Courtesy The Island

Former Navy Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera yesterday told The Island that a three-member UN delegation now on a visit here should visit military personnel, including Commodore D. K. P. Dassanayake and Commander Sumith Ranasinghe remanded at the maximum security Welikada Prison over their alleged involvement in wartime abductions.

Weerasekera said so after having visited Dassanayake and Ranasinghe, who had been denied bail several times and were recently re-remanded again till January 11, 2018.

Weerasekera alleged that the government had been harassing some selected military personnel in a bid to appease the UN. Dassanayake was taken in just before Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson had arrived in the country in early July this year.

A three-member delegation from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention arrived in Colombo on Dec 4 on a 10 day mission to assess the situation.

José Antonio Guevara Bermúdez, Leigh Toomey and Elina Steinerte are in the process of visiting prisons, police stations and institutions for juveniles, migrants and people with psychosocial disabilities, to gather first-hand information which will form part of their overall assessment.

Office of the UN Working Group in response to a query by The Island said: “The delegation will visit Colombo as well as western, north-central, northern, eastern, southern and central provinces, where they will meet Government officials, civil society groups and other relevant stakeholders.”

The experts will share their preliminary observations at a press conference on Friday (15) at 2:00 pm at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH), Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 07.

The Working Group will present its final report on the visit to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2018.” (SF)

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island

December 12, 2017, 11:22 pm

Auditor General Gamini Wijesinghe yesterday alleged that the failure on the part of successive governments to take tangible measures to tackle state sector waste, corruption and irregularities had contributed to US decision to propose a Colombo-based Resident Legal Advisor.

Had those who had been at the helm and the government of the day followed basic laws and brought in required new legislation, Sri Lanka wouldn’t have ended up among group of nations categorized as corrupt, Wijesinhe told The Island, in response to a query. Sri Lanka has been categorised along with Nigeria, Ukraine and Tunisia though those countries weren’t offered a Resident Legal Advisor.

The State Department announcement coincided with the inaugural Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR) launched to mark International Anti-corruption Day in Washington last week. Sri Lanka was represented at the GFAR by the Attorney General’s Department.

Wijesinghe stressed that Parliament should inquire into the circumstances leading to the degrading State Department statement. The AG said Sri Lanka shouldn’t find fault with the international community but take meaningful measures to tackle corruption without further delay. “We should inquire into circumstances leading to State Department intervention,” Wijesinghe said, adding that the US would have had a plethora of reasons to categorize Colombo with other countries perceived corrupt.

According to the State Department, since 2016, the US has provided foreign assistance for anti-corruption efforts in Sri Lanka to improve the functioning of Sri Lanka’s legal system and civil society, and to enhance good governance. Programmes included the provision of a Resident Legal Advisor to provide anti-corruption and asset recovery training, and support to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC).

Wijesinghe pointed out that Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Lasantha Alagiyawanna revealed last Friday (Dec. 8) Parliament had not cared to examine AG’s reports that dealt with state institutions. MP Alagiyawanna’s disclosure in parliament that none of the five reports submitted to parliament had been scrutinised and debated this year, underscored the gravity of the problem.

Pointing out that MP Alagiyawanna had declared that the Speaker, the Leader of the House and party leaders should ensure there should be debates on those reports, Wijesinghe said that urgent remedial measures were called for. “Of course, the parliament and the Finance Ministry should accept responsibility for the current crisis,” Wijesinghe said, adding that MP Alagiyawanna’s admission was nothing but a positive sign.

Wijesinghe said the national economy certainly had paid an extremely heavy price for the previous administration’s refusal to enact the National Audit Bill. Unfortunately, those who had repeatedly assured the country that the National Audit Bill would be enacted during President Maithripala Sirisena’s 100 day programme in early 2015 were yet purposely delaying it.

Wijesinghe said their efforts to convince the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration of the urgent necessity to enact the National Audit Bill had failed, though at one point a consensus was seemed likely.

The AG asserted that those who had categorised Sri Lanka among four countries worst affected by corruption would have probably taken the absence of required legislation into consideration when deciding on the tag. Wijesinghe said that the National Audit Bill was to be enacted in accordance with the much touted 19th Amendment to the Constitution to enable the Auditor General to excise unhindered authority over state institutions as well as joint ventures in which the state held 50 per cent investment.

Asked whether he felt the government had undermined 19th Amendment, Wijesinghe said there couldn’t be any other explanation.

Having had enjoyed 70 years of parliamentary democracy, Sri Lanka should be ashamed to have been called one of the four countries unable to govern, Wijesinghe said, admitting that the State Department announcement had flabbergasted everyone other than the rulers.

Wijesinghe called the US tag a slur on every honest Sri Lankan.

The Attorney General said the parliament should take up this matter early next year. Political parties should engage in a serious dialogue as to how Sri Lanka reputation could be restored.

Members of parliament on holiday till January 23, 2018.

The outspoken official said successive governments hadn’t been interested in bringing in required amendments as well as introduce new laws. Could there be anything as shocking as an MP being imposed a measly fine of Rs 1,000 for not declaring his assets? Wijesinghe asked.

The Auditor General was referring to former UPFA MP Sajin de Vas Gunawardena recently being imposed Rs 1,000 fine. The AG pointed out that the Galle District MP wasn’t the first former member of parliament to receive similar low fine.

“I’m not here to advise parliament as the Auditor General of Sri Lanka, I perform my duties to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, the Auditor General’s Department doesn’t receive the much expected political backing,” Wijesinghe said.

Parliament should have been jolted by the State Department announcement, Wijesinghe said, adding that the government’s response obviously indicated that the humiliating tag was acceptable.

By Gomin Dayasri Courtesy The Daily Mirror

People – blame themselves in back peddling a lost leadership back to power. Think before you act stupidly – realize the folly in creating a situation of having no foreseeable future for the country you truly love: to whatever denomination you may belong – desire a future for your siblings in living in this land of yours? Are you at home blaming yourself. Be positive: the country needs you in this hour of peril, more than at most other times. Awake Countrymen!

By Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha Courtesy Ceylon Today

While there is much uncertainty now about what will happen to the country, certain certainties are assured. Chief amongst them is the headlong destruction of his reputation that Ranil has precipitated in the last three years. I do not refer only to his unashamed capers with regard to the bond scam, the continuing defence and harbouring of Mahendran and now Ravi, the snide attacks on the Auditor General and Nivard Cabraal without substantiating them, the blithe disregard for the massive loss the country suffered not once but thrice. What is also clear is his complete ignorance of economics, even though he used to masquerade as an expert, in the field.

Indeed, way back in 2003, when I begged him to stop the collapse of the English medium experiment that had begun in 2001, he said he could not work on that now as he had to concentrate on putting the economy right. He claimed then that no one else had the capacity to institute reforms, a position he seems to have moved on from now, with his recognition of the capabilities of the boy genius Akila Viraj.

But economics he thinks must continue as his preserve, and he has such confidence in the brilliance of his geriatric pet shop boys (plus Mahendran and Ravi) that he has not even bothered to find a permanent secretary for the Ministry he heads, in Basil style, to assert his control over everything and everybody.

Now, however he has had to grant there is a crisis, which he claims is because of adverse weather. He fails to admit that, before the weather too turned on him, employment dropped between 2014 and 2016 (8.5 to 8 million), the surplus on Balance of Payments became a massive deficit (plus $1, 369 million to minus $500 million), the trade deficit rose (from $8,287 million to $9,090 million), Foreign Direct Investment dropped by nearly a third (from $1,635 million to $1,079 million), and our international credit ratings plummeted. We have sunk in indices with regard to the Ease of Doing Business and Global Competitiveness and Corruption Perception as well as the Rule of Law.

I do not suppose the President has any illusions about Ranil’s shelf life being over, but obviously he is frightened to act, in case he finds himself without a parliamentary majority. Sadly he brought this on himself by changing horses in mid-stream in 2015, breaking his word about ensuring electoral reform before dissolving Parliament, and then undermining the campaign of his own party by refusing to appear on platforms. He thus played into the hands of those in the Opposition who are still thirsting for revenge on him, which is silly of them for it led to his disastrous dismissal of party secretaries on the eve of the election.

That he must make up for his blunder must be clear to him given too, the evidence that has emerged about Chandrika’s pet Duminda costing the country so much, while agriculture collapses. But it would be foolish of the opposition to demand the earth, as they did in mid-2015, which is why the President panicked. While they should refrain from supporting him while the present dispensation continues, they should grant that a Prime Minister not in the Ranil-Mangala mould could be acceptable, if he worked on the President’s manifesto, rather than bankrupting the country.

Some time back, I thought they should settle on Thalatha Athukorale, who is much loved by the UNP but will not pursue the politics of revenge. But recently another figure has shown himself willing to dissociate himself from the prevailing dispensation. I refer to Tilak Marapana, who cut those determined to punish our troops down to size, in being positive about the work of Lord Naseby.

Maithripala Sirisena, who thanked Lord Naseby, but then found his appreciation suppressed by the Foreign Ministry, should take advantage of the fact that Ranil cannot object to Marapana, who is indebted to him for his political career. He will ensure that those in the UNP who cannot stand Ranil will hold their fire, but he can work to a national agenda, not current perversities.

By Rathindra Kuruwita Courtesy Ceylon Today

Ever since the end of the civil war in 2009, there has been a debate on the need for security sector reforms in Sri Lanka. With the defeat of the Rajapaksa administration and with the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) promising such reforms, the debate has rekindled.

The need for security sector reforms is recognized by different actors across the spectrum, from people who want a complete demilitarization of the North and the East to people like me who have insisted that the nation can’t reduce defence expenditure.

With such diverging stakeholders and with politicians affiliated with Former President and Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa attempting to equate reforms with weakening of the military, the situation is obviously complex.

On the other hand, no one has attempted to explain to the general public about what security sector reforms are and to obtain their ideas. Surely, if the general public is qualified to give their opinions on the proposed Constitution of the nation, they are able to comment on security sector reforms.

Security sector reform under MR

After the end of the war, Sri Lanka was left with a powerful defence establishment. It had over 200, 000 military personnel and in 2009 the defence budget was Rs 175 billion. However, it was also the focus of controversy, allegations of human rights violations and there was a feeling that there were too many soldiers for a peacetime Army.

The popular view among analysts regarding the military from 2009 to 2015 is that no reforms have taken place. I have come across many academics who insisted that Rajapaksa held into an oversized Army which drained Sri Lanka’s public funds and that steps should have been taken to minimize the defence budget from 2009 itself.

My opinion regarding this differs, I believe that Rajapaksa in fact did carryout security sector reforms. He reoriented the Security Forces towards development and the Army Engineering Corps played a significant role in the massive construction projects under Rajapaksa. The military was also encouraged to do business, from farming to managing hotels.

The military did exceptionally well, when it came to construction and maintenance. The Engineering Corps of the Sri Lanka Army carried out a number of major construction works, efficiently and adhering to deadlines, which is not what we usually see from Sri Lankan construction companies. In addition one cannot doubt that the Ministry of Defence controlled Urban Development Authority (UDA) did an exceptional job in making Sri Lanka’s major cities much more attractive spaces.

So, it is absurd for Wimal Weerawansa or for Udaya Gammanpila to equate any military sector reform to weakening of the Army because guess what, his boss also carried out military reforms.

Reforming without firing

The 2018 budgetary allocation for the Defence Ministry is around Rs 290 billion; out of capital expenditure is only Rs 30 billion. Rs 260 B has been spent of recurrent expenses, which can’t be reduced. This is why reducing the defence budget is not an easy task, the military employs a large number of people and the income generated by these young men and women is an important source of income for Sri Lankan families. Especially in some rural areas, the village economy would collapse if soldiers are let go.

What is interesting to note is that during the three decades from 1980, successive governments allowed agriculture and manufacturing sectors, which used to be the backbone of rural economy, to stagnate. The contribution of these two sectors has continuously declined and most of the jobs left in these sectors, especially in agriculture are low-productive jobs. (Forgive me if you think I am diverting, but it is important for you to realize how these are interlinked).

Given the degradation of the rural economy most of the youth took a rational decision that the best way to escape rural poverty was by joining the military. Thus the steady stream of recruits from rural agricultural and semi-urban areas where there used to be manufacturing jobs. Despite what the liberal narrative would tell you most of the recruits were not ‘misled’ by the Rajapaksa’s propaganda machine into joining the Army, the young men and women who joined the Army were only taking a very well-thought-out and rational decision.

Stagnant job growth

As I mentioned the only way to reduce the defence budget in a significant way is to let soldiers go and letting these young men and women (with weapons skills and angry about getting rid of them after putting their lives on the line) go into an economy where job growth has been stagnant for many years would be disastrous socially and economically. Mahinda Rajapaksa realized this dilemma and thus had no option but to reorient the Army towards development activities. The current Government will also have to look at options to redirect troops for different sectors so that we ensure jobs and development.

Rathindra holds an MSc in Strategic Studies from S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, Singapore, and can be reached via rathindra984@gmail.com

Translated by : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

Given below is the translation of a speech made by the member of Parliament for Hambantota District Mr. Namal Rajapaksa at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Minuwangoda  electorate of the Joint Opposition held at the Reggie Ranatunge Commemoration Hall in Udugampola.  The meeting was convened by the Gampaha District MP and convenor of the Joint Opposition Mr. Prasanna Ranatunga and a large crowd of several thousand from the Minuwangoda electorate attended. This meeting was held to affirm the victory of the Joint Opposition in the forthcoming local government elections. Participants came in motorcades from all parts of Minuwangoda to attend the meeting.

The members of the Joint Opposition oppose the unity talks because they cannot agree to SLFP’s double games.  What is being attempted by the SLFP is while remaining in the government with the United National Party they want to be with the Joint Opposition in the Local Government Institutions.  It is not possible for us to allow for such double games

Within hundred days of this government coming to power those who voted for searching various things that were reported to be missing and hidden came to understand the lies and started calling for an election.  As it was not possible to market the 100 days promissory note a 60 months promissory note was introduced.  Even before 10 months of introducing that promissory note there came another one with  dateline to be before 2025.

The whole government cannot understand what to do now.  It told the lies of 100 days, when it backfired told about 60 months and when that also backfired they are talking now about 2025.  These people carried out election campaigns with lies and mud slinging.  It was full of mud slinging that was visible in the stages of the Swan Front.  They hurled mud on the dress people were wearing up to what they were eating.

They said there are Lamboginis. They searched for helicopters in the courtyard of the ancestral residence Medamulana”.  They searched for Gold horses.  Minister Rajitha Senaratne said that he saw by his own eyes Namal with some others carrying money filled bags on their shoulders for depositing in a Dubai Bank.  It was said that a boy wearing Shorts and killing Thajudeen is in CCTV cameras and arrests will be made on the next day.

They fooled the people by telling these lies.   Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe came to power by promising one million jobs.  By promising so he laid the foundation stone for a  Valksvagen factory in Kuliyapitiya and before he returned to Colombo from Kuliyapitiya the original Volkswagen factory announced it was not factory of theirs.  It may not be a matter of much importance to the President because he comes to know things through the newspapers only.

Now cases have been filed against all of us.  They attempt to frighten us by filing cases against us.  They are attempting to frighten the opposition, sell the state assets and establish a dictatorial regime.  We would like to tell the government that they cannot frighten us by putting us in jails. I saw yesterday that Mr. Wickremaasinghe who said in the past that Hambantota is a swimming pool holding a cheque for 200  odd million dollars.

The Prime Minister who claimed he will get 1 ½ Billion US$ received only 200  odd million dollars.  If Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa could come from Medamulana and make the Ports Authority to the status of a profit earning institution why can’t the tie-coat wearing Prime Minister cannot do it?  He cannot do things.  There is no work and there is no result also. The Policy of this government is selling of state assets.

It is the policy of this government to sell the state assets to cover day to day expenses and then come for elections and win them by bribing and making pay offs.   It is how the UNP had won elections from the very beginning.  It was why the father of Mr. Prasanna Ranatunga the late Mr. Reggie Rnatunga fought with the UNP and dedicated himself to form a government of the commoners.

The late leaders such as Mr. S.W.R.D..Bandaranaike and Mr. D.A.Rajapaaksa left the UNP because they could not accept the policies of the UNP. No person who is policy minded and hold on to principles cannot get on to a stage of the UNP.  Today the SLFP has entered into an agreement with the UNP to run this government.  In the meantime they are asking us also to come for an agreement.

It is just like bringing another wife when there is a wife at home.  How can we go for an agreement with a group that has entered into an agreement with the UNP? It will be similar to entering into an agreement with the UNP.  Our grandfathers left the UNP because they could not agree with UNP policies.  In this village all of you did politics against the UNP.

Although it is possible for the JVP we cannot enter into agreements with the UNP.  The JVP has also become a partner of the government.  Now they say that two three persons in the joint opposition are against uniting with the government.  We are not afraid of saying that and we are not indebted also.  All the JO MPs here are against joining with the government.

If they want to join with us let them quit the government and come to us. Let them discard the Minister posts and come out.  There cannot be double games of staying with the UNP in the government and staying with us in the LG institutions.  No possibility for hoppers theory.   If the are coming let them come straight.  If ready to come as such so let us jointly fight with the UNP. It is useless thundering in the stages saying that we are opposed to the sale of Hambantota while holding the ministerial posts and remaining in the government..

The gazette for making railways an essential service was brought through the wrong route.  It should have been done through parliament.  What was done was a suppression of the trade union rights.  The President and the Minister of Transport Mr. Nimal Siripala de Silva represent the SLFP.  Mr. Maithripala should hold responsibility for the chaos being faced by this country.

The Treasury Bond Scam report was postponed by another one month.  The President also should hold responsibility similar to the Prime Minister for this fraud.  It was the President who made Arjun Mahendran the governor of the Central Bank and made the Central Bank to come under the Prime Minister.  Today the King is from the Rajarata, but rice is being brought from overseas. Those days Ranil came out to the streets saying that rice for sixty and the country forward.  Today rice is one hundred and twenty.

Now steps are underway to bring rice and coconut from overseas.  Now we have to eat coconut spending dollars.  The sister who went to buy small cars travels home by bus without even having a bicycle.  Mangala speaks about concessions and impose taxes.  Mr. Duminda Dissanayake spends Rs. 25 million a month as rent for an unoccupied Ministry building for more than two years now. There is no point of participating in the budget debate.  It will be the same budget that will be brought next year as well.

Today people have to pay 40% of their earnings to the government as taxes.  No harm of paying taxes even if a road at least is being built.  That also does not happen. It was a country that had been the fastest developing country in Asia that has fallen into this status today.    It was such a country that has been destroyed in this manner saying initiative was taken for a change.  It is the responsibility of all of us to rescue this country.(end)

Courtesy : LankaCNews.

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane  

Venerable Gangodawila Soma Thera’s untimely death occurred 14 years ago, on December 12, 2003. He was 55 years of age.  It was one of the greatest losses of the nation. The   spontaneous outpouring of grief especially among our people was unprecedented in the living memory of our motherland. Millions of Sinhala Buddhists, including those living overseas, were shocked and grieved at the loss of an outstanding monk. The crowds that flocked to Colombo from all parts of the country to pay their last respects have been unparalleled in living memory. This is reflective of the overwhelming reverence and adoration that people had for this exemplary Bhikkhu whose selfless service rendered to the nation will always be remembered with an overflowing sense of gratitude.

At the time of his death, Soma Thera was 55 years of age. He was ordained as a bhikkhu when he was 26 years of age. Before ordination he had his education at the Isipathana College, Colombo. As a Bhikkhu, he received training at the Bhikkhu Training Centre in Maharagama, under the tutelage of the highly reputed Venerable Madihe Pannasiha Maha Nayake Thera and Venerable Ampitiye Rahula Maha Thera. After obtaining his higher ordination in 1976, Soma Thera was deeply involved in research on the dhamma, and became a keen student of Buddhist meditation. He practiced meditation in distant, isolated locations in Sri Lanka.

In the late 1980’s, on invitation, he visited Australia and established Buddhist Viharas in Victoria and Melbourne. After spending seven years in Australia, in 1996, he returned to Sri Lanka and began a countrywide programme of promoting the Dhamma, Buddhist culture and values. He soon became a dhamma preacher par excellence and traveled widely across Sri Lanka, throughout the whole year and many thousands flocked to listen to his sermons wherever they were held. He was exceedingly popular and was highly venerated by Buddhists in general. His role as a leading Buddhist communicator, a social reformer cum defender of the Sinhala-Buddhist identity, came into prominence with his extensive involvement in the electronic media and public discussions, debates, and sermons. He was listened to and watched by many, on television and radio, and read by many via the news media where he was a highly popular and respected dignitary.  He spearheaded the cause of reviving Buddhism and Sinhala culture, and restoring a sense of nationalism and pride among the Sinhala-Buddhists. Highlighting the plight of Sinhala Buddhists and promoting their welfare were among the prime objectives of his campaigns.

INTERACTING WITH SOMA THERA

It was in the summer of year 2002, or about one and half years before his untimely death, that I met Venerable Soma when he visited Toronto, Canada. It was the Nayaka Thera of the Toronto Mahavihara who requested me to organize a programme of activities for Venerable Gangodawila Soma, in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. This enabled me to renew my relationship with Soma Thera I had met before in Sri Lanka, and whom I held in great esteem. I had the privilege and honour to take Venerable Soma Thera to several places in Ontario and Quebec provinces. In these long driving trips, spanning over several days, to the venues of his speaking assignments and other places of interest in Canada, I had many opportunities to interact freely with this outstanding person, on various issues and subjects that were of common interest to us.

I have been fortunate to have had many opportunities to closely associate and interact with Buddhist bhikkhus belonging to all major Buddhist traditions. This was possible owing to my academic-professional activities and involvements in a wide range of countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. I should state with all honesty, that Venerable Soma Thera is among the few Sri Lankan Bhikkhus for whom I have the greatest respect. He was an exceptional Bhikkhu, endowed with a very sharp and clear mind and a highly developed power of reasoning and verbal expression. He was not only well versed in the Dhamma, but had a tremendous capacity to share it with others, with utmost clarity and simplicity. Having known him closely I can say that Soma Thera was an exceptional bhikkhu who lived a calm, serene and disciplined life. Piety, wisdom, and erudition were conspicuous elements of his impeccable character. He was an embodiment of Buddhist morality with unmatchable virtue, of cheerful equanimity and a serene face and smile that reflected his inner composure. One of the noblest examples he left for us was his preference for simplicity in all his activities. He led a simple life with the minimum of possessions. He was in every sense a practicing Buddhist bhikkhu with well-developed skills in Buddhist meditation. His publications bear testimony to the depth of his knowledge of the dhamma and meditation practices.

Our close association continued even after his return to Sri Lanka, where I met him on several occasions. Interacting with him was a breath of fresh air for me. He spoke freely and eagerly on many serious issues and trends pertaining to Buddhism, Buddhists, Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka. We also spoke on the increased interest in Buddhism and Buddhist practices in the West, and the strong influence of the Dalai Lama in bringing about this trend. I found Venerable Soma to be well versed in Tibetan Buddhism and places where this tradition is prevalent. I clearly recall his mentioning a region in Russia having a large indigenous Russian Buddhist community, observing the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He spoke of the problems faced by this community in the past, and on unethical conversions to Christianity that is affecting this community at present. Also, he mentioned that the oldest Buddhist temple in Europe is in St. Petersburg. It was shocking and most distressing to me to hear that he died in St Petersburg.

HIS SERVICE

As far as Sri Lankan Buddhists are concerned, Soma Thera will be best remembered as the one and only Dhamma preacher par excellence of contemporary times. He visited many remote areas to spread the message of the Buddha. He explained in most straightforward terms how to lead simple and meaningful lives based on the Five Buddhist Precepts. In some instances, authorities had to stop traffic when thousands began to flock to listen to him in temples and other public places where he conducted sermons. His sermons were delivered most effectively in simple Sinhala language. He used the simplest possible language in clarifying and explaining the intricacies of the Dhamma in a manner that was lucid, understandable, and most convincing. His simple explanations on difficult and varying Buddhist perspectives and concepts enlightened the public en- masse and were fascinating. His role as the leading Buddhist communicator of modern times, social reformer cum defender of the Sinhala-Buddhist identity and its rights, came into prominence with his extensive involvement in the electronic media and public discussions, debates, and sermons. In his popular television programmes “Anduren Eliyata” and “Nena Pahana”, watched by millions, he never trimmed words to express what he frankly meant on a subject, nor did he at any time abstain from submitting a positive and viable alternative that could help one get out of an impasse or any problem that plagues someone. His sermons and television discussions drew the undivided attention of the young and the old, the Buddhists and the non-Buddhists alike.

HIS IMPACT

He became a beacon of hope for the common masses since his ocean of knowledge on Buddhist canons, scriptures and literature remained unchallenged, well respected, and thoroughly logical. His erudition, enriched with scientific psychoanalytical perspectives, his clarity in perceptions, pitch and intonation in his verbalizations, no doubt prompted his audience to be glued to their television sets. He possessed the capacity to be unbiased, conscientious, and upright before all national and religious problems. The masses felt that they found expression for their worldly, social, and political problems through Soma Haamuduruvoo. His followers admired him for his courage in propagating a pure, superstition-free Buddhism. He spoke about the relevance of Buddhism and Buddhist principles for the contemporary world. He took up day-to-day problems and pointed out how these could be solved by following the pristine Buddhist precepts. His practical approach to the teachings of the Buddha influenced many to change their lifestyles. In his discourses he often opened a dialogue for us to inquire from ourselves whether we are honestly Buddhists and what are the characteristics of a Buddhist and by what are we to measure ourselves. One reason for Soma Thera’s immense popularity was that in his sermons he spoke on contemporary secular, social, economic, and political problems. He did not hesitate to express, in the strongest terms, the frustrations of the common man vis-à-vis the governments of the day. His sermons reached the hearts and minds of not only Buddhists but non-Buddhists as well. He had a very good knowledge of other religions.

He challenged the worship of gods and avatars by Sri Lankan Buddhists. He pointed out that such worship was contrary to the teachings of the Buddha. His simple advocacy was to encourage the inquirer to seek refuge purely in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, and not in mystic powers appealing for mere worldly gains. Buddhism tells its followers to be self-reliant, and not to depend on Gods and other supernatural forces. Also, the Buddha does not grant boons. Self-confidence taught in Buddhism was the only god for him. In pursuit of his noble ideals, Soma Thera’s unswerving efforts revolutionized Buddhist psyche and disposition to such an extent that some Buddhist temples discontinued patronizing deity worship. Also, Soma Thera was very troubled by the Satya Sai Baba cult, which had swept Sri Lanka. The elite of Sinhala-Buddhist society had become ardent devotees of Sai Baba. He thought it was sacrilegious for Buddhists to get swayed by such gibberish.

Soma Thera was in the forefront in campaigning against “unethical conversion” to Christianity and Islam, and the encroachments by Muslims of archeologically significant Buddhist sites and the destruction caused by Muslims to monuments found in these historic sites. He was not against any religion but was against poaching of this sort. Conversion to Christianity became a major issue in Sri Lanka when Christian sects, with heavy funding from western countries and South Korea, entered the scene to exploit the poverty, lack of economic development, and the displacement and deprivation brought about by the racist Tamil LTTE menace that plagued the country at the time. Those involved in unethical religious conversion activities promised people instant cures and solutions to problems with all types of enticements being offered to the poor.

NATIONAL-CULTURE

Venerable Soma cherished Sri Lanka’s national Sinhala Buddhist culture and heritage. He spearheaded the cause of reviving Buddhism and Sinhala culture, and restoring a sense of nationalism and pride among the Sinhala-Buddhists. He fought relentlessly for the survival of the Sinhala people and their culture, which were being threatened by Westernization and a striking lack of nationalism. He mentioned that Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism was getting eroded by a perceived inability to face up to the challenge posed by minority Tamil militancy and a tendency to give in easily to influences from the West. Theravada Buddhism, the core of the Sinhala identity, was being subjected to an unmitigated and multi-dimensional onslaught from alien forces. The people were aware of these, but they did not, and could not, articulate them, because power was firmly in the hands of a Westernized, comprador bourgeoisie. It was through Soma Thera that the suppressed feelings of the people found utterance. He personified Sinhala-Buddhism, becoming a “totemic figure”, an “icon”. He courageously defended the rights of the Sinhala community and Buddhists at a time, much like today, when identification with either of them was considered racism and bigotry. With his sermons and interviews on television, he lifted the spirit and morale of the Sinhala people.

“JANA-VIJAYA”

He spearheaded an inexorable effort combined with the sustained campaign to introduce “clean politics” by establishing the “Jana Vijaya Foundation”. The objective was to mobilize the well-mannered citizens of the country to have a positive influence on political decision-making. He wanted all patriotic men to resist and make decision-makers drop foul practices for the benefit of the masses in the country. Soma Thera, the socio-cultural reformer of the times, to his credit, was explicit in his criticism leveled against corrupt politicians. Through Jana Vijaya, he assembled thousands and thousands of youth in the island who were yearning for a morally rich Buddhist leadership. Through publication of a popular newspaper on Dhamma and Buddhist way of life, he took his message to grassroots level. National and religious issues, in his view are interwoven and could not be isolated from the body politic of the country since it was finally the bounden duty of the state to give pride of place to Buddhism, as enshrined in the constitution. Morality was the key to any righteous society, he argued. Stimulus he gave in this direction was overwhelming and result-oriented. His outright assertions, meant to help create a statehood ruled in accordance with Buddhist principles of righteous living, were food for thought and some politicians.  He awakened the nation with his forthright views on national issues. He opened people’s eyes to the dangers that lie around and ahead of us. Citing clearly and rationally, the socio-economic trends in Sri Lanka, he warned the Sinhala Buddhists of the imminent danger of decimation of the Sinhala race and the adulteration of Buddhism by worship of gods, and moving away from practice to ritual.

Non-alcoholism was a key word in him. He spoke strongly against smoking and drug abuse. Undoubtedly, the ‘Mathatha Thitha” programme of the last government was inspired by Soma Thera. This itself was a remarkable achievement at national level by this great monk.  I recall the great interest with which he gathered many latest research publications on harmful impact of alcohol use, drug abuse and smoking, while he was in Canada. I later understood that he got them translated to Sinhala and used the information in his televised sermons and disseminated them for the benefit of youth involved in programs that he personally organized and promoted. One of his most outstanding missions was to mould the younger generation to live according to the Dhamma. He had the right approach in handling youth problems and soon they rallied round him in an organization called ‘Tharuna Saviya’ or Strength of the Youth. From every corner of the island, youths dedicated to the unfailing observance of five precepts taught in Buddhism, flocked, and rallied round him in veneration and began to follow his teachings.

RELEVANCE OF SOMA THERA

Given the drastic social changes taking place today and the threats and challenges faced by Sinhala Buddhists, the future of Buddhism and its continued relevance to our society depends much on how successfully our Buddhist leaders, especially our Bhikkhus can bring back to our people and reinforce the essential core of Buddhist values. Our Buddhist Bhikkhus provide a beacon and an anchor to Buddhism in our country, a living connection to the wealth and insight of thousands of years of Buddhist tradition. Their enormous humanitarian and social welfare service during the tsunami crisis in our country is reflective of the power of compassion ingrained in them by Buddhism and their inherently benevolent and ethical lifestyle as Bhikkhus. In the light of today’s challenges faced by Sinhala Buddhists, the influence and connection of Bhikkhus can be quite effective if they learn and become skilled, like Soma Thera, at how to present the Buddha Dhamma in a format that is effective to contemporary society. Like Soma Thera, they should spearhead the cause of reviving Sinhala Buddhist culture, and restoring a sense of nationalism and pride among the Sinhala-Buddhists. Venerable Soma Thera has become an enduring legacy of our nation, because he lived up to these expectations.

Today, there is a great need for the caring and sensible Buddhists within and outside Sri Lanka to organize themselves to avert the erosion of Buddhist values occasioned by the lack of enlightened Buddhist leadership, both ordained and lay. A realistic strategy and approach need to be developed, to directly address the glaring problems facing contemporary Buddhists and ways of helping to reform and re-invigorate the Sangha need to be identified in a pragmatic manner. In contemporary times, in Sri Lanka, with its cluster of occasional bafflement, discord, and uncertainties, mostly because of devious and unethical actions of some non-Buddhist elements mostly Christians and Muslims, backed by foreign funding, the relevance of propagating the Buddha’s teachings, cannot be overemphasized. Buddhists need not be doormats” to these divisive forces with hidden agendas that aim at undermining Buddhist norms and values that form the foundation of our Buddhist nation, for over two thousand two hundred years. We must be protective of our culture which appears to be threatened by various strong forces both local and foreign. It is time that we made a determined effort to counter this trend, and reclaim our cultural heritage. We know that it is in our own culture where we instinctively feel most comfortable and where we are ourselves. It is by sharing our cultural norms with the younger generation, and helping them to incorporate its values to shape their lives that this great cultural inheritance can be sustained for succeeding generations. Soma Thera’s life and teachings inspired many of our nation’s contemporary Buddhist leaders – lay and ordained, and movements. Our present day Bhikkhus and Buddhist leaders should be happy and grateful that destiny bestowed us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for generations to come.

Although his life was rather short, Soma Thera’s impact has become legendary. He left a lasting imprint on both the Sri Lankan and the international social and religious scene. His death is admittedly an irreparable loss to Sri Lanka at a time his services were most relevant and required. The influence of his mission is still felt in the Sri Lankan social scene and is bound to continue for many more years to come. The impact he has had on the lives of all those who encountered him directly and indirectly has been remarkable. Memories of his life, rich with experience, wisdom and dedication will continue to resonate for many years. His name will be honoured with undying gratitude by many generations to come. What his departure reminds us is the fact that time is ripe for Sri Lankan Buddhists to re-evaluate and re-think of their collective stand on national and religious issues of their motherland.

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane                                                                    daya.hewapathirane@gmail.com    

By Dr. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA Courtesy The Island

December 11, 2017, 10:45 pm

The SLFP’s crisis is a crisis of ideological identity. It is also an existential crisis. The SLFP is divided into two tendencies, a Minority (‘Menshevik’) faction with 44 seats in Parliament, led by President Sirisena, not all of them elected, and a Majority (‘Bolshevik’) faction with over 50 seats, led by former President Rajapaksa.

The ‘official’ SLFP (Minority) is a junior partner of its traditional foe the UNP, and therefore has an ideological vacuum within it. It does not know what it stands for and what it is.

The unofficial SLFP (Majority) aka SLPP or Pohottuwa, has a definite ideology which is not quite that of the mainstream center-left SLFP tradition, but increasingly that of the various ultra-nationalist pressure groups that operated alongside the party since 1955 (Eksath Bhikshu Peramuna), through 1970 (Nath Amarakone-VW Kularatne pushed through Standardization which created the Tamil youth insurgency), into the late 1980s (JVP-DJV).

In the case of the ‘unofficial’ SLFP (Majority), the tail has begun to wag the dog. In the case of the ‘official’ SLFP (Minority), it no longer knows whether it is dog, cat, fish, fowl or elephant’s tail.

SWRD Bandaranaike was a liberal, a pluralist and a populist-nationalist. His was a national liberalism and a liberal nationalism. More correctly, it was the former at certain times and the latter at certain others. It was not his populist nationalism that was the problem. It was when that nationalism was provisionally subsumed under a monolingual, mono-ethnic, mono-religious program.

Bandaranaike’s nationalism was neither that of DS Senanayake nor that of the admirable Ceylon National Congress. That was evident with his formation of the Sinhala Maha Sabha. But it was not the nationalism that he would adopt in 1955-1956 either. If not for his nationalism, he would have gone the way of the elitist Ceylon National Congress, into irrelevance as a mass democratic force.

I hardly ever agree with Prof Nalin de Silva, and we’ve always regarded each other with cordial detestation and been rightly regarded by others as bitter ideological foes, but he was quite right in his periodization of SWRD Bandaranaike’s evolution. He classifies SWRD –dismissively, as I do not–as a Westernized liberal and social democrat right up to 1955, when at the time of the Buddha Jayanthi, the Sinhala Buddhist civil society organizations, including the Buddhist monks pushed through the agenda of Sinhala Only.

Nalin de Silva identifies that as the moment of SWRD’s pivot towards and embrace of the Dharmapala movement; a pivotand re-set which resulted in 1956 taking the shape it did. For my part I regard that as precisely the moment he took a great leap backwards, and an unnecessary one because the back of the UNP had been broken by the Hartal of August 1953, the Galle Face kick-off meeting of which SWRD had chaired. However I agree with Nalin de Silva that until that point SWRD and the SLFP were well within the parameters of liberalism and social democracy, rather than Sinhala Buddhist nationalism.

Bandaranaike’s nationalism and his liberalism were perfectly compatible with his definition of the SLFP, both at its founding and in his 1957 speech at Peradeniya, as “social democratic”, as with his chairing of the Hartal rally which heralded an unarmed popular uprising (in which the SLFP did not participate) against the UNP.

SWRD’s nationalism and liberalism were also compatible with his first election manifesto which called for “the national languages” (plural) to be “state languages”, just as they were compatible with the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam pact and its agenda of Tamil autonomy within the quintessentially unitary state bequeathed by the Soulbury Constitution.

Today’s ‘official’ SLFP, starting with his daughter CBK, have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. The bathwater being Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism, they’ve thrown out the baby of nationalism. Having done so, they’ve allowed the baby of nationalism to be adopted by the Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists whom they detest.

Ironically, both Chandika’s brother Anura and her husband Vijaya were truer to SWRD’s political ideology than she has become. Anura was a liberal and moderate nationalist (as he proved in July 1987 and 2004), unlike CBK who has abandoned any kind of nationalism for the embrace of Ranil’s cosmopolitanism. Vijaya was a populist and a social democrat, while CBK has abandoned any kind of populism and/or social democracy in favor of Ranil and Mangala’s neoliberal globalism and free market fundamentalism.

The failure of Lankan liberalism is the failure to build back SWRD’s nationalism while junking the ethno-religious chauvinist deviation of 1955-1956. That is not what the spirit of 1956 was all about. 1956 was neither an unmixed blessing nor an unmixed curse. It had a progressive aspect and a reactionary aspect. Of the two the progressive aspect was the primary and the reactionary aspect was secondary. The ethno-religious chauvinist deviation was the secondary, reactionary aspect of 1956.

It is typical of Chandrika that the UNP leader she was always the most hostile to, Premadasa, was precisely the one who was most sympathetic to her father and closest to his ideology (indeed my father, who knew them both, wrote of Premadasa as “the SLFP within the UNP”) while the UNP leader she is allied to always positioned himself on the pro-US/UK, free market far right of the center-right party. Ranil Wickremesinghe (who as a young politician was utterly unmoved by the April 1971 youth insurrection) formally integrated the UNP, as no previous leader did, with the US Republicans and UK Conservatives, joining and becoming a Vice-President of the global organization founded by George W Bush, the International Democratic Union.

The Budget presented by CBK’s chief ally Mangala Samaraweera envisages the dismantling of three pieces of progressive agrarian legislation (the Paddy Lands Act of 1958 and the Land Reforms of 1972 and 1975), the removal of the land ceilings, and the opening up to large-scale holdings by multinationals, all of which would bury the most progressive laws of her father’s and mother’s governments of 1956 and 1970, which CBK herself identified so closely with as the Director, Land Reform Commission and Chairperson, Janavasa Commission.

The chief economic advisor and ideologue of the Ranil-Mangala duo is Prof Razeen Sally, a member of the ultra-right Mont Pelerin Society founded by and dedicated to the ideals of FW Hayek! One wonders what CBK’s old professor and intellectual hero Charles Bettelheim would have said about all this!

Under Chandrika’s tutelage, the official SLFP has returned to the B-C Pact and gone beyond it,back to SWRD’s exploratory 1925 articles as a young returnee from the UK, on federalism, but having junked the larger progressive paradigm of SWRD, the SLFP and 1956: national independence and sovereignty, populism, social welfare, a strong state sector, and the Spirit of Bandung i.e. Third Worldism with a tilt to Russia and China.

This is a pity because President Sirisena would have been a natural legatee of the 1956+1957 (B-C Pact) heritage of SWRD.He has been forced to turn away from 1951-1956 because Chandrika has pushed the party away from the Middle Path into a role of tailing behind the UNP on the pro-Western Right Path, i.e. the wrong path, the path of the UNP which her father SWRD broke away from and won his greatest victory over in 1956,which her mother repeated in 1970.

In the growing Oppositional space, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Rajapaksa family, and Prof GL Peiris would naturally have been a strong, organic center-left or liberal-nationalist moderate center, but they have been pulled to or pushed by the neo-nationalist populist Right, due to the ideological gravitational effect or osmosis of the Buddhist clergy and civil society as well as Diaspora pressure groups. Thanks to Yahapalana’s Geneva 2015 accountability, appeasement as reconciliation and the drive for a new non-unitary Constitution, there is a second edition unfolding of ‘The Revolt in the Temple’ that DC Wijewardena wrote of in the 1950s.

The B-C Pact of 1957 was the corrective of the negative aspect of 1956, but 1956 is greater and more progressive than its negative aspect. Bandaranaike can neither be reduced to the Sinhala only aspect of 1956 nor to the B-C Pact of 1957 (still less to the federalist episode of 1925-6).

Instead of tracing a path back to the wrong turning of 1955 and taking the correct one back to the founding document of the SLFP in 1951, the party’s first election manifesto of 1952, and SWRD’s attempt to return to it in 1957-58 with the B-CPact and the Kurunegala sessions, Chandrika and the Lankan liberals have tried to put the clock back to pre-1951, before SWRD’s rupture with the UNP, and bring the SLFP back under the dominance of the UNP—and that too a UNP far to the right of UNP tradition and closest to the disastrous UNP profile of 1956.

The official SLFP stands for ‘1957 without 1956’. Under the influence of CBK, who has betrayed both the ‘B’ and the ‘K’ of her dual surnames; the political ideals of her father, mother, husband and brother; the heritages of Bandaranaike and Kumaratunga, the ‘official’ SLFP has capitulated to the supinely pro-western foreign policy and economic neoliberalism of the comprador UNP. CBK has become the Countess of Compradorefication of the SLFP.

Meanwhile, in an inside-out, upside-downmirror image, the anti-government SLPP as well as the ‘outrider’ Eliyaand Viyath Magaformations, stand for ‘1956 without 1957’. They have deviated from the Middle Path of moderate nationalism and social democracy and succumbed to a discourse of nativistneo-conservatism, fighting shy of defending President Rajapaksa’s heavily documented stand on devolution, and criticizing devolution/power-sharing (“balaya bedeema”) as such, not only beyond 13A or in its federalist form. An Eliya spokesperson recently resurrected the antiquarian ‘Sinhala/Tamil place-names’ discourse of extreme Sinhala nationalism. The dominant ideological undercurrent is a return to pre-1987, a latent rejection of the Indo-Lanka Accord and the 13th amendment, and a lurch away from pragmatism in the dangerous direction of nativism, Sinhala exceptionalism, unilateralism and neo-isolationism.

In the current global situation and given regional geopolitical realities, a ‘1956 without a 1957’ built-in or attached, would be unsustainable and disastrously self-destructive, while in the present post-war, post victory national context, a ‘1957 without a larger 1956’ would be no less unsustainable and violently self-destructive.

Who then will stand for ‘1956 plus 1957’, the true policy and legacy of SWRD and the SLFP, and the authentic project of a Sri Lankan social democracy inspired by a liberal nationalism,a nationalist liberalism?

What Sri Lanka needs is a return to this vision of SWRD Bandaranaike and the founding ideology and program of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which was an anti-UNP eclectic fusion of the ‘Five Great Forces’ (‘Pancha Maha Balavegaya’) of ideas and ideologies: liberalism, nationalism, pluralism, populism and social democracy. There lies the New Middle Path.

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE

මැතිවරණ කාලේ ඔහොම තමයි.  මැතිවරණයක් කියන්නේ ‘මමයි පොර’ කියල කියාගන්න සමයක්.  සමයමක්.  ‘ජවිපෙට ගම දීල බලමු’ කියන්නේ කොහේ හරි ඉන්න අපක්ෂපාතී නිරීක්ෂකයෙක් වත් ගම වත් නෙවෙයි, ජවිපෙ මයි.  ‘අපට දෙන්නකෝ’ කියල කියන කොට ටිකක් මදි වගේ කියල හිතෙන්න ඇති. 

කොහොම වුනත් ‘අපි වෙනස්’ කියන කතාව පරණයි.  ඒ විතරක් නෙවෙයි ඒක අර්ධ සත්‍යයක්.  ජවිපෙ මේ රට පාලනය කරපු කාලයක් තිබුන, හරියටම එල්ටීටීඊ සංවිධානය රට පාලනය කළා වගේ.  යටින්.  ඒ කාලේ ජවිපෙ තමන්ව හැඳින්වූවේ ‘පුංචි ආණ්ඩුව’ කියල.  ඒ පුංචි ආණ්ඩුව මහා ආණ්ඩුව කරන වඩාත් කෙරුව, විශේෂයෙන්ම ‘මර්දනය’ කියන විෂයට අදාලව. 

ඒවා ‘විප්ලවයේ වාස්තවික තත්ත්වයන්’ කියන එකට බැර කරමු.  එත් ජවිපෙ ඍජුව හෝ වක්‍රව මේ ‘දෙපැත්තට’ ම උදව් කලේ දේශපාලන කපටිකමටද අඥානකමට ද නැත්තම් කරකියාගන්න දෙයක් තිබුනේ නැති නිසා ද?  විප්ලවයක් කර ගන්න බැරි නිසා (වාස්තවික තත්ත්වයන් අවශ්‍ය තරම ට මෝරලා නැති නිසා කියමුකෝ) නිර්මාල් රන්ජිත් දේවසිරි කියන විදිහට ‘අඩු තීව්‍රතා විප්ලවයක්’ කරන තැනට පසු බසින්න වුනාද?  ඒ සඳහා ‘හොරුත් සමග හෙළුවෙන්’ ඉන්න වුන එක විප්ලවයේ ජීව ගුණය කියා පානවා කියල ජවිපෙ හිතනවද? 

ජවිපෙ ‘දෙපැත්ත’ කියල කියන්නේ කාටද?  ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂය සහ එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය ට ද?  පොහොට්ටු කාරයෝ  ‘කෑවේ නෑ’ කියලද ජවිපෙ කියන්නේ?  නැත්තම් එයාලත් ‘ශ්‍රීලංනිපය’ තුලට දාල ද මේ ‘දෙපැත්තක්’ ගැන කතා කරන්නේ?  කෙසේ වෙතත් ඔය කියන දේශපාලන පක්ෂ හෝ සන්ධාන හෝ බලවේග සියල්ලටම ‘කන්න’ කෑම මේසය ලැස්ති කරන්න ජවිපෙ දායක වුනේ නැද්ද? 

ජවිපෙ කියන්න හදන දේ ටිකක් අපැහැදිලියි.  ජවිපෙ ද දෙපැත්තෙන් ම කෑවේ?  මොනවාද කෑවේ?  නැත්තම් කියන්න හදන්නේ ජනතාව (නැත්තම් ‘ගම’) දෙපැත්තෙන් ම කෑව කියලද? කෑවේ මොනවාද?  ජරාවද ගුටි ද? 

ජවිපෙ පණිවුඩය අපැහැදිලියි.  ඒකෙ ලොකු අවුලක් නැහැ, මන්ද ජවිපෙ පරණ නිසා. එන්නේ මොකාටද, යන්නේ කොහෙටද කියන එක අමුතුවෙන් විභාග කල යුතු නැති නිසා.  ඒ කියන්නේ 88-89 ට පසුව ජවිපෙ අළුත් වුනා නම් ඒ ‘අළුත් ජවිපෙ’ දැන් පරණ වෙලා.  ශ්‍රීලංනිපයට, එජාපයට, ඉපැරණි වමට වගේම පොහොට්ටු කාරයින් ට වඩා තරුණ වුනාට ජවිපෙ කියන්නේ මොකද්ද කරන්නේ මොකද්ද යනාදිය හිතාගන්න පුළුවන් තරමට ජවිපෙ මහළු වෙලා.  පෝස්ටරයක මොන දේ කිව්වත්, මොන තරම් නිර්මාණශීලී වුනත්, ජවිපෙ කව්ද කියන එක මිනිස්සු දන්නවා (එජාපය ගැනත්, ශ්‍රීලංනිපය ගැනත්, පොහොට්ටු කාරයෝ ගැනත් එච්චරයි).  

ඒ වුනාට අපැහැදිලි විදිහට හරි ඉදිරිපත් කරලා තියෙන පෝස්ටරය පවතින දේශපාලනය තේරුම් ගන්න ඉවහල් වෙනවා. 

‘අපට ඡන්දේ දෙන්න’ කියන හැම පොස්ටරයකම දේශපාලන සංවිධාන කරන්නේ තමන් විසින් තමන් සමග තමන් සඳහා ‘ගම’ ගසාකන එක. ගමේ හඬ නෙවෙයි ඇහෙන්නේ ගම විකුණන් කන්න සෙට් වෙන අයගේ හඬ.  මෙය ගමටත් රටටත් පොදු තත්ත්වයක්.  ගමෙත් රටෙත් ඉරණම මෙම දේශපාලන මොහොතේ තීන්දු කෙරෙන විදිහ විස්තර කරන ක්‍රියාවලියක්.

මේ විදිහට හිතමු.

ප්‍රාදේශීය සභාව තිබිය යුත්තේ ගම තුලයි.  ඒත් ගම තියෙන්නේ ප්‍රාදේශීය සභාව තුලයි. ප්‍රාදේශීය සභාව තියෙන්නේ (අදාළ) දේශපාලන පක්ෂය තුලයි.  පක්ෂ තියෙන්නේ නායකයින්ගේ සාක්කුවේ (දේශපාලන නායකයෝ ඉන්න ඕනේ පක්ෂයේ සාක්කුවේ, ඒත් එහෙම වෙන්නේ නැහැ).  නායකයෝ ඉන්නේ සමස්ථ දේශපාලනය තුල තම තමන් ස්ථානගත වෙන්නේ කොහොමද කියන ප්‍රශ්නය තුල යි. 

ජවිපෙට වගේම අනෙකුත් දේශපාලන පක්ෂවලට ගමත් දීල රටත් දීල ගම කාගත්ත හැටිත් රට කාගත්ත හැටිත් ජවිපෙ වත් අනෙකුත් දේශපාලන පක්ෂ කතා කරන්නේ නැහැ. 

අපේ රටේ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය නැති කලේ පක්ෂ දේශපාලනය.  මේ එකෙකුට වත් ගමවත් රට වත් දීල ආයෙත් කෙලවගන්නේ මොකටද කියන ප්‍රශ්නේ විතරයි ඉතුරු වෙලා තියෙන්නේ.  ගම ඉතුරු කරගන්න නම්, රට ඉතුරු කරගන්න නම්, ගමෙනුත් රටෙනුත් මේ දේශපාලන තක්කඩි එලව ගන්න ඕන. 

ඡන්දේ හිඟා කන්න එන ඕනෑම එකෙකුට කියන්න තියෙන්නේ මෙච්චරයි: ‘සොරි සහෝ, උදව් එපා, වදත් එපා, වද නොදී යන්න, ඕකේ?’

lanka C news

පිවිතුරු හෙළ උරුමයේ නායක පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත‍්‍රී උදය ගම්මන්පිල මහතා එම පක්‍ෂ මූලස්ථානයේ පැවති මාධ්‍ය හමුවකදී මෙසේ අදහස් පල කලේය

ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ යුද අපරාධ සිදු වුණු බවට එක්සත් ජාතින්ගේ සමුළු ඉදිරියේ එන යෝජනාවට ලෝක ඉතිහාසය වෙනස් කරමින් අපේ රටේම විදේශ ඇමති සමඅනුග්‍රාහකයත්වය දැක්වූවා. එවැනි පසුබිමක ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ සමීප මිතුරෙකු වන එක්සත් රාජධානියේ නේස්බි සාමිවරයා පසුගිය ඔක්තෝම්බර් 11 දින ලංකාවේ යුද අපරාධ සිදු නොවුණු බවට කරුණු දක්වමින් බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ සාමිමණ්ඩලයේදී කතාවක් කළා.

ලංකාව වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටීම පිළිබඳ ස්තූති කරලා ජනාධිපතිතුමා නේස්බි සාමිවරයාට ලිපියක් යවනවා. ඒක අපි අගය කළ යුතු දෙයක්. නමුත් නේස්බි සාමිවරයාව සමස්ත ශ්‍රී ලංකාව වෙනුවෙන් ජනපති ස්තූති කළ බව එංගලන්තය දන්නෙත් නෑ. ලංකාව දන්නෙත් නෑ. එ් ඇයි?

ස්තූතිය රහසිගත සිදුවීමක් බවට පත් කරන්නේ විදේශ කටයුතු අමාත්‍යාංශයේ ලේකම්වරයා. ජනපතිගේ ලිපිය සමග විදේශ අමාත්‍යාංශ ලේකම්ගේ ලිපියක් ද එක්සත් රාජධානියේ සිටින ශ්‍රී ලංකා තානාපතිවරියට යවනවා. මේ තිබෙන්නේ 2017.11.08 දින දරණ ඒ ලිපිය. ඒ ලිපියේ ඉතා වැදගත් උපදෙස් දෙකක් දෙනවා. පළමු දේ තමයි ඔබතුමියම මේ ලිපිය පෞද්ගලිකව ගිහින් භාර දෙන්න. දෙවන උපදෙස තමයි මේ ලිපිය ලංකාවේ වත් එක්සත් රාජධානියේ වත් මාධ්‍ය වලට දෙන්න එපා. මේක දේව රහසක් වගේ රැක ගන්න.

නේස්බි සාමිවරයාට ලංකාව ස්තූති කළ බව ලෝකයෙන් වසං කරන්නේ ඇයි? කාට බයෙන් ද? ඇමතිවරයෙකු ජනපතිට බයෙන් ලිපියක් සඟවන්න පුළුවන්. ජනපතිගේ මතය, රටේ මතය ප්‍රකාශ කරන්න බය වෙන්න ඕනේ කාටද? මෙරටේ රාජ්‍ය නායකයා මෙරට වෙනුවෙන් හඩ නැගු නේස්බි සාමිවරයාට තමන්ගේත් තම ජාතියේත් ප්‍රණාමය පුදකරන ලිපිය සගවා තබන්නේ කාට බයෙන්ද? පිළිතුර දෙමළ බෙදුම්වාදින්ට. දෙමළ බෙදුම්වාදින්ගේ බලපෑමට තමයි යුද සමයේ 40,000ක් සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාව මරා දැමුවා කියන එක ලංකාවේ ආණ්ඩුව පිලි ගත්තේ. එහෙම වුණේ නෑ කියලා ලංකාව වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටින නේස්බි සාමිවරයාට ප්‍රසිද්ධියේ ස්තූති කරන්න බයයි කොටියා තරහා වේවි කියලා.

බෙදුම්වාදින්ගේ සහයෙන් බලයට පැමිණි ආණ්ඩුවකට මෙහෙම නිවටව හැසිරෙන්න සිදු වෙනවා. කුම්බලාවෝ කෑවා නම් විඳවාපන් බළලෝ කියන්නේ මෙන්න මේකට තමයි.

අපට තිබෙන්නේ සරල ප්‍රශ්නයක්. ජනපතිතුමන් නේස්බි සාමිවරයාට යැවු එම ස්තූතිය රහසිගත ලියැවිල්ලක් වුණේ එතුමන් දැනුම්වත්වද? මේ කාරණය ලෙහෙසියෙන් අත්හැරිය යුතු නෑ. මේ රට පාලනය කරන්නේ කොටි සංවිධානයයි කියන එකට මීටත් වඩා ලිඛිත සාක්ෂියක් අවශ්‍ය නෑ.

– අරවින්ද අතුකෝරල

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

By Neville Ladduwahetty Courtesy The Island

December 11, 2017, 9:05 pm
In the wake of the most recent challenge by Lord Naseby in the House of Lords to the oft touted claim of 40,000 civilian deaths, the former Secretary to the Consultative Task Force for Reconciliation Mechanisms, Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu has called for setting up a Truth, Justice, Reconciliation and Non-Recurrence Commission (TJRNRC) to address accountability issues and included Section 5 of the of the Consultative Task Force (CTF) report, in his response (The Island, December 4, 2017). Relevant paragraphs of Section 5are as follows:

5.3: “The CTF is of the opinion that at a minimum, the purpose TJRNRC must be to establish the truth of what happened in the conflict in Sri Lanka…”.

5.4: “Truth in this context entails responsibility but establishing criminal responsibility, i.e. the determination of who is a perpetrator, is best suited to a judicial mechanism or the existing judicial system…”.

5.5: “The CTF recommends that the Truth Commission conduct investigations in order to find the truth and share information relating to criminal conduct with a prosecutorial body”.

5.11: “Given the importance of ascertaining the truth it is imperative that the Truth Commission has a strong investigating unit made up of researches with relevant skills including in the law, history, anthropology, forensics, criminology, sociology, psychology and sociology…”.

ESTABLISHING PARAMETERS

Before considering the need for a full scale investigation, a few essential and relevant parameters need to be established to guide a Truth Commission.

They are as follows:

1. The time frame of any truth seeking exercise should be that referred to in the Resolution 30/1, which is the time period covered by the LLRC – February 22, 2002 to May 19, 2009 (Para. 7).

2. The Panel of Experts, i.e., the Darusman Panel, appointed by the UN Secretary General states: “There is no doubt that an internal armed conflict was being waged in Sri Lanka with the requisite intensity during the period that the Panel examined. As a result, international humanitarian law is the law against which to measure the conduct of both the Government and the LTTE”.

3. Paragraphs 175, 182 and 183 of the OISL report prepared for the Human Rights Council by the Office of the UN High Commissioner states:

Para. 175: “OISL notes that Sri Lanka has submitted a Declaration of State of emergency, dated 30 May 2000, derogating from articles 9 (2), 12 (1), 12 (2), 14 (3), 17(1), 19 (2), 21 and 22 of the ICCPR. Measures taken pursuant to derogation are lawful to the extent they comply with the conditions set out in international human rights law”.

Para. 182: “Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions relating to conflicts not of an international character is applicable to the situation in Sri Lanka, with all parties to the conflict being bound to respect the guarantees pertaining to the treatment of civilians and persons hors de combat contained therein. Common Article 3 binds all parties to the conflict to respect, as a minimum, that persons taking no direct part in hostilities as well as those placed hors de combat shall be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction”.

Para. 183: “In addition, the Government and armed groups that are parties to the conflict are bound alike by the relevant rules of customary international law applicable in non-international armed conflict”.

4. The Darusman Panel further states that their mandate did “not extend to fact-finding or investigation”. It “determined an allegation to be credible if there was a reasonable basis to believe that the underlying act or event occurred. Allegations are considered as credible in this respect only when based on primary sources that the Panel deemed relevant and trustworthy”. Since this evidence is archived until 2031, access to such evidence is not available.

5. The OISL report states that it is a “desk review of existing material”. This included access to the documentation gathered by the Darusman Panel that is presently archived until 2031.

SUMMARIZING the above.

(a) Time frame for the Truth Commission is February 22, 2002 to May 9, 2009.

(b) Applicable law is international humanitarian law.

(c) Alleged violations should therefore be judged ONLY in terms of violations of international humanitarian law and NOT in terms of human rights and humanitarian law as applicable in resolution 30/1, in view of paragraph 175 of the OISL report.

(d) All allegations of violations were based on evidence considered “credible” by the Darusman Panel. Interpreting as to what is “credible evidence” is highly subjective, judging from the subsequent conduct of members of the Panel.

(e) The OISL report is based on a “desk review” of existing material including Government publications, international and Sri Lankan NGO/civil society reports, the reports of LLRC and other commissions etc., and above all, material considered credible by the Darusman Panel together with documentation they had accessed in the material archived until 2031.

DETERMINING the TRUTH

There is considerable variation in the estimates of the number of civilian deaths. Paragraph 137 of the Darusman Panel report states: “In the limited surveys that have carried out in the aftermath of the conflict, the percentage of people reporting dead civilians is high. A number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths…”. Therefore by the Darusman Panel’s own admission, the estimate of 40,000 civilian deaths is not based on “a reasonable basis that that the underlying act or event occurred”, but is based on sources they considered to be credible.

Estimates of other sources such as the UN Country team, UN spokesman Gordon Weiss, US Department of State, International Crisis group are only a fraction of the 40,000 estimated from credible sources in the Darusman Panel report. The most recent estimate is 7,000 to 8,000 from Lord Naseby, based on highly redacted dispatches of the British Attache, Lieutenant Colonel Anton Gash.

In view of the range of these estimates, there is a need for an independent national judicial mechanism as stated in the President’s 100 Day Programme, to review the background material relating to these numbers. Such a Commission should address accountability on the basis of a desk review of all existing material in reports of the LLRC, the Darusman Panel, the OISL and the Paranagama Commission, together with all inter-governmental material available in the public domain, the most recent being that presented by Lord Naseby to the House of Lords. This should include all the “credible evidence” currently archived with the UN High Commission. Denial of access to this evidence should be grounds to reject all conclusions reached based on these materials.

Such an approach is justified since the mandate to the Darusman Panel “does not extend to fact-finding or investigations” (Framework of the Panel’s work). In the absence of even prima facie evidence as to the credibility of the evidence, to engage in a strong investigative unit as recommended by the CTF (5.11) would amount to the accused having to defend charges that are not based on fact or investigation, but only on what a prejudiced Panel whose credibility itself is questionable, considers “credible”. This is further justified because the LTTE members who were perpetrators of these crimes, as well as those who gave the orders to commit international humanitarian violations cannot be identified or located. A full scale investigation is also not warranted since such investigations could overlap with investigations relating to Missing Persons.

The constitutional provision in Article 13 (5) that “Every person shall be presumed innocent until he is proved guilty”, is violated if a full investigation is initiated on charges that are not based on prima facie evidence. The additional constitutional provision in Article 13 (5) of “Provided that the burden of proving particular facts may, by law, be placed on an accused person” does not apply, since no laws exist in Sri Lanka relating to international humanitarian law which incidentally should be the basis for determining the truth.

REMIT to NATIONAL JUDICIAL MECHANISM

The remit to the national judicial mechanism should be that it addresses accountability as two distinct and separate undertakings.

One undertaking should address the overall conduct of the armed conflict by the security forces and by the LTTE in terms of international humanitarian law. The task for the national judicial mechanism would then be to conduct a desk review of existing evidence to ascertain whether there were any violations of international humanitarian law by the security forces or by the LTTE. The context of such an assessment should be that each party to the conflict isThe second undertaking should address whether prima facie evidence exists relating to individual acts that amount to violations of international humanitarian law, and if so, such materials should be handed over to existing judicial mechanisms in Sri Lanka for necessary action, under provisions of local law. Since this may require assessing the credibility of some of the evidence during the course of a desk review, it would be necessary for arrangements to be made for the protection of those who furnish such evidence.

CONCLUSION

The proposals made herein are limited to issues relating to the UNHRC resolution 30/1 with a focus on addressing the vastly divergent assessments in the estimates of the civilian deaths in the context of international humanitarian law. The recommendation by the Consultative Task Force for a full scale investigating unit to find the truth and identify perpetrators is unwarranted for three reasons:

(i) the LTTE who perpetrated violations of international humanitarian law cannot be held responsible since they cannot be located or identified, (ii) since charges against the Sri Lankan government are based on oral evidence and desk reviews of such evidence, the same methodology should be deployed to address the charges leveled against the government (iii) such an investigation could overlap with investigations relating to Missing Persons.

Therefore, the rational approach for a independent nation judicial mechanism should be a desk review of existing material as two distinct and separate undertakings where one undertaking addresses allegations relating to the conduct of the armed conflict by the security forces and the LTTE within the context of international humanitarian law, and the other undertaking addresses individual acts of violation to establish prima facie evidence that could be passed on to existing judicial mechanisms.

Instead of being process driven, recommendations, whatever they are, should be pragmatic and not lose sight of the objective which in this instance, is reconciliation.

Neville Ladduwahetty

December 11, 2017.

Courtesy The Island

December 11, 2017, 10:37 pm
Lord Naseby has expressed disappointment over the British High Commission, in Colombo, callously dismissing wartime dispatches from its own Defence Attache, Colonel Anton Gash.

Apropos a response from the British High Commission in Colombo to a query raised by the The Island, in its Dec 5, 2017 issue, headlined ‘Naseby’s call doesn’t reflect UK’s stand – HC’, Lord Naseby told The Island he had forwarded a full set of papers consisting of the Hansard transcript of the debate he had initiated in the House of Lords on October 12, the entire copies of the heavily redacted pages of Col Gash’s dispatches, his interpretation of the un-redacted parts and the substantial corroborative evidence from many other sources to the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres; the Human Rights team at the UNHRC in Geneva, namely the High Commissioner, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and the nine UN Special Procedures mandate holders, each of whom have visited Sri Lanka in their official capacity.

The following is the full text of Lord Naseby’s statement received by The Island:

“The resolution 30/1 entitled ‘Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka’ emphasized the need for truth-seeking, among others, as an important element in the overall quest to promote reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka. The UK government was one of the initiators and a co-sponsor of the resolution. The despatches by Col Anton Gash, the former defence attaché of the British High Commission, constitutes an important element in the process of truth-seeking and should be of interest to all those who genuinely seek a clear picture of what happened during the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka. It is therefore disappointing that the British High Commission fails to acknowledge the importance of the despatches of its own former defence attