පන්නගෙන එන්නේ නැද්ද?

By G. H. Peiris Courtesy The Island

The ‘Opinion’ co-authored by Professors Savitri Goonesekere and Camena Guneratne titled ‘Constitutional Governance in a Parliamentary Democracy’ (The Island of 7 November) is the third in a series of attacks by the ‘Friday Forum’ on President Sirisena’s alleged violation of the constitution. In the present onslaught, there is a shift of focus from their earlier advocacy of employing the ‘objective and intention’ of the framers for determining the impact of a disputed constitutional provision, to highlighting the preeminence of Article 33 A of the ‘19th Amendment’ which stipulates that the President “shall be responsible to parliament for the due exercise, performance and discharge of his powers, duties and functions under the Constitution”. Claiming that “it is parliament that must decide whether he has acted lawfully from the 26th of October 2018”, the two professorsurge the immediate summoning of the prorogued parliament without waiting until the 14th of November (as notified by the President) so as to enable the parliament to decide whether the ‘regime change’ the president initiated and his prorogation of parliament constitute violations of the Constitution.

Parliamentary and Presidential Powers

A component of the Goonesekere-Guneratne submissions that lacks clarity relates to the interpretation accorded to the phrase “shall be responsible to parliament”. Does this phrase mean that the president requires prior or postfactum parliamentary approval for exercising his powers, duties and functions – in short, did the ‘19thA’ enforce a transfer of presidential powers to the parliament?If it is ex post facto approval that are referred to in the submissions, is there any constitutional stipulation on how soon the president must seek such approval?

Having carefully gone through the Constitution of Sri Lanka as it stands at present (with all its amendments) I do not find any departure from the stipulation that the powers of adjudication over constitutional disputes are vested exclusively in the Supreme Court and not in the parliament. Indeed an implicit acknowledgement of this fact in the somewhat ludicrous professorial ‘alternative’ suggested for avertingthe crisis is “for the President to go before the Supreme Court, the third agency that represents the sovereignty of the people under Article 4 of the Constitution, and seek a clarification on the lawfulness of his action in this time of crisis”– a pronouncement endorsed by the entire ‘Friday Forum’ galaxy! If they actually believe in what the professorial duo say about this ‘Crisis’, one wonders why they have refrained from submitting their grievance to the Supreme Court?

Misrepresentation of the relevant Constitutional Provisions

I am reluctantly compelled to state that there is an element of intellectual dishonesty in the attempt made in this ‘Opinion’ to sanctify the Article 33A and to elevate it to the status of an overarching provision, and to link it to the principle of ‘Rule of Law’ that has been universally recognised as a corner-stone of democratic governance (which I was taught in the HSC course on ‘Government’) even before my first year at the university.

The version of the Constitution that could be accessed through the ‘Parliament’ website indicated how that Article has been incorporated

Paragraph 6 of ‘19A’ reads as follows:

6. The following Article is hereby inserted immediately after Article 33, and shall have effect as Article 33A of the Constitution:-

33A. The President shall be responsible to Parliament for the due exercise, performance and discharge of his powers, duties and functions under the Constitution and any written law, including the law for the time being relating to public security.”

THERE IS NO MENTION IN THIS PARAGRAPH THAT THE ENTIRE ARTICLE 33 IS REPEALED.This is confirmed by the fact that in the document published as The Constitution of the Democratic, Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka by the government after the insertion of the foregoing amendment, Article 33 in May 2015 reads as follows:

33. (1)It shall be the duty of the President to –

(a) ensure that the Constitution is respected and upheld;

(b) promote national reconciliation and integration;

(c) ensure and facilitate the proper functioning of the Constitutional Council and the institutions referred to in Chapter VIIA; and

(d) on the advice of the Election Commission, ensure the creation of proper conditions for the conduct of free and fair elections and referenda.

(2) 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 –

(a) to make the Statement of Government Policy in Parliament at the commencement of each session of Parliament;

(b) to preside at ceremonial sittings of Parliament;

(c)to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament; (my emphasis)

(d) to receive and recognize, and to appoint and accredit Ambassadors, High Commissioners, Plenipotentiaries and other diplomatic agents…

Why is it that the two spokespersons made no comment on 33 (2) c?

If I have made an error here, I shall be most grateful for a well-informed correction.

Misunderstanding the Nature of the Crisis

I fully agree with what the ‘Friday Forum’ has said about the existence of a crisis. There is so obviously a crisis (stemming from geopolitical considerations) for those who installed the Yahapalana regime in 2015 – the more powerful members of the NATO, their allies and their lackeys (including those of the Colombo-based NGOs); the Modi government of India (referred to in an article authored by an Indian scholar which I have cited elsewhere); the pro-secessionist outfits in the “Diaspora”; and those whom the LTTE installed in the political mainstreams of Sri Lanka. There is also a crisis of sorts by those who secured prestigious posts in State-sector institutions as rewards from their political masters for loyalty and support. The seriousness of the crisis varies. Perhaps the most calamitous prospects are faced by several persons in the elite levels of the ousted regime who are likely to be called upon to answer for the damage they have caused to the nation, their abuse of power and their vindictiveness at a personal plane.

The irony I see in the Goonesekera-Guneratne ‘Opinion’ is their disregard of the fact that President Sirisena’s reforms were intended to avert an aggravating crisis. Even if the ‘Friday Forum’ does not care a damn about the alleged assassination plot, the unprecedented scale of the ‘Central Bank Scam’ and several other large-scale financial misdeeds such as those involving the airline and the Kerawalpitiya power plant, the imprisonment of members of the security forces who are regarded by the overwhelming majority of our people as “national heroes” who saved the country from peril,mainly for the appeasement of the western powers to whom the Wickremesinghe administration has made absurd commitments (while certain unrepentant collaborators with LTTE by word and deed have rewarded with all manner of favours), the bilateral economic agreements the former has entered into with the backing of only his close circle of cronies, the members of the ‘Forum’, if they wish to safeguard their self-respect, cannot ignore considerations such as the denial of the democratic rights of the people by the absurd delay of the Provincial Council elections, the evidence of the huge erosion of people’s support to the UNP indicated both by the Local Government polls of February this year, as well as the seething unrest at almost all levels of our society generated by the maladministration of the ousted regime.

By Laksiri Fernando Courtesy The Island

November 11, 2018, 9:12 pm

Have you heard about the Orange Book Liberal, Nick Clegg? He is in our constitution, having stealthily creeped in through the 19th Amendment in Article 70. Luckily, most strange (or Orange) theories are still in Ranil Wickremesinghe’s (RW) head and not in the constitution.

Can you remember that he (RW) touted the idea of an executive prime ministerial system in the late 1990s? He did that based on the system in Israel at that time (1992-2003), but Israel itself has since changed the idea after disastrous results. Nevertheless he continued with the idea and tried his best to implant some of the elements through the 19th Amendment.

Ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, flanked by his aides, acknowledging crowds that had gathered to protest against his removal, in Colombo.

RW says that the “constitution doesn’t make provisions for personal prejudices,” as if to spite Maithripala Sirisena (MS). He only wants the constitution to work for his personal interests.

RW’s Hindu Interview

The recent most evidence of these strange orange theories is in the interview RW has given to The Hindu (reproduced in ‘The Island’ today, 9 November 2018). The following is the key paragraph from the report.

“Mr. Wikremesinghe, who has pegged his chances entirely to a floor test, has ruled out a court appeal on the matter, citing the Parliament’s “supreme judicial powers.” Reiterating the position, he said: “Even if you go to court they will send you back to parliament on this matter. We are different from yours [Indian context].”

According to RW, ‘we are different to the Indian democracy,’ not because of Sri Lanka’s presidential system, but because of his ‘imaginary parliamentary supremacy’ and subordination of the judiciary to it. Parliamentary supremacy was there in the 1972 Constitution, yet subordinated to the sovereignty of the people, but not in the 1978 Constitution even after the 19th Amendment.

There is nothing particularly wrong in pegging his or any other’s political chances entirely on the floor test. But if he wanted to question or challenge the constitutionality of his dismissal, he should have gone before the Supreme Court.

RW and his supporters, also in the ‘civil society’ sector, are obviously expressing an understandable political disappointment or despair on the Prime Minister’s dismissal by the President. But that is not a constitutional argument. According to Articles 125 of the Constitution, “the Supreme Court shall have sole and exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine any question relating to the interpretation of the Constitution…” That is the right place to go without creating instability and chaos.

This is the matter that Wickremesinghe has shied away in the ‘The Hindu’ interview, lamely saying, “We are different from yours.” That is not true. In respect of the interpretation of the Constitution, the role of the judiciary, and the importance and independence of the judiciary, we are the same as India. RW or his supporters cannot snatch that judicial powers from the Supreme Court saying “we are different.”

Wickremesinighe has taken matters to himself (a lawyer of course) also saying “Even if you go to court they will send you back to parliament.” How does he know? Why does he hesitate? Why not test? Why create instability, chaos, now violence in the country instead?

Role of the Speaker

There are other strange and untested constitutional theories that have been put forward by several sections of society regarding the ‘role of the Speaker’ and related matters. First, they objected to the President’s dismissal of Wickremesinghe. Then they started lamenting his prorogation of Parliament as unconstitutional, the accusation which had no basis at all though one could claim it is not ideally democratic.

But what was most strange and even purely unconstitutional was to ask the Speaker to ‘convene Parliament forthwith,’ while the President was also being pressured revoke the prorogation. This was there in the so-called statement by ‘Professionals on Constitutional and Political Crisis’ (CT, 2 November 2018). These people are apparently not independent. Some of them are paid employees and legal advisors to RW. Some others have financial stakes in former government’s projects.

The origin of the idea that the Speaker has power (over President) in respect of convening Parliament is basically a RW’s orange theory. This is what ‘The Hindu’ reported: “The Parliament’s power is supreme and that is what the Speaker has upheld,’ he [RW] said, referring to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya’s statement on Monday.”

It was based on this theory that the Speaker attempted to convene Parliament on 7 November, but failed. Testing this possibility, he also issued a strong statement on 5 November, the main unconstitutional or controversial elements of the statement are as follows.

“It is my duty as Speaker to summon Parliament by 7th November and restore stability in the country [!]. I consider it as the duty of His Excellency the President too to extend his support to me towards this end.”

It is very clear that he was trying to take over the powers of convening Parliament from the President, based on RW’s theory that Parliament is supreme. This is what the so-called professionals, also quite unprofessionally asked the Speaker to do. In his statement, the Speaker also tried to assert the power ‘to restore stability in the country,’ which is clearly a task of the President. He also asked the President to extend support to him, quite arrogantly.

Arab Spring?

It appears that these people were or are attempting an ‘Arab Spring’ in Sri Lanka. They failed once on the 7th because the Secretary General of Parliament or other public servants did not want to heed the unconstitutional orders of the Speaker. The UNP also didn’t have the people’s support. The proposers or the instigators themselves were hesitant.

They might attempt it again. It is well known that Arab Spring was a disastrous process of regime change through violence and extra-constitutional means supported by certain sections of the ‘international community.’ Various statements and activities by some Western countries are of quite suspicious under these circumstances. The ultimate aim of Arab Springs appeared to be to destabilize the developing countries in the Middle East and North Africa, but also attempted elsewhere to achieve the same objectives.

The Speakers statement on 5 November have major constitutional implications. Other than trying to convene Parliament on his own, he was also trying to determine who is the Prime Minister on his own. This is again a RW’s orange theory that he had picked from several neoliberal in Britain (Nick Clegg, David Laws, Edward Davey etc.). They are almost nonexistent in politics today. The Speaker’s following statement is quite unwarranted and in defiance of the President.

“I wish to emphasize that I am compelled to accept the status that existed previously [RW as PM] until such time that they [UNP] and the new political alliance [Sirisena and Rajapaksa] prove their majority in Parliament,” he said.

Nick Clegg and Article 70

Given the uncertain political situation in Parliament after the collapse of the National (Unity) government and the subsequent volatile situation in the country, the advisability of going directly before the people have been proposed and discussed by many people. I myself suggested that it might be the best option available (‘Evolving Disaster: Agreeing to call for election might be the best option’). Because people are supreme and sovereign, and an election could defuse the uncertain situation.

Again the dissolution of Parliament is a matter for the President under our Constitution. However, then you confront Article 70 which says the following.

“(1) The President may by Proclamation, summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament: Provided that the President shall not dissolve Parliament until the expiration of a period of not less than 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 the whole number of Members (including those not present), voting in its favour.”

What is the connection between this Article 70 and Nick Clegg? With due respect to him, he was the person, then Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, who proposed and got through the ‘Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011’ same as Article 70. Of course he is not responsible for the Sri Lankan folly, unless someone in the UK advised RW to include it in the 19th Amendment.

What is wrong with this article or the fixed term? In my opinion, it is not suitable to a country like Sri Lanka which should have more flexibility given the country’s still evolving democracy. In the case of UK, it was introduced after some discussion and study. In the case of Sri Lanka, it was done arbitrarily and stealthily. The Fixed-term Act in the UK tried to prevent a PM trying to arbitrarily dissolve Parliament, by advising the Queen to do so. But in the case of Sri Lanka, RW tried to prevent the President from dissolving Parliament, without his or party’s advice. Or perhaps it was just an imitation whatever our former British colonial masters were doing!

There is a clear flimsy character for the way the 19th Amendment was formulated and the way the economic policies and other policy matters were handled by RW and his clique. It is completely wrong for the President to talk about ‘Butterflies,’ if he meant LGBT communities. However there was definitely a flimsy character for whatever RW and his clique were doing. The correct word would have been not ‘Samanala’ but ‘Sarwapithala’ to mean flimsy or bogus.

Conclusion

The 19th Amendment is one of the clearest root causes of the present crisis. Many aspects (not all) were based on some flimsy theories and premises. Although RW has argued that personal prejudices have no place in the constitution, his personal interests have been built into the system. It has attempted, but has failed to install presidential powers to the Prime Minister.

Even in respect of Independent Commissions, while there is some progress from the 18th Amendment, the attempt was made to keep a political hegemony of the ruling party in the Constitutional Council. The constitutional council is also not an appropriate term and CC is not at all about the constitution.

Most alarming are the contractions, ‘cut and paste,’ the failures in doing so, and disparities between the Sinhala, the Tamil and the English versions. The current controversies or different interpretations about the President’s powers to dismiss a Prime Minister are also largely due to these fundamental weaknesses of the 19th Amendment, apart from political biases. Let me conclude this article by highlighting the contradictions on the matter of the dissolution of Parliament. Whatever said in Article 70 in respect of fixed term of the Parliament, Article 33 (2) unequivocally says:

“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, (a) to make the Statement of Government Policy in Parliament at the commencement of each session of Parliament; (b) to preside at ceremonial sittings of Parliament; (c) to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament; …”

What a contradiction between the two! The power “to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament” here is quite unequivocal, whatever the views, opinions or ‘despair,’ you and me have on the situation.

It is also Article 33 (2) (c), namely “to make the Statement of Government Policy in Parliament at the commencement of each session of Parliament” that the Speaker and the Arab Spring advocates were trying to block on 14 November. This is not a matter for the Standing Orders but part of the Constitution.

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Colombo, November 11 (newsin.asia): Here is the full and unedited text of Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s televised address on Sunday explaining the reasons why he dissolved parliament earlier this week:

This is the third occasion in 14 days I am addressing you to explain recent developments. First, on October 26 I explained my views to you after appointing Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister.

Then, at the meeting held at Ape Gama in Battaramulla on 5^th November, I explained the political views to you. Today is the third occasion and significantly, this is the first time I address you after dissolving the Parliament. First, I must tell you the circumstances leading to the dissolution of the Parliament very briefly.

