Sheain Fernandopulle Courtesy  The Daily Mirror

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate and inquire into Serious Acts of Fraud, Corruption and Abuse of Power, State Resources and Privileges (PRECIFAC) had not recommended abolishing the civic rights of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as claimed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) leader and MP Udaya Gammanpila said today.

Addressing a news conference, he challenged the Premier to point out whether it was mentioned in the PRECIFAC report that the civic rights of the former President should be stripped in connection with the allegations articulated in the report.

He further said that they were ready to render their fullest support to President Sirisena if he was keen to take instant actions against the bond scam offenders and other individuals who have been alleged to have links to the scam. () 

By Sarath de Alwis Courtesy  The Island

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has decided that the Report of the Bond Commission has absolved him, his party and his administration of any responsibility for or wrongdoing in the Central Bank Bond Scam.

Development Strategies Minister Malik Samarawickrema, who is the eager Hanuman to Ranil’s Rama, has claimed in a press interview that the government has not lost a cent in the bond scam.

The Commission in its report has stated that their task was not a ‘witch hunt or a whitewash’.

The report has not done a ‘whitewash’. It seems to have scrubbed the wall and the Prime Minister and his troupe have decided to paint it in the most convenient hue that suits them.

The Bond Commission report informs us that it has striven to perform its function as per Edmund Burke “With cold neutrality of an impartial judge but also fairly.” In hindsight, it appears that the commission would have been wiser if it had taken note of another pearl of wisdom from Burke. “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”

The assurance that it is no witch hunt or a whitewash was totally unneeded. Though two years too late, the appointment of the commission was regarded as a step in the right direction. The Commission was accepted and respected.

When serving judges are appointed to commissions, the people expect them to retain utmost impartiality. People expect them to remain aloof from political considerations.

Proper and appropriate way to question a Prime Minister

The Commission explains that it considered it proper and appropriate to formulate the questions that it wished to ask the Prime Minister and request the Prime Minister to furnish his answers by way of an Affidavit rather than by way of time-consuming Oral Evidence.

The Commission’s decision not to summon the Prime Minister to give oral evidence in this age of transparency is regrettable. The Commissioners explained why it decided to “request the Prime Minister to furnish his Answers, by way of an Affidavit, rather than by way of time-consuming Oral Evidence.”

He was not summoned we were told. He was invited to clarify some of his written answers. Why?

The Prime Minister is a politician. Explaining and justifying his conduct, past, present and future is his full time vocation. Obligation of giving oral evidence is a major part of his territory. If summoned he was duty bound to appear before the commission.

His busy schedule is not a tenable proposition. The Prime Minister’s high office has not prevented him visiting deities in their shrines in India. His high office has not prevented him consulting expert medical opinion in America. His high office has not prevented him attending convocations in Australian universities to receive honorary Doctorates. Surely, his appearance before the Commission would not have paralysed or crippled the government.

That his governance mechanism has been brain dead for some time is neither here nor there.

It is noteworthy, that the Commission has treated the appearance of the Prime Minister of the Republic before the Commission as an occasion where only the principal law officer of the state should lead his evidence.

It is a telling commentary on the Commission’s aloofness from politics. . Tony Blair must be wishing that Sir John Chilcot possessed such proprieties!

The Prime Minister has now announced that losses will be recovered. He hasn’t said a word on the conduct of Mahendran, before or after the report except for that famous defence – Arjuna Mahendran has done nothing wrong.

Mistakes made but not by me

There is an explanation. People are sensitive to inconsistencies between their beliefs and actions. There are three ways to resolve such inconsistencies.

You can change your belief. You can change your action. The third is more complex but very familiar. You change the perception of your action! That is where the Prime Minster excels.

Two Social Psychologists Carol Travis and Elliot Aaronson published a path breaking book in 2007 – ‘Mistakes were made. But not by me” It explains how we make decisions that turn out to be mistakes. It is about ordinary decisions and also decisions that can affect nations, lands and millions of people.

The authors have brilliantly captured the self-entrapment that we create for ourselves.

“As fallible human beings, all of us share the impulse to justify ourselves and avoid taking responsibility for any actions that may turn out to be harmful, immoral, or stupid. Most of us will never be in a position to make decisions affecting the lives and deaths of millions of people, but whether the consequences of our mistakes are trivial or tragic, on a small scale or a national canvas, most of us find it difficult, if not impossible, to say, “I was wrong; I made a terrible mistake.” The higher the stakes — emotional, financial, moral — the greater the difficult.”

Mahendran censured

The report finds Arjuna Mahendran to have knowingly acted improperly and wrongfully in intervening in established procedures of the Central Bank. It has found him to be the source of inside information received by Perpetual Treasuries – the errant primary dealer.

Arjuna Mahendran is an Economist and Investment Banker. He was requested by the Ranil Wickremesinghe-led administration to be the Governor of the Central Bank. The Prime Minister has stated that the selection was the result of a general consensus of the new government.

The claim that the choice was a collective decision of the government was not challenged before the Commission. The record now shows that he was appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance. The reassignment of the Central Bank to the Prime Minister in his capacity of Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs was an executive action.

The resulting complexities arising from horizontal diffusion of power responsibilities have not been addressed by the Commission. Such an exercise would be outside the scope of its warrant.

Who made him Governor?

The Commission has not focussed on the process that made Mahendran the Governor. It explains that the he was appointed before the period covered by its warrant – 01st February 2015 and 31st March 2016.

The Prime Minister was not questioned why Arjuna Mahendran was considered the most outstanding candidate for the top job in the Central Bank.

Soon after the new Government was installed Arjuna Mahendran appeared before the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce in the company of Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake to explain the new economic vision of the government. The current Governor served as moderator. Arjuna Mahendran was more than the Governor of the Central Bank. He was a pivotal player in Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Economic Think Tank.

Why did Arjuna Mahendran do what he is now stands accused of doing?

Economics has progressed beyond the rational choice theory. Today, Economic behaviour is a new discipline known as behavioural economics. It deals with the psychology of economic behaviour. Richard Thaler this year’s Nobel laureate specialises in behavioural finances!

The search for ways in which humans violate rules of rationality is a frontier-less land yet to be explored. The science of economics in the world of paper money is not a precise science.

Breakfast meeting – a non-event

.Why did two ministers and the advisor to the Prime Minister go to the Central Bank for breakfast with the Governor? Not to discuss bonds, they have insisted. Of course, a smart cookie would insist that Central Bank was the place where the new Governor was serving breakfast with choice Bacon!

The Commission has held that no decision was taken at the ‘Breakfast Meeting’ held on 26th February, to raise money for the Road Projects at the Auction of Treasury Bonds held on 27th February.

The Doctrine of Public Trust

The Bond Commission has determined that the “Governor and other members of the Monetary Board, Deputy Governors and other senior officers of the CBSL hold those offices subject to the `Public Trust Doctrine and are subject to Accountability.

It has determined that Deputy Governors Silva and Weerasinghe were negligent and were in breach of their responsibilities as Deputy Governors of the Central Bank. They had a duty to advise the Governor to desist from folly.

There were good reasons for the Deputy Governors of the Central Bank not to teach Mahendran monetary theory. Arjuna Mahendran was a key figure in the economic pantheon Ranil assembled. It was not because those good people were less informed of the doctrine but they were more informed of his political clout.

The pursuit of a utopia is understandable. But an ideal utopia? The Doctrine of Public Trust is invoked when dealing with situations not covered by precise laws or regulations. That is also the fertile field for patrimonial politics.

It has held “that, Deputy Governor Samarasiri was grossly negligent and in grave breach of the duty and responsibility he had, as the Chairman of the Tender Board. He had supinely obeyed the instructions given by Mahendran.

The report comments on the conduct of Dr. Samaratunga Secretary Ministry of Finance and member of the Monetary Board.

“Since Dr. Samaratunga, Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, who was present at this meeting, is also a member of the Monetary Board, he was personally obliged to convey to the CBSL that the three State Banks had been instructed to place Bids within a specified range of Yield Rates at the Treasury Bond Auction to be held on 29th March 2016 and that the three State Banks had been given an assurance that Bids at higher Yield Rates would not be accepted at this Auction. There is no evidence that Dr. Samaratunga did so.

To Goose and Gander – different sauces

The Commission has held these officials subject to the doctrine of public trust. Is the Prime Minister exempt from the Doctrine of Public Trust? Is he not accountable for the appointment of this Governor? Did he not condemn the practice of private placements and advocate auctions? Private placements can be rigged. Auctions too can be rigged. In this business is not the tune but the piper who matters.

That explains Friedrich Hayek’s disarmingly simple critique of Central Banks. “There is no answer in the available literature to the question why a government monopoly of the provision of money is universally regarded as indispensable. It has the defects of all monopolies.”

Ranil the Economist

It is the Prime Minister who took over the responsibility of pulling the nation from the brink of the abyss and provide us one million jobs, a Volkswagen plant, and his vision of 2020 or whatever.

He brought Arjuna Mahendran back. He brought Paskaralingam back. He brought Chairitha Ratwatte back. By mid-January 2015 he had assembled all his knights at his round table.

The Bond Commission report does not fault the Prime Minster.’ If only he was less trusting’ seems to be the refrain he has earned.

The report concludes that Mahendran and Deputy Governor Samarasiri “deliberately and mala fide, misled the Prime Minister and sussed materiel facts…” It says “… the Hon. Prime Minister would have been better advised, if he had independently verified what had happened at the CBSL on 27th February 2015 before making any statement, instead of relying on the briefing note and reports submitted by Mr. Mahendran and Depty Governor Samarasiri .”

This indeed is really thick. The Prime Minister should have sought a second opinion on what was told to him by the Governor and the Deputy Governor. The Governor was appointed on 23rd January 2015. The Commission is of the view that his briefing notes in March 2015 should have been independently verified!

An Authority of the Doctrine of Public Trust

Our Prime Minister is an authority on the Doctrine of Public Trust. In an op-ed piece in the Sunday Times of 24th February, 2013, the then Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe accused the then government of betraying the doctrine of public trust. The Supreme Court observations he quotes in his homily on public trust are the identical judgements quoted by the report of the Bond Commission.

There is no doubt that our Prime Minister is very learned in the law. Very interestingly, he has in the same essay defined the role of the ideal Attorney General and criticised the then AG in precise and plain language. “The Attorney General of the United Kingdom Dominic Grieve in a speech to the BPP Law School on the ‘Role of the Attorney General’ said “as Chief Legal Advisor to the Crown, I advise government departments on how policy can be achieved in a lawful and proper way.

However that does not detract from the fact that in carrying out the function of legal adviser to the Government, the Attorney General’s role is to support and protect the rule of law. I think that the role of the Attorney General as the Government’s Chief Legal Adviser was neatly summed up by a former Attorney General, Lord Mayhew of Twysden who said: ‘the Attorney General has a duty to ensure that the Queen’s ministers who act in her name, or purport to act in her name, do act lawfully because it is his duty to help to secure the rule of law, the principal requirement of which is that the government itself acts lawfully’.”Regrettably, our Attorney General has failed to maintain the high standards of his Office. Furthermore, the Attorney General has also deliberately misled the House.”

Full Steam ahead

Let us go back to those exciting days of the first hundred days of Yahapalanaya. Ranil took over the command. Did he tell Arjuna Mahendran full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes? This writer has no reason to doubt Arjuna Mahendran’s sanity.

By Jehan Perera Courtesy  The Island

President Maithripala Sirisena’s recent criticisms of his partner in the ruling coalition, the UNP, have sent signals that the UNP-SLFP alliance may be ending sooner rather than later. At the general elections of August 2015, the two parties entered into an agreement to be in partnership for a period of two years. Those two years have ended and it appears that their partnership may be ending, too. Among the criticisms that the President has made are those about governmental involvement in the Central Bank bond scam case and the middling performance of the economy. The President declared his intention to take over the reins of the economy through the National Economic Council he had set up three months ago.

The media reported that it was not clear if the President would take over the three key economy-related portfolios currently held by the UNP. The National Policies and Economic Affairs portfolio is held by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe while the UNP also holds Finance and Development Strategies and International Trade portfolios. There was no reaction from the Prime Minister or the UNP. The President’s statements have been cast in a negative light by sections of the media and those who voted for the President at the presidential elections of January 2015 at the urgings of the UNP. Most of the President’s votes came from traditional UNP supporters who accepted the decision of the UNP leadership to field Maithripala Sirisena as the common opposition candidate. The President’s criticisms of the UNP have alienated many of them.

Members of the government from the UNP too have found the President’s statements to be disquieting. They have said as much from their political platforms. Even a cabinet meeting presided over by the President became a site of acrimony. The media reported that the President had walked out of a cabinet meeting after delivering a lengthy speech in which he had outlined the sacrifices he had been prepared to make, the risks he had taken and the issues relating to the establishment of good governance on which he wanted action taken. However, neither the walk out that he staged, nor his criticisms of his coalition partners, are likely to deter the joint UNP-SLFP search for a unifying formula that would benefit all concerned and keep the common foe, the SLPP, at bay.

SERIOUS PROBLEMS

The problem facing President Sirisena is not an easy one to resolve. The SLFP is about to face the local government election while divided into two. A section of the party is being led by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa and is contesting as a rival party. The SLPP led by the former president will be competing for the same SLFP vote base with the SLFP led by the President. Neither the President nor former president can hope to get the votes of either the UNP, JVP or ethnic minority parties. They have to compete for the SLFP vote. The SLFP vote bank has traditionally been nurtured on an anti-UNP platform. Both the SLFP led by the President and the SLPP led by the former president have to compete for this SLFP vote. The President’s strong criticism of the UNP is meant to resonate with the SLFP voter.

President Sirisena’s second way to maximize his party’s votes at the local government election has been to assert that his stay in power as President will be longer than the five years to which he is entitled. The President even went to the extent of appealing to the Supreme Court to decide on whether he was entitled to a five or six-year term. A longer term would have given the SLFP voter an added reason to vote for an SLFP that will continue to enjoy the power and patronage of the presidency. Due to the fact that his faction of the SLFP has only about 43 MPs in parliament, the SLFP members who follow the president realize that they cannot bargain on equal terms with the UNP which has 106 MPs unless backed by the presidency. Therefore preserving the presidency and the power and patronage it brings with it is a political necessity to the SLFP.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court opinion that the President is only entitled to five years in office, and not six, the President’s supporters are claiming that he will contest a second time. Although the President swore in the past that he will only be a one term president, he has been non-committal on the issue of whether he will run for a second term or not. The President’s latest stance is to say that he will decide at the appropriate time. The reason again is that preserving the presidency and the power and patronage it brings with it is the only way to induce SLFP voters to vote for the SLFP rather than for its rival, the SLPP. Those who are of the view that a continuation of the UNP-SLFP alliance is better than any other alternative need to find a solution that is mutually beneficial rather than criticizing the president for going back on his word.

POSITIVE FEATURES

The main feature of governance at the present time is not the slowness of decision-making or continuation of corruption. On the contrary it is that the two main political parties in the country, which have been traditional rivals, are working together which brings in an in-built check and balance system to the government. Neither party can do as it wants in the government, which is extremely positive. In the past ruling party politicians used to go and sit in the chairs of OICs (Officers-in-Charge) at police stations or in the chairs of GAs (Government Agents) at the district secretariats. Now this is no longer possible and no longer happens because the other party in power is there to put a stop to such nonsense. This is also the reason why there is freedom from the fear which prevailed during the period of the last government, which enjoyed unbridled power and no checks and balances.

Accompanying these positive features of the two main political parties working together is the opportunity to resolve the ethnic conflict through a political solution that has eluded governments since the first attempt was made in 1957. The constitutional debate that took place in parliament in November before the announcement of local government elections gave an indication that most parties in parliament felt that such a solution was necessary and should be strived for. However, since the declaration of local government elections, there is little political discussion about a political solution to the ethnic conflict as the SLPP and joint opposition have taken up nationalist positions. A strong electoral performance by the SLPP would be interpreted that there is opposition to a political solution.

It is significant that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has not reacted adversely to the President’s criticisms of his party and its doings. On the contrary he has directed his party members to desist from any criticism of the president. It appears that the UNP leadership is aware of the political needs of the President and is willing to accommodate them even at the cost of being publicly criticized by him. The worst case scenario for the government, and its plans for national reconciliation, would be a winning performance by the SLPP and anything that could be done to reduce the margin of its victory (and increase the margin of its defeat) would be in the interests of the parties in government and of a political solution to the ethnic conflict.

lanka C news

2015 ජනවාරියේදි ජනතාවට නොයෙකුත් පොරොන්දු දෙමින් බලයට පැමිණි වර්තමාන ආණ්ඩුව ජනතාව මුලා කිරිමට මහ බැංකු සංඛ්‍යලේඛන නොසලකා පදනමකින් තොරව කතා කරන බව 2006 සිට 2014 දක්වා රාජකාරි කල හිටපු මහා බැංකුවේ අධිපති අජිත් නිවාර්ඩ් කබ්රාල් මහතා රොයිටර් ලෝක පුවත් සේවයට පවසා ඇත.

මෑතකදී ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මහතා විසින් පැවසු පරිදි ශ්‍රීලංකාවේ පසුගිය රජය ලබාගත් කී ඇ. ඩොලර් බිලියන 58 ක ණය බොරුවක් බවද ඒ මහතා සදහන් කරයි.

සත්‍ය සංඛ්‍යා ලේඛන මහා බැංකුව සතුව ඇති බවත් පවසන කබ්රාල් මහතා නිසි කරුණු හැදෑරීමකින් තොරව ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසින් අදහස් ප්‍රකාශ කරන බවත් වැඩි දුරටත් සදහන් කර තිබේ.

මූලාශ‍්‍රය මෙතනින්

Lahiru Pothmulla Courtesy  The Daily Mirror

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) today challenged the government to strip former president Mahinda Rajapaksa of his civic rights if possible.

SLPP chairman G.L. Peiris said former president J.R. Jayawardane had stripped the civic rights of former prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike fearing an election defeat.

Mr. Jaywwardene knew there was a person who was more popular than him in politics. Therefore, he cut down his opponent politically. The entire country is waiting for Mr. Rajapaksa’s leadership. If he was intimidated politically, we will see how the people will react. Just abolish his civic rights and see the consequences,” he told a news briefing.

Mr. Peiris said this in response to a statement made by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that the PRECIFAC report had recommended the cancellation of Mr. Rajapaksa’s civic rights.

He said there is a political tone to the PRECIFAC report and asked why the PCoI and PRECIFAC reports are being taken up for debate simultaneously.

The is no connection between the two reports. The Bond scam is the biggest ever scam to take place in the country. It is to soften the impact of bond scam and divert the attention that the PRECIFAC report had been coupled with the Bond report,” Prof. Peiris said.

Responding to President Maithripala Sirisena’s allegations about an ‘elite robber gang’, he said the President was its leader.

Otherwise, why dissolve Parliament to save those involved in the first bond scam and make way for a second one,” Prof. Peiris said and added that President should be honest when saying he was ready to form a government if all UPFA MPs stand by him.

He said government leaders are acting a drama which is being staged at four levels during the election campaign.

The first drama is where the SLFP and the UNP are saying the debate on the PCoI and PRECIFAC reports cannot be held before the election. The second drama is where the President is calling for an early debate followed by the third drama in which Prime Minister requested the Speaker to hold it on February 8. The last drama is to get the polls delayed based on the parliamentary debate. We urge the Elections Commission not to postpone the polls,” Prof. Peiris said. ()

Editorial Courtesy  The Island

Monday 29th January, 2018

President Maithripala Sirisena has admitted that his new-found allies are as bad as his erstwhile comrades. Speaking at a UPFA election rally, he declared, the other day, that he had left the Rajapaksa government, which was corrupt, in a bid to usher in good governance, but those with whom he joined forces to achieve that lofty goal were no better; they had robbed the Central Bank within days of coming to power, he said.

President Sirisena, faced with the uphill task of steering the SLFP to victory at the forthcoming local government (LG) polls, is trying to show both the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the UNP in a bad light. He wants to project the SLFP as the only clean party in the fray. He seems to be using the catchy local slogan unuth ekai, munuth ekai—which, roughly rendered into English means ‘those are hopelessly bad and these are no better’. The people who know politicians for what they really are will tell the SLFP big guns, thopith ekai (‘you are also the same’).

No one with a modicum of intelligence will buy into President Sirisena’s claim that it was pure altruism that motivated him to leave the Rajapaksa government and run for President. The much-touted yahapalana campaign was as queer as a three-dollar bill owing to the presence of many rogues among its proponents. The SLFPers who threw in their lot with Sirisena were as corrupt as others in the previous government. The UNPers were no angels either. Among them were unsavoury elements responsible for various crooked deals under previous UNP-led governments, which fell mainly because of their sordid operations.

Sirisena would have had no qualms about remaining in the Rajapaksa government if President Mahinda Rajapaksa had refrained from holding a snap presidential election and/or appointed him the Prime Minister. If he had realised that the Rajapaksa government was corrupt he shouldn’t have waited till the announcement of the a presidential election to break ranks with that administration and launch a good governance campaign. He has gone on record as saying that he warned Rajapaksa against holding presidential polls in 2015. What if Rajapaksa had heeded his advice and completed the second term? The country would have been under the Rajapaksa government for about two more years!

President Sirisena also faulted the Joint Opposition (JO) and the UNP for having colluded to prevent Parliament from taking up for debate the bond probe commission report before Feb. 10 LG polls. He said they had got together as he had also presented to Parliament the report of the presidential commission which probed serious acts of fraud, corruption and abuse of power, state resources and privileges under the previous government. They, he said, were wary of facing a parliamentary debate before the polls because they feared that public opinion would turn against them and have a devastating impact on their electoral performance. President Sirisena dared the JO and the UNP to have the debate before Feb. 10. Interestingly, it was the SLFP which sided with the UNP to have the debate on Feb. 20 and 21 as evident from the media statements by Ministers Mahinda Samarasinghe (SLFP) and Lakshman Kiriella (UNP)!

It may be recalled that President Sirisena dissolved Parliament in 2015 to prevent Parliament from debating a COPE report on the first bond scam before the last general election. He did so in support of the UNP at the expense of the SLFP-led UPFA, whose campaign he is leading today. Having made the UPFA lose then, he is now striving to make it win! It is a supreme irony that he is now accusing others of trying to avoid a parliamentary debate.

Meanwhile, Prime Minster Ranil Wickremesinghe has said he will summon Parliament on Feb. 08 to take up the aforesaid reports for debate. The UNP has obviously buckled under pressure. However, even if the promised debate comes to pass the public will still be none the wiser, given its timing. Campaigning will have to end 48 hours before Feb. 10 and there won’t be any time for a public discussion on the outcome of the debate to be held. Needless to say the Opposition won’t be able to gain any political mileage out of it due to election laws. There is also the likelihood of the UNP provoking the JO MPs into throwing the House into turmoil during the debate so as to scuttle the debate.

If the JO and the JVP are really keen to have a parliamentary debate on the reports at issue, they ought to demand that Parliament take it up latest by Feb. 05. President Sirisena, as the head of government, for his party, ought to ensure that there will be a decent gap between the parliament debate and the polls.

Shenali D Waduge

 In 1505 landed in then Sinhale, the Portuguese, the first of the European Christian explorers. Thereafter, came the Dutch and finally the British who gave an independence with dominion status in 1948. Sri Lanka is marking the 70^th anniversary of an independence from foreign rule by inviting a representative and relation of the Queen that ruled then Ceylon from 1815 to 1948 & under dominion status upto 1972 when Sri Lanka became a true republic. Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and the Countess of Wessex have been invited as Chief Guest for this occasion by the Sirisena-Ranil Government.

During its heyday the British Empire controlled 90% of the world’s countries. Britain has invaded all but 22 countries in the world

The mindset of colonial imperialists was depicted in the words of Winston Churchill himself.

“We are not a young people with innocent record and a scanty inheritance. We have engrossed to ourselves — an altogether disproportionate share of wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seem less reasonable to others than to us”  

All that Britain preaches to the world, Britain denied to every human they forcibly owned & controlled”. The Britain that today promotes itself as a beacon of human rights may be ashamed of the policies it adopted – robbing land transferring them to cash crops & stealing resources, burning down villages, seizing and raping women & children, hanging prisoners without trial (Lt. J. Maclaine pastime was watching Sinhalese men being hung while having breakfast), starving locals to death, infecting natives with smallpox, getting natives addicted to opium and alcohol, importing non-natives & birthing an ethnic problem, killing elephants for sport (Samuel Barker) are just a handful of crimes the British does not wish to remember & refuses to account for.

The culture & heritage of the Sinhale nation was systematically diluted by instilling Western cultures which were projected as being ‘better’ & those that followed them were favoured over those that did not. To fortify this, education was designed to inculcate & nurture those who would adapt & adopt western-thinking, non-dharmic culture & lifestyle breeding a group of natives who would willingly despise and look down upon their heritage culture & history. That legacy continues still.

However, there were people who understood the writing on the wall and realized the need to win back land forcibly confiscated. The Uva Rebellion (1817), the Madulla massacre where British are yet to account for killing anyone above the age of 8.

Millions of people across the world had been subjugated by these Western European exploring invader occupiers. Many of these former colonies continue to suffer from the divide & rule policies left as a legacy of colonial rule. Great Britain some say should pay the victims of imperialism $58trillion but will a payment remove the scars though Germany continues to pay Israel for the Holocaust.

While the Kenyan Mau Mau won a historic case claiming compensation from Britain, with the British Foreign Secretary William Hague announcing a payout of £20 million in 2011, in 2013 David Cameron then British PM visited the very scene where the 1919 British massacre of 379 people by British forces, but his statement fell short of any apology, in 2015 Indian MP Shashi Tharoor also called for reparations from Britain for the deaths of 29m.

What confounds the issue of accountability, apology & reparations is that there are many who falsely believe that imperialism provided development & civility little forgetting that every train, road and infrastructure developed was only to facilitate the plunder of resources en route to Britain. To understand better Viceroy Lord Curzon’s statement is noteworthy British rule may be good for us: but it is neither equally, nor altogether good for them” The racism of Cecil Rhodes is acceptable still, in fact those that killed natives were even honored and given titles! Cecil Rhodes believed natives were inferior while Kipling & many others held the view that the British mission was to ‘civilize’ natives.

A timeline of some of those atrocities will shock any

1817 – Lt. Maclaine given authority to kill anyone without trial. Assist Commissioner of Badulla (Braybrooke) notes reveal the manner natives were killed. Lt. Maclaine is infamously known for having breakfast while watching Sinhalese men being hung!

1818 diary of Sergeant Calladine Not a single day passed without burning a village and killing the Chingalese men. We didn’t take prisoners.”

Dr. John Davey of British Army declares that by 1821 there were no children of patriotic families in the hill country/Uva-Wellassa.

1807 Governor Maitland’s letter to GA Matara use this carefully and secretly, reliance of Buddhism and philosophy of Matara Buddhists must be destroyed. In Matara, Bhikkus are more powerful than village chiefs, make sure all chiefs are Christian”.

What is the purpose in inviting a representative of the British monarchy as chief guest to mark a country’s independence from that very monarchy?

Sri Lanka’s guest at its 70^th independence is the Queen’s 3^rd son Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex. While his itinerary is being set by the British High Commission and Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry the Prince & his delegation should make a visit to the Exhibition of Paintings depicting the Colonial Crimes of the 3 colonial occupants in Sri Lanka since 1505. The exhibition titled ‘Resonance of the Massacre 1818-2018” was held at the Sri Sambuddhathva Jayanthi Mandiraya in December 2017 and the organizers led by Dr. Chamila Liyanage are presently taking the exhibition around the island for all to see.

The exhibition of paintings is presently on display in Gampaha and Prince Edward having studied history at Cambridge University would be keen to see these works of art. Moreover, since Prince Edward has his own production company he may well consider running documentaries of imperial British Empire and its rule over 90% of the world in a documentary that depicts before and after scenario of these decolonized countries.

We hope that the British High Commission & the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry include a visit to the Resonance of the Massacre Painting Exhibition on display in Gampaha for the visiting Prince Edward and his royal delegation.

Resonance of the Massacre 1818-2018

Art Exhibition on Colonial Crimes

Sri Subadraramaya – Galahitiyawa – Ganemulla

Dr. Chamila Liyanage

sinhalasangedama@gmail.com

Shenali D Waduge

වරුණ චන්ද්‍රකීර්ති

කාලයකට පස්සේ මේ ලේඛකයා මුණගැහුණු මිත්‍රයෙක් බණ ටිකක් විකුණපං” කියන මේ යෝජනාව කළා. මම උඹ ලියන ඒවා කියවනවා. උඹ කියන දේවල් ඇත්ත. ඒත් ඒ ඇත්තෙන් ඇති වැඩේ මොකක්ද? දැන් මිනිස්සුන්ට ඕන උන් ගේ මොකක් හරි ඉන්ද්‍රියක් පිනවාගන්න. ඉතින් ඒ කාරණේ හිතේ තියාගෙන ලියපං. එහෙම කරනවා නම් අපේ මිනිස්සුන්ට ඕන දේත් වෙනවා. උඹේ මල්ලත් පිරෙනවා.

උඹ බණ දහම් ඉගෙනගෙන තියෙනවා. දැන් අපේ සිංහල මාර්කට් එකේ ධර්මයට හොඳ ඉල්ලුමක් තියෙනවා. මිනිස්සු සෑහෙන්න අසහනයෙන් ඉන්නේ. දේශපාලනේ කචල්. ක්‍රිකට් කචල්. ගෙවල්වලත් කචල්. ළමයි හරියට ඉගෙනගන්නවා ද නැද්ද කියන එක ගැන සුවර් එකක් නෑ. ගෑණු උයන්න කැමැති නෑ. උයන එකත් මහ වදයක්. උයනවා කියලා මොනවා උයන්න ද? හැම දා ම එක ම දේ. කන්න ගියාමත් එහෙමයි. ගෑණු උයන ඒවා කන්නත් බෑ. කඩෙන් ගේන ඒවා කන්නත් බෑ. ඉඳලා හිටලා මගුල් ගෙදරක ගිහිල්ලා මළ ගෙදරක ගිහිල්ලා ෂොට් එකක් දාගත්තොත් ඇරෙන්න බීලා ප්‍රශ්න අමතක කරන්න ඉඩකුත් නෑ. ඉතින් මේ දේවල් යන්තමින් හරි අමතක කරන්න පුළුවන් මාර්ගය තමයි

දැන් මේකට හොඳ ඉල්ලුමක් තියෙනවා. ඉතින් බණ ටිකක් විකුණපං!”

පටිච්ච සමුප්පාද ධර්මය පැහැදිළි කරලා පොතක් ලියන්න මම හිතාගෙන ඉන්නවා. ඒත් ඉතින් ඕවා විකුණන්න බෑ” කියලා මේ ලේඛකයා කිව්වා.

ඔන්න ඕකනේ උඹට වෙලා තියෙන්නේ. උඹේ හිතේ තියෙන්නේ ම අපේ එවුන්ට තේරුම්ගන්න බැරි මොකක් හරි මගුලක් කරන පැලෑන් විතරයිනේ. ඔළුව අවුල් කරගෙන ඉන්න එවුන්ට පටිච්ච සමුප්පාදය කියලා දෙන්න උඹට පිස්සු ද? දැන් ඉන්න අපේ එවුන්ට තුන් පාරක් තුන් සරණේ කියද්දි හිතාගන්න බෑ දැන් කියන්න ඕන දුතියම්පි ද තතියම්පි ද කියලා. ඔළුව එක තැනක නෑ. ඒ හින්දා උන්ට තේරෙන පොඩි දෙයක් ගැන හිතපං. අනිත්‍ය, දුක්ඛ, අනාත්ම වගේ සරල දෙයක් ගැන හිතපං.”

අනිත්‍ය, දුක්ඛ, අනාත්ම කියලා කියන්නේ සරල දෙයක් නෙවෙයි. ඒක තමයි අපිට නොතේරෙන ම දේ. ඒක තේරුම්ගියා කියලා කියන්නේ නිවන් අවබෝධ වුනා කියන එකනේ” කියලා මේ ලේඛකයා කිව්වා.

ඕක තමයි අවුල. ඕක තමයි අවුල. යකෝ, මිනිස්සුන්ට නිවන් දකින්න ඕන නෑ. උන්ට ඕන උන් ගේ අහවල් එක පිනවාගන්න. උඹ ඔය දේවල්වලට අදාළ කරුණු කාරණා ටිකක් අග මුල මාරුකරලා කියපං. වැඩිය හිතන්න එපා.”

අග මුල මාරුකරලා කියන්නේ කොහොම ද? ත්‍රිලක්‍ෂණය පැහැදිළි කරන ක්‍රම තියෙනවා. මුල් සූත්‍රවලත් අටුවාවලත් ඒවා තේරුම්කරලා දීලා තියෙනවා. ඒ දේවල් සරල විදිහට කියන එක කළා ම හරියි කියලායි මම හිතන්නේ. කතාකරන විදිහට සරල භාෂාවෙන්නේ මම ලියන්නේ. ඉතින් මට පුළුවන් සූත්‍රවල, අටුවාවේ තියෙන ඒ කාරණා සරල විදිහට පැහැදිළිකරන්න. අග මුල මරුකරලා කියන ක්‍රමයක් ගැන නම් මම දන්නේ නෑ. උඹ කියන ඒවා කළොත් නැති අවුලුත් ඇතිවෙලා තමයි නවතින්නේ” මේ ලේඛකයා තමන් පිළිගන්න දේ කිව්වා.

යකෝ තියෙන දේ දැන් ලක්‍ෂ කෝටි වාරයක් කියලා තියෙනවානේ. මිනිස්සුන්ට ඕන අලුත් දෙයක්. උඹ කියපං අනාත්ම ගැන අටුවාවල කියන කතා වැරැදියි කියලා. ඒවා ලියලා තියෙන්නේ බමුණෝ කියලා කියපං. ඊට පස්සේ උඹේ ඔළුවට එන මොන මොනවා හරි ටිකක් ලස්සනට කියපං. මිනිස්සුන්ට අහන්න ඕන ඒ වගේ දේවල්.

තව නැගලා යන එකක් තමයි භාවනාව. හැබැයි ඔන්න ඔය ආනාපාන සති, සමථ, විපස්සනා, පිළිකුල් වගේ ඒවා ගැන කියවා කියවා ඉන්න එපා. අලුත් ටෙක්නික් එකක් දෙකක් ගැන කියපං. මිනිස්සු ආසයි ඔය භාවනාවට මොනවා හරි කිරණ ටිකක් ශක්ති ටිකක් පටලවලා කියනවා නම්. ලෙඩ ටිකකුත් පටලවාපං. දැන් අපේ පොරවල් වැඩියෙන් ම කැමැති මාතෘකාවක් තමයි ලෙඩ.”

උඹ කියන අපරාධ වැඩ කරන්න මට නම් බෑ. අනිත් එක මට පුළුවන් ද බණ කියන්න යන්න. මම ගිහියෙක්. හාමුදුරුවරුනේ බණ කියන්නේ. නිකම් විකාර කතා කියන්නේ නැතුව හිටපං” මේ ලේඛකයා තරහෙන් වගේ තමන් ගේ අදහස කිව්වා.

යකෝ හාමුදුරුවරු විතරක් නෙවෙයි බණ කියන්නේ. අර කාලයක් ගාල්ලේ පැත්තේ පොරකුත් බණ කිව්වේ. මිනිස්සු ගෙවල්වල බණ ඉවෙන්ට් සංවිධානය කරනවා. ඊට පස්සේ උඹ ව ඒ ඉවෙන්ට්වලට වඩම්මවා ගනියි. අනුරාධපුරේ මේ වැඩේ කරපු කට්ටියක් ගැන මම දන්නවා. මේ මාසේ එක ගෙදරක. ලබන මාසේ තව ගෙදරක. එන අයට කන්න බොන්න දෙන රාජකාරියත් තියෙන හින්දා වැඩේ නැගලා යනවා. උඹට තියෙන්නේ ඒ වගේ තැන්වලට ගිහිල්ලා මොනවා හරි දෙසලා කීයක් හරි කඩාගෙන එන්න.

උඹට ඕන ම නම්, ස්වාමීන්වහන්සේ කෙනෙක් ව හයර් කරගන්නත් පුළුවන්.”

නිකම් පවුකාර කතා කියන්නේ නැතුව හිටපං” මේ ලේඛකයාට උවමනා වුනේ කතාව නවත්තන්න.

යකෝ සිවුරු දාගත්ත නළුවෝ වගේ කට්ටිය ඕන තරම් ඉන්නවා. ඒ අතරින් ටිකක් හැඩ වැඩ තියෙන, කඩවසම්, හොඳ ලස්සනට කතා කියන්න පුළුවන් කෙනෙක් තෝරාගනිං. උඹට තියෙන්නේ ඒ විදිහට තෝරාගත්ත කෙනා ගේ උපදේශකයා විදිහට ඉඳගෙන දවස ගානේ මොනවා හරි ගුලි ටිකක් අඹර අඹර දෙන වැඩේ භාරගන්න එක විතරයි. ගතමනාව බෙදාගන්න විදිහක් කතා කරගනිං. ඊට පස්සේ උඹට අපේ සිරි ලංකාවේ විතරක් නෙවෙයි ඕස්ට්‍රේලියාවේ, කැනඩාවේ වුනත් හිතේ හැටියට රවුම් ගහලා එන්න පුළුවන්. සල්ලි වැක්කෙරෙනවා. බඩු සුවර්.”

ඊට වඩා නරක ද යේසුස්වහන්සේ ඉපැදුණේ ලංකාවේ කියලා කිව්වා නම්” කියලා මේ ලේඛකයා විහිළුවක් කළා.

ගොං කතා කියන්න එපා. අපේ එවුන්ට තියෙන ඔළුව අමාරු ක්‍රිස්තියානිකාරයන්ට නෑ. උන් දන්නවා යේසුස්වහන්සේ ඉපැදුණේ බෙත්ලෙහෙමේ කියලා. ඒවා වෙනස් කරන්න ගිහිල්ලා ඇට කටු කුඩු කරගන්න එපා. මක්කම ගැන මොනවා හරි කියලා පොඩි ට්‍රයි එකක් දීලා බලපං.” මිත්‍රයා යෝජනා කළා.

අපොයි අපොයි. මම මේ ඉන්න විදිහට ඉන්නම්.” මේ ලේඛකයා හිනාවුනා.

මචං, මම කිව්වේ උඹට යමක් කමක් හොයාගන්න පුළුවන් මාර්ගයක් ගැන. ඒ වෙනුවෙන් යමක් කරන එක උඹේ වැඩක්.

දෙමව්පියෝ ළමයින්ට අවවාද අනුශාසනා කරද්දි ළමයි දන්නවා අම්මලා තාත්තලා කියන දේවල් හරි කියලා. ඒත් ඒවා පිළිපැද්දට උන්ට ඕන ජොලිය ලැබෙන්නේ නෑ. මහ මිනිස්සුත් එහෙම තමයි. උඹ ලියන ඒවා හරි කියලා ඒවා කියවන මහ එවුන් දන්නවා. ඒවා වර්ණනා කරලා ලියන වචන දෙක තුනේ උත්තරත් උඹට ලැබෙනවා ඇතිනේ. ඒත් උඹ කියන ඒවායින් මිනිස්සුන්ට ඕන ජොලිය ලැබෙන්නේ නෑ. ඒකට අදාළ උන් ගේ ඉන්ද්‍රිය පිනවාගන්න බෑ.

ඒත් මේ බණ බිස්නස් එක එහෙම එකක් නෙවෙයි. මේ බණ විකෘති වෙච්ච තරමට තමයි ඒවා අහන එවුන් ගේ අහවල් එක හොඳට චූන් වෙන්නේ. ඒ චූන් වෙන තරමට තමයි උන් සල්ලි විසිකරන්නේ.

අනිත් එක තමයි මේ වගේ වැඩ ලෝං ටර්ම් කරන්න ලෑස්තිවෙන්න එපා. අවුරුද්දක් දෙකක් ඇතුළත ගේම ඉවරකරන්න බලන්න ඕන. වැඩි ම වුනොත් අවුරුදු පහකින් ගේම ඉවරකන්න ඕන.”

කියන්නේ බොරු කියලා මිනිස්සු තේරුම්ගන්නවා?” මේ ලේඛකයා ඇහුවා.

නෑ යකෝ. මිනිස්සුන්ට ඒවා ඇත්ත ද බොරු ද කියලා තේරුම්ගන්න ඕනකමක් නෑ. ඒත් ඒ වෙද්දි තව අලුත් එකෙක් ෆීල්ඩ් එකට ඇවිල්ලා. මිනිස්සු කැමැති අලුත් එකා පස්සේ යන්න. එතකොට උඹේ බිස්නස් වැටෙනවා. ඒ හින්දා කරන මගුලක් වැඩිම වුනොත් අවුරුදු පහක් ඇතුළත කරලා ඉවර කරගන්න ඕන.” යාළුවා කියාගෙන ගියා. මේ ලේඛකයා දිගට ම අහගෙන හිටියා.

මිනිස්සු ඉන්නේ අවුලක. උඹත් ඒ ගැන නිතර ම ලියනවානේ. ඒත් මේ අවුල ලිහන්න අපිට බෑ. උඹ මේක ලිහන්න හදනවා. මට උඹ ගැන දුකයි මචං. මේක ලිහන්න බෑ. මම ආයෙත් කියන්නම්. මේක ලිහන්න බෑ!

අපේ මිනිස්සු නරක නෑ. මෝඩත් නෑ. ඒත් අවුලේ ඉන්නේ. වතුර බොරවෙලා තියෙන්නේ. ඉතින් මේ බොරවෙච්ච වලේ මාළුවෙක් දෙන්නෙක් බාගන්න එවුන් ඕන තරම් ඉන්නවා. මම කොච්චර කිව්වාත් උඹ මේකට එකඟ නැති බව මම දන්නවා. ඒත් මේක තමයි ඇත්ත.” යාළුවා කතාව අවසන් කළා.

යාළුවා කියපු මේ කතාව ඇත්ත බවට සැකයක් මේ ලේඛකයා ගේ හිතේ නෑ. ඒත් අපේ ඉරණම මේක ම ද? අපිට ගැලවෙන්න පුළුවන් මාර්ගයක් ඇත්තේ ම නැති ද?

වරුණ චන්ද්‍රකීර්ති

චාර්ල්ස්  එස් පෙරේරා විසින්

එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයෙ රට නොමග යවන බටහිරට ගැති ධනවාදී  දෙශපාලන ක්‍රමය වෙනස්කල යුතුය. ලංකාව ධනවාදී දේශපාලන ක්‍රමයකට යෝග්‍ය රටක්  නොවේ.

ඒ නිසයි ඇස් ඩබ්ලියු ආර් ඩී බන්ඩාරනායක මැතිතුමන් එදා එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂ ආන්ඩුවකින් වෙන්වී සමාජවාදී ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂය පිහිටුවාගෙන වාමාංශික පක්ෂත් සමග එක්වී ආණ්ඩුවක් පිහිටුවාගත්තේ.

ධනවාදී දේශපාලන දර්ෂණය බටහිර ආකෘතියක්. ධනය නිපදවන්නේ ධනය තියන අයනිසාත්  ඒ ධනය නිපදවීම නිසා දුප්පත් ජනතාව ඔවුන්ගේ ශ්‍රමය ධනපති පැලැන්තියට විකුණලා ඔවුන්දෙන සොච්චමකින් ජීවත්වීය යුතුයයි  පිළිගැනීමයි ධනවාදී දර්ශනය. 

ධනය නිපදවීම සැලසුම්කරණ ධනවතාත් ඒ සඳහා ශ්‍රමය යොදවන කාර්මිකයාත් අතර ධනය සමසේ බෙදාහැරියයුතුය යන මතය ගෙන ආවේ මාර්කස් නමැති දාර්ශිනිකයාය. 

ඒ දර්ශනය අනුව අනෙකුත් සමාජවාදී දේශපාලන දර්ෂණ ඇති ඌවා යැයි කෙටියෙන් කිව හැකිය. එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ බටහිර ධනවාදී දේශපාලන දර්ෂණය සතුන් අතර තිබෙන තිරිසන් සතුන්ගේ ජීවන ක්‍රමයට  හා සමානය. එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ දේශපාලන දර්ශනයද  බලවතාගේ නීතියට යටත්ව සාමාන්‍ය මිනිහාගේ ජීවිත සකස්කරගැනීමේ තිරිසන් දේශපාලන දර්ශනයක් බව දැන් ඔබට තෙරුම්යනවාද ? 

අපේ භාග්‍යවත්වූ බුදුපියානන්වහන්සේගේ බෞද්ධ දර්ශනයේ තේමාවත් සමජවාදීයි. ජෙසුස්වහන්සේගේ  ක්‍රිස්තියානි දර්ශනයත් සමාජවාදීයි. එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ශයේත්, ඇස් ඩබ්ලියු ආර් ඩී බන්ඩාරනායක මැතිතුමන් ගේ සමාජවාදී  ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයේත්  දේශපාලනයම වෙනස එයයි .

ඒ නිසාමයි මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාධිපති, එතුමා වටේ බලලෝභයෙන් සමාජවාදී  ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂය කඩාගෙන ඇවිත් රැස්වසිටින  ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයේ නරුමයින් 45 දෙනෙකු ත් එක්ව ධනවාදී එක්සත් ජාතිකපක්ෂයට එක්වී කරන යහපාලන නාඩගම ඇස් ඩබ්ලියු ආර් ඩී බන්ඩාරනායක මැතිතුමන් පාවා දීමක් හා එතුමාට කරන අවමානයක් වන්නේ. බටහිරෙයි නැගෙනහිරෙයි එක්වීමක් නැතිවාසේම සමාජවාදී ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයේත්, බටහිරට ගැති  ධනවාදී  එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේත් එක්වීමක් නැත්තේය. එක්වීමක් වියද නොහැක්කේය.

එබැවින් මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාධිපතිතුමා කොපමණ ගිරිය පුප්පාගෙන බෙරිහන් දුන්නත් ඔහුට තමා සමාජවාදී ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයෙ  නායකයායි කියා ගත නොහැක්කේය. මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාධිපතිතුමා බටහිරට හිස නමන ධනවාදීන් පිටුපස යන ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පාක්ෂිකයන් හා සාමන්‍ය ජනතාව ධනවාදයට පාවාදුන් කෙනෙකි. එබැවින් ඔහුගේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ශයේ  අත ලකුණට හෝ බුලත් කොලයට දෙන හැම චන්දයක්ම බටහිරට හිස නමන ධනවාදී එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයට දෙන චන්දයක් වන්නේය.

බටහිර ධනය රැස්කරගත් කෝටිපතියෝ ධනය නිපදවන හැම අංශයක්ම ඔවුන් අයිතිකරගෙන වැඩකරන ජනතාව පාගාගෙන ඔවුන්ගේ ශ්‍රමය නිසා ලබාගන්න  ධනබලයෙන් රැකෙන ධනවාදී න් ඔවුන්ට සරිලන දේශපාලන ක්‍රමයක් ගෙනයයි.  එ  බටහිරට හිසනමන ධනවාදී දේශපාලන ක්‍රමය හොරකමින්, වන්චාවෙන් රට අගාදියට දමාගෙන  සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාවගේ ඕනෑ එපාකම් වලට වඩා තමන්ගේම බලය හා සැපත සඳහා  යොදාගන්න රනිල් වික්‍රමසින්හගේ   නායකත්වයෙන් වූ එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය  ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට කොහෙත්ම  නොසුදුසු දේශපාලන ක්‍රමයකි.

ධනවාදීයෝ  ධනය කෙසේ මොනක්‍රමයෙන් හෝ හම්බකරගෙන එයින් සමාජ,  දේශ පාලන බලය තමන් අතට ගෙන කරගෙන යන  ධනවාදී ආණ්ඩුක්‍රමයක කිසිදු  දර්ශනයක්ද නැත. ආගමත්  ධනයත් හොර මැරකමත් ඔවුන්ගේ බලය සඳහා යොදාගනියි.

එක්සත් ජාතිකපක්ෂයේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රමය එයයි. දැන්වත් එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ තරුණ මන්ත්‍රීවරු මේගැන සිතා බලා ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට කිසිසේත් නොසුදුසු  මේ දේශපාලන ක්‍රමය අත්හැර දමා සමාජවාදයට නැඹුරු දේශපාලනපක්ෂයක්  ඇතිකරගත යුතුය. එසේ නැත්නම් ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පක්ෂයට සම්බන්ධවී අලුත් ලංකාවක් ගොඩ නැංවීමට දායකවිය යුතුය.

1948 සිට අදවනතුරැ එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය ශ්‍රී ලංකාව විනාශය  කරා ගෙනගියා  මිස ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ සංවර්ධනය සඳහා කිසිත් නොකළේය,  ඩී ඇස් සේනානායක වැනි දේශපාලකයින් හොඳ මිනිසුන් බව සැබෑය.  නමුත්  ඔවුන්ට ශ්‍රී ලංකාව ජාතියක්වශයෙන් එක්සත්කර ආගමීක සංස්කෘතික වශයෙන් දියුනු රටක් බවැට පත්කිරීමේ දර්ශනයක් තිබුනේ නැත. පසුකාලීනව උවද  එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂ නායකයින් ටයර් උඩ තරුණයන් පිළිස්සු, බටලන්දේ වධකාගාර පිහිටවූ,  කොටින් සමග ගිවිසුම් අත්සන් කල, මහා බැංකුව හොරකම් කල අපරාධමය ඉතිහාසයකට අයත් ඌවන්ය.

එබැවින් මහජනතාව මේ බව හොඳට වටහාගෙන එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය ශ්‍රී ලංකා වෙ දේශපාලනයෙන් නැත්තටම නැතිකිරීම සඳහා මුලපිරීමක් වශයෙන් ලබන පලාත්පාලන චංදයෙදී  රනිල් වික්‍රම්සිංහ නායකත්වය දෙන  එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයෙ අලියා ලකුණට  චන්දය දීමෙන් වලකින්න.

ඒ චන්දය ඇස් ඩබ්ලියු ආර් ඩී බන්ඩාරනායක මැතිතුමන් එදා එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂ ආන්ඩුවකින් වෙන්වී පිහිටවූ සමාජවාදී ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයෙ දේශපාලනය ගෞරවාන්විතව ආරක්ෂාකරගෙන  ඒ දර්ශනයම පදනම්කරගෙන පිහිටුවා තිබෙන ශ්‍රී ලකා පොදුජන පෙරමුනට ලබා දෙන්න.

මේ යහපාලන වධකයන් විසින් ශ්‍රී ලංකාව අද වට්ටවා තිබෙන ප්‍රපාතයෙන්  ගොඩගෙන නැවතත් දියුනුවකරා ගෙනයන්න ඒ නවතම ශ්‍රී ලකා පොදුජන පෙරමුන ජයග්‍රාහී කිරීමට උපකාරකිරීම අපේ යුතුකම වන්නේය.  

ඒ  ජයග්‍රහණය නිසා  අවුරුදු 2600කටත් වැඩි ඉතිහාසයක් තිබෙන අප  භාග්‍යවත් මහා කාරුණික බුදු පියානන්වහන්සේගේ ශ්‍රී පාද ස්පර්ශයෙන්  පුන්‍ය භූමියක්වූ මේ ශ්‍රී ලංකාද්වීපය නැවතත් සතුරු භීෂණයෙන් තොර ආරක්ශාවත්   සාමයත්  සතුටත්  පිරි  සෞභාග්‍යමත් අනාගතයක් සඳහා ගෙනයාමට ශ්‍රී ලකා පොදුජන පෙරමුනට හැකිවන්නේය.  මේ සඳහා දායක වීමෙන් බටහිර ගැති ධනවාදී එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය සදාකාලිකවම  ශ්‍රී ලංකා දේශපාලනයෙන් අතුගා දෑමට ඔබට හැකිවන්නේය.

ජනාධිපතිවරයා කියන කතා එතරම් ගණන් ගත යුතු නැති බව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ සභා නායක ඇමති ලක්‍ෂමන් කිරිඇල්ල මහතා පවසයි.

මැතිවරණ කාලයේදී මොනවා කිවුවත් පෙබරවාරි 10 වැනිදායින් පසු ජනාධිපතිවරයා හා අගමැතිවරයා එක්ව ඉතිරි කාලයද ආණ්ඩුව කරගෙන යනු බවද ඔහු සදහන් කරයි.

එජාපය ඉවත් කර සන්ධාන ආණ්ඩුවක් පිහිටුවීම සදහා ජනාධිපතිවරයා ඒකාබද්ද විපක්‍ෂයට කරන ලද විවෘත ආරාධනාව සම්බන්ධයෙන් අදහස් පල කරමින් ඔහු මෙම අදහස් පල කරනු ලැබීය.

ජනාධිපති මෛත‍්‍රිපාල සිරිසේන මහතාටද එරෙහිව ජාත්‍යන්තරයේ අල්ලස් හා දුෂණ නඩුවක් ඇති බව අමතකවීම පුදුමයක් බව පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත‍්‍රී නිමල් රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතා පවසයි.

‘මේ රටේ දේශපාලඥයො හොරු නම් මෛත‍්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාදිපතිතුමත් හොරෙක්. මෛත‍්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාදිපතිතුමා දේශපාලඥයෙක්. මෛත‍්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාදිපතිතුමාටත් වංචා හා දුෂණ නඩු ලංකාවෙ නොවෙයි ඔස්ටේ‍්‍රලියාවෙ තියෙනව. ජාත්‍යන්තර නඩුවක් තියෙන එකම රාජ්‍ය නායකයා ලංකා ඉතිහාසයෙ. අල්ලස් හා දුසණ නඩුව මෛත‍්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාදිපතිතුම.

අපිට තියෙන්නෙ රගර් ගහන්න සල්ලි අරන් දුන් කියල, මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ මහත්තයට තියෙන්න ජනාධිපතිවරණ කාලෙ ටීවී එකේ ඇඞ් දැම්ම කියලග.

මෛත‍්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාදිපතිතුමා මතක තියාගන්න ඔ්න දේශපාලඥයන්ට හොරා කියල ඇගිල්ල දික් කරන කොට එතුමටත් ඇගිලි හතරක් දික් වෙනව කියල’ යයිද මන්ත‍්‍රීවරයා කියා සිටියේ ශ‍්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ ප‍්‍රචාරක ජනහමුවක් අමතමින් කියා සිටියේය.

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RANJITH SOYSA

A  colleague of mine, – keen student of historical archeological sites- who has recently visited Anuradhapura conveyed to me the depressing story how some of the monuments are maintained.

In most places, he had observed that the maintenance labor force use implements without any care or caution to the extremely valuable artifacts .

According to him the maintenance contractors use unskilled labor who attend to their work without any guidance He told me at the site of Eath Pokuna (Elephant Pond) which is a huge ancient water storage tank – 159 m long.53 m wide 10 m deep with a holding capacity of 75,000 cubic capacity – for ancient Abahaygiri Monastery, the contract laborers while clearing weeds in the pond  caused damage to the bricks and stones.

He was saddened by the callous manner in which historical places are vandalized by the unskilled maintenance labor.. He was also disheartened to witness many ancient tanks filled with weeds and fungi which again speaks volumes for the insensitive maintenance.

The department of archeology and other concerned authorities should open their eyes and implement a plan for the right preservation of our historical places.

By Dr. Chandana Jayalath

The book on Asian Perspectives in Communication authored by the journalist and researcher, Darshana Ashoka Kumara is a piece of study that explores possibility of using a mass communication model in Sri Lanka. The modality he refers to is the Asian Communication model which is deemed to be predominately based on the concepts of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. He attempts to bring the concepts in Quantum Physics to make this model a more meaningful one. The arguments cited for the appropriateness of this model is the multi ethnic and multi linguistic composition itself.  Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus share many commonalities in terms of religion and customs. Using these identical concepts the Author suggests that, if adopted in good faith, it will certainly ensure the ethnic harmony and prevent future conflicts.

A chapter is dedicated to explain how mass media is currently being used as a tool of war and manipulate the general public particularly in reporting national and social issues. Most significantly, the fourth chapter deals with the knitty-gritty of the teachings of the ancient philosophers including Bharathamuni, Nagarjuna and Ashwagosha. Two case studies of ownership issues and poor profesionalism that plague the Sri Lankan media, both in the practice and training are also given. One of which is how media reported on the appointing expert panel by the UN Secretary General to inquire into alleged war crimes.

Darshana accuses that in the modern world, mass media profoundly engage in manipulating the media content, distort the true picture and do not act as a role model to demystify the difficult path towards an informed citizenry. He emphasizes that even though media is meant to promote peace and harmony, people with vested interests and narrow political objectives attempt to use media as a tool of war to fulfill evil purposes. This bad precedence takes over the rectitude once level of sensitivity is alarmingly reducing. If citizens are ill informed about the actions of officials and institutions for example, the way towards harmony will be blatantly blurred. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

A known fact is that sophisticated psychological operations are a part of parcel of modern warfare. By and large, media politics in the country too has a long term effect on media itself. First, the countries media sector tend to contribute to the establishment of a highly politically partisian media culture. Darshana contends that the island nation has not yet got rid of this phynomina. This partisan character and loyalty to certain political parties is obvious in critical moments such as elections.  In this way, media often becomes an instrument of elite politics, he worries.  One of the chapters that attracted me is the twelve points  where journalism often goes wrong when dealing with violence namely; Decontextualizing violence, Dualism, Manichaeism, Armageddon, Confusion, Focusing on individual acts of violence while avoiding structural causes such as poverty, Excluding and omitting the bereaved, Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself, Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists, Omitting the reconciliation, Confusing cease-fires and negotiations with actual peace and Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcome.

In the foregoing study, it had been confirmed that Sri Lankan media has generally resorted to publish manipulated content, mainly due to concentration of media ownership into hands of polarized elements in the society, lack of professionalism of media practitioners, especially journalists. Western concepts too have resulted publishing more insensitive media content that could lead the public more into polarized ends of the social spectrum. Darshana’s argument is that a communication strategy based on real Asian values will more or less demote jumping into such polarized ends and would help towards a moderate society and healthy democracy in Sri Lanka.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, I hardly came across in the Darshana’s search for an Asian perspective of Communication modality, a total rejection of the Western perspective. I hope it is unnecessary. Asian scholars can elicit what is useful from the West and incorporate it such that the Asian perspective becomes relevant and addresses the important communication issues peculiar to Asian nations. If so, why have we, as communication scholars, so far focused our attention and energies solely on exploring Western theories of communication? In that sense, I agree with Darshana who never dispel the argument of understanding of and utilizing the Asian approaches to communication. It will indeed help serving to widen the field of communication and extend its discursive boundaries.  Under circumstances, we have to proceed cautiously and operate on a number of fronts simultaneously.

In this book, Darshana has addressed key important questions related to Asian approaches of communication. First, why is it important to focus on Asian approaches to communication? Second, how will the uncovering of Asian theories change the landscape of communication studies, at least to a degree? Third, what we have achieved so far other than discredit and lack of harmony? Fourth, what are some of the dominant problems we are likely to encounter in our endeavors (for examples the ownership issues)? However, the most importantly, the question of how can we usefully overcome them seems less answered. I wonder whether the latter is out of his research objective.  I strongly believe more work needs to be done in framing out a sensible media landscape. Hence, it should come as no surprise that Darshana must have chosen to focus more on the challenges ahead for scholars of Asian communication than those not accomplished.

In a country where media suffers indiscipline to a greater length due to political interventions, by writing a book on how the media as a ‘social approach’ embraces Asian concepts and teachings is admirable. We have a handful of scholars, to understand communication from an Asian perspective. This is primarily because there are not in academic circulation any Asian theories and models that communication teachers and students can readily use. Moreover, researches are undertaken in a Western scholarly dispensation.  If communication is to become a more meaningful mode of inquiry in Asia, and indeed in the rest of the world, it has to connect with indigenous intellectual roots, local modes of thinking, traditional knowledge and scientific reasoning. Traditional Knowledge generally refers to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities. These kinds of knowledge, crucial for subsistence and survival, are generally based on accumulations of empirical observation and on interaction with the environment. In times of a crisis, this traditional knowledge will ideally entail. What is called rational” and what popularly acceptable as science” is in fact a by-product of specific historical, cultural, and political circumstances, and has produced a culture of scientism” that is ideological.

One of the interesting discussions is tied to the idea that an object or event arises as a combination or multiplicity of causes, generally referred to as cofactors. No event has one single cause, but invariably the cooperation of a multitude of conditions is involved. What is necessary for an event to occur is that the full complement of the condition must be present. The effect itself, indeed, is nothing but the presence of the totality of causes. These ideas have deep implications for the construction of communication research models. Darshana’s elucidation in page 123 is perhaps in nutshell given to explain the Niyama Dharama in Buddhism.  Five types of factors at work in the cosmos that cause things to happen, called the Five Niyamas. Karma is only one of these factors. Present circumstances are the result of countless factors that are always in flux. There is no single cause that makes everything to be the way it is. What this discussion establishes, I believe, is that various concepts embedded in Asian classical traditions of thought can be productively employed to reshape our models of communication for a social order we badly aspire. Media as scandalmonger means that the end goal is to mobilize citizens for reform.

හිටපු ජනපති මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ

තවම එහෙම විශ්වාසභංගයක්‌ ගෙනාවේ නැහැ

බළන්ගොඩ එන්. එච්. පියසේන, පොල්පිතිගම – වීරරත්න

“පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට යූ.එන්.පියෙන් අලුත ආපු පොඩි කොල්ලෝ මෛත්‍රීට ටොකු අනිනවා. චෝදනා එල්ල කරනවා. අවලාද නඟනවා. ඉතින් රනිල් මහත්තයා කරන්නේ මට බණින එකයි. වැඩ බැරි ආණ්‌ඩුවේ සිද්ධවන මේ වගේ දේවල්වලට මට කරන්න දෙයක්‌ නැහැ” යෑයි හිටපු ජනාධිපති මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතා පැවැසීය.

හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරයා එම ප්‍රකාශය කරන ලද්දේ ඉකුත් 23 දා සහ 24 වැනිදා බළන්ගොඩදී සහ යාපහුවේදී පැවැති ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ ප්‍රචාරක රැලි අමතමිනි.

එහිදී තවදුරටත් අදහස්‌ දැක්‌වූ හිටපු ජනාධිපති මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතා,

රවි කරුණානායක මන්ත්‍රීවරයාට විරුද්ධව විශ්වාසභංග යෝජනාව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කළ අවස්‌ථාවේ මම පාර්ලිමේන්තුව මඟ හැරියාලු. ඊට පසුව රවිට මම සුබ පැතුවලු. ඔයාට මම විරුද්ධව ඡන්දෙ දුන්නෙ නැහැ කියා කිව්වාලු. අනේ සිරිසේන මහත්තයෝ තාම එහෙම දෙයක්‌ ගෙනාවෙ නෑ. එහෙම විශ්වාසභංගයක්‌ ගෙනාවෙත් නැහැ. නිකම් බොරු කියන්න එපා. අපි විශ්වාසභංගය ගේන්නේ ආවාට ගියාට නෙවෙයි. අපි ගේන්නේ රවි ගෙදරම යවන එක තමයි. ජනතාව ඉදිරියේ මේ වගේ බොරු කියන්න එපා.එන අවුරුද්දේ ජනාධිපතිවරණයෙන් යන්න වෙයි කියලා මෙයා කියන දේවල්. මේවා එදා විජය කුමාරතුංග මහත්තයාගේ මළගම වෙලාවේ චJද්‍රිකා අත උස්‌සලා පෙට්‌ටියෙ අත තියලා දිවුරලා ප්‍රකාශ කළා වගේ මෛත්‍රිපාල මහත්තයත් මාදුළුවාවේ හාමුදුරුවන්ගෙ අපවත්වීමෙන් පස්‌සේ දේහය ළඟ අත උස්‌සලා දිවුරලා ප්‍රකාශ කළා ජනාධිපති ක්‍රමය අහෝසි කරනවා කියලා. නමුත් අපි දන්නවා මේ වගේ අත උස්‌aසලා කරන ප්‍රකාශ ඉටු කරන ඒවා නොවන බව. තාමත් ප්‍රමාද නැහැ. ඉඩකඩ තිබෙනවා. විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්‍රමය ඉවත් කරන්න. ඇයි නොකරන්නේ කියා අපි අහනවා.

අපි ගුරුවරයාට සලකනවා. මේ 8 පාස්‌ මහ ඇමැතිවරයා විදුහල්පතිවරියව ගෙනල්ලා, දණගස්‌සනවා. වන්දනවා. මොනතරම් මානසික පිස්‌සෙක්‌ද කියලා හිතන්න. මොකක්‌ද කළේ. පොලිසියට ගියා. පොලිසිය එක්‌ක ගියා උසාවියට. ඇප දුන්නා. දැන් ඔය වගේම එකක්‌ අපේ ආණ්‌ඩු කාලේ වුණා. ඒ තමයි ආණමඩුවේ ආනන්ද. අපි මොකද කළේ. නාම යෝජනා දුන්නේ නෑ. රිමාන්ඩ් කළා. සුමාන දෙකක්‌ රිමාන්ඩ් එකේ හිටියා. දඬුවම් වින්දා. අපි සාධාරණය ඉෂ්ඨ කළා ඒ ගුරුවරියට. අද වෙලා තියෙන්නේ මේකයි.

තව එක්‌කෙනෙක්‌ ඉන්නවා ඔබට මතකද දන්නෙ නෑ. අපේ පැත්තේ කාන්තාවන් 100 ක්‌ දූෂණය කරපු එක්‌කෙනෙක්‌ ඉන්නවා, ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස්‌ පක්‍ෂයේ. මහා ලොකුවට කෑ ගැහුවා. චෝදනා කළා. දැන් ඒ චෝදනා කරපු අයම එයාව අරගෙන. දැන් එයාගේ නෝනාට දීලා. දැන් නෝනා තමයි ඉල්ලන්නේ. මෙයාගේ පින්තූරෙයි, සීයේ එක්‌කෙනාගේ පින්තූරෙයි. නෝනගේ පින්තූරෙයි. ජනාධිපතිතුමාගේ පින්තූරෙයි අනිත් කොළෙයි.

දැන් මේකෙ කොළ ඉරා ගන්නවා නේද. මේ තමයි රටට යන කල, රට පිරිහෙන විදිහ. වයස 14 ක ගෑනු ළමයෙක්‌ව එක්‌සත් ජාතික පාක්‍ෂිකයෝ තුන්දෙනෙක්‌ කාර්යාලයක්‌ තුළ බීලා ගිහිල්ලා දූෂණය කළා. ඒකට දේශපාලන නායකයෝ අර දූෂිතයව බේරා ගන්න හදන කොට ජනතාව අල්ලලා දුන්නා පොලිසියට. දේශපාලන නායකයො තවමත් ඇඟිලි ගහනවා ඒ අයව බේරා ගන්න. ඉතින් මේ සමාජය කොතනටද යන්නේ. මේ ආණ්‌ඩුව ආවට පස්‌සේ හැමදාම දකින්න ලැබෙන්නේ මිනී මැරුම්, මංකොල්කෑම්, වෙඩි තැබීම්. එක්‌කෙනෙකුට නෙවෙයි. පවුල් පිටින් මරලා. අත දරුවො වෙඩි තියලා මරල දානවා. ආණ්‌ඩුව නිහඬයි. ආණ්‌ඩුව පාලනයක්‌ කරන් නෑ. මං පහුගිය දවසේ පිටකොටුවේ ආමර් වීදියේ ගියා උත්සවයකට. ඒ යනකොට ඊට අල්ලපු පාරේ දෙන්නෙකුට වෙඩි තියලා මරලා දාලා. මගෙන් පොලිසියේ මහත්තුරු අහනවා සර් මොකටද ආවේ කියලා. ඉතින් අපි කොටින්ට බය නෑ. අපි මේ රටේ අවුරුදු තිහක්‌ තිබිච්ච යුද්ධය අවසන් කළා. පාතාලයට බය වෙලා ගෙදරට වෙලා නිදා ගන්නෙත් නෑ. ඒක මතක තියා ගන්න ඕනෑ.

අද අපිට බැණ බැණ ඇවිදිනවා. අමූලික බොරු චෝදනා කරනවා. බොරු කියලා ජනතාව රවට්‌ටනවා. ඉතින් මේ රැවටිලිවලට හැමදාම රැවටෙන්නේ නෑ.

අද බලන්න දරුවගේ යුනිෙµdaම් එක. අපි දුන්නේ හැමෝටම සුදු ඇඳගෙන එන්න රෙදි කෑල්ලක්‌. ඉස්‌කෝලෙට ගියාම දරුව දුප්පත්ද, පෝසත්ද කියලා නෑ. හැමෝම එකවගේ ඇඳුමක. ඇඳුමෙන් මනින්න පුළුවන් කමක්‌ නෑ කියලා සමාජයේ දරුවට ඒ නිදහස දුන්නා. ඒක හින්දා තමයි සුදු පාට ඇඳුම දුන්නේ. එකම යුනිෙµdaම් එකක්‌ දුන්නේ. ඒකට දැන් මේ කට්‌ටිය කියනවා ඕනෑ එකක්‌ ඇඳගෙන වරෙන් කියලා කූපන් එකක්‌ දෙනවා ගිහිල්ලා රෙදි කෑල්ල ගන්න කියලා. කූපන් එකට ගන්න පුළුවන් ගවුමේ උඩ කෑල්ල විතරයි. යට කෑල්ල නෑ. ඒකට අතින් දාන්න ඕනෑ. ඉතින් මෙහෙම නේද එයාලා කරන්නේ. ක්‍රමානුකූලව ජනතාවගෙන් ඈත් වෙනවා. ජනතාව ඈත් කරනවා.

අද මම තමුන්නාන්සේලාට පැහැදිලිව කියනවා මේ රටේ සිතියම හැමදාම හාමුදුරුවනේ මුහුදට අඩු වෙලා ගියා. මුහුදු ඛාදනය නිසා මූදු රැල්ලට දියවෙලා යනවා. ඔබ දුන්නා. අපි ආවා. අපි වෙනස්‌ කළා. අපි දූපතක්‌ හැදුවා අක්‌කර 450 ක්‌ අලුතෙන් කොළඹ නගරෙන් හැදුවා. අරහෙන් හම්බන්තොට අක්‌කර 150 ක දූපතක්‌ හැදුවා වරායට අමතරව මේ තත්ත්වයට සිතියම වෙනස්‌ කළේ අපි. විරැකියාව අඩු කරලා රටේ උපාධිධාරීන්ට රස්‌සා දීලා තරුණයන්ට රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ රැකියා ලක්‍ෂ 7 ක්‌ දීලා ලක්‍ෂ 7 වූ රාජ්‍ය සේවය ලක්‍ෂ 14 ක්‌ කළා. ඒ වගේම මහින්දොaදය විද්‍යාගාර ගෙනල්ලා ගමට විද්‍යා අධ්‍යාපනය ලබා දුන්නා. ඉංග්‍රීසි අධ්‍යාපනය ලබා දුන්නා. කම්පියුqටර් තාක්‍ෂණය දැනුම ලබා දුන්නා. මේවා අපි කළේ නිකම් නෙමෙයි. අපිට සල්ලි නැත්නම් අපි කරන්නේ මොකක්‌ද? ණය ගන්නවා. අපි ගත්ත ණය වලින් රටට කරපු දේවල් අද පේන්න තියෙනවා. පාරවල් කාපට්‌ කරලා විදුලිය ඔක්‌කොටම දීලා ඊළඟට දෙන්න තිබුණේ වතුර ටික විතරයි.

මේ මැතිවරණයේදී මේ ප්‍රාදේශීය සභා මැතිවරණයට එහා ගිය දෙයක්‌ වෙනවා. මේක දිහා ලංකාවේ ජනතාව විතරක්‌ නෙවෙයි මුළු ලෝකයම බලාගෙන ඉන්නවා. අධිරාජ්‍යවාදියෝ ඇමරිකන්කාරයෝ විතරක්‌ නෙවෙයි හැම එක්‌කෙනාම බලාගෙන ඉන්නේ මොකද්ද මේ රටට වෙන්නේ කියලා. මේ මැතිවරණයෙන්. ඒක නිසා තමුන්නාන්සේලාගේ යුතුකම ඉටු කරන්න ඕනෑ. මේ ආණ්‌ඩුව කරන වැඩපිළිවෙළට විරුද්ධයි කියලා කියන්න අවස්‌ථාව දැන් තමුන්නාන්සේලාට ලැබිලා තියෙනවා. ඒ නිසා තමුන්නාන්සේලා පොහොට්‌ටුවට ඡන්දය දීලා ඒ යුතුකම ඉටු කරන්න කියන ඉල්ලීම කරමින් සියලුම දෙනාට සුභ අනාගතයක්‌ ප්‍රාර්ථනා කරනවා.

තේජා ගොඩකන්දෙආරච්චි

චාර්ල්ස් පෙරේරා විසින්

මේ අභූත යහපාලනය නිසා අසරණවූ මගේ හිතවත් ලංකාවේ ජනතාවෙනි.  ඔබ අසරණ කල මේ කාලකන්නි සිරසේන රනිල්  යහපාලනයට නැවතත් රැවටෙන්න එපා.

උන්ට ඔබ රවටන්න බැරිබව වටහාදෙන්න පුළුවන් එකම අවස්තාවයි පළාත් සභා චන්දය.

රටහදන්න පුළුවන් දේශපාලන චින්තනයක් සිරිසේනටවත් රනිල්ටවත් නැ. සිරිසේන ගිරිය පුප්පවාගෙන හැමතැනම කියන්නේ හොරු  ගැන,  අලුත්වචනත් යොදාගන්නවා දැන් කතාකරන්නේ ප්‍රභූ චෞර සන්ධාන ගැන. මේ චන්දෙවෙනකම් ඇයි සිරිසේන ජනාධිපති නිස්ෂබ්ධව සිටියෙ අවුරුදු තුනකට පස්සේ දැන් ද එයාට හොරුපෙනිලා තියෙන්නේ ?

අසරණවූ අපේ මිනිස්සුන්ට දැන් ඕනෑ හොරු අල්ලන එකද නැත්නම් එදිනෙදා ජීවිතය ගෙනයැමට අවශ්‍ය භාණ්ඩමිල අඩු සාධාරණ ජීවනවියදමක් හා පීඩනයකින් තොර දේශපාලන ක්‍රමවේදයක් නොවේද ?  සිරිසේන ජනාධිපති මවාපාන ගිය ආණ්ඩුවේ හොරමැරකම් ගැන ගිරිය උලුප්පාගෙන කෑගහන හැම අවස්තාවෙදීම ඒ ආණ්ඩුවේ සිටි සිරිසේන ජනාධිපතිතුමාත්  ඒ හොරමැරකම්වලට සමබන්ධබවනේද  ජන්නතාවට වැටහෙන්නේ ?

ජනාධිපති තුමා පහුගිය ආණ්ඩුවට මොන දේකට හරි  චෝදනා කරනකොට ඒ චෝදනා එතුමාටත් එල්ල වෙනවා නේද ?  මේ ඔක්කොම කථා චන්ද පිස්සුවෙන් දෙන මර ලතෝනි. චන්දෙන් පස්සේ කටවහගෙන අගමැති බටහිර රටවල්වල උවමනාවට කරගෙන යන රට වනසන දේසපාලන වැඩපිළිවලට ඉඩදීලා නිකන් ඉඳියි. සංහිඳියාව සඳහා හා මාර අලුත් ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් හදල රට දෙකඩ කරන්න  රනිල් අගමැතිතුමාට ඉඩදීල නිස්ස්හබ්ද වෙයි.

රනිල් මංගල සමරවීර එක්ක එකතුවෙලා ඇමෙරිකාව සමග  එක්වී  ලංකාවට විරුද්ධව ගෙනා  යෝජනා ක්‍රියාත්මක කරයි. ඉන්දියාවත් එක්කත් සිංගප්පුරුව එක්ක වගේ වෙළඳ ගිවිසුමකට ඉඩදෙයි. . හොරු අල්ලන එක නොවෙයි මේ ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට ඇතිවෙන්න යන අනතුරුවලින් රට බේරගන්න එකයි සිරිසේන ජනාධිපති තුමාකල යුත්තේ. හොරු නැති දේශපාලනයක් ලෝකයේ කොහේ වත් නැ. යහපාලනයේ බැංකු කඩපුතරම් හොරු නම් ලෝකයේ කොහෙවත් නැ.

ඒ නිසා ජනාධිපති තුමයි එතුමා වටේ ඉන්න ශ්‍රී ලංකා  නිදහස් පක්ෂය  දෙකඩ කරන්න උදව් දුන් ජනතාව ප්‍රතික්ෂේපකල සමහරක් අයගෙන් ගෙන් යුත් ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පාක්ෂිකයන් 45 දෙනාට රැවටිලා ඔවුන් පෙනීසිටින ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයේ අත ලකුනටනම් වැරදිලාවත් ඔබේ වටිනා චන්දය දෙන්න එපා.   

සිරිසේන ජනාධිපති  හා රනිල් අගමැති එකම කාසියේ  පැතිදෙක. ඒ නිසා ඔබ  සිරිසේන මැතිතුමාගේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයේ අත ලකුණට දෙන හැම චන්දයක්ම ඔබ දෙන්නේ  එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයත් සමග ගැටගැහිලා ඉන්න යහපාලනයට.

අමතක කරන්න එපා මේ පළාත් පාලන චන්දයේදී ඔබ  සිරිසේන ජනාධිපති තුමාගේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂයේ  අත ලකුණට  හෝ සන්ධානයේ පුටුව ලකුණට දෙන හැම චන්දයක්ම දෙන්නේ  එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයට බව. 

සිරිසේන ජනාධිපති තුමා මහා පරිමාන  හා  ප්‍රභූ චෞර සන්දාන ගැන හයියෙන් කතාකරකර කලේ  එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ හොරුන් ආරක්ශාකල එකයි.  රටේ  හා මාද්යයේ  උද්ඝෝෂණ  වැඩිවෙන්ට පටන්ගත්තාමයි කොමිසන් සභාවක් පත්කළේ. සය්ටම් වයිද්‍යා විද්‍යාලය සම්බන්ධව තාමත් ජනාධිපති තුමා තීරණයක් අරන් නෑ. එව්වා නේද අවශ්‍ය හොරු අල්ලනෙකට වඩා

මේ තක්කඩි යහපාලනයෙන් ගැලවෙන්නට නම  ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුනේ පොහොට්ටුව ලකුණට චන්දය දෙන්න. ඒ පක්ෂයට පමණයි ලංකාව වැටිලාතියෙන අගාදියෙන් ගලවාගන්නපුලුවන්.

මාධ්‍ය ඒකකය කැෆේ සංවිධානය 

By Sanchith Karunaratna  Courtesy Adaderana

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated that the individuals accountable for the Bond scandal should be held responsible for the severe financial crisis that all Sri Lankans are faced with today.

Speaking to the media at a gathering in Batticaloa, the former President stated that several financial burdens including the increase of interest rates charged are all a direct result of the Bond scandal.

Meanwhile Minister of Education Akila Viraj Kariyawasam stated that the UNP will secure a resounding victory at the upcoming Local Government election.

මාධ්‍ය නිවේදනය කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන් විධායක අධ්‍යක්ෂ/කැෆේ සංවිධානය

ALI SUKHANVER

One of the most painful and agonizing problems of today’s world is the increasing use and production of drugs and narcotics. The developed countries like UK, USA, Japan and even the countries like Pakistan and India have been trying their best to put a strict check on the production and use of narcotics but they have yet not succeeded in wiping off this ‘evil’ from their societies. However, the situation in Afghanistan like war-stricken countries is more horrible as there is no one willing to tackle with this epidemic-like menace. Recently United Nations Office on Drugs and Narcotics released a report on production of poppy and opium in Afghanistan. According to the report a record high 63% in 2017 was observed in production of opium and poppy. The report says the factors behind this horrible increase are political instability, lack of government control, poor security and corruption of the government machinery responsible for keeping an eye on illegal cultivation of opium and poppy. During the last year of Taliban governance, the production was reduced to merely 221 tons which has now reached 9,000 tons in 2017; earlier in 2016 it was 4,800 tons. The rate of increase is somewhere around 87%. During that period, the US authorities had been blaming that the Taliban were sponsoring the poppy crop but the facts and figures are telling an absolutely different story. According to the UN report poppy cultivation has expanded in the areas of Balkh, Jowzjan, Baghlan, and Sari Pul provinces which had never been under Taliban control. More interesting is the fact that these areas were entirely free of poppy-production a few years back. It is a common notion that the production of narcotics in Afghanistan has manifold increased with the increase of the US influence and interference in Afghanistan. Analysts say that the US and other invading actors require huge funds for running their covert operations in Afghanistan and there could be no other source more lucrative than drugs and narcotics in this regard. So they have to promote and supervise the illegal production of narcotics. And this is nothing new; organizations like CIA and Black Water also use such means of ‘fund-raising’ for the completion of the missions assigned to them. Unfortunately this basic reason is the biggest hurdle in the way to curb the menace of use and production of narcotics in USA, Afghanistan and other countries. War torn countries like Afghanistan provide more cordial environment for such harmfully illegal activities.

In July 2016, The Global Research published an article of Timothy Alexander Guzman. The writer referred to a report of The Center for Disease Control published in 2015. It said that heroin use in the United States increased 63% from 2002 through 2013. The writer said commenting upon the present situation, Fast forward to 2016, heroin is sweeping across the United States at unprecedented levels.” The article further said, In the suburbs of Long Island, NY, heroin use is an increasing problem. According to www.suburbanheroin.com a website devoted to the heroin epidemic on Long Island states that in 2012 – 2013 more than 242 people died from heroin use. Long Island is home to some of the wealthiest communities in New York State which goes to show that heroin is affecting all neighborhoods rich and poor.” It shows that use of drugs and narcotics is not limited to some particular strata of US society and this fact also indicates towards the reality that some of the US soldiers posted there in Afghanistan might be addicted to drugs and narcotics. It has also been reported in media that a high number of Afghan Defence Forces personnel is also habitual poppy user and hence carries low morale and physical health. This all is happening in Afghanistan under very watchful eyes of the USA, no doubt an elite superpower of the world. USA most of the time plays a very positive role in making the world a place worth living , though the people living in the South-Asian region may have an opinion otherwise. The menace of use and production of drugs and narcotics could not be controlled rather crushed down unless the US accepts it as a challenge. Particularly in Afghanistan, all terrorist and criminal activities would simply start breathing their last if the production and use of poppy and opium is successfully controlled as the production of poppy and opium provides ‘Financial Oxygen’ to these evil activities. This is certainly not an easy job but the world around is very much confident that US has all ability of changing every impossible into possible. With the determination of US, Afghanistan could very soon become a land free of drugs and narcotics.

Shelton A. Gunaratne professor emeritus, MSUM

During my recent (end of September) visit to the Philippines, I spent a whole day—a Friday—with five Asian communication scholars led by Crispin Maslog, (Philippines) the chairman of the board of directors of AMIC (Asian Media and Communication Center), on a tour of traffic-congested and polluted Greater Manilla.  Our team included John Lent (United States), Peixin Cao (China), Professor Zulu (Indonesia), me, and my spouse.

Maslog informed us that considering our departure schedules the next day, he would take us to a few selected spots that might be of professional interest to us mostly in and around the old city of Intramuros, which eventually was absorbed into the sprawling megapolis of Manila.  Because of the unruly traffic mess in Metro Manila, even the hardiest traveler cannot hope to explore more than a fistful of the city’s tourist attractions in one day.

Maslog’s plan included stops at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Sampaloc, the Manila Bulletin building in Intramuros, lunch at the Bayleaf Hotel and Restaurant overlooking the walls of the old city of Manila known as Intramuros, the AMIC headquarters at the Philippine Women’s University, and the Philippine International Convention Center. Our leisurely tour of these few places took the entire day.

Starting from our hotel in Mandaluyong City (part of metro Manila) mid-morning, our experienced driver cut through the traffic mess and brought us to the UST campus in Sampaloc, the oldest university of the Philippines, and of the whole of Asia, with a current student enrolment of about 43,000. It is a private nonprofit Roman Catholic research university established in 1611. It currently holds the fifth rank in academic standing among the 67 universities, colleges and other mostly private, higher education institutes in the National Capital Territory (Greater Manila) alone. (The top four are the University of the Philippines at Diliman, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, and the U of P System.) I wondered whether Sri Lanka would ever allow the proliferation of such a variety of higher-ed institutions considering the recent fuss over SAITM.

The purpose of our visit to UST was to confer with Jose Arsenio Salandanan, chairman of the department of communication and media studies in the faculty of arts and letters, and a few graduate students about how the department has de-Westernized communication theory to be more in tune with a resurgent Asia.  The university supplied Subway sandwiches for the participants to munch for lunch if they felt any hunger pangs.

Maslog, now 87, told us that UST was his alma mater in the 1950s. After graduation, he proceeded to America, where he attended the school of journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota to get his MA in 1962 and PhD in 1967. Back in the Philippines, he served as the director of the school of journalism at Silliman University in Dumaguete City and as a columnist for the Philippines Inquirer, a national daily.   Then, in 1982, he moved to the University of the Philippines at Los Banos as a professor.  He has edited or authored 35 books so far, including two released in 2017: Martial Law Joke Atbp, and Deconstruct to Understand: Why President Duterte Speaks His Way.

Maslog seemed overwhelmed by nostalgic memories of his undergraduate days at UST that our visiting team must also sense and feel. He celebrated his pride of these memories by showing us the glorious past of his alma mater at the next stop of our tour: the old city of Intramuros (meaning ‘walled city’) founded by the Spanish invaders who conquered the archipelago in the 16^th century and made it the capital of the Philippines in 1571. The UST began its life in 1611 as Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Santisimo Rosario in Intramuros, about 5km southwest of its present location in Sampaloc.

The Spanish colonial government erected Intramuros with a moat around it on the ruins of a Malay settlement at the mouth of the Pasig River. The wall was for protection against foreign invasions; and for 400 years, Intramuros became the center of Spanish political, religious, and military power in the region. But it was nearly destroyed by the Japanese and the Americans during World War II. The government restored it as a tourist attraction in the 1980s.

We learnt that the Philippines’ second oldest daily newspaper, The Manila Bulletin, had its beginnings in Intramuros in 1900 with Carson Taylor, an American, as its founding editor and publisher. We visited the spot as an obligatory media professional duty and enjoyed sipping a cup of Starbuck coffee that we bought from the commercial coffee lounge located on the ground floor of the two-storey Bulletin building on Recolletos Street.

Next, we went to the nearby Bayleaf Intramuros, a hotel and restaurant at the Muralla corner, Victoria Street, for a sumptuous lunch while relaxing in the restaurant’s sky deck, which offered an uninterrupted 360-degree view of the entire Manila Bay skyline. Although we did not have the time to join a walking tour of its restored historic icons—Fort Santiago, Manila Cathedral, San Ignacio ruins, San Augustin Cathedral and Monastery, Barrio San Luis, etc.– we had a bird’s eye view of the entire complex, including Rizal Park, also known as Luneta, from the sky deck.

While I was relishing my Filipino lunch with my Asian colleagues, I could not help but recall with pleasure the encounters I had with a few other walled cities in the world: Chester by the River Dee in northwestern England, Leeds in West Yorkshire, and Xi’an in China. Although each had

Its own charm and unique attributes, Xi’an offered the best value for money as one of the world’s largest city walls. It was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road and home to the Terracotta Army.

We left Intramuros about mid-afternoon and headed for 1743 Taft Street to visit the AMIC head office now housed in the Philippine Women’s University (PWU), about 4 km southeast of Bayleaf.

One member of our group, John A. Lent, a prolific author of communication-related books, had arranged with Maslog to donate to the AMIC archives four of his (Lent’s) books, as well as       communication artifacts and research notes he collected to write the book titled ‘Philippine Mass Communication: Before 1911 and After1966.’ The donation also included Lent’s typed and handwritten abstracts of 627 book and magazine articles he compiled in 1964-65.

Lent was interested in Southeast Asia as a young American researcher, and he lived in the Philippines and Malaysia for considerable periods of time in the ‘60s and the ‘70s. He was a pioneer in initiating the journalism and communication program at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). After I got my doctorate in 1972, it was Lent who was instrumental in getting my lectureship at USM in Penang. I also wrote the chapters on Sri Lanka for two of the books he edited: ‘Broadcasting in Asia and the Pacific’ (1978) and ‘Newspapers in Asia’ (1982). After he retired from his professorship at Temple University, he has devoted full-time attention to editing and publishing the International Journal of Comic Art, which he started in 1999.

Obviously, Lent wants Asian researchers to look deeper into his contribution to Asian mass media education. Maslog wanted our tour group to witness the hand-over at a makeshift ceremony attended by AMIC staff and three officials of the PWU: Arts and Sciences Dean Olivia Celeste Villafuerte; Media Director Lyca Benitez-Brown; and Academic Affairs SVP Felina Young. This event took about two hours.

This left us to decide whether we should visit the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City further to the south, considering the sunset had begun. It was President Marcos who got the Brutalist- style PICC built in two years by presidential decree (starting in 1974, and inaugurating it in 1976). It became the venue for Miss Universe 1994.

Maslog kept to the original itinerary of ending the tour at PICC just to show us the scenic bay area along the coast. The darkness of the evening discouraged us from even getting off our tour vehicle when we reached the venue.

We returned to our hotel to get ready for the next day (Saturday) departure.   

Courtesy  The Island

President Sirisena’s statement that only Rs.1 trillion out of foreign loans of Rs.10 trillion, taken during the term of the previous regime is accounted for “is ridiculous and untrue” and “may even be bordering on lunacy”, former Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said on Friday.

In a statement issued hours after the president’s remarks, Cabraal who was Central Bank Governor during the Rajapaksa regime said this was particularly so considering that Sri Lanka’s GDP in 2014 was only Rs.10.3 trillion.

“If what the president claims is correct, the unaccounted loans will amount to a staggering 90% of GDP!” he said.

“Although the President may have made this irresponsible statement to sling mud at the previous regime as he regularly does, I do not think he realizes the grave danger that he is imposing on our economy with media releases of this nature.

“In that context, as the Governor of the Central Bank from 2006 to 2014, I urge all foreign investors who invested in Sri Lanka’s Government Securities at our invitation from 2006 to 2014 not to panic, since President Sirisena’s statement is without any foundation whatsoever.

“I also assure them that Sri Lanka has diligently and faithfully recorded all foreign borrowings in accordance with our laws and regulations as well the terms of issue, during the time of the previous Government.

“I also condemn this reckless statement, and call upon the President and his Government to desist from making statements of this nature that will surely damage the good name of our economy, which has been built up over the years with great care and dedication by thousands of responsible public servants and a dynamic private sector.”

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando

People in this country appointed Maithripala Sirisena as the President in January 2015, with the backing of several political parties and civic groups, to abolish the executive presidency, hold Parliamentary elections and to execute various political reforms and to appoint commissions to oversee the Judiciary, Police, Elections Department, Auditor General’s Department and the Attorney-General’s Department; and primarily to strengthen the Commission on Bribery and Corruption with an undertaking that as President, he would clean up the present defiled political system, and create a clean country; take all necessary steps to punish all dishonest and corrupt politicians irrespective of their status or the political party they belong to, and to ensure that the law of the country applies equally to every citizen.

The late Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero masterminded the plan and steered an effective campaign to defeat the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa, despite his pre-planned designs and manoeuvres, in case of a defeat! The general consensus of the public was that only a divine intervention could have led towards the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa in January 2015.

Manoeuvring

In certain political quarters it was the belief that Basil Rajapaksa was the firebrand in the Rajapaksa regime who dug the political ‘grave’ for Mahinda Rajapaksa, while helping him (Mahinda) to earn the reputation of being corrupt and dictatorial. After the devastating act of the SLFP, Basil was also alleged to have been persuading Mahinda Rajapaksa to go for an early election, two years ahead of the schedule, influenced by a team of self-centred astrologists. It appeared more ironical when he abandoned Sri Lanka, within 24 hours of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s defeat, and headed towards the USA.

Maithripala Sirisena had no option, but to enter into a marriage with the UNP in forming the Unity Government. In doing so, he had to fulfill an election pledge by appointing Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister. Under an agreement signed with the UNP, prior to the general election, another commitment was to allocate several key cabinet portfolios to the UNP. Once elected to the Executive Office, President Sirisena voluntarily reduced his term from 6 to 5 years and relinquishing certain executive powers with the hope of working for the nation through a Dharmista (just) administration.

Such actions made supremacies of the Prime Minister to flourish, which was clearly indicated by the appointment of Arjuna Mahendran, as the Governor of the Central Bank, by Ranil Wickremesinghe totally ignoring Presidential advice. The Central Bank Bond scandal, in the infant stages of the Yahapalanaya, became notorious and is seen as the historical major fiscal scam, where the Government lost billions of public money and earned a scandalous label as the Sri Lankan ‘Bondgate‘. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s attempts from Parliament, from March 2015 to whitewash the indignity managed only to blow it, out of proportion, thanks primarily to the intervention of the Sri Lankan media. Consequently, such exposure aided the President to take the reins to his own hands and to appoint a special Committee to investigate into bribery and corruption in relation to the Bonds scam.

Disturbed hornet‘s nest

Finally, on the release of the Commission Report has made some of the UNP Parliamentarians, in the Unity Government behave in a manner similar to that of a disturbed hornet’s nest. Consequently, they have been crying foul and criticizing President Sirisena in a most outrageous and uncouth manner, which has transformed a composed and calm President to fly off the handle and, to come out with forceful rhetoric often repeating his promise to the nation that he would certainly expose the guilty and punish them severely.

President has two more years to put his own house in order. Mahinda Rajapaksa has not changed either, after his presidential defeat three years ago, which is evident from his allegiance to the ‘Flower Bud’ party during the forthcoming local elections. Therefore, he is seen as a retired Police constable attempting once again to become the Inspector General of Police!

Repeating the folly

General public criticized and condemned the Rajapaksa regime for bribery and corruption, as well as keeping too many square pegs in round holes. During his governance politicians were often seen taking political might unto their own hands, where even senior Police officers were made to look like puppets. The worse being, their children too started to interfere with the law and order, as if they were public owners of this country!

President Sirisena is being criticized for not taking such lessons as an example in appointing rejected politicians to his Cabinet, and the latest appointment of a new State Minister as Law and Order, who commenced his ministerial journey and was caught on the wrong foot.

This new State Minister was exposed, within three days of his appointment, for storming into a village Police station and castigating a Police officer for apprehending one of his supporters for breaking the traffic law. Is it what one would expect from a Minister in charge of Law and Order, to act in such an appalling manner?

Of course, in Sri Lanka, no politician would admit to his or her fault. This new Minister too has denied the charge of invading the Police station, but later admitted that he did walk into the Police station, but denied using harsh, using abusive language or that he demanded to withdraw charges against his supporter. Despite being shocked by the actions of the State Minister of Law and Order, in not helping the Police to enforce the law, Police stood their ground and insisted that the offender pay the traffic fine, which was done effectively.

The officer in charge of this particular Police station need to be congratulated for setting an example to others, not succumbing to political pressure, but applying the law equally to everyone. This exactly is what President Sirisena wants to achieve, for the meaning of the word Yahapalanaya, to become self-explanatory to the world at large.

tilakfernando@gmail.com

Bodhi Dhanapala, Quebec, Canada

According to news reports, In his letter addressed to the Northern CM, Minister Bathiudeen had stated that the Muslims who lived in Mullaitivu district abandoned their lands due to the terrorist activities carried out by LTTE. The Minister pointed out 780 such families have been identified, and 1000 acres of land in Mullaitivu district are needed for those families and for the new generation that emerged”.

However, if news reports are to be trusted, Mr. Wigneswaran has turned  it down?

If the individuals can identify where they lived, and if the fact that they lived there can be  established, exactly why should one consult Mr. Wigneswaran for settling people in their own lands? Why is there a need to ask for land from Mr. Wigneswaran when the crown owns all land? The provincial councils have not yet been given powers over land allocations.  Further more, it has also been alleged that the Minister Bathiudeen is at the center of the actions leading to a clearing of 4000 acres of the Wilpattu reserve for settling displaced Muslims. Did some chief minster approve that clearing of a reserved forest sanctuary, and did Mr. Bathiudeen ask? The LTTE drove out the Muslims from their homes in the Jaffna peninsula. So, to settle these Muslims should we drive the elephants, buffaloes, and deer from their homes situated in an animal sanctuary ?

Mr. Wigneswaran tries to justify his own dubious rights to an exclusive Tamil homeland” based on racist programs, even twisting history and going to the extent of tamilizing the well-established names of  early kings mentioned in the Mahawamsa (but in no Tamil chronicle) into  Anu-rasa-puram kings”. He asserts that Tamils must preserve their racial purity” by not intermarrying with other races” like the Sinhalese. He fails to understand that only a thin cultural conditioning separates him from his low-caste” brothers born from the lower parts of Brahma,  or his Sinhala relatives. By rejecting Minister Bathiudeen’s request and not coming forward to resettle the Muslims expelled from Jaffna, Mulative and other locations in the Northern province, he is tacitly enforcing the ethnic cleansing carried out by the LTTE. And what abou the Sinhalese who were expelled by the LTTE from the North? Shouldn’t it be Mr. Wigneswaran who should spearhead the rectification of these wrongs, given his sensitivity to genocide of the Tamils since 1948”?

Perhaps Mr. Wigneswaran should read captain Percival’s book on Ceylon in the early part of the 19th century when Percival spend several years in Jaffna and recorded the life there. According to captain Percival, the majority of the people living in Jaffna were Muslims, then came the Sinhalese and the Malabars in terms of numbers. Mr. Wigneswaran should also consult A genealogy of the residents of Manipey and related inhabitancies (re-edited by P. Tambimuttu, 1991) to check if his kith and kin had any Muslim or Sinhalese relatives! Mr. Wigneswaran should check that some of his ancestors were these Villa-halas (those who shed the Villa – the metal ring around the necks of surfs) who conveniently began to call themselves Vellalars!

Where is the civil society” spokesmen, the human rights” people,  the Friday Forum” and others who rise in indignation when the rights of minorities” are subject to the tyranny of the majority”?

Is the tyranny of a minority more acceptable? Let those who are writing constitutions note that devolution of power into the hands of individuals with fanatical ideas would be disastrous.

By Garvin Karunaratne

The formation of a National Economic Council(NEC) to attend to national planning, the establishment of the Grama Shakti Programme to combat  poverty alleviation and the rebuilding of Irrigation Tanks on a massive scale, is a development to be heralded. It is essentially a move in the right direction.

It was way back, four decades ago, that we disbanded National Planning and allowed the Private Sector to be the Engine of Growth. We stopped national planning and allowed it to slide based on the whims and fancies of importers and multinationals, allowed them to import anything which caused the closure of our industries and brought about unemployment.. We   abolished the development infrastructure  we had build up to control the foreign exchange we earn, disbanded the infrastructure we had to en able development and control poverty alleviation. As a result  our country has had its economy recasted from a self sufficient, forward looking,  production oriented, economy, which was not in debt, to become an import and consume cum export raw products economy, steeped in debt. All this  happened because the IMF insisted on our following the Structural Adjustment Programme- a shrewd scheme of finally making us an indebted, poverty stricken country. That was the IMF Plan of making our countries ‘colonies’ of the Superpowers once again.  This time it was not with the gun but with its financial missiles.

Today our country is saddled with  a foreign debt of $ 64.8 billion when in 1977, we were in debt only to the extent of $ 750 million. That $750 million was also on  project development  and not used for luxury living and luxury imports.  Of this $ 64 billion only a small percentage can be justified as incurred for the purchase of arms and armaments  to fight the war with the LTTE.  The rest was used to fund luxury imports and luxury spending, which happened because we followed the IMF teachings since 1978. That is the sad story narrated in my book How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development (Kindle/Godages)

Next came the GramaShakti Programme. I hailed that as a great achievement because it happens to be a progressive poverty alleviation cum production  programme, which type we gave up four decades ago at the behest of the IMF. The last similar progressive poverty alleviation cum production oriented programme was the Divisional Development Council Programme(DDCP) of 1970 to 1977, where I happened to be one of the chief lieutenants as the Government Agent of the Matara District.  This DDC Programme was given up by the Jayawardena Government in 1978. That was a retrogressive step and it heralded the move from progress to dependence.  I can speak out about the development we made in making youths  self employed. This Programme created self employment for 33,000 youths in seven years. This can be contrasted with what happened in the last 40 years when we instead of making employment for our own people and bring about production, did the opposite of importing everything, thereby creating employment for people in other countries and pack off our youth to do menial work abroad and send back earnings. The officials and politicians who functioned as kingpins of that progressive DDC Programme were harassed. My Headquarters AGA who worked on the DDCP had to run away to Canada to save his life. Sumanapala Dahanayake, the Member of Parliament for Deniyaya in his capacity as the President of the Morawak Korale Cooperative Union, who under my direction established the Crayon Factory, which he developed to have island wide sales had a visit by Deputy Commissioner of Cooperative Development  Ariyaratne who was instructed to inspect the industry to find how Sumanapala had mismanaged- to find an irregularity to pin him to jail- something like the role of the Bond Commission of today. Ariyaratne went to Morawaka, spent days in inspections and investigations and found the Crayon Factory a viable and profit making venture and the books kept all in order. In another country Sumanapala would have been the Chief Executive Officer of a major industry with worldwide sales Anyhow the Crayon Factory was closed down. Even today, a full forty years later my blood boils when I see a pack of Crayola Crayons on sale in a Supermarket in Sri Lanka. My blood boils because we katcheri officials burnt the mid night oil for three months in experiments to find the art of making crayons, closeted in the Science lab of Rahula College from six to midnight every day.  Had I summoned business magnate Harischandra and given him the formulae to make crayons there would have been today Harischandra Crayons competing world wide with Crayola. Coop Crayon was equal to the Crayola in quality. That is a political vendetta that is characteristic of the party politics that rule us. The incoming governments always throws the baby with the bathwater.The country suffers.

That was the IMF in action to destroy our industries which we followed from 1978- imports were freely allowed and local entrepreneurs  had to get loans at high interest –. The earlier we understand and call it  day to get out of the IMF clutches the better. To me the creation of the GramaShakti Programme and the creation of the National Economic Council  is a move that denotes progress after forty years of servitude.

Another area of concern is the fact that GramaShakti will usher in a renaissance in rural areas. This is very important when we now find that the major cities in the country- Colombo and Kandy etc are all overpopulated. Pollution is building up in Colombo and this requires immediate attention. The only remedy is the development of rural areas-establishing industries in rural area to create employment so that people do not have to leave their hearth and home and come to cities in search of employment. In the Sixties this was achieved by the development of handloom and powerloom industries and later  under the Divisional Development Programme there were industries- paper making in Kotmale, toolmaking in many Districts,  Boatmaking in Matara and Crayon Making in Morawaka, to mention a few.  With the disbandment of the DDC Programme these industries were closed down. President Premadasa had a plan to establish garment industries in rural areas which died down with his assasination.  The rural areas have to get industries and Grama Shakti can attend to that. It will benefit Colombo and Kandy immensely by reducing the population and  there will be less pollution. It is hoped that the GramaShakti will take on this mantle of rural  development, a long felt need.

Now we have our Army following the US Army in doing national development tasks. That is what the US Army is famous for. It was the US Army that built the dykes(bunds) that keep the Atlantic Ocean away from New Orleans. On my roamings in the USA I have seen these dykes keeping the waters of the Atlantic Ocean at bay. The Army maintains the bunds in proper order even today. It was the US Army that built the hydro power schemes and many structures on the Columbia River in the USA, a achievement that could never have been made otherwise. In my travels in Western USA I have spent days mesmerized at the massive structures the US Army has made and maintains even today. It was the US Army that restored order in Yellowstone National Park when brigands took over and to this day it is run by an affiliated Army Unit.. The use of the Army in the USA for peacetime development tasks is to be admired.

I am particularly interested in the development of the irrigation tanks in the Dry Zone because I myself implemented a programme to rebuild the irrigation tanks in 1962 to 1964. This was when we implemented the Paddy Lands Act and took over the minor irrigation functions that had been done by the Government Agent.  The irrigation tank system was the life blood of the people. The first blow at the irrigation tanks came from the Colebrook Commission of 1829, which abolished rajakariya. Under rajakariya, every person had to perform two weeks labour to repair the infrastructure of the village and in the Dry Zone it included dredging the tank annually, building up eroded sections of the bund and clearing the canals that took water to the fields. When Rajakariya was abolished there was no one to attend to this task and gradually the rot set in.  However the tank administration came under the Government Agent of the District who was in the colonial days a powerful authority. He selected a Vel Vidane to attend to the administration of the irrigation tanks. The task of the Vel Vidane was to hold a Kanna Meeting of all shareholders under the tank to decide the dates to start cultivation, clearing the canals, the dates for ploughing, harvesting etc etc.  Those who failed to perform the tasks decided were charged in the Village Tribunal Courts and punished. When the minor irrigation work was taken over from the Government Agent by the Agrarian Services Department, the Vel Vidanes service was abolished and the tanks were administered by the Cultivation Committees elected under the Paddy lands Act. In Anuradhapura District where I was working in charge, the irrigation functions were done meticulously well. However after the Jayawardena Government repealed the Paddy Lands Act, no alternative system to administer the tanks was enforced and in many areas island wide no Kanna Meetings are held and due to the lack of effective clearing and cleaning the tanks  fell into disrepair. Today in the entire island there is no systematic paddy cultivation, in keeping with the rainfall pattern which has caused a downfall in production. Synchronizing cultivation with the rains is mandatory because the major part of the paddy is rainfed and the tanks too have to fill with the rains to enable cultivation. It is necessary acreage is that the Kanna Meetings have to be held and this needs someone in authority to summon the farmers and make decisions with their participation. The earlier this lacuna in agricultural administration is attended to will enable orderly paddy cultivation.

A further loss is the fact that since the days of President Premadasa there is no cadre of trained agricultural officer at the village level. This was because President Premadasa promoted all Agricultural Overseers as Grama Niladharis and no trained official has yet been appointed. The Niyamakas who cover this work have no training in agriculture.

Another task that has to be done is to repair the tanks. This is an important task that has to be done. As already pointed out the tanks are silted up and the bunds overgrown. On my travels I have found that even the famous  Jaya Ganga that takes water from the Kalaweva to a round a hundred tanks towards Anuradhapura itself is silted up and overgrown. This Jaya Ganga is the master piece canal where the gradient is less that six inches in a mile, a gradient that baffles all engineers today. The irrigation tanks are also silted up and hold little water.  This is where the deployment of the Army comes into significance.

In my recent travels I have found to my amazement that earth is brought from a distance to build the bunds of tanks when there is plenty of earth in the tank bed that has silted up. In my days the tank bunds were repaired with the earth inside the tank. This increased the capacity of water that the tank can hold. I can recall what I wrote earlier:

“It is essential to understand the ancient system and the lay out of the irrigation works- the tanks in NuwaraKalaviya because the moving of earth from outside the tank and raising the bunds indicate that today’s engineers have failed to grasp the fundamentals of the ancient irrigation system. The rain waters are held in a tank by a bund built across a stream and the overflow of water from this tank  is held by another tank a few hundred yards  below and the overflow of the second tank is yet held below in a third tank and so on.  It can be called a cascade system. In this all the tanks belong to a single system and when a tank bund is raised there are  severe limitations to the extent of water that can be held in the tank, because if the water level of the tank is increased it will inundate the paddy fields  of the tank in the higher reaches. This is all the more reason why the tankbed has to be used to take earth to build the tank bund”.(How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Alternative Programmes of Success:Godages)

In my days I had even authorized making bricks on the tank beds, in order to deepen the tanks. Making bricks on the tanks in the dry season  can be developed into a major industry and this can bring about  savings in foreign exchange because building blocks are made of cement which is imported.

The Agrarian Services  could repair only  a few tanks and the fact that the Army is taking over 500 tanks is to be heralded as a task that will breathe new life to the Dry Zone.

It is always said that our Government has no funds for new programmes.  All governments have a plethora of development programmes that are regularly funded. There are ample savings within every programme and the unspent funds get back to our Treasury.

In the Sixties every district got a small allocation for rural development works on a self help basis, where the community members also cooperate and ;provide labour. At the end of the year the unspent funds get shunted back from the districts. In my two years at Kegalla, I made a special trip to the Director of Rural Development in Colombo, to collect a cheque allocating funds unspent by other districts. I get back in time to bank that cheque and make payments for rural works that are being done and release the cheques after the work is completed within a week or two. I complete my allocation well in time and plan other work that can be done in a week or two. I work closely with the Director of Rural Development, my friend, Mr Ratnawira, who has over the telephone found out the savings in other districts and makes me the allocation. This happened in the days when mobile phones were non existent and cheques had to be banked to get credit.

In my consultancy in Bangladesh, when I won the day after a gruelling battle with the Secretary to the Treasury who insisted that I can never establish a self employment programme purely because the ILO failed in that task in the earlier three years, the Secretary to the Treasury said that there are no funds. I gave an assurance to the Minister for Labour and Manpower that I will find savings within  the approved budgets to establish a new self employment programme. This was approved.  The Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh which is today the premier employment creation programme the world has known was thus established by me using savings within voted budgets and redeploying officers.

The Divisional Development Councils Programme of 1970-1977 was also mainly based on savings because the implementation  was taken on by the katcheri officers who were already working in different departments and the divisional secretaries. The Government Agents made arrangements to release officers.  . It is my estimate that an easy 75% of the work load was accomplished by katcheri staff and engineers of other departments. It was not difficult to find officers who did yeoman work in addition to their duties for the cause of national development.

When the Crayon Factory was established under the DDC Programme, we wanted a foreign exchange allocation to import dyes, which was the only item that was imported.  When the Ministry of Industries that had a foreign exchange allocation for imports of essentials by small industrialists refused an allocation for Coop Crayon, I approached  Harry Gunaratne the Controller of Imports who had an allocation for the import of crayons.  I told him that by allowing us a small allocation of foreign exchange for the import of dyes, he can cut the allocation of foreign exchange due to be given for the import of Crayons. He readily agreed because the import content in the manufacture of crayons was less than 10%. By giving us an allocation he could cut the allocation for import of crayons by 80 to 90%. Minister Illangaratne readily approved this arrangement. This proves that the imports of raw materials and even  small scale machinery for new industries can be easily found from within the foreign exchange allocations for the imports of goods in that industry.

There  are ample funds within savings for any new programme of import substitution..

Thus with the establishment of the National Economic Council to attend to National Planning, the GramaShakti for poverty alleviation and the Army to repair and restore the irrigation tanks, the economy is bound to benefit. Let us hope that these programmes will spurt into action immediately.

Garvin Karunaratne

Former Government Agent, Matara

Ph.D. Michigan State University

27 nd January 2018

Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.) Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario .  Canada

26 January, 2018

President Maithripala Sirisena

President of Sri Lanka

Presidential Secretariat

Galle Face, Colombo 1, Sri Lanka

Ceremonial Opening of the TGTE Parliament in Canada

 Dear President Maithripala Sirisena:

By now you may have heard that a major anti-Sri Lanka event took place on Friday, 19 January, 2018, in Toronto, Canada.  And Toronto happens to be the Capital of the Province of Ontario and not an inconspicuous little village in Ontario.

This event was a precursor for a tectonic shift within the sovereign territory of your

Nation.  This was the event that sent you political tsunami tremours which you may have not felt as yet.  As on that day, the separatist Tamil community in Canada that you and your government are bending over your backs to reconcile with, drew a curved fault-line on the west-north-east alignment on Sri Lanka’s sovereign territory to break up your island nation into two.

These Tamils of the Transitional Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), a Tamil Government in Exile, know exactly what they want for their mono-ethnic, racist, separate Tamil state, Eelam. The fault-line separating the north and south of Sri Lanka, as shown on the map of Sri Lanka used as the backdrop for the Chairman of this gathering was in a blood-red wash, the colour of the Tamil Tiger terrorist flag.  The fault-line picked up inland territory from Puttalam in the west coast going up north, then contouring along the shape of the Jaffna peninsula and ended in Kumana, way down in the east coast.  Quite a chunk of territory.

The land that the separatist Tamils are claiming was 33% of the real estate bordered by 66% of the coastline which we all know is the land where every square inch of it belongs to all ethnic communities and shared by 21 million of your peoples.  Right, Mr. President?  Ha! Ha!! And these separatist Tamils want to own it, and thus have begun to bulldoze all the ancient Buddhist archaeological Buddhist-Sinhala” evidence, to show that they lived there from time immemorial.  I say to you Mr. President, that claim is mounds of elephant-dung patties, that is poppycock, that is barrels full of jardi. That is hogwash.

However, what was shocking was that this anti-Sri Lanka gathering on 19, January 2018 was the Ceremonial Opening of the TGTE Parliament which was given a home in the sovereign territory of a sister nation of the Commonwealth that Sri Lanka belongs to….Canada.   Himmm……. A bit of a step-sisterly treatment, isn’t it?

Would you accept this provocation from a sister nation of yours?  Would you accept such a crummy friendship with Canada?  Well it is up to you to makeup your mind to favour your grandchildren and great-grandchildren who would say, Aney Dheviyaney, did Sri Lanka break up into two when Maithripala Seeya was President of Sri Lanka?”  That is the bottom line, Mr. President.  That is the heavy burden that you are carrying on your shoulders as the President of Sri Lanka, the Maithripala Seeya of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  That is the rub Mr. President.  That is how your legacy pappadam crumbles.

Mr. President, this event calls for your intervention personally, and have a straight Man-to-Man talk with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, as would two international politicians who are equals.  Let us not have a cat-and-mouse game.  There is much at stake here.  Especially ethnic harmony, sans territorial partition-bloodshed as we witnessed when India was partitioned.  This is not fear mongering, this is a possible reality check for you as this will be an emotional issue.  This will be an incident between two highly charged ethnic peoples who are no Saints with halos atop their heads.

Mr. President, this is not an issue for your Minister of Foreign Affairs or the High Commissioners of the two countries to tackle and sort things out, or play diplomatic niceties with palms together bowing or play footsie.  It is beyond them and time is the essence.  Forget about diplomatic protocols.  It is for you to engage in a dialogue with  Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  You should take the bull by the horns and it is for you to run with the ball as it is your sovereign nation, Sri Lanka, that is in question and not Prime Minister’ Justin Trudeau’s.  It is your turn to thump the ball over the net to Prime Minister Justin  Trudeau, and do it with all your might.  No ambi-pambi stuff, please.

Mr. President, remind Prime Minister  Justin Trudeau what Canadians went through in the mid-1990s, trying to accommodate some demands from the French speaking Quebecois of the Province of Quebec, to keep them within Canada, They threatened to separate as the Tamils are clamouring to do right now, if they don’t get what they want.  A bit of cry-baby blackmail!

Mr. President, remind how his Dad, the great former Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, on November 6, 1995, at a news conference to launch a new book about Canadian Foreign Policy, The Canadian Way, warned the then Liberal Government against further centralization of powers to Provincial Governments to keep Quebec within Canada.  He predicted that a further weakening of the Federal Government of Canada would kill Canada faster than separatism.  And how he played down the importance of formal constitutional recognition of Quebec as a ‘distinct society’.

So ask Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, not to get his hands dirty trying to help the Tamil separatist cause, to satisfy his domestic politics – garnering votes, specially  from the Tamil community in the Greater Toronto Area and Montreal.  Request him to revisit the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord, as what is good for Canada should be good for Sri Lanka too.  And why both Accords were rejected by Quebec and English Canada at a referendum.

Mr.President, please ask one of your Political-analysts to study the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords and brief you in simple words.  In Sinhala if necessary for your better comprehension.  You will have lots of reasons from this study to request Canada to ban the Parliament of TGTE from meeting on Canadian soil.  Who knows, they may want to relocate their Parliamentary activities to Timbuktu.

As a concluding remark, mark my words Mr. President Maithripala Sirisena, the Transitional Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) event of 19 January 2018 in Toronto, Canada, is nothing to be ignored. It is no joke. It is serious. The consequences will only be felt by your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

So the ball is in your court to guide their destiny to enjoy and being proud to be Sri Lankans of one Sri Lanka of the whole island, And not a patchwork quilt of parts owned by the Eelamists, China, India or whatever, due to the mismanagement of  politicians of their Dad’s and Mom’s generations, and unfortunately, one happens to be their Maithripala Seeya. Good Luck!

Sincerely,

Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.)

1. Hon. Ranil; Wickremesinghe, PM of Sri Lanka

Hon. Tilak Marapana, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sri Lanka

1. Ahmad Jawad, High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in Canada

HE, David McKinnon, Canadian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka

Garnett Genuis, Canadian MP for Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta

Chandra Arya, Canadian MP for Nepean, Ontario

By Fr. Augustine Fernando Diocese of Badulla Courtesy  The Island

Justice and fairness, righteousness and truth do not easily surface in many human affairs. This is especially so in the political and public affairs of Sri Lanka due to the various types of persons who are corrupt and unable to measure up to responsibilities. These people slyly creep up or through political influence get posted to enviable positions. In Sri Lanka one needs political support to get to any positions one is not normally qualified to hold. And this holds true for high positions in the many fields in the public institutions, agencies of the government and its administrative service and even in the legal sphere.

Many in Sri Lanka are now habituated to illegally, illicitly and immorally adopt short-cuts to reach positions one cannot reach on merit. Far more than merit, other considerations not worthy of attention get preference.

TAMIL PRINCIPAL VS CM

It is in a context of an environment of muddled education and jumbled politics that the thorny issue has cropped up between the Principal of the Tamil School in Badulla and the Chief Minister of Uva Province. What has led to the present situation need to be taken up and inquired into. There are other related matters which I found in my investigations these past couple of days, as I too have been Parish Priest of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Badulla for nearly eight years and afterwards Vicar General of the Diocese of Badulla for twelve years. I have kept in touch with the Cathedral Parish of Badulla and its school children since 1976. Currently, I am the Director of the Institute of Integral Education, Bible Apostolate and Catechetics at Bandarawela and with the help of an Assistant Director concern myself about education and Catholic religious education of the children of the Diocese of Badulla which cover the whole of Uva Province. Our concern, as far as possible, extends to all schoolchildren of Uva in their integral education, social and civic consciousness, responsibility and reconciliation among different communities.

St. Ursula’s Convent school was taken over and vested in the State and that school has now been bifurcated and given new names, Vihara Maha Devi Balika Maha Vidyalaya and Tamil Balika Vidyalaya, quite contrary to the Act of state take-over, with the partisan political backing of that time,.

Though the Tamil Balika Vidyalaya Principal has an axe to grind against the Chief Minister and the Chief Minister is accused of overstepping in the manner of ordering the Principal, and a propaganda campaign is on in favour of the Principal, finding the truth of what actually happened may be problematic. Yet an impartial inquiry is very much needed.

1. As matters stand presently, it is presumed that the truth of what happened cannot be reliably obtained from the accusing Principal nor the Chief Minister.

2. The Principal had at first said that when she met the Chief Minister who had ordered her to come to meet him, he did not order her to kneel down. When she said that, she has been quite calm and not agitated. Later, she changed her stance. Did partisan politics creep in?

3. It is said that the Secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office in a reprimanding manner told her to kneel down and ask pardon as the Chief Minister threatened to transfer her to a school in a rural area. And she knelt down and asked pardon. What happened exactly?

4. Is the Secretary a person with loyalties to the JVP whose prominent members in the Badulla district were at the Chief Ministers at the time? And did they try to twist matters and make use of this incident to their political advantage?

5. The Chief Minister had ordered the Principal to meet him as a parent of a child had complained to the Chief Minister that the Principal refused to admit the student even though the Chief Minister had recommended the application.

6. What are the admission policies adopted by the Principal? Are they departmental policies or personal policies? Why did the child not qualify for admission? Have parents to go after politicians to get a child admitted to this school?

7. Did the Principal not refuse to admit two poor children (siblings) to Grade 3 and 4, under the care of their grandmother as the father had abandoned them and the mother had died.

8. Did the Parish Priest of Badulla St. Mary’s Cathedral, intervene on behalf of the two poor children and again meet with her refusal.

9. Did not the Parish Priest then appeal to the Provincial Director of Education, with documentary evidence regarding the two helpless poor children.

10. Did not Provincial Director of Education, considering the facts presented to him, order the Principal of the Tamil Balika Vidyalaya, Badulla to admit the two children?

11. Did the Principal not admit them immediately?

12. The Tamil Balika Vidyalaya, Badulla, is a school founded by the Catholic Church and vested in the Government. Yet does the Principal not routinely refuse to admit Catholic girls to the School when they have all the rights to get admittance ?

13. Did the Principal not keep a small poor child standing out in the sun without letting her come into her class? Could someone be so wicked to children and be still found fit to be a Principal?

14. Is a person evidently prejudiced against non Hindus fit to be a Principal of a Vested Catholic School?

15. Is the Principal so evidently prejudiced against poor children, fit to be a Principal?

16. Did the Principal refuse to permit a child, of the Girls’ Home (within the School premises, which had been there for so many years, as an orphanage) with a patch on her hand to attend the School and forbid all the children from the Girls’ Home from attending the school and did she not ask all of them to be sent home?

17. Did she not have to withdraw her arbitrary order and allow the children of the Girls’ Home to come to school as that patch on the child’s hand was not infectious and was not a danger to other children? Was that after an order from the Provincial Director of Education?

18. Did she not have an insidious plan to close down the Girls’ Home and forcibly acquire those premises for the Tamil School?

19. Did not the Principal try to turn this Vested Catholic School to a Hindu Tamil School?

Did not the Chief Minister disallow such name change and turning it to an exclusive Hindu school and prevent Catholic and Muslim children from being admitted to the School? Is not the Chief Minister quite aware that the Act of vestition of the School in the State makes it improper to change the name of a vested school? Is not the Principal’s attitude a ‘couldn’t care less’ one?

20. Is not this incident, between the Principal and the Chief Minister, the result of a final build-up of the conduct characteristic of the Tamil School Principal?

21. Didn’t the Principal weep profusely and shed tears before the TV cameras and when that was over suddenly return to cheerful laughter so much so that the observing children remarked that the Principal is a good actress?

Let not short-sighted politicians try to muddy the water and fish there at election time as they usually do disgracefully and opportunistically. If an inquiry is being made, let not an incident be overblown out of context and the whole background that led to this incident be forgotten.

Quite apart from the Tamil Balika Vidyalaya Principal trying to turn tables on the Chief Minister, inquiry should be made to determine whether this person on the whole is fit to be a school teacher, let alone a Principal. Let the Education Department be mindful of the school children and scrutinize the candidates for appointment as Principals and even give them an in-service training to better equip them to handle so responsible a mission.

The primary and vital intention of the Catholic Church in founding this school as every other Catholic school, is to give a wholesome education to children and not to give employment to anyone, even priests and religious men and women, even though much care and preparation is made to enable them to competently handle the mission of education. The ill-conceived schools take-over distorted that vision and the chaos and disorder of jumbled politics messed up education and continues its running riot up to the present day.

By Charles.S.Perera

Kumbhakarna  the younger brother of Ravana slept for six months and woke up to eat everything within reach including human beings. In order to wake him thousand elephants were made to walk over him. He was finally  killed by Rama.

The modern Kumbakarna has woken up after three years. He cannot do anything after waking up but talk to threaten his opponents.  But his opponents know that he will go back to sleep again having done nothing but talk. He will be killed by a Rama, so beware of India from where a Rama may come.

This is just an image and no one should get offended.

Strangely in Sri Lanka,  from an administration that eliminated terrorism and terror, brought back peace and sanity, developed a poor country where smell of death still lurks, memory of sounds of guns and  human bombs still give shivers, removed potholed roads, and rebuilt dilapidated hospitals, out dated institutions of education, gave back light and water, the people wanted a change.

These stupid people wanting a change  voted into power another administration hailed as a novelty with two political enemies fused to form an administration called good governance- Yahapalanaya. It was a failure from the beginning –the Yahapalanaya

They of the Yahapalanaya have nothing  in their books other than  how  to destroy the country, rob the banks, enrich the rulers, make the parliament a theatre for amusement with the Prime Minister the star performer, with the President the tragedian, and leave the ordinary masses to fend for themselves.

Their modus operandi is simple, oppose the previous administration,   shout from every platforms –TV, press , small or big gatherings, temples and wayside meetings,  about  the incompetence,  criminality, thefts, bribe takings of the  previous government , thus  hoping somehow  to win over the people drowning into poverty without any  hope of even a straw to hold onto, on to their side with class orations  by the leading actor- the Tragedian the recently woken revitalised Kumbhakarna.

Having had slept all the time the Kumbhakarna has not seen what his Prime Minister had been doing , unable to put up with the shouts, accusations, and rebukes  of the disgruntled people the Kumbhakarna appointed a Commission to investigate the Bank robbery of his champion Prime Minister. The Kumbakarna still half asleep does not follow the theatres enacted in the Parliament by his Prime Minister and his UNP devotees hoping to amuse the people

This Kumbhakarana after waking up is  still in his dream he had during the three years of sleep time.  He brags about the Commissions of inquiry he appoints and says he is happy that he has included the thieves of the previous administration in his new Commission for investigation. He claims that there had been bond scams in the former administration.

But what the Kumbhakarma is trying hard to make the people believe is  that  the previous administration is now an entity completely outside him, because he knows that if he accuses the previous administration of Mahinda Rajapakse for corruption and malpractices,  he who had been with that administration  as its  Minister of Health,  and  for over 25 years  the Secretary of that SLFP  of which  Mahinda Rajapakse was the President, he cannot be any clean, as he is also up to his nose involved with the thefts, corruption and malpractices  of the previous government , if there had been any.

Therefore, if he appoints a Commission to investigate the previous administration the Commissioners should call the Kumbhakarma before them to give evidence for the part he played in that administration.

But now he is  also trying to take  credit for the elimination of terrorism saying that during the last phase of military operations against terrorism he was the Acting Minister  of Defence in charge,  and it was he who eliminated terrorism and not the Previous President Mahinda Rajapakse who was away from the country at the time.

In saying that he the Kumbhakarna  accepts the responsibility for war crimes that the America and the West claim that the Sri Lanka Armed Forces had committed during the last phase of the military operations against the terrorists during which time  Kumbjakarna says he was responsible for the defeat of terrorism. It is therefore he who should fear the Electric Chair and not the former President of Sri Lanka.

Now the Kumbharana is amazingly awake,  he does not speak but shouts and screams against the Previous Administration and passionately implores the Prime Minister to please help him to catch the rogues of the previous government to take the scent away from the rogues in UNP side of the Yahapalanaya Administration.

The shouting and screaming Kumbhakarna points his finger of accusations , making allegations  against the members of the previous government for comparatively insignificant alleged crimes , while big criminals who planned and executed the greatest Bank Robbery are at large , with Kumbhakarana seemingly  frightened to touch them even with a long pole.

Kumbhakarna is also a reconciliation fan”, now while Wigneswaran has already assumed the role of  an uncrowned king of the NCP insisting a Tamil only North,  Sampandan is calling for the new Constitution before the end of the year.

Sri Lankans  my once fooled people please open your eyes to the lurking dangers.  Kumbakarna who wants the Northern Tamil votes will close his eyes on activities of  Wigneswaran  and give into Sampanthan for a new Constitution.

It is up to the Sinhala Buddhists to wake up,  forget for once your political difference and  unite as one to vote against the Yahapalanaya, by voting for the SLPP Pohotuuwa at the Local Government elections.  Otherwise say good by to Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka  that existed for more than 2600 years.

The people should beware of the imitation Kumbhakarna, and keep away from him and not by any mistake vote for the SLFP he leads . He is the more reason  why the people should vote for the  Pohottuva” of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna  which is the only charm against the evils of Kumbhakarana  his SLFP, and his Prime Minister and his  UNP and their JVP assoiates.