Our Parliamentary System began in 1947 after the end of the State Council System. Since then, the country was governed over the years with holding of elections and changing of governments. By the last week, in the highest institute that represents people’s supremacy to usher in a disciplined, ethical ad cultured society, the individual worth of Members of Parliament was estimated as Rs 100 million to Rs 150 million, and in one instance as high as Rs 500 million.

We have experiences about several political crisis and changes in the past. I remember the political crisis due to the opposition to the Lake House Bill in 1964. The government was changed due to that. However, since 1947 we have not seen of dissolution of parliament due to issues of corruption. The Central Bank robbery after 2015, the involvement in various corrupt practices since then and finally the political crisis during the attempts to show the majority support after the appointing of Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and the value placed on Members of Parliament as I mentioned earlier were extremely unfortunate developments. All of you will acknowledge what a tragic situation in politics when the value of the Members of Parliament, who were elected to represent the people, were commercially evaluated.

That was one of the main reasons for the dissolution of the Parliament. The second reason was the most peculiar behavior of the former Speaker, Mr. Karu Jyasuriya. I am extremely sad about that. He is a good friend of mine. The Speakers of our Parliament since 1947, until now, traditionally conducted themselves in neutral and most impartial manner. I wish to state, that his behavior of disregarding Standing Orders and Parliamentary Conventions and attempting not to recognize the appointment of a Prime Minister by the President exercising his Presidential powers was the second reason for dissolving the Parliament.

I must remind you here that, as we take the situation in to account politically, following my victory on 2015 January 08^th, when I appointed Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe as the Prime Minister on the very next day, he had the support of a mere 41 members in the Parliament, whereas the sitting Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne had the support of 162 members in the Parliament.

At that moment, as you know, those who talk about the majority today, were silent about that. Often, the custom is to appoint among the members of the Parliament, someone whom the President, in his opinion, can trust to get the support of the majority in accordance with the constitution. Following that appointment, the support of the majority is obtained in terms of the standing orders of the Parliament and in the Constitution of the country. However, in our Parliamentary tradition, there has been no occasion on which the majority support for a newly appointed Prime Minister has been tested by vote. Nothing of the sort happens under the standing orders. However, the second statement by Hon. Karu Jayasuriya violated those traditions. In his first statement, he accepted the appointment of Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and stated that he would provide the rights and the privileges of the Prime Minister to him in the Parliament. That means, specially reserving the seat of the Prime Minister and the Office of the Prime Minister in the Parliament. His first press statement admitted this. However, his second statement was a complete deviation from it. In that he stated that he recognizes Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe as the Prime Minister. I paid serious attention to this development. Members of Parliament from both sides issued various statements in media, that there would lead a big fight when the Parliament is convened on the 14^th November. Some speculated that even death of some members would occur.

It appeared to me that, if I allowed the Parliament to be convened on the 14^th, without dissolving it, it could have brought about commotion and fights, in every city and every village would lead to very unpleasant and difficult situation for the average citizens of my beloved country.

As such, the best solution was not to allow those 225 members in the Parliament to fight each other and allow that to develop into a street fights in every part of the country. It is my duty and the responsibility to take democracy to guide us, and create the situation for the fifteen million voters in this country take the ultimate decision by choosing their members to the Parliament through a free and fair election. As such, given the corrupt practices among Parliamentarians as well as the conduct of the Speaker, the best and fair solution to the political crisis that emerged was to allow the people decide in keeping with the principle of democracy. It was with that noble intention of upholding democracy that I dissolved the Parliament. I must state that a permanent and a clear solution to the current situation can be reached through a General Election.

The ultimate responsibility of holding the election rests with the elections commission. We need to extend our fullest support to the election commission. I humbly make the request from all those involved to extend their unwavering support to the elections commission, officers on election duty and the Tri-forces and the Police in their respective duties. We have chosen a new government. Now it is up to you to defeat the corrupt and elect clean Parliamentarians to represent you. I consider the decision uphold democracy by calling a general election is a welcome by all. The solution to many burning issues in the country such as the current high cost of living, achieving a prosperous economy, strengthening local industries, obtaining clean foreign investments, building a cultured and disciplined society, and strengthening democracy is to conduct an election and give the people the choice.

For this, purpose we take our Motherland to a new path. In order to create an intellectual young generation suitable for the technologically advanced world, we take steps while preserving our heritage of customs, traditions, ethics and culture for the present generation as well as the future generations.

Furthermore, you have an excellent opportunity now to elect intelligent and experienced representatives to govern. Hence, we give fullest support to the Gazette Notification on holding of General Elections and the steps taken by the Elections Commission accordingly. Here, I would like to remind you about one or two areas in which electoral laws have been violated in the past.

Firstly it is essential to stop misuse of public assets for the electioneering of political parties or candidates. Use of state vehicles for election campaigns must be stopped. As you are aware, during the former government as well as during the current interim government, the Ministries were provided with vehicles for the use of Members of Parliament. Today, we have an interim government comprising of the President, Prime Minister and Ministers. Under the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution, the interim government will function during the elections period until a new government is established. As you know only the President, Prime Minister and Ministers are functioning in the interim government and in accordance with the regulations of the Elections Commission none of the former State Ministers, Deputy Ministers or MPs could use official vehicles for the election campaign. I request with respect to all the former Ministers and MPs to return their government vehicles to the Secretaries of Ministries immediately. If they do not act accordingly, I will have to ask the police to confiscate the vehicles and I will not hesitate to take strict legal action against the defaulters irrespective of their political party affiliations. I would like to kindly remind that use of government vehicles and public assets for elections is illegal and it should not be done.

Accordingly, we provide fullest cooperation to the Election Commission, Public Officials, Police and Tri Forces to conduct the elections. It is the responsibility of the Party Leaders, Ministers former MPS, candidates and the supporters and the public to ensure that elections are conducted peacefully without any acts of violence and conduct election by acting with dignified and responsible manner. While reminding all these, I urge you most respectfully to extend fullest cooperation to the efforts to take our great Motherland to be a peaceful, progressive and economically prosperous nation with a great governing structure and an ethical, cultured society that preserve our heritage, customs, traditions, ethics and culture.

 

By Shivanthi Ranasinghe Courtesy Ceylon Today

By Sugeeswara Senadhira Courtesy Ceylon Today

Sri Lanka News

Issuing a special statement, President Maithripala Sirisena addressed the nation this evening (11) with regard to the dissolution of the parliament.

President Sirisena states that one of the reasons behind the dissolution of the parliament was the ‘tragic situation’ that the value of MPs elected by the people, was commercially evaluated.

According to President Sirisena, the second reason that led to the dissolution of the parliament is the former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya’s ‘peculiar’ behavior by disregarding standing parliamentary conventions and attempt of refusal to accept the Prime Minister appointed by the President.

He also requested all parliamentary members, excluding the Prime Minster and the Cabinet Ministers, to immediately handover the state property allocated for them, to the relevant secretaries. The request was made to all state ministers, deputy ministers and former ministers and MPs. President further stated that failure to do so will require him to take necessary action.

President Maithripala Sirisena called on the public to give their support to hold a fair, just election and to elect a group of clean MPs through vote.

This is the third occasion in 14 days I am addressing you to explain recent developments. First, on October 26 I explained my views to you after appointing Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister.

Then, at the meeting held at Ape Gama in Battaramulla on 5th November, I explained the political views to you. Today is the third occasion and significantly, this is the first time I address you after dissolving the Parliament. First, I must tell you the circumstances leading to the dissolution of the Parliament very briefly.

Our Parliamentary System began in 1947 after the end of the State Council System. Since then, the country was governed over the years with holding of elections and changing of governments. By the last week, in the highest institute that represents people’s supremacy to usher in a disciplined, ethical ad cultured society, the individual worth of Members of Parliament was estimated as Rs 100 million to Rs 150 million, and in one instance as high as Rs 500 million.

We have experiences about several political crisis and changes in the past. I remember the political crisis due to the opposition to the Lake House Bill in 1964. The government was changed due to that. However, since 1947 we have not seen of dissolution of parliament due to issues of corruption. The Central Bank robbery after 2015, the involvement in various corrupt practices since then and finally the political crisis during the attempts to show the majority support after the appointing of Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and the value placed on Members of Parliament as I mentioned earlier were extremely unfortunate developments. All of you will acknowledge what a tragical situation in politics when the value of the Members of Parliament, who were elected to represent the people, were commercially evaluated.

That was one of the main reasons for the dissolution of the Parliament. The second reason was the most peculiar behavior of the former Speaker, Mr Karu Jyasuriya. I am extremely sad about that. He is a good friend of mine. The Speakers of our Parliament since 1947, until now, traditionally conducted themselves in neutral and most impartial manner. I wish to state, that his behavior of disregarding Standing Orders and Parliamentary Conventions and attempting not to recognize the appointment of a Prime Minister by the President exercising his Presidential powers was the second reason for dissolving the Parliament.”

H. L. D. Mahindapala

 TIME: What was the immediate reason for calling an election?
President KUMARATUNGA: I was forced into it by a total breakdown of cohabitation in government. The Prime Minister (Ranil Wickremesinghe) was determined to harass me and chase me out. He has only one obsession: he wants to be the President. And he does not seem to care what happens to the country in the process. We came to an impossible impasse. The only way to resolve it was to ask the people for a mandate. —TIME’s Alex Perry at President’s House in Colombo, March 29, 2004

The comments of President Chandrika Kumaratunga on her friend Ranil Wickremesinghe cited above reveals how history never fails to repeat itself.  The total breakdown in cohabitation in government, the  determination of Ranil to harass and undermine the authority of the President, his  obsession to oust  the President, his utter disregard for  the fate of the country, and driving the political process to an impossible impasse are familiar to President Maithripala Sirisena too. In recalling his relationship with Ranil, it  is  not surprising to hear President Sirisena repeating almost the identical comments of his  predecessor with, of course, a serious difference: this time  he is alarmed that the threat of a bullet aimed at him is real. Besides, Ranil’s political ambitions were just  not a threat to the Presidency alone. His consistent political behaviour, as revealed by  his past and present  political friends,  projects him as a serial killer of democracy and its institutions.  Chandrika Kumaratunga’s comments confirm that his ambition to become the President overrides all other democratic norms. Her comments debunks Ranil’s posture as the defender of the nation or democracy. Her comments are most relevant to understand the prevailing climate of hysteria about the premature death of democracy. It is necessary, therefore,  to run through briefly past precedents that demonstrate how the nation had faced and triumphed over the fascist forces of the Right, Left and the North that attacked the democratic centre of the nation. Those going down memory lane will pass the following main milestones (leaving aside the minor ones) that marked the triumph of the democratic ballot over the fascist bullet:

1. 1959 – Assassination of the elected Prime Minister, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. It was the first attempt of post-Independent Sri Lanka to overturn the ballot with a bullet. Democracy was restored in May 1960 with the election of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, after a brief spell of clueless W. Dahanayake’s idiosyncratic premiership. Political violence failed and non-violent democracy triumphed at the polls.
2. 1965 – The Right-wing coup against the elected government of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. It was the first organised threat to democracy which had the full potential of establishing a military dictatorship considering the fact that the majority involved in it consisted of those drawn from the upper echelons of the Security Forces. Violence of the Right-wing amateurs collapsed riven by betrayals within its own rank. Once again, illegitimate political violence failed and non-violent democracy bounced back triumphantly.
3. 1971 – The first organised militant  movement led by the fascist fanatics  of  the  Left, the JVPers, pretending  to be liberators committed to save the nation from oppressive capitalists, threatened to overthrow the democratically elected state. The rise of the first wave of JVP fascists led by the lumpen Marxist, Rohana Wijeweera and his gang of fascist extremists, who knew nothing about making a revolution, ( example: Jayadeva (Ooo-Mahatya) Uyangoda and Lionel Bopage led a band of school children to capture Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the Prime Minister, dead or alive, and realising  the folly of  their  unattainable goal on the appointed day both abandoned the misled children and  ran away to hide under a bed in a Buddhist Temple in Panadura!) resorted  to violence without any consideration for the inevitable loss of human lives as a result  of their bovine politics that was going  nowhere. The legitimate violence of the state crushed them and brought them eventually to the democratic mainstream. Once again, illegitimate political violence failed and non-violent democracy bounced back triumphantly.
4.  1976 – The Tamil political leadership of the North declared war against the elected state by urging Tamil youth to take up arms and never  cease until they achieve Eelam. The main objective of the Vadukoddai Resolution was to step out of the democratic mainstream and resort to violence. They decided to abandon the ballot and go for the bullet. In pursuit of this goal they militarised, legitimised, financed, propagandised, and directed violence for 33-years against the elected state of which they too were members. The Tamil leadership wanted to have it both ways: for international consumption they posed as moderates in the democratic mainstream and to collect votes in Jaffna they backed the Pol Potist LTTE. The fascist Tamil forces led by the violent children fathered by the Vadukoddai Resolution of 1976 crumbled under the mighty forces of the democratic South. The greatest achievement of the state led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been the restoration of democracy to the Tamils of the North. Today they have been provided the opportunity to walk with dignity without bending into two before the fascist monsters they bred in the womb of the Vadukoddai Resolution. Once again, illegitimate political violence failed and non-violent democracy bounced back triumphantly.
5. 1987 — The intervention of the Indian imperialistic forces in subverting the democratic will of the people – both Sinhalese and Tamil – was a humiliating experience to the fourth largest Army of the world. They first undermined the democratic state of Sri Lanka by training, financing, encouraging, supplying military hardware, and directing operations under the Machiavellian arm of India, RAW. The Indian operations were a direct threat to the democratically elected state of Sri Lanka. The largest democracy in the world sending its handpicked agents to undermine the oldest democracy in the Asia-Pacific region is an unpardonable political crime. Having held a gun to the head of J. R. Jayewardene India forced him to accept the intervention of  the Big Brother.  They marched in under the  pretext of being invited by the Sri Lankan government. Though the Indians would not admit  it  publicly they are smart enough to know that it boomeranged and forced them to run away with their tails between their legs. It was not only costly and humiliating to India’s status as a mighty power in the Indian Ocean Region, but also to its holy image of a peace-loving nation built on Gandhian principles. India’s threat to Sri Lanka’s democracy was resisted by the anti-Indian grass root waves that rose, both in the South and the North. Both forces resented Indian bullying and both forces never rested until the Indians were chased out. The defeat of Indian imperialism on Sri Lankan is a resounding victory for Sri Lankan democracy.
6. 1988-1990 – The rise of the second wave of JVP fascists who obstructed with extreme violence the holding of elections. The democratic forces of the state fought back with all its might and defeated, once and for all, the Sinhala Pol Potists. Today the JVP fascists are growing fat and rich on the benefits of non-violent democracy. In fact, they have joined hands with the UNP forces that crushed them and are going shopping” (kaday yanawa) to save Ranil Wickremesinghe who was a Cabinet Minister of the regime that smashed them. At the end of the day it  is  heartening to  know that the power of democracy has triumphed over fascist violence.
7. President Chandrika Bandaranaike was the first to offer power (TIME reported the offer  was  for ten years without holding elections) to Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil Pol Pot. The ingrained forces of democracy lying dormant in the Sri Lankan political culture moved in and worked in its own mysterious way to possess Prabhakaran and make him reject the offer. In a sense, the nation is blessed with the repeated rise of the the congenital idiots of Jaffna” (Prof. Kumar David) whose attempts to kill democracy have ricocheted and ended  in killing more Tamils than all the other forces put together.” (S. C. Chandrahasan).

8. 2002 – The much-vaunted Cease Fire Agreement was signed by Ranil Wickremesinghe, handing power to Prabhakaran with international guarantees. Once again the mysterious hand of democracy that protects Sri Lanka led Prabhakaran to shoot it down with utter contempt. The mysterious devas of democracy” blinded Prabhakaran who fell into the same trap as Hitler — the egotistic fascist who believed in his power to survive and thrive with authoritarian militarism. Like Hitler Prabhakaran failed, after his initial victories. . Ranil’s surrender to fascist tyranny confirmed not only his chronic inability to read the signs of his time but also his abysmal failure to handle with a degree of sanity the most critical affairs  of the nation. Had Prabhakaran accepted Ranil’s surrender, it would have legitimised Tamil fascism in the North and East and elevated the Tamil Pol Pot into the status of a Surya Devan”. The  hired hacks in academia and NGOs baptised Tamil fascism as Tamil nationalism/liberation”. Once against the hidden power of democracy triumphed over Tamil fascism. With his CFA Samanala” Ranil would have given birth to the first state of Tamil fascism in Sri Lanka. It so happens that in times of crises the South has decisively produced saviours of democracy. President Ranasinghe Premadasa crushed Sinhala Pol Pots in the South. And s President Mahinda Rajapaksa annihilated the Tamil Pol Pots in the North.

1. 2015 — Ranil Wickremesinghe schematically attempting to convert the Parliament — the ultimate repository of the supreme will of the people — into a mechanical rubber stamp for him to use according to his whims and fancies. His parliamentary manoeuvres were fundamentally flawed because he has acted as if it is his private playground for his pet Samanalayas” to suck the erect stamens filled with the pollen of parliamentary privileges and power. By grabbing the powers of the president in the name of strengthening democracy” (Ranil imagines that he is the sole and legitimate symbol of democracy), he has proved to be the most criminal corrupter and debaser of democratic values in Parliament. He imagines that he has been given a mandate to impose his authoritarian ego to run the Parliament as his private estate. Within his party and in the larger theatre of national politics he has always acted to thrust his will down the people. A classic example is his Ceasefire Agreement with the Tamil Pol Pot, Velupillai Prabhakaran. It was done without informing the President, Parliament, Party and the people. The two big moves in his career – the CFA and the 19^th Amendment – boomeranged and knocked him down. The 19^th Amendment was nothing but a naked move to acquire all presidential powers into his hands. Once again the devas of democracy”, residing in the Sinhala version of the Constitution, had come to the rescue, along with other provisions, to save the nation from the Samanala supremacists” who were craftily acquiring the entrenched powers of the Presidency not to consolidate democracy in Parliament but to accumulate the powers of the presidency and combine it with those of the Prime Minister to make Ranil the all-powerful destroyer of democracy.  He was accumulating power to sell the nation to the defeated forces of Prabhakaran.

What then is the lesson to be learnt from history? The amazing fact is that with each challenge/threat democracy has bounced back with reinvigorated power and resolve to resist the next threat. That is why this current hysteria about the impending death of democracy can be dismissed as the insane fears of the Samanala sycophants”. They falsely equate Ranil’s loss of power to the end of democracy. They assume that he is the sole representative of democracy.  The verdict of history is different. It says that if democracy could defeat the gigantic threats  from  the North, East and South and  bounce back with renewed vigour the proroguing  of Parliament  for 11 days cannot by any measurement of pragmatic and rational thinking end in the death  of democracy. Ranil is now acting in the most  hilarious farce in Parliamentary politics by pretending to be the saviour of democracy with his hypocritical and ineffective act of hiding inside Temple Trees”. He fancies that he is leading the forces of democracy by locating himself in the comfortable residence of Temple Trees”.  Did Gandhi leads the swaraj movement in India by issuing press releases from a maharaja’s palace? Did Mao lead the Long March from rich potentates residence in China? Which leader heading a resistance movement hide in the safe havens of a state building? It is time that he ended his political farce and went home  for  the good of all. He looks like a prize idiot by pretending to be the Prime Minister when his writ does not run even to the neighbouring Police Station in Kollupitiya.

The loud cries of the impending death of democracy in the current political impasse should be tested against the cascading trend that flowed down in the post-independent era, listed above. Some hysterical political pundits have raised the spectre of Machiavelli rising from his grave to stalk Temple Trees”, which Ranil Wickremesinghe claims to be the latest symbol of democracy”  and  ”symbol of legitimacy” . He imagines that overnight he has turned into a high priest of democracy. The only reason why he fancies himself as the High Priest of democracy in the Temple of Trees is because he has parked his carcass there. He thinks that his fall is going to be the end of democracy. He fails to recognise that democracy existed at Temple Trees” from  the time D. S. Senanayake, one of his most revered ancestors, celebrated Independence Day on February 4, 1948 in that  hallowed premises and will continue to last long after he leaves  the  premises gracefully, if  he can.

Democracy does not reside in Temple Trees” alone. At least not when Ranil occupies it. In essence democracy resides in the humble huts in Angunukolapellassa, in Madagal and in Kathankudi. Democracy, as Greek word implies, has its roots in the people and not in posh places occupied forcibly by those who have lost power. Democracy also lives in places like Medamulana where the sympathetic people flocked voluntarily in their thousands to demonstrate their affinity and loyalty to a leader who had lost power.

That is the fundamental difference between Ranil and Mahinda: people flocked in their thousands to express their heart-felt empathy with Mahinda even though he retreated to his ancestral home, without any trappings of power. But even after occupying forcibly the symbol of power,  the Temple Trees”, Ranil has not been able to attract the people on the same mass scale as Mahinda. With all the allegations surrounding the” Rajapaksa” name Mahinda still remains the most popular national leader. But Mr. Clean” is still struggling to survive in the popularity contest without any mass support.

Why? Why is it that there is no mass rush to buy his latest marketing strategy of being the protector of democracy? By and large the people have never placed their trust in him as their reliable leader who would protect them in times of crises. Ranil too has never placed his total trust in the people. That is why he puts up surrogates to fight for him in presidential elections. He has more faith in Western embassies. That is why he runs to the foreign embassies to prop him up.

When she was president Chandrika Bandaranaike used to say that the only distance between her Prime Minister Wickremesinghe was a bullet. Perhaps, the memories of what happened to her father were haunting her. This time, however, the threat to President Sirisena has come from a bullet. Actually, there were two bullets : one for  him and the  other for Gotabaya. Who is it who would benefit if the bullets hit the targets? President Sirisena hasn’t revealed yet the full details of the plot to assassinate him and Gotabaya. Could this be the  reason this why Ranil is hiding inside Temple Trees” fearing the wrath of the truth ?

There has been an unprecedented violation of diplomatic protocol of late. Tremendous pressures are being exerted on a small island nation in the South Asian continent simply because of its geopolitical presence & is a victim of a political tug-of-war between West-East / Colonial Imperial-Modern Neoliberal objectives.

Sri Lanka became independent in 1948 through it retain dominion status whereby Head of State remained the Queen. That status quo ended in 1972 with the first republican constitution which ideally placed Sri Lanka totally independent of any foreign rule. Head of State ceased to be the Queen. Sri Lanka was ruled by citizens of its country & on behalf of the citizens. Relations with foreign nations was based on the respect for the others sovereignty & territorial integrity. Non-interference in the internal affairs of nations was one of the guiding principles of the UN Charter that brought nations together onto a common podium where respecting each other’s sovereignty countries dealt diplomatically with each other. However, is all this confined to paper & statements?

Several treaties & conventions have been passed in the UN to confirm the commitment to non-intervention & non-interference in the internal/domestic affairs of sovereign states.

• 21 December 1965 – resolution 2131 (XX), containing the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty,
• 24 October 1970 – resolution 2625 (XXV), containing the Declaration of Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations,
• 14 December 1974 – resolution 3314 (XXIX), containing the Definition of Aggression,
• December 1976/77,78,79, 1980 – resolutions 31/91 1976, 32/153 of 19 December 1977, 33/74 of 15 December 1978, 34/101 of 14 December 1979 and 35/159 of 12 December 1980 on non-interference in the internal affairs of States,
• 9 December 1981 – resolution 36/103. Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States

The 1981 declaration reaffirmed the following

• No state has the right to intervene directly or indirectly for any reason whatsoever in the internal or external affairs of any other State.
• Fundamental principle of the UN Charter was that all states were duty-bound NOT TO threaten or use force against the sovereignty, political independence or territorial integrity of other States
• Countries were bound to respect sovereignty of States over their natural resources irrespective of their political, economic or social systems

The principle of non-intervention & non-interference in the internal & external affairs of States placed the following rights & duties

I

1. Sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, national unity & security, national identity, cultural heritage of their people
2. Sovereignty inalienable right of a State to determine its own political, economic, cultural & social system, permanent sovereignty over its natural resources according to the will of its people without outside intervention, interference, subversion, coercion or threat in any form whatsoever
3. Right of states & people to have free access to information, their system of information & mass media, & to use their information media to promote their political, social, economic & cultural interests & aspirations

II

1. States must refrain from threat or use of force in any form whatsoever to violate the existing internationally recognized boundaries of another state, to disrupt the political social or economic order of other States to overthrow or change the political system of another State or its Government (is this not what is now happening in Sri Lanka since 2015?)
2. Duty of a State to ensure its territory is not used to violate the sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity & national unity or disrupt the political, economic & social stability of another State (Sri Lanka has not done this but Sri Lanka’s immediate neighbor has done so to Sri Lanka)
3. States must refrain from armed intervention, subversion, military occupation or any other form of intervention & interference, overt or overt, directed at another State or group of States
4. e) States must refrain from attempting to destabilize or undermine the stability of another state or any of its institutions.
5. f) States must refrain from promoting, encouraging or supporting direct or indirect rebellious or secessionist activities within other States (India was the logistics base for LTTE)
6. g) States must prevent its territory being used for training, financing, recruitment of mercenaries or sending such mercenaries into another State (is this not what India did to Sri Lanka)
7. h) States must refrain from agreements with other States designed to intervene or interfere in the internal & external affairs of third States (Is this not a violation that US-EU joint statements on Sri Lanka’s internal affairs are committing)
8. J) States must abstain from any defamatory campaigns, vilification or hostile propaganda for the purpose of intervening or interfering in the internal affairs of other states (Isn’t this exactly what the Western envoys, Indian envoy & western/Indian media & think tanks are presently doing?)
9. K) States must not use its external economic assistance program or adopt any multilateral & multinational corporations under its jurisdiction & control as instruments of political pressure or coercion against another State which is a violation of the UN Charter (Is this not what the West/Indian envoys & their media are directly conveying applying this as scare tactics – withdrawal of GSP, freeze on loans, bogus HR issues claiming to bring sanctions etc)
10. L) States must refrain from exploiting & distorting human rights issues to interfere in the internal affairs of States, exerting pressure on other States, creating distrust & disorder within & among States or groups of States (isn’t this exactly what the Western/Indian envoys, Western/Indian press, Western/Indian think tanks, HR organizations & Western/Indian controlled monetary organizations are doing to Sri Lanka)
11. N) States from refrain from organizing, training, financing & arming political & ethnic groups on their territories or the territories of other States for the purpose of creating subversion, disorder or unrest (this is what India committed, we have forgiven but not forgotten which is why we are always distrustful of India’s actions & we have every right to be too)

Point III d) gives the right & duty to States to combat, within their constitutional prerogatives, the dissemination of false or distorted news which can be interpreted as interference in the internal affairs of other States or as being harmful to the promotion of peace, co-operation and friendly relations among States & nations.

Point III e) also gives right & duty to States not to recognize situations brought about by the threat or use of force or acts undertaken in contravention of the principle of non-intervention & non-interference.

Alongside the principle of non-interference & non-intervention in domestic affaris of States is the violations being committed by foreign envoys also violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) Article 41 which clearly denies foreign envoys to interfere in the internal affairs in the receiving country.

The Vienna Convention – https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-94-011-8792-3%2F1.pdf

Article 4I – I. Without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State

Article 41 – 2. All official business with the receiving State entrusted to the mission by the sending State shall be conducted with or through the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the receiving State or such other Ministry as may be agreed. (how many instances of Western envoys & Indian envoys did as they liked in Sri Lanka?

In addition to the Vienna Convention, Article 2.7 of the Charter of the United Nations also provides that – Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state”

Having read the above declarations to which countries are bound by, please read the statements of the US – UK – EU and others on the situation in Sri Lanka and ask yourselves whether these statements not only qualify as violating the very principles of non-intervention & non-interference that countries have committed themselves to.

US State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told reporters,

It’s up to the parliament to decide who the prime minister is.”

We call on the president, in consultation with the speaker, to immediately reconvene parliament and allow the democratically elected representatives of the Sri Lankan people to fulfill their responsibilities to affirm who will lead their government,”

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert

In another tweet on 7 November Heather Nauert

We urge #SriLanka’s President to reconvene parliament immediately to resolve the political crisis. Further delay compounds uncertainty in Sri Lanka, and undermines its international reputation and the aspirations of its people for good governance, stability and prosperity.

Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General issues message on his behalf

“He calls on the Government to respect democratic values and constitutional provisions and process, uphold the rule of law and ensure the safety and security of all Sri Lankans.”

Another message issued from his office stated

“to revert to parliamentary procedures and allow the parliament to vote as soon as possible”

We expect the Government of Sri Lanka to uphold its Geneva commitments to human rights, reform, accountability, justice and reconciliation,’

tweet by Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs of the US Department of State

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Alaina B. Teplitz tweeted after meeting the Speaker “These democratic institutions should serve the people of #SriLanka; let the elected representatives have their say,”

Neoliberal & former US official Samanthan Powers in a tweet

The dangers of #SriLanka constitutional crisis are clear: violence is possible & Rajapaksa’s return to power ”will likely end flagging efforts at ethnic reconciliation.” Where is US diplomacy? SL must know suspending aid, targeted sanctions on the table

Joining in is Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ms Payne whose statement

We urge all parties to respect the democratic will of Sri Lankans, as exercised through their elected representatives. We encourage all parties to continue to resolve differences peacefully and refrain from confrontation and violence,” (democratic will of the citizens is directly exercised & outsourced to the President first & thereafter to Parliament)

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweet

Norway following events in #SriLanka. FM #EriksenSoreide urges all parties to act in accordance w/ constitution, follow due institutional process and respect independence of institutions. All parties must refrain from violence and respect the freedom of media

Statement by the Embassy of Switzerland in Sri Lanka:

The Embassy of #Switzerland is closely following the recent events in #lka and in particular the announcement to prorogue @ParliamentLK. It calls on all parties to act in accordance with the Constitution

While China & Pakistan congratulated Mahinda Rajapakse on his appointment as Prime Minister, not surprisingly India which took part in the 2015 regime change of Rajapakse as President issues statement virtually echoing the gibberish coming out of Western embassy statements we hope that democratic values and constitutional process will be respected,”

Indian External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar

Mark Field Minister of State for Asia & Pacific UK

Following today’s developments in #SriLanka closely and with concern. We call for all parties and competent authorities to ensure that the constitution is respected and due political process followed

I have called on all parties to ensure that the constitution is respected and due political and legal process upheld. On October 29, I made a public statement urging the President, in consultation with the Speaker, to reconvene parliament immediately to give the democratically elected representatives of the Sri Lankan people their voice,

Mark Field has also added that UK recognized States & not Governments

Hugo Swire UK MP

Earlier this afternoon I questioned Foreign Secretary @Jeremy_Hunt about ongoing political situation in Sri Lanka. International community must press for the recall of Parliament to ensure due process regarding removal of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. #SriLanka

Chairman International Democrat Union Stephen Harper

We are witnessing the breakdown of democracy in Sri Lanka. This is disgraceful in that the government of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has fought to preserve one of Asia’s oldest democratic systems, to uphold the rule of law, and to fight against corruption. The lawful government of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe must be restored without further delay.” (This is nothing to be surprised over Ranil Wickremasinghe is the Vice President of IDU Asia)

Pratyush Rao lead analyst for India & South Asia at Control Risks calls it a

“a constitutional crisis,” Is he providing Control Risks the proper legal stand or is the intent to create a notion of constitutional crisis!

Shailesh Kumar, South Asia director at Eurasia Group says

“Investors will likely view the developments with concern because at best, it will limit the scope for economic policy/reforms, and at worst plunge the country into a prolonged political crisis,” – Sri Lanka may need investments but not at the cost of selling land freehold to foreigners & getting nothing out of it. We see no economic benefit to our people.

Going to the extent of even issuing travel advisories

You should exercise vigilance and avoid all demonstrations or large political gatherings. We will continue to monitor and update Travel Advice as appropriate,”

the UK Foreign Office advised British citizens.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Acting Chair of The Elders and former Prime Minister of Norway, said:

Sri Lanka is facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis which must be urgently resolved by peaceful and legal means. The country has suffered so much from years of conflict and human rights abuses, and cannot afford reckless political manoeuvres. I urge President Sirisena to act in the interest of all Sri Lankans by respecting democracy and constitutional norms.”

Human Rights Watch

Rajapaksa’s return to high office without any justice for past crimes raises chilling concerns for human rights in Sri Lanka,” said Brad Adams, Asia director.

Wonder where these entities were in 1980s/1990s when UNP & JVP were killing thousands & none of these deaths are demanded accountability! And these dead actually have names & details unlike the nameless figures being alleged against Rajapakse.

Human rights must not become a casualty of Sri Lanka’s political crisis. The authorities must ensure that key freedoms are respected and protected at this time. People should be allowed to exercise their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”

Minar Pimple, Senior Director Amnesty International

It’s very strange that Amnesty International has not issued any statement against Ranil Wickremasinghe’s Minister’s personal security who shot & killed a civilian immediately after the sacking of Ranil as PM.

As anyone can see from the clauses that countries are meant to respect & the manner powerful countries are flouting them, the tremendous pressures that Sri Lanka has to weather. Is it a wonder that the citizens are realizing these diplomatic coercions now taking place & realize that they need to now more than ever defend not only their Nation, their territory, sovereignty, their natural resources & assets as well as the safety of their citizens.

Every country flouting the UN declarations & the resolutions that necessitates them to abide & respect the clauses undermine their right to make demands on Sri Lanka. We can only say that these countries many of whom are former colonial power houses & have a history of bloodied hands by interfering, occupying, plundering nations & murdering natives must be finding it difficult to give up old practices.

Shenali D Waduge

by C.A. Chandraprema Courtesy The Island

November 10, 2018, 9:05 pm

The President unexpectedly dissolved Parliament on Friday night. The proclamation dissolving Parliament states that it was done by virtue of the powers vested in the President by Article 33(2)(c) of the Constitution and Article 70(5) which should be read with Article 62(2). What Article 33(2)(c) – which was a new provision introduced into the Constitution by the 19th Amendment – states is that the President will have the power to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament 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… Article 62(2) states that every Parliament shall continue for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting unless Parliament is sooner dissolved. Hence Article 62(2) buttresses the power conferred on the President by Article 33(2)(c) to dissolve Parliament.

President

The President’s proclamation dissolving Parliament also quotes Article 70(5) which 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.”

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…”

Can the President dissolve Parliament?

Just before the dissolution actually took place, the UNP had been stressing at every press conference they held, that the President does not have the power to dissolve Parliament. At the same time, members of the Joint Opposition like Udaya Gammamila have been arguing that the President does have the power to dissolve Parliament. The arguments for and against the dissolution of Parliament hinge on the interpretation of Articles 33 and 70 of the Constitution. 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.

President’s Counsel Manohara de Silva, on the other 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.” 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.

To this argument, Dr Jayampathy Wickremaratne has responded by claiming that the new Article 33 only declares some of the ‘general powers’ of the President and that the manner in which that power of dissolution can be exercised is given in Article 70. What brings Dr Wickremaratne’s argument into doubt however, is the fact that Article 33(2)(c) has not in any way been made subject to the provisions of Article 70 by the Constitution and for all purposes and intents, the provisions of  Article 33(2)(c) and Article 70 are independent of each other. Thus we have in the same Constitution two independent provisions one giving the President unfettered power to dissolve Parliament and the other imposing restrictions on the power of the President to dissolve Parliament. How is this conundrum to be solved?

Dr. Wickremaratne himself has shown the way to resolve this. In his recent article in the Colombo Telegraph, he says the following –  “It is a golden rule that in interpreting a Constitution, the Constitution as a whole must be looked at, not at just one provision in isolation. If the issue is related to an amendment made to the Constitution, we need to look at the corresponding provisions before such amendment. The intention of the legislature in amending the Constitution must be considered. If the amendment was consequent to a pledge made at an election, then the circumstances of that election must also be considered. Constitutional provisions cannot be read in isolation, in a vacuum.”

Mutilation of parliamentary tradition by 19A

Going by what Dr. Jayampathy Wickremaratne has said in the above passage, we should start by examining how the old Article 70 of the 1978 Constitution was MUTILATED by the 19th Amendment. The Article 70 that J.R.Jayewardene had in his Constitution was a long section of more than two pages which incorporated some of the most hallowed traditions of a parliamentary form of government. What the old Article 70 contained were parliamentary traditions that had been in the 1948 Constitution and the 1972 Constitution and brought into the 1978 Constitution by JRJ.

This Article enabled Parliament to dissolve itself by a resolution passed by a simple majority. It empowered the President to dissolve Parliament if the Budget was defeated and made it mandatory for the President to dissolve Parliament if the Budget is defeated the second time. The old Article 70 also imposed certain mild, practical limits on the President’s power to dissolve Parliament. For example, when a general election has been held after an early dissolution of Parliament, the President could not dissolve parliament yet again until the the lapse of one year unless Parliament passes a resolution by a simple majority to dissolve itself. Another restriction on the President’s power to dissolve Parliament was that the President shall not dissolve Parliament on the rejection of the Statement of Government Policy at the very first session of Parliament after a General Election.

Thus we see that the old Article 70 imposed only mild and manageable restrictions on the President’s power to dissolve parliament so that we don’t have a situation where one dissolution follows another. The restictions were deliberately kept within limits because in a Parliamentary form of government, it was necessary to dissolve a Parliament if it comes to a state where proper governance of the country was not possible.

Providing for the dissolution of Parliament is one of the cornerstones of a parliamentary democracy. It is by dissolving Parliament and allowing the sovereign people to exercise their franchise that the democratic system of government is kept going. There was no need to impose draconian limits on the power of the President to dissolve Parliament because no President would dissolve parliament early, unless it was deemed to be absolutely necessary. If a situation has arisen in the country where a President feels that it is best to dissolve Parliament and hold elections then ipso facto it is always best for the sovereign people to be allowed to decide. That is how the system was supposed to work.

But the government that took office in January 2015 claims to have introduced changes to Article 70 through the 19th Amendment that make it impossible for the President to dissolve Parliament under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES until the lapse of four and a half years and that even if a government loses the budget, loses the vote on the statement of government policy, or loses a no confidence motion against the Prime Minister, Parliament still cannot be dissolved! According to this claim, a subsequent government can be formed only by the same Parliament without holding an election. This flies in the face of some of the most vital conventions that make the parliamentary system work.

The 1948 Constitution, the 1972 Republican Constitution, and JRJ’s 1978 Constitution all upheld the conventions where Parliament could be dissolved early if necessary for fresh elections to be held. If we go by the interpretation put forward by the likes of Dr.Wickremaratne, Parliament cannot be dissolved until the lapse of four and a half years, and only the Cabinet can be dissolved and a new Cabinet formed. That not only goes against the spirit of the parliamentary tradition, it is also impractical. Parliament cannot function for five years, like a bag full of 225 cats which is why every Constitution since independence had provisions for the early dissolution of Parliament if the circumstaces warrant it. Holding fresh elections was always the most important dispute resolution mechanism in the Parliamentary system.

The SC’s 19A Determination

Readers should take note of the fact that when the Supreme Court heard the petitions against the 19th Amendment in 2015, one of the questions that the three member bench made up of Chief Justice K.Sripavan, and Justices Priyasath Dep and Chandra Ekanayake never even considered was whether the 19th Amendment prohibited the President from dissolving Parliament until the lapse of four and a half years unless Parliament resolved to dissolve itself by a two thirds majority. Such a thing would have been too preposterous even to consider. As far as the three member bench of the SC led by Chief Justice Sripavan was concerned, the 19th Amendment sought to make 16 principal amendments to the Constitution which they listed.

Even though item 12 on that list mentioned “Amendments relating to the prorogation of Parliament”, there was no mention of any limitation of the President’s power to dissolve Parliament and the matter was never even discussed in the determination even though Dr. Wickremaratne claims that such a limitation was one of the intended cornerstones of the 19th Amendment. It seems to be quite clear that limiting the President’s power to dissolve Parliament was never considered by the Supreme Court to be among the changes that the 19th Amendment introduced to the Constitution. The SC may have deliberately refrained from considering the amendments that were supposedly made to the power of the President to dissolve Parliament for two reasons.

Firstly, the 19th Amendment itself introduced to Article 33 the new Subsection 33(2)(c) which stated quite clearly that the president had unfettered power to dissolve Parliament and secondly because it was so unusual, impractical and contrary to parliamentary tradition to impose restrictions of the kind envisaged by the likes of Dr. Wickremaratne, on the dissolution of Parliament. In any event, Article 70 of our Constitution both before and after the 19th Amendment, has the inbuilt safeguard that if Parliament is dissolved, the President’s proclamation dissolving Parliament has to mandatorily fix the date for the election and also to fix the date for the first meeting of the new parliament. Thus to the Supreme Court, and all of us as well, the dissolution of Parliament is obviously not a cause for worry at all because it will be an opportunity for the sovereign people to exercise their franchise.

No dissolution takes place without the dates beng fixed for the election, for the closing of nominations and for the first meeting of the new Parliament. So this is the ultimate exercise of the people’s sovereignty through the franchise. This is obviously why there is not even one sentence about the purported restriction on the power of the President to dissolve parliament, in the SC determination on the 19th amendment. It would be pertinent to note that the three member bench of the SC expressly based their determination on the 19th Amendment, on the following points which are self explanatory.

1.      The People in whom sovereignty is reposed made the President the Head of the Executive in terms of Article 30 of the Constitution and entrusted in the President, the exercise of the Executive power. If the people have conferred such power on the President, it must be either exercised by the President directly or someone who derives authority from the President. If the inalienable sovereignty of the people which they reposed on the President in trust is exercised by any other agency or instrument who do not have any authority from the President then such exercise would necessarily affect the sovereignty of the People.

2.      The transfer, relinquishment or removal of a power attributed to one organ of government to another organ or body would be inconsistent with Article 3 read with Article 4 of the Constitution. Though Article 4 provides the form and manner of exercise of the sovereignty of the people, the ultimate act or decision of his executive functions must be retained by the President. So long as the President remains the Head of the Executive, the exercise of his powers remain supreme or sovereign in the executive field and others to whom to such power is given must derive the authority from the President or exercise the Executive power vested in the President as a delegate of the President.

This makes it quite clear that the Supreme Court took the new provision in Article 33(2)(c) which the 19th Amendment added to the old Article 33 to mean that the President quite literally had unfettered power to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament which is a power conferred on the President ‘in addition to the powers and functions expressly conferred or imposed on the President by the Constitution or other written law’. Since Article 33(2)(c) has not been made subject to Article 70 by the 19th Amendment, the provision in Article 70(1) on which people like Dr. Jayampathy Wickremaratne bases the claim that Parliament cannot be dissolved for four and a half years, thus automatically falls into the category of the ‘other’ powers duties and functions imposed on the President by the Constitution.

As far as the Supreme Court was concerned, the changes made to Article 70 fall into the part of the determination where the judges say “We have considered the remaining provisions of the Bill with the assistance of the Hon. Attorney General and we do not see any other matters that would require consideration by this court in terms of Article 83 of the Constitution.” If changes to Article 70 actually imposed restrictions on the President’s powers to dissolve Parliament, there is little doubt that the Supreme Court would have had something to say about it, at least in passing.

Another reason why the three member bench led by Chief Justice Sripavan never even looked at the purported restrictions that the 19th Amendment is supposed to have sought to impose through changes to Article 70 is because the 19th Amendment had other very similar meaningless shuffling around of constitutional provisions. We have drawn attention to the fact that the 19th Amendment repealed Article 42 of J.R.Jayewardene’s Constitution and reintroduced the identical provision without changing a single word or comma, as Article 33A and then claimed that they had made the President responsible to Parliament in a situation where the President had always been responsible to Parliament under JRJ’s constitution from its inception in 1978!

In fact the Supreme Court had taken note of this childish perfidy in their determination on the 19th amendment and it appears as item 6 on their list of the 16 Constitutional changes that the 19th Amendment sought to make under the rubric “Effective renumbering of Article 42 as Article 33A”! So why would the Supreme Court be surprised if what was sought to be taken away by Article 70 was reintroduced through Article 33(2) (c)? It appears that the drafters of the 19th Amendment had inserted Article 33(2)(c) in the Constitution to prevent the Supreme Court from shooting down the changes they had made to Article 70. They may have thought that after a while, people would start following Article 70 without looking at the rest of the Constitution. The stock in trade of the yahapalana government was deception and dissimulation.

Who’ll petition the SC against an election?

Be that as it may, Parliament now 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.  If 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 observed the manner in which 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 have observed the manner in which the yahapalana government delayed provincial council elections by more than one year. They have observed the manner in which the yahapalana government brought committee stage amendments to Bills that had been introduced in Parliment for completely different purposs, in order to compeletely 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. 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, 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?

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 like 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!

Note: The present writer is opposed to the executive presidential system. This article is merely an explanation of the provisions of the Constitution as amended by the 19th Amendment. Perhaps this is a reason to redouble our efforts to be rid of the executive presidential system?

By Charles.S.Perera

What a furore there is amoung UNP supporters in Sri Lanka, and Foreign Governments  supporting the puppet regime of Ranil Wickramasinghe ,  since a number of members from his Cabinet of Ministers refused  to work for him any more in a National Government,  resulting in  the Cabinet ceasing to exist?

That was not by all means the end of the world,  nor the end of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

But what we the Sri Lankans do not understand is why the so called  International Community- the USA, Norway, Switzerland , France, Germany, Italy ,Netherlands, Roumania and UK are interfering  demanding the President to show a majority in Parliament. That is not their business.

They say that it would damage Sri Lanka’s international reputation  and deter investors. But can these countries say how they helped Sri Lanka during the past three years and how many investors came from  amoung the countries of the West ?

Of course,  they of the International Community are always there to create trouble in developing countries , cast barriers, impose trade embargoes, stop GPS and purchase of fish, even kill political leaders as they did those day when the CIA was active,  but they are never there to help by making  investments  or providing technology.

It is surprising that Australia and Canada too jump into the band wagon to warn Sri Lanka of serious  consequences. But how about the neglected first Citizens of Canada and Maories of Australia. Why don’t they look after them instead of worrying about Sri Lanka ?

As for Canada tagging behind  its MP for Scarborough-RougePark which is far away from Sri Lanka and Thanigasalam MPP who is both physically and mentally far away from the Tamils of Sri Lanka, it is better that Thanigasalam is told that the Tamils in Sri Lanka  are left alone without mixing them up with the Canadian Tamils. Because Tamils here will not be  Tamils without Sri Lanka . Those Tamils  too Sri Lanka can manage without being interfered by far away Canada and still far away Thanigasalam and Scarborough.

Sri Lankans are well educated; they have a good Armed Force, they are  growing up in a very peaceful culture,  and they are a people of a generous heart. Sri Lankans-that include the Tamils have nothing to learn from Scarborough, Ontario or Canada least of all from Thanigasalam MP, nor from France, Germany, Italy, US, Roumania , Netherlands, Switzerland and all the rest as a matter of fact.

The so called International Community  are only interferers who do not want to help poor countries  develop and progress. Their World Bank and IMF give  loans  to condition our development  they  want it to be, and put us into their net of debt , to make us  remain poor,  and be  of  political and strategic importance to the International Community.

Therefore, International community if you can help us develop our country  you are welcome , but if you come to tell us what we should do and not do you are not welcome. In that case please keep away, as we both have nothing to gain or nothing to loose by being with one  another  in poverty or prosperity..

Now the International Community now lets turn to your problem about your interfering into Sri Lanka to defend  your puppet Ranil Wickramasinghe you raised into being the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. You are now  demanding the Parliament of Sri Lanka to have the sittings on the 14^th November to show a majority for the newly sworn in most popular Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, firstly please take note that it is not your business.  Secondly believe us  there is nothing for you to worry;  Sri Lanka can settle the matter without your demands, threats and warnings.

There was nothing un- Constitutional about  your puppet Ranil Wickramasinghe loosing the office of Prime Minister. Read on and you may understand if you cut your bias and try to understand what really happened.

What really happened was simple. In 2015 there was a Presidential election  in which many political parties opposing the  popular President of Sri Lanka  Mahinda Rajapakse formed a union called the UNF to put forward their Common Presidential Candidate Mr. Maithreepala Sirisena .

The Foreign Governments  the USA, UK, France, Germany, U.E and  our neighbour India-which has a problem since India has a tradition of Rajaas –Kings. Hence the political leaders of India have a complex  to  tread the soil of the rich and well to do, hence rather than be with the  Communist China, it prefers to be with the Capitalist America ! So all these foreign States  helped the common Candidate of the Opposition  Mr. Maithreepala Sirisena to defeat the President Mahinda Rajapakse and win the election.

Hence the Common Candidate  Maithripala Sirisena won the Presidential election and formed an initial Government of 100 days on the 8^th January,2015 until the next General Election in August,2015.  The General election  to elect Parliamentary candidates did not give a clear majority to any leading party to form a government of its own.

Hence the UNF the union of political parties who had put forward a common candidate for the Presidential election, and the members of the union of political parties the UPFA that had gathered around the new President Maithripala Sirisena  agreed to unite to form a National Government. In terms of the Constitution such a united National Government could have more than 30 members in the Cabinet. Therefore the National Government  the UNF and UPFA  which they called the Yahapalanaya Government had altogether a Cabinet of 45 Ministers.

From the beginning the  Yahapalanaya Government had conflicts within, many of the UPFA Ministers complaining  that the UNF Ministers are more priviledged  and those of the UPFA were neglected  when  taking Cabinet decisions. These differences came to a head  when the Joint Opposition brought a No Confidence Motion against the Prime Minister Ranil.Wickramasinghe.

16 members of the Yahapalanaya Government voted in favour of the NCM and  left the government to  join the Joint opposition.The Yahapalanaya yet managed to navigate as they still had a respectable numbers of Minister from both ranks-UNF and UPFA.  But the situation changed on the 26 October, 2018 when the remaining members of the UPFA wrote a letter to the Speaker of the Parliament stating that they are withdrawing from the Yahapalanaya National Government.

Therefore in terms of the relevant article of the Constitution the Cabinet of the Yahapalanaya National Government  could not exist with the other UPFA members of the Cabinet leaving it.

Therefore the  Cabinet of the Yahapalanaya Government ceasing to exist as a whole became dissolved and the Prime Minister became redundant or no longer needed  as the Office of Prime Minister became dissolved in the absence of a UNF and UPFA joint Cabinet.

But Ranil Wickramasinghe who did not interpret the Constitution correctly and knowing that,  that was the only chance he would have  to lead  a UNP Government,  holed himself in the Temple Trees the Official Residence of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka along with his politically blinded  supporters and  appealed to the Western Countries  to come and help him as he is  still the Prime Minister with a majority in the Parliament, and that the President of Sri Lanka had undemocratically appointed another as the new Prime Minister.

That was the SOS on which the International Community  jumped into Sri Lanka like  a bull in a glass shop” and make all sorts of undiplomatic demands from a President elected by the People of Sri  Lanka a Sovereign State., which is blatant interference into the internal affairs of  Sri Labnka a Sovereign State.

The President did not have to dismiss Ranil  Wickramasinghe from the Office of Prime Minister  as he got automatically dismissed with the breaking up of the Cabinet. The President subsequently  appointed a new Prime Minister.

The President’s appointment of the new Prime Minister  is within the powers vested in him in the Constitution of Sri Lanka and that cannot be contested by any one,  least of all by the Speaker who is expected to be politically independent and the International Community  which has no right what so ever to interfere into internal affaires of the Sovereign State of Sri Lanka.

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA .

The illegal activities carried out by former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya since the day of Sri Lanka’s October revolution of ousting foreign servile Ranil Wickramasinghe of the Butterfly clan  (LGTBT+)rom the post of Prime Minister on 26^th October and appointing Sri Lanka’s populist politician Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa as the new Prime Minister and prorogued Parliament from 5^th November to 16^th November(the date of reconvening was subsequently changed to 14^th November)    the President has been forced to dissolve Parliament and call for fresh elections on January 5^th and call for nominations from 19^th November to 26^th November.

From 26^th November night itself the former speaker who was acting in the Parliament as an arrogant tyrant was behaving as a bull in a China shop and like a person suffering from dementia.  He challenged the President over the appointment of the new government despite the President was constitutionally empowered to do so, used the Parliament illegally thinking that sacrosanct premises is a legacy from his parents and called for media conferences on and off to challenge the President, to parrot UNP statements, state that he accepts only Ranil as the lawful Prime Minister until the President proves otherwise (this is not a legal requirement as the constitution provides authority for the President any member of Parliament whom he thinks as the one commanding the popularity cam be appointed as the Prime Minister and the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers).  The most scornful thing done by this demented former speaker was inviting western ambassadors for a conference in his Parliament office and telling them that he rejects appointment of a new Premier by the President and reportedly asking them and make their countries to express officially their concern and objection to this matter.

It was under these circumstances the President was forced to dissolve the Parliament based on expertise opinion provided by many legal luminaries.  This position was clearly explained by the Attorney at Law Minister of Buddha Saasana and Religious Affairs Mr. Udaya Gammanpila addressing a media conference at his party office yesterday (9^th November) said that the President should dissolve Parliament using the powers vested with him under 33 (2) C of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. He said that dissolution of Parliament is the only solution for the crisis created by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya. Condemning the illegal and anti social activities of demented former speaker Mr. Gammanpila said that the Article 70(1) shows how a President should act in a general situation cannot dissolve Parliament without a two third majority. But the Article 32(2)C shows how the President should act when there is crisis and in such situation, the President has powers to dissolve Parliament.

Addressing another media conference today (10^th) Mt. Gammanpila explained that in the Bribery Act there is provision saying that if anyone misuses his position or utilizes his position to support another person that person would become liable for a prison term of maximum 10 years and Karu Jayasuriya has committed both these offences and hence he should get ready to discard his traditional white dress and wear a prison jumper.

Many patriotic and erudite Sri Lankans resident overseas unlike some ungrateful Sri Lankans who have acquired overseas positions due to the free education they received here, have also rushed to hail the President for rescuing the country from the neo liberal foreign slavish butterfly clan who were hell bent on foreignization of our national assets and natural resources

Given below are brief extracts from lengthy articles they have presented to Lankaweb.com website.

Dr. P.A.Samaraweera from Australia says that the President had done the best thing for the country by dissolving Parliament and the arrogant Ranil, who scraped through in 2015 by getting a slight majority wrecked the country for 3 an a half year with his western touch up and with his circle of colleagues from the upper class of Colombo he has no sense of national mind or love for the country. Dr. Samaraweera says Rani made decisions as an autocrat completely ignoring the fact that the President was elected by the country whereas he was elected by an electorate and appointed as PM by the President. Dr. Samaraweera further states that Ranil had been going after Foreign Envoys and pleading them to come to his rescue.

Tamara Kunanayakam a former Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UNHRC has very correctly pointed out ‘Sri Lankawasis fast losing its economic sovereignty under Ranil and People and the nation have become dispensable commodities; their labour, wealth, natural resources, economic activities are on auction with foreign bidders determining their values. She has stated that civil society leaders including the clergy as well as the great majority of Sri Lankans have welcomed the recent appointment of the new Prime Minister and Sri Lankans have already commenced to enjoy the several relief measures proposed by the new Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and SriLanka now looks forward to a new era of happiness, peace and tranquillity.

Mr, Lakshman L. Keerthisinghe, an Attorney at Law resident in Canada welcoming the dawn of a new era has said that n action oppressed with the heavy burden of taxation in various forms, large scale virtual sale of national assets on the basis of 99 year leases without any long-term substantial benefits to the nation, wasteful expenditure and an administration beset with mismanagement, was awaiting relief eagerly.  He has commended the recent statement made by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa quoting out an ancient saying of Kauti;uya that Taxes should be levied on the people as a bee extracts nectar without crushing the flower. He points out that Prorogation of Parliament is at the sole discretion of the President for which power has been granted to the President by Article 70 of the Constitution and flays western meddling in this regard

Dr. Nalaka Godahewa is a former Chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka. addressing a conference attended by professionals this morning (10^th) said that the President empowered by Article 70 Clause 5 to dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections if there is a crisis. He emphasized that if there is anyone who opposes the President’s action, they can go to Supreme Court about it.

Meanwhile political analysts point out that based on the results of the February 10^th LG elections the Mahinda-Maithri has 6.4 million votes amounting to 58% (excluding votes received by Pohottuwa sponsored independent groups) and the UNP only 32%.  They have also presented the following map and tables to affirm their claims.

As the UJNP is suffering from a perennial election phobia and even went to courts during the previous government to get elections stalled and after 2015 postponed LG elections for 3 years and have postponed elections for 6 provincial councils due to their fear of facing people in elections there is every possibility that they would sabotage January 5^th elections with the help of JVP hooligans which should be firmly countered by the all peace and democracy loving patriotic people.

(To be continued)

By M D P DISSANAYAKE

Mr Basil Rajapakse has laid foundation  to build the New Leadership Talent with new blood much needed by Sri Lanka.  His plan and plan implementation worked with minute details with a fine time line clearly and cleverly established.

His power to convince the President and the Prime Minister, communication skills and ability to maintain confidentiality must be respected.  His power base is people. He does not derive power from his role.  As Management Guru Mary Parker Follett, The Mother of  Modern Management  (1868-1933)  described  the methodology  and art of getting things done through the people”.

She has established the mechanism to:

1. Increase the number of Leaders rather than  decreasing;
2. Train Leaders to move for  Powering With” instead of Powering Over”.   A leader pregnant with Over Power” will destroy himself and his followers.  A leader blessed With Power”  carry himself diagonally opposite direction and take his followers with him;
3. Deal with Conflicts.  Analyse conflicts into Destructive Conflicts and Constructive Conflicts.  Capitalise on Constructive Conflicts, convert  Destructrive Conflicts into  Constructive Conflicts. ( For example you will notice each time you start your microwave it is likely to rotate in the opposite direction from that of its previous cycle.)

Basil is not  a big headed politician.  He is not unapproachable.    He is a good listener.  He work with small groups at the grass root level. He then build the pyramid. He has integrated Tamil and Muslim young leaders to work with Sinhala young groups throughout the island through Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna.

Mr Basil Rajapakse’s masterly craftsmanship  skills generated  new political culture in Sri Lanka.  With the opportunity to elect new representatives free of corruption, Basil will be in the frontline in the battlefield.

Now not only Prime Minister Mr Mahinda Rajapakse, but President Sirisena has the confidence in Basil Rajapakse.   This new found chemistry should help the nation.

We must thank Rajapakse Brothers and President Sirisena for saving the nation, culture and religion from the clutches of Dictatorship and Corruption .

Mage ratata daladha himi sewanai

Mage deyata daladha himi saranai

Sapathin sapirunu niwahal deranai

Upathin maa hata mey hama urumai

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.

Forces of evil – 1956 vs. 2018

Buddhist pig and pork

The disposal of PM RanilW on Oct 26^th becomes more meaningful when we examine the history of Sri Lanka as a [hi]story of a clash between rulers (white and black-white) and the temple (Sinhala Buddhists). The craving to make Sinhale a Christian kingdom began after 1505 with the first Catholic king Don Juan Dharmapala. The latest version of this plan to balkanize the Sinhala Buddhist state once and for all, designed craftly by a trio of RanilW, Mrs. Chandrika and an exam cheat, Marxist, JayampathyW, came to an abrupt end with the rebellious exit of its yahapalana prisoner MaithripalaS.

The Euro-centric historians of Sri Lanka, within the framework of Europeanization or Americanization of the world, divided the island’s history as periods of Portuguese, Dutch and British rule, and then got struck with 70 years after 1948, unable or unwilling to brand it as the period of black-white rule. But when we escape from this Eurocentric (Europe is superior) mindset, when we see history as an attempt made by white and black-white rulers to derail the Sinhala Buddhist state based on the Trinity of Gama-Vawa-Dagoba (Village-tank-temple), the emerging pattern is a Sinhala Buddhist society facing what the biologist Garett Harding described as a Tragedy of the Commons. History is past geography of a country. Historical processes create geographical patterns (landscapes). Thus, a decision to make profit by exporting tea create several processes resulting in landscape patterns such as tea plantations, Indian labor lines, roads, poverty-stricken Sinhala villages, soil erosion and landslides.

The Sinhala Buddhist civilization, the Buddha Sasanaya, meaning male-female monks and lay persons, and its monuments protected in the past by some dedicated white civil servants, became the commons used and abused by the ruler and the ruling class starting with Governor North in 1799. Suddage neethiya penetrated the Buddhist Commons and eroded everything local and national. Some significant phases of the ebbs and flows of this conflict during the past 200 years are listed at the end of this essay. The latest episode of this corroding process by the black-whites began with a new European-backed invention of a ‘common-candidate.’ Robert Blake was behind it first time with Sarath F, and Michele Sison’s visit to Nagaviharaya with ata pirikara marks the second successful effort.  Ven. Maduluwave Sobhita got trapped and perished. In this regard, the hurriedly erected pirith hut at the Temple Trees entrance is an attempt to invite the Maduluwave ghost to rescue façade of yahapalana devils.

Europeans gave up slave trade to begin a new venture of colonization. In this the strategy followed was divide and rule. But despite this and other unethical and bias methods the Sinhala Buddhist state survived, a miracle in world history like the survival of the Sinhala language in an ocean of rival Indian languages trying to swallow it. But by the year 2000 Sinhala Buddhist society reached a low ebb and Ven. Soma had his rise and fall (December 2003). Mrs. Chandrika branded BBS as a balu sena, and its leader was sent to a balu kuuduwa. What had happened in 2014 was not just a divide and conquer, but to use the proverbial pig’s flesh to cut pork. The new game was running so successfully, even homosexuality, which should have been a private affair of male ministers became an open public matter of weekly helicopter trips to Deniyaya. Buddha statutes became anathema to Wigneswaran in the north as well as to RosyS in the Colombo mayor’s office. Hunting of socially active monks using suddage neethiya made people sick.

In this dangerous climate when a new constitutional draft was about to be presented to seal the fate of Sinhale that existed for 2600 years, the second cat’s paw used by the international king makers (IKMs) led by Sison & Co. with Indian RAW and other whites and black whites behind it, exploded a yahapalana bomb sending international shock waves. His behavior reminds one of what Keppettipola and Konappu Bandara, (later king Wimaladharmasuriya I) did in the past. The unfair and unreasonable treatment given to him by MahindaR, despite how he helped MR against Mrs. Chandrika’s hostile conspiracies, compelled MithripalaS to embrace chilly leaving ginger. The late Maduluwave Sobhita, realized sooner that he was used as a pig, but MS did not want to betray the UNP that helped him to teach a lesson to MR. Impartially looking a break to MR’s behavior wearing emperor’s clothes was a good thing that had happened to MR as well as to the country, but MS did not expect that the price he had to pay for his personal salvation would be the betrayal of his country of birth. His numerous acts as president demonstrated that he is a Sinhala Buddhist villager from a peasant family. Otherwise, there was no reason for him to ask the man who takes fire under water, RanilW, whether he could continue to address him (Ranil) as Sir. To this day, we do not know if Ranil and Mrs. Chandrika addressed MS as Sir. May be MS will tell us this so that we know if there was mutual respect for each other, or it was one-way Christian Colombo seven domination.

The cartoon above appeared at the time of the parliamentary elections in April 1956, marked the helplessness of Sinhala Buddhists at that time. After 1956, the black-whites had a temporary set-back, but soon they (including black-white Marxists) started a process of derailing and sabotaging everything considered as remedial measures for Buddhist suffering. There was no room for a Buddhist approach to state craft. Buddhist reasonableness do not support arbitrary harassing of a Tamil for not knowing Sinhala. Thus, to give one simple example, the reasonable decision of making the majority language the official language so that English will no longer be the language of oppression and suppression, became an anti-Buddhist weapon in the hands of Tamil, Sinhala, Christian and Marxist black-whites.

The relevance of the 1956 cartoon to 2018 is so obvious. At that time, Buddhist society faced a tragedy of the commons. But now in 2018, Buddhists have become a society of pigs making pork. PMs and Ps of this island always operated with personal gain as their top concern. I challenged any one to prove otherwise. In such human tragedy, what MS did on Oct 26 was as equally significant as what MR did on May 19, 2009. Actually, MR ruined the war victory by his subsequent acts of unwise and unreasonable behavior.

Only a handful of persons, Nalin de Silva, Lalithasiri Gunaruwan and Gevindu Kumaratunga have so far looked at this explosion from a survival of the Sinhale perspective. Both Gomin Dayasiri and Nagananda Kodituwakku have missed the boat. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri, the Marxist history teacher at Colombo University, a supporter of the just society movement led by the late Ven. Maduluvawe Sobhita, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the January 8, 2015 defeat of the MahindaR regime, rejoiced that it was the end of the Sinhala Buddhist hegemony found in the island since 1948 (Colombo today, January 11, 2016). He has been a supporter of Tamil separatism and like most other Marxists he was confused. If there was a Buddhist supremacy in the country as he claims, then the Ven. Soma phenomenon (tragically silenced in Russia in December 2003) and later the Bodu Bala Sena movement (began in May 2012) must be classified as stupid attempts by two monks to generate not light but heat. Instead, they spearheaded, a militant (disciplined) Buddhist reawakening movement revealing that the Sinhala politicians treat Sinhala Buddhists as if they were like the proverbial kind-hearted women.

Next essay will discuss how the same crowd who said, this war is not winnable,” are now behind the slogan this parliament is sacred,” or how the Western whites of USA, Canada, Australia, UK and EU openly prostitute democracy.

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Stages of clash between black-whites vs. monks

1. 1798-1873 – Buddhism = primitive idol worship
2. 1840s-> Buddhism in death-bed
3. 1880-1915->Olcott – Dharmapala period
4. 1931-1948 – Donoughmore period; social service of Vidyodaya monks
5. 1946-> political service of Vidyalankara monks
6. 1956-1959 – Five Great Forces
7. 1960-1978 – the Dark age
8. 1978-2005 – The un-just Society
9. 2000-2003 – Ven. Soma phenomenon
10. 2004-2010-> Pirith Nuul outbreak
11. 2012 May-> Bodu Bala Sena movement
12. 2017 June 20 – Asgiriya Declaration, July 4^th Asgiriya Notice
13. 2018 Oct 26 – Explosion of the yahapalana bomb.

https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/category/c-wijeyawickrema/

https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2017/07/30/%e0%b6%85%e0%b7%83%e0%b7%8a%e0%b6%9c%e0%b7%92%e0%b6%bb%e0%b7%92-%e0%b7%80%e0%b7%92%e0%b6%b4%e0%b7%8a%e0%b6%bd%e0%b7%80%e0%b6%ba/

පරිකල්පන අතික්‍රමණය ; වෛද්‍ය රුවන් එම් ජයතුංග 

වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක ගේ දෙනෙත් යළිත් වරක් ඔරී රෙයිස්මාන් ගේ චිත්‍රය වෙත ගියේය. එහි දුඹුරු පැහැති ගස් වල කඳන් සහ විශාල කහ පැහැති කොල දෙස ඔහුගේ අවධානය යොමු විය. කුඩා ත්‍රිකෝණයක් ලෙස ගස් අතරින් නිල් පැහැති අහස දකින්නට තිබේ. ගුරු පැහැති පාර ඇඳ තිබෙන්නේ බුහුටි ලෙස නොවේ. මෙම චිත්‍රයේ මූලකෘතිය වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක දුටුවේ ජෙරුසලමේ පිහිටි ඊශ්‍රායෙල ජාතික කෞතුකාගාරයේදීය. ඔරී රෙයිස්මාන් ගේ කැරොබ් ට්‍රී බුලවාර්ඩ් චිත්‍රය අග්‍රකෘතියක්ද ? ඔහු සිතුවේය. කැරොබ් ට්‍රී බුලවාර්ඩ් චිත්‍රය වැනි චිත්‍ර රැසක් බාලාංශ පන්තියේදී වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක විසින් ඇඳ තිබේ. එහෙත් ඒවා අග්‍රකෘති නොවීය.

 කෞතුකාගාරයේදී වෙනත් චිත්‍රයක් ඔහුගේ නෙත ගැටුනේය. එය ඇඳ තිබුනේ පීටර් පෝල් රුබින්ස් විසිනි. The Death of Adonis නමින් හඳුන්වන ලද මෙම චිත්‍රයෙන් නිරූපණය වූයේ ග්‍රීක පුරාණෝක්ති කතාවකි. එම දේව කතාව අනුව ඇඩොනිස් යනු ඇප්‍රෝඩයිට් යන ග්‍රීක දේවතාවියගේ පෙම්වතාය.  ඇඩොනිස් මෘත්‍යුතාව හිමි මිනිසෙකි. ඔහු තම පෙම්වතිය මෙන් අමරණීය දේවත්වයක් ලබා නොමැත. එහෙත් ඔවුන් ප්‍රේමයෙන් වෙළී සිටියහ.

 වරක් ඔවුන් දඩයමේ ගිය අවස්ථාවක ඇඩොනිස් හට වලහෙක් විසින් පහර දෙන ලදි. මාරාන්තික තුවාල ලැබූ ඇඩොනිස් තම පෙම්වතිය වූ ඇප්‍රෝඩයිට් දේවතාවියගේ දෑත් මත වැතිරී සිටියේය. ඔහු මෙම මරණීය තුවාල නිසා මිය යන බව ඇප්‍රෝඩයිට් දැන සිටියාය. දේවතාවියක වූවද ඇඩොනිස් ගේ මරණය වලකාලීමට ඇය අසමත් වූවාය. අවසානයේදී ඇයගේ දෑත් මත ඇඩොනිස් මිය ගියේය.

 පීටර් පෝල් රුබින්ස් විසින් ඇඳ තිබූ චිත්‍රයේ මිය ගිය ඇඩොනිස් , ඇප්‍රෝඩයිට් ගේ උකුල මත සිටියි. ඔහුගේ මරණයට වීනස් සහ ක්‍යුපිඩ්  ද ශෝක වෙති. මෙම චිත්‍රය ඔරී රෙයිස්මාන් ගේ චිත්‍රයට වඩා උසස් බව වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක සිතුවේය. පීටර් පෝල් රුබින්ස් ගේ චිත්‍ර මැඩ්‍රීඩ් වල සහ වොෂින්ටන් ඩීසී වල ජාතික කෞතුකාගාරවල ඔහු දැක තිබේ.

ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන් විසින් ග්‍රහණය කල අවකාශය තුල තිබුනේ කුමක් කියා ඔබ සිතනවාද වින්සන්ට් ? දාලියා යළි ඔහුගෙන් ඇසුවේය.

ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන් විසින් ග්‍රහණය කල අවකාශය තුල තිබුනේ කුමක්ද ? වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක කල්පනා කලේය.  ඇඩොනිස් ගේ මරණය ඔහු කල්පනා කලේද ? ඔහු කැරොබ් ට්‍රී මාර්ගයේ ඇවිද ගියේද ?

සබ්‍රා සහ ෂටීලා කඳවුරු වලට පහර දෙන විට ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන් ආරක්‍ෂක අමාත්‍යවරයා විය. මේ ප්‍රහාර එල්ල කරන්නේ පලස්තීන අබු නිඩාල් කණ්ඩායමේ ප්‍රහාරයන් නිසාය. ලෙබනන් හි  බේරූට් වල බටහිර කොටසේ මෙම  ඝාතන  සිදු වූ බව ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන් දැන සිටි නමුත් ඔහු එය වසන් කලේය. අප්‍රාණිකව ඇඳේ වැතිර සිටින විට ඔහුගේ මනස පිරී තිබුනේ කුමකින් ද ?

කඳවුරට ඉහල අහසේ මිලිටරි පැරා පත්තු වේ. එම නිසා දිවා කාලයේ මෙන් එළිය තිබේ. බිය ගත් මිනිසුන් ගැහැනුන් සහ ළමුන් ඒ මේ අත දිව යති. පැරා එළිය නිසා ඝාතකයන්ට ඉලක්ක ගැනීම පහසුය. වෙඩි හඞ, මිනිසුන් ගේ මරණීය විළාපය ඇසේ. ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන් නිහඞය. ඔහුගේ මනසේ විවිධ චිත්‍රයන් මතුවී අතුරුදන්වී යයි.

විශාල බුල්ඩෝසරයක් ඉදිරියට එයි. එහි ගොරහැඞි නාදය සවනට වදයකි. එහි තියුණු තලය ගෙවල් සහ ගස් කොලන් පොඩි කර අඹරා දමයි. මිය ගිය මිනිසුන් ගේ මළ සිරුරු බුල්ඩෝසරයේ යකඩ දම්වැල් වලට අසුවී ඇඹරී යයි. මෘත ශරීර වල ඇටකටු පොඩිවී යන හඞ  බුල්ඩෝසරයේ ගොරහැඞි නාදය නිසා නොඇසේ. එහෙත් වෙඩි හඞ බුල්ඩෝසරයේ   නාදය පරයා ඇසෙයි.

” වින්සන්ට් , මහාචාර්‍ය මාටින් මොන්ටි පවසන පරිදි ඔහුගේ මනස සකර්මකයි ” දාලියා කීවාය.

 මාටින් මොන්ටි කැලිෆෝනියා විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයේ ස්නායුවේදය පිළිබඳ මහාචාර්‍යවරයෙකි. ඔහු ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන් ගේ මනස කියවන්නේ ඊ.ඊ ජී සහ සීටී ස්කෑන් හරහාය. එහෙත් මේ උපකරණ වලට හසු නොවන කොතෙකුත් දේවල් ඔහුගේ මනසේ  උප්පාදනය වී  වියැකී යයිද ?

වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලකගේ වයින් බෝතලයේ පතුල පෙනෙන තෙක් පානය කලේය. ඔහුට වාලීඩ් ගේ වදන් මතක් විය. වාලීඩ් ඔහු එන තෙක් හයිෆා වල සිටියි. වාලීඩ් පිළිබඳව දාලියාට පැවසිය නොහැක. පලස්තීන ජාතිකයෙකු වූ වාලීඩ් හමාස් සංවිධානයේ සාමාජිකයෙකි. ඔහුගේ හමාස් සබඳතාවන් පිළිබඳව වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක දැන සිටියද ඔහු ඒ ගැන උනන්දු නොවීය. ඊශ්‍රායිල සහ පලස්තීන ගැටුම ඔහුට අදාල නැත. එහෙත් වාලීඩ් විසින් ලබා දුන් මැස්ඩා -3 රථය වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක  හයිෆා සිට ජෙරුසලම් දක්වා ධාවනය කරගෙන ආවේය. පැය දෙකකට ආසන්න කාලයක් ගිය මේ ගමන ඉක්මන් කිරීම සඳහා ඔහු හයිවේ -6 මාර්ගය ගත්තේය.

 වාලීඩ් විසින් ලබා දුන් මැස්ඩා -3 රථයේ අභ්‍යන්තරයේ සඟවා තිබෙන්නේ කුමක්ද ? ආර්.ඩී.එක්ස් පිපුරුම් ද්‍රව්‍යද ? ගිනි අවිද ? සාමාන්‍යයෙන් හමාස් සාමාජිකයෝ ගිනි අවි සහ පිපුරුම් ද්‍රව්‍ය ගම්මිරිස් වල බහා රහසේ ප්‍රවාහනය  කරති.  ගම්මිරිස් සුවඳ නිසා බල්ලන් හට ගිනි අවි සහ පිපුරුම් ද්‍රව්‍ය වල සුවඳ දැනෙන්නේ නැත. වාලීඩ් මරාගෙන මැරෙන බෝම්බ කරුවෙක්ද ? වාලීඩ්ගේ කිට්ටු ඥාතීන් ෂටීලා කඳවුරේ සිටි බවත් ප්‍රහාරය නිසා ඔවුන් මිය ගිය බවත් වාලීඩ් වරක් වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලකට කීවේය. ඔහුට යුදෙව්වන් ගෙන් පළි ගැනීමට අවශ්‍යවීද ?

 මැස්ඩා -3 රථය හයිෆා සිට ජෙරුසලම් දක්වා පදවාගෙන ආවේ වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක බව  ඊශ්‍රායල ආරක්‍ෂක වල සටහන් වී තිබේ. මේ වන විට රථය තිබෙන්නේ ජෙරුසලම් ගේට් හෝටලයේ රථ ගාලේය. එම රථයේ තවත් යතුරක් මොහොමඩ් අබ්දුල් රහමන් රවුෆ් හුසෙයිනී ලඟ තිබෙන බව වාලීඩ් කීවේය. මොහොමඩ් අබ්දුල් රහමන් රවුෆ්  හුසෙයිනී ජෙරුසලම් ගේට් හෝටලයේ සේවකයෙකි. ඔහු විසින් මෝටර් රථය ගෙන යනු ඇත. සමහරක් විට මරාගෙන මැරෙන බෝම්බකරුවා මොහොමඩ් අබ්දුල් රහමන් රවුෆ්  හුසෙයිනී විය හැක.

 මොහොමඩ් අබ්දුල් රහමන් රවුෆ්  හුසෙයිනී තම කබාය යටින් තිබෙන මාරක බෝම්බ කට්ටලය සෙමෙන් අතගාමින් යුදෙව්වන් බහුල ප්‍රදේශයක අවන්හලකට හෝ බස් නැවතුම් ස්ථානයකට එනු ඇත. මිනිසුන් දෙස යටි ඇසින් බලන ඔහු මහ හඞින්  අල්ලහු අක්බාර් කියා බෝම්බයේ යතුර ක්‍රියාත්මක කරනු නියතය. එවිට විශාල ගිනි ගුලියක් සමග මොහොමඩ් අබ්දුල් රහමන් රවුෆ්  හුසෙයිනී කැබලි වී යයි. ස්ඵෝටනය සමග අවට සිටින යුදෙව්වෝ  රැසක්ද මිය යනු ඇත.

 ඉන් පසු සිදු වන්නේ කුමක්ද ? ඊශ්‍රායල මොසාඩ් නියෝජිතයන් සහ ෂින් බෙත් ඒජන්තයන් මොහොමඩ් අබ්දුල් රහමන් රවුෆ් හුසෙයිනී ලඟ තිබූ මැස්ඩා -3 රථය සොයා ගනු ඇත. එම රථය හයිෆා සිට ජෙරුසලම් දක්වා පදවාගෙන ආවේ ශ්‍රී ලාංකිකයෙකු බව ඔවුන් අනාවරණය කර ගනිති. ඉන් පසු ඔවුන් තමාව සොයා ජෙසුසලමේ කප්ලාන් හෝටලයට පැමිනෙති.

 ඊශ්‍රායල මොසාඩ් නියෝජිතයන් සහ ෂින් බෙත් ඒජන්තයන් තමා අරබයා කුමන වධ ක්‍රමයක් යොදා ගනීද කියා වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක මොහොතක් කල්පනා කලේය. සමහරක් විට ඔවුන් තමාගේ හිස වතුර බේසමක ඔබාගෙන සිටිනු ඇත. නැතහොත් දෑත් වලින් එල්ලා පහර දෙනු ඇත. එසේත් නොමැති නම් අත පය ඉතා වේදනාකාරී ලෙස බැඳ දෑස් වැසෙන සේ අතිශයින් ගඳ ගහන රෙදිකඩක් හිසට පොරවා අඳුරු සිර කාමරයකට විසි කරනු ඇත. එම සිර මැදිරිය සොහොන් ගෙයක් සේ නිසලය. වධකයන් එම නිසලතාව බිඳ යන පරිදි ලෙනාඩ් කොහෙන් ගේ First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin ගීතය නොකඩවා වාදනය කරන්නේ එම ශබ්දය සිරකරුවාට මානසික හිරිහැරයක් වීම සඳහාය.

 ” දාලියා සමහරක් විට ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන්ට ලෙනාඩ් කොහෙන් ගේ ගීතයක් ඇසෙනවා ඇති ” වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක කීවේය.

ඇයි ලෙනාඩ් කොහෙන් ගේ ගීතයක් ? දාලියා ප්‍රශ්න කලාය.

මම දන්නේ නෑ සමහර විට බ්ලැක් සැබත් කණ්ඩායම ගායනා කරන වෝ පිග්ස් ගීතය ඔහුට ඇහෙනවා ඇති ” වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක පිළිතුරු ලෙස කීවේය.

වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක මුල් වරට ඔසී ඔස්බර්න් සමග බ්ලැක් සැබත් කණ්ඩායම දුටුවේ 1972 වසරේ බර්මිංහැම් නගරයේදීය. ඒකාලයේදී ඔහු යෞවනයෙකු විය.

ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන්ට  බ්ලැක් සැබත්  ගීතයක් ඇසෙනවා විය නොහැකිද ? වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලකට සිතුනේය.  

හඩාෂා රෝහලේ ඇඳක නිසලව වැතිර සිටින මහල්ලා   විශාල බුල්ඩෝසරයක් , මිය ගිය මිනිසුන් ගේ විකෘතිව ගිය  මළ සිරුරු , විශාල ගිනි බෝලයක් ඇඩොනිස් , කැරොබ් ට්‍රී මාර්ගය, පැරා එළි සහ ඔසී ඔස්බර්න් දකියි. ඔහුගේ මනැස් චිත්‍ර විවිධාකාරය. යන්ත්‍ර ආධාරයෙන් ජීවිතය පවත්වාගෙන යාම ඔහුට   වධයකි. ඒනයින් සබ්‍රා සහ ෂටීලා කඳවුරු වල සිටි වින් දිතයන් වාසනාවන්තය. ඔවුන් මිය ගියේ එක් වතාවකි. එහෙත් ෂැරෝන් දිනපතා සෑම පැයකදීම සෑම මිනිත්තුවකදීද , සෑම තත්පරයකදීද , සෑම මිලි තත්පරයකදීද මිය යමින් සිටියි.

ඒරියල් ෂැරෝන් ග්‍රහණය කලේ  අවකාශය තුල තිබූ දේ පමණයි ” වින්සන්ට් ලංකාතිලක සෙමින් කීවේය. 

– උඩවත්තගේ ධම්මික (යූ.ඩී.)

දැනට අවුරුදු 35 කට පමණ ඉහත දී එනම්, අපගේ ආතා ජීවතුන් අතර සිටි කාලයේ අක්කරයකට වඩා මඳක් වැඩියෙන් වූ අපගේ වත්තෙහි කුඹුරු යායට මායින්ව පිහිටා තිබු විශාල පොකුණ අප කුඩා කල අප ගමෙහි ප්‍රසිද්ධම පොකුණ විය. එයට හේතුව කවර ඉඩෝරයක දී වුවත් එම පොකුණෙහි දිය සිඳී නො යාමයි. මුළු ගම ම දිය නෑවේ අපේ එම පොකුණෙන් යැයි කිවහොත් එය අතිශෝක්තියක් නො වේ. තවද, එකල වඳුලක් ලෙස පැවැති අප වත්ත නානාවිධ ගස්වලින් ගහණව පැවතිණ.

දෙදෙනෙකුට එකවර බැදිය නොහැකි ඉතා විශාල කොස්ගසද, පෙතන් කජුගසද, විශාල සියඹලා ගසද, විශාල කොහොඹ ගස ද එම ගස් අතර තිබූ සුවිශේෂී ගස් විය. මීට අමතරව පිණිජම්බු ගස් දෙක, ගොරකා ගස් දෙක, ඇඹරැල්ල ගස, කිතුල්ගස, ලොවි ගස, ලාවළු ගස, සැතපිල්ල ගස, නමිනං ගස, කරාබුනැටි ගස් කිහිපය, අඹ ගස් කිහිපය, අවුරුදු විසි පහක් පමණ වන කොස් ගස් තුන, වැල ගස් දෙක, ගෙඩි වලින් පිරී ගිය රඹුටන් ගස, බෙලි ගස, තවත් කුඩා කජු ගස් කිහිපය, වෙරළු ගස් දෙක, නවසි ගස, පැණි පොල්ග ස, දෙල් ගස අප වත්තෙහි වූ විවිධ ගස් අතර කැපී පෙනුන ගස් විය. වෙල් යායට මායින්ව පිහිටි විශාල ප්‍රදේශයක පැතිර තිබු උණ ගස් පඳුර සහ බටපදුර අප වත්තට විශාල අලංකාරයක් එක් කළේය.

මා ඉහතින් සඳහන් කල පොකුණට යාබඳව අඩි විස්සක් පමණ ඉහළට වැඩුනු කොළ වලින් පිරීගිය රම්පේ ගසක්ද, බිළිං වලින් පිරී ඉතිරි ගිය බිළිං ගසක්ද, බඹ දෙකක් පමණ ගැඹුරින් වූ අප වතුර බොන ළිඳ ළඟ වූ අවුරුදු විසිපහක් පමණ වූ කොස් ගස වටා එතී ගිය විශාල ගම්මිරිස් වැලද, වත්ත පුරාම තැන තැන පිහිටි පොල් ගස් විසිපහක් පමනද, තැඹිලි ගස් පහ හයක් පමනද, අප වත්තෙහි විය. අනෝඳා, කටු ආත්ත ගස් විස්සක් පමණ නිවසට ඉහළින් වූ බෑවුමෙහි පිහිටි අතර තැන තැන සිට වූ ගස් ලබු ගස් වලින්ද,  තැන තැන සිටවූ විවිධ වර්ගයේ කෙසෙල් ගස් විශාල ප්‍රමානයකින් ද, අන්නාසි ගස් ගාලකින්ද, විශාල සහ කුඩා ප්‍රමාන වලින් වූ කරපිංචා ගස් විශාල ප්‍රමාණයකින්ද, මනාව වැඩුනු කතුරුමුරුංගා ගස් දහයක් පමණකින්ද, විවිධ වර්ගයේ දෙහි ගස් ප්‍රමාණයකින්ද, කුරුඳු ගස්ද, කෝපි ගස්ද, පේර ගස්ද, අඩි විස්සක් පමණ උසින් වැඩුනු ඇඹුල් දොඩම් ගසකින්ද, ඉඟුරු සහ කහ ගස් ගාලකින්ද, ගමටම නිවිති බෙදු සාරවත් නිවිති වැලකින්ද, මාදම් ගස් වලින්ද, ඇඹුල් පේර ගස් වලින්ද, දෙළුම් ගස්වලින්ද, අඩි පහළොවේ පහළොවේ  ප්‍රමාණයෙන් යුක්තව වූ බුලත් කොරටුවකින්ද, වත්තේ වටේ මායිම දිගේ පැතිරගිය පුවක් ගස් සියයක් පමණකින්ද, පාරට මායිම්ම වූ වැටේ දිගේ එතී ගිය කුරිඤ්ඤං වැලකින්ද, පැෂන් පුට් වැල් වලින්ද, එකල අප වත්ත පිරී ඉතිරි තිබින. මීටත් අමතව ගහල, බතල, කිරිඅල, මඤ්ඤෝකා සහ කටුඅල ගස් ද අප වත්තෙහි වූ භෝග වර්ග අතර වූ අතර පොල්ගස් අවට සරුවට වැවී තිබු කුඩා කුඩා ගොටුකොළ පඳුරුද ඒ අතර විය.

අද වනවිට අප වත්තෙහි ඉහත ගස්වලින් තැන තැන ඉතිරිව ඇත්තේ පොල් ගස් කිහිපයක්ද, එක් අඹගසක්ද, ලොවි ගසද, ඇඹරැල්ල ගසක්ද, බෙලිගසද, පසුව අප පියා විසින් අලුත් වතුර බොන ළිඳ ළඟ සිටවූ කුඹුක් ගසද, මා විසින් පසුව සිටවූ අවුරුදු විසිපහක් පමණ වන අලිගැටපේර ගස සහ කොස ගස් දෙකද, අලුතින් අපේ අම්වා විසින් සිටවූ කුඩා රඹුටන් ගස් දෙක සහ කුඩා උගුරැස්ස ගසද, මාගේ දෙවෙනි අය්යා විසින් අලුතෙන් සිට වූ කුඩා අඹගස් කිහිපය ද පමණි. ඉතිරි ගස් සියල්ලම අපගේ ආතා මියගිය පසු මාගේ දැඩි විරෝධය නොසලකමින් අපගේ පියා මව විසින් අවට වතුවල පිරිස්ගේ දැඩි ඉල්ලීම ද පරිදි 80 දශකයේ අග භාගයේදී සහ 90 දශකයේ මුල් භාගයේ දී විවිධ අවස්ථාවන් වලදී කපා දමනු ලැබීය. අපගේ වත්තෙහි දැනට ඉඳිකර ඇති විවිධ ගොඩනැඟළි ඉඳිකිරීමට ඉඩ ලබා ගැනීම මෙම ගස් පද්ධතිය කපා දැමීම මාගේ දෙමාපියන්ගේ අරමුණ විය.

වඳුලක්ව පැවැති අපගේ කුඩාකළ ඉඩම අද ඉතා පිළිවෙලකට රට තණකොළ වැවු මල් ගස් වලින් සැරසු වත්තකි. දැන් එහි ඉහත සඳහන් කළ ඉතිරි ගස් ටිකද ඇත්තේ ඉතා දුරිනි. එකල කැප්පෙට්ටියා කොළ, මල්ලිනි කොළ පමණක් පොහොර වශයෙන් යෙදු පොල්ගස්වලට අද රසායනික පොහොර දමති. අද කුඩා පෑවිල්ලකට වුවද පොහොර සහ වතුර නොමැති වීම හේතුවෙන් ගස් වල අතු කහපාට ගැන්වේ. විදුලි පොම්පයෙන් ටැංකියට පිරවූ වතුර නැවතත් බට මඟින් පොල් ගස් වලට දමති. අවම වශයෙන් දිනකට පොල්ගසක් සඳහා වතුර ලීටර් 50 ක් අවශ්‍යය බව පොල් පර්යේෂණ මණ්ඩලයේ ක්‍ෂේත්‍ර නිළධාරීන්ද කියා සිටිති.

මීට වසර 35කට පමණ පෙර පොහොර සහ වතුර ඉල්ලා නොසිටි ගස් අද ඒවා ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ ඇයි? මෙම ප්‍රශ්නයට පිළිතුර එකල මා විසින් අපගේ පියාට පැවසුවද ඔහු ඒ කිසිවක් එකල මායිම් නොකළේය.

වෘතියෙන් දුම්රිය දෙපාර්තුමේන්තුවේ විශ්‍රාමික නිළධාරීයෙකු වූ අපගේ ආතා සතුව විශාල පරිසර දැනුම් පද්ධතියක් විය. ඔහු විවිධ අවස්ථාවල මාහට කුඩාකල කියාදුන් වැදගත් පරිසර පාඩම් විශාල ප්‍රමාණයක් විය. කොලුවෝ උඹ දන්නවද ඇයි අපේ වත්තේ පොකුණ කිසිම ඉඩෝරයකට වතුර හිදෙන්නේ නැතිව පිටාරගලන තරමට වතුර තියෙන්නේ ඇයි කියලා? යනුවෙන් විමසමින් ඔහු විසින් මා හට විශාල පරිසර පාඩමක් කියා දී තිබින.

උඹට පේනවද මේ දෙදෙනෙකුටවත් බදන්න බැරි කොස්ගහ අන්න ඒ කොස්ගහ හින්දා තමයි අපේ මේ පොකුණෙ හැම තිස්සෙම වතුර තියෙන්නේ. පොකුනේ සිට අඩි 100කටත් වඩා දුරින් පිහිටි කොස් ගසක් නිසා පොකුණක් කිසි දිනක හිස් නොවන්නේ කෙසේද?. පොකුණ විතරක් නෙමේ මේ පොල්ගස් දෙල් ගස් හැම තිස්සේම ගෙඩි වලින් පිරිලා තියෙන්නේ මේ කොස් ගහ නිසයි.

උඹ දන්නවද මේ කොස් ගහ මම පොඩි කාලේ (අපේ සීයාගේ)  හිටවපු ගසක්. මේ වත්තේ තියෙන පොකුණ විතරක් නෙමේ මේ වත්තේ තියෙන අනෙකුත් ගස් සියල්ලම නඩත්තු කරන්නේ මේ කොස් ගසයි. දැන් මේ ගහට අවුරුදු 70ක් විතර වෙනවා කොලුවෝ. දැන් මෙයාගේ මුදුන් මුල බඹ 12කට වැඩිය පොළව යටට ගිහිලා තියෙන්නේ. ඒ වගේම මෙයාගේ අනිත් මුලුත් අඩි පන් හයසීයක අරයක අල්ලපු වතු වලටත් දැන් පැතිරිලා ඉවරයි. ඒ නිසා මෙයා දැන් පොළවෙ ලොකු ප්‍රදේශයක තිබෙන ඳිය උල්පත් ඔක්කොම වගේ මෙයාගේ අනසකට අරන් තියෙන්නේ. මෙයාගේ මුල් වලින් විහිදෙන ඇහට පේන නොපෙනෙන කුඩාම කුඩා හීනිම හීනි කේෂ නාලීකා වගේ මුල් ප්‍රකෝටි ගානක් පොළවේ හැමතැමනම පතුරොගෙනයි තියෙන්නේ. දවසකට මෙයා මෙයාගේ කුඩා කේෂ නාලීකා වගේ එක මුලකින් වතුර බිංදුවක් පොළව උඩට අරං ආවොත් මෙයාට පුළුවන් වතුර බිංදු ප්‍රකෝටි ගාණක් දවස ගානේ පොළව මතුපිටට අරං එන්න. ඒ කියන්නේ කොල්ලෝ මෙයා හැමදාම මහා ජල කඳක් පොළව මතුපිටට අරං එනවා. මෙයාගේ තැන ඉදන් අඩි පන් හයසියක අරයකට මෙයා ලොකු ජල කඳක් දවස ගානේ ගෙනත් දෙනවා. ඒ මහා ජලකඳින් කොටසක් පොකුණ පුරෝනවා.  කොටසක් පොල්ගස් වැනි මුදුන්මුල් නැති ගස් වලට දෙනවා. කොටසක් පසේ ඉන්න කුඩා සත්තුන්ට ජීවත් වෙන්න දෙනවා. ඒ සත්තු පස පෙරළ පෙරළා ගස්වලට පොහොර දෙනවා. ඒ නිසා පසේ වයනය පරිසරයට ගැලපෙන ලෙස හැදෙනවා. අන්න ඒකයි කොල්ලෝ අපේ වත්තේ මේ පොකුනේ වතුර කවදාවත් හිදෙන්නේ නැත්තේ. මේ වත්තේ ගස් මේ තරම් සශ්‍රීකත් එකයි. මේ වත්ත මේ වගේ සිසිලුත් ඒකයි. මේ වත්ත විතරක් නෙමේ කොලුවෝ අපේ වත්ත වටේ තියෙන අනෙකුත් වතුවලටත් අවශ්‍යය පොහොර සහ භූගත ජලය ගෙනත් දෙන්නෙත් මෙයාම තමයි. අපේ ආතාගේ එම කොස්ගසේ පරිසර පාඩම මා හට අදටත් මහා විද්‍යාවකි.

පසුව ගෙදරට මුල් අදිනවා යැයි පවසමින් මාගේ දැඩී විරෝධය නොසලකා අපගේ අම්මා, තාත්තා , පවුලේ අනෙකුත් සාමාජිකයින් සහ අවට වතුවල සිටි අයගේද බලපෑම පිට අප වත්තෙන් කපා ඉවත්කර දැමූ පළමු ගස් අතර එම මහා කොස් ගසද  විය. කොස් ගසේ මුල් අවට වතුවලට ඇඳ තිබීම හේතුවෙන් ඔවුන්ගේ වතුද පාළුවන බව කියමින් අපගේ කොස්ගස කපා ඉවත් කිරිමට අවට වතු වලද සහයෝගය ඒ ආකාරයෙන් ලැබිණ. මා තනිවිය. ඔවුන් සියල්ලෝම මහා රූස්ස ගසක් මෙන් වූ එම කොස් ගස කපා දමනු ලැබුයේ එසේය.

කොස්ගස කපා ඉවත්කර ටික කලකට පසුව ගමක් නෑවූ අපගේ මහා පොකුණ සිඳි ගියාය. පසුව එම පොකුණද ඔවුන් ගොඩ කර දැමුවෝය. පොල් ගස් කණාටු විය. අද වත්තෙහි වන පොල් ගස් ටික නඩත්තු කිරීමට ඔවුන්ගේ ව්‍යාපාර වලින් උපයන ධනයෙන් කොටසක් වැය කරති. පොල් ගසක් විසින් පොල් ගසක් නඩත්තු නොකරයි. ඒ සඳහා දැන් රැකියාවක් හෝ ව්‍යාපාරයක් හෝ කරන කිසිවෙකු විසින් තම ධනයෙන් කොටසක් වැය කළ යුතුය. එයට හේතුව පොල්ගසක් රැකියාවක් කර ලයිට් බිල් ගෙවා නල ජලය සපායාගනිමින් පොහොර ද මිලට ගෙන  තමන්ව නඩත්තු කරගැනීම පොල්ගසේ කාර්යභාරය නොවීමයි.

ඉහත ගස් කපා දැමීමෙන් කලකට පසුව කිසිවෙකුත් බලාපොරොත්තු නොවූ දෙයක්ද සිදුවිය. ඒ බඹ දෙකක් පමන ගැඹුර වූ අපගේ පැරැණි වතුර බොන ළිඳ ද කෙමෙන් සිදි යාමයි. අද එය බඹ පහකට හයකට වඩා සෑරූ ළිඳකි. මෙහි අවසානය යම් දිනක මෙම ළිඳ ද සම්පූර්නයෙන් සිදී යාමක් විය හැකිද.?

පසුව අපේ තාත්තා සහ අම්මා විසින් මහා රූස්ස ගහක් මෙන් වූ කොස් ගස අනෙකුත් විශාල ගස් අප වත්තෙන් කපා ඉවත් කිරීම පිළිබඳව ඔවුන් යම් පසුතැවිල්ලකින් පසු වූ බව ඔවුන්ගේ කථාවෙන් පිළිබිඟු විය. අපගේ පියාගේ එම පසුතැවිල්ල නිසාමදෝ වතුර බොන ළිඳ බැම්මේම කුඹුක් ගසක් එකල ඔහු විසින්ම සිටවුවාය. අදවන විට එය අඩි විස්සක් පමන උසකින් යුත් කුඩා කුඹුක් ගසකි. අපගේ මවද පසුව විවිධ ගස් කිහිපයක් අප වත්තෙහි සිටවනු ලැබීය.

කෙසේ හෝ අප වත්තෙහි වූ ඉහත ගස් කපාදැමීම හේතුවෙන් අදවන විට අවට වතුද කේඩෑරී වී ගියාක් මෙනි දිස්වේ. ගමෙහි වන අනෙත් වතුවලද අයිතිකරුවන් විසින් ඔවුන්ගේ වතුවල තිබූ විශාල ගස් කපා දැමීම හේතුවෙන් ගමෙහි සියළුම පොකුණු සිඳී යාම හේතුවෙන් දැන් අප ගමෙහි පොකුණු කිසිවක් නොමැත. සියල්ලෝම නාන්නේ ටැප් වතුරෙනි. පොල් ගස් වලට වතුර ලබා දීමට බඹ ගණනින් ගැඹුරට හෑරු ළිං වලින් නල බට යොදා ලබා ගන්නා වතුරෙන් පිරවූ ටැංකි වලින් වතුර සපයති. පොහොර ලබාදීමට මුදල් වැය කරති. ඒ ආකාරයෙන් වු සැපයුම් සඳහා ලයිට් බිල ගෙවිමටද, පොහොර යෙදවිමටද, ඔවුන්ට දිය නෑමටද ඔවුන් රැකියාවල් කර මුදල් සොයති.

මේ සියළු වියදම් වලට අමතරව එකළ අප එක් අයෙකු විසින් මසකට නොමිලයේ අනුභව කළා වූ අප වත්තෙහි වූ පළතුරු ප්‍රමාණය මෙකළ එක් අයෙකුට අනුභව කිරීම සඳහ රුපියල් දහ පහළොස් දාහක පමණ මුදලක් අවශ්‍යය බව මාගේ වැටහීමයි. අද අප කඩෙන් මිලදී ගන්නා පළතුරු එකළ වූ රසවත් ගුණවත් පළතුරු නොවන බවද සඳහන් කළ යුතුය.

යාබඳ වත්තේ පොල්ගස් හොඳටෝම කණාටු වී තිබු බැවින් මේ ගස් වලට වතුර පොහොර දමන්නේ නැද්දැයි මා ඔවුන්ගෙන් මෑත දී විමසු වීට මල්ලි මේ පාර රට ඉදන් සල්ලි එව්වාම පොහොර දාන්නයි ඉන්නේ. වතුර පොම්පෙත් කැඩිලා ඒකත් ඒ ගමන්ම හදා ගන්නවා. යනුවෙන් ඔවුන් මට පිළිතුරු දුන්නෝය.

අදවන විට අප රට මුහුණ දෙන ප්‍රධාන ප්‍රශ්න අතර පිරිසිදු පානීය ජලය නොමැති වීමෙන් සෑදෙන්නා වූ බෝ නොවන රෝග ප්‍රධාන ස්ථානයක වේ. සැතපුම් ගණන් ගෙවා පැමිණෙන විස සහිත අපිරිසිදු නල ජලය පානය කිරීම නිසාවෙන් වැළදෙන වකුගඩු රෝගය අප රටේ සෑම නිවසක්ම මේවන විට ආක්‍රමණය කරමින් සිටියි. මෙම නළ ජලය වතුර පිරිසිදු කර ගැනීමට ඇතැම් පිරිස් තමා උපයන වැටුපෙන් බටහිර ක්‍රමවේදයට සැකසූ මෙවලම් තව තවත් මිල දී ගනිමින් සිටිති. අද අපි විශාල පිරිසක් පරිසරයක් නඩත්තු කළ ගසක් කැපීම හේතුවෙන් කෘතිම පරිසරයක් මිලදී ගැනීමට රැකියාවන් කරමින් නොසිටින්නේමුද?.

හිතවත, හිතවතිය ඉහත ජීවන ක්‍රමය ගසක් කපා දැමීමේ පාපය නිසාවෙන් ඔවුන්ට උදා වි නැතැයි පවසන්නේ කෙසේද?. ඊනියා බටහිර විද්‍යාවට හෝ බටහිර සමාජ ක්‍රමයට මේ සඳහා දිය හැකි පිළිතුරක් නොමැත. ඔවුන් පය බරවායට පිටි කර බෙහෙත් බැඳීමේ බොරු වල්පල් විසඳුම් වලින් අපව මුලා කරති. එම විසඳුම් අනුව ජීවත්වන ඉහත පිරිසගේ ඇතැමුන් මල්ලි රට ඉදන් මුදල් එවනකම් පොල්ගස් ටිකට වතුර සහ පොහොර දැමීමට බලා සිටිති. අවුරුදු 80ක් පමණ පැරණි පරිසර පද්ධතියක් (ඔවුන්ටද නිවි සැලසිල්ලේ ජීවත්වීමට ඉඩ ලබාදුන් පරිසරය ද ඇතුළුව) නඩත්තු කළ ගසක් කැපීම හේතුවෙන් ඔවුන්ට මේ භවයේදීම ගෙවීමට පාපයක් සිදු වී නොමැතිද?. අවුරුදු 80ක් පැරැණි ගසක් කපාදැමීමෙන් මෙතරම් පරිසර විපර්යාසයක් වූවානම්, වසර දෙතුන් සියයක් පැරණි මහා රූස්ස ගසක් කපා දැමීමෙන් කෙතරම් පරිසර විපර්යාසයක් වෙත්ද? එය මහා පාපකර්මයක් නොවන්නේද?

– උඩවත්තගේ ධම්මික (යූ.ඩී.)

ALI SUKHANVER

Let us go back to 2012; the CNN published a very heart-rending rather agonizing report on the painfully insulting situation, the Dalits in India were facing that time. The report included the story of Dr. Vinod Sonkar’s short visit to a teashop at Rajasthan. Dr. Vinod Sonkar was a PhD in law and was teaching at a Delhi university that time. He told the CNN correspondent that for years he had worked hard to leave behind his childhood of poverty, abuse at school and teasing at university. By the time he had walked into that teashop, he had turned his life into a success story. As the shop owner handed him his tea, he asked him what caste he belonged to. “I am a Dalit,” Dr Sonkar said. In that case, wash your glass when you are done,” warned him the tea- shop owner. Dr. Sonkar said, “He didn’t want to touch whatever I had touched. I made it impure because I am an untouchable.” Unable to bear that insult, Dr. Sonkar flew the glass across the room, straight into the wall, threw money on the counter – enough for the tea he drank and the glass he had smashed – and walked out.

Now it is the end of 2018 but situation for the Dalits is still the same there. Amit, a Dalit Video Volunteer says in a video message, Being a Dalit is like you are born with a stamp on your forehead and you can never get rid of it.”  The renowned Georgian journalist Natalia Antelava once said commenting on the worst circumstances faced by the Dalits in India, Dalits are at the bottom of the Hindu caste system and despite laws to protect them; they still face widespread discrimination in India.”

Dalit is a word of Sanskrit language. It means crushed, suppressed, smashed, broken to pieces; unfortunately the Dalits practically reflect the real meanings of this word. They are the people who are often denied the right to education and the right to employment through systemic discrimination and abuse in the Indian society. The Indian society does not let the Dalits get education, particularly the higher education yet some Dalits living abroad succeed in getting education but being educated does not make them ‘ honourable and respected’ in the Indian society. According to the Hindu caste system, the Dalits are meant for doing the things of very low and cheap category. But astonishingly, the upper-caste Hindus feel pride in using rather misusing the Dalit women for their brutal sexual desires. They think that sexual exploitation of the Dalit women is an undeniable right of the upper-caste Hindu men. If a Dalit woman shows any resistance in the way to her sexual exploitation, she has to face horrible consequences.

Recently on 2^nd of this November, a 13-year-old Dalit girl was beheaded in one of India’s southern states. According to the police her assailant belonged to a higher, majority caste. This brutally cruel incident took place in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu. The victim had rejected the sexual advances of her assailant. He got angry and in his rage and fury beheaded the young girl. Though the local police have registered a legal case against the murderer but girl’s parents are very much sure that nothing would be done against that upper-caste Hindu. Certainly this situation regarding exploitation of Dalit’s rights is the ever-worst example of human rights violations. But it is the wicked stubbornness of the Indian authorities that instead of giving the Dalits their basic rights, they are raising a baseless hue and cry over the working of United Nation’s Human Rights Council.

The deputy permanent representative of India before the UN Ambassador, Mr.Tanmaya Lal said in the recent session of the UN General Assembly on Human Rights Council, Although the Human Rights Council continues to expand with an increasing number of resolutions and decisions, a greater frequency of meetings and special sessions, the effectiveness of its work however, it is not always clear though a very broad normative framework of human rights treaties and pacts has evolved.”

The UN authorities have expressed their serious reservations on the statement of Mr. Tanmaya Lal in a press release on 2^nd November, 2018. The press release says, While many Member States commended the work of the Human Rights Council as crucial in the promotion and protection of universal human rights, others expressed concern over its subjectivity, double standards and politicization.” Experts are of the opinion that Tanmaya Lal’s criticism on the working of UN’s Human Rights Council was in fact a desperate reaction to the report which was presented last June by the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. The report had referred to the Indian atrocities in the valley of Indian Occupied Kashmir.

The report had said, In responding to demonstrations that started in 2016, Indian security forces used excessive force that led to unlawful killings and a very high number of injuries in the Indian held Kashmir.” In response to that report, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein had called for maximum restraint and denounced the lack of prosecutions of Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir due to a 1990 law giving them what he called virtual immunity”. He also insisted on formulation of an inquiry commission for the investigation of sites of mass graves in the Valley of Jammu and Kashmir. It is something very positive that UN’s Human Rights Council is well aware of the Indian atrocities in the Indian Held Kashmir but there must be someone who could take care of the millions of Dalits who are living a miserable life worse than animals in India. There must be someone who could listen to what once Dr.Vinod Sonkar had said talking to the CNN, Sixty-five years after Indian independence, we are still Dalits, still broken, still suppressed.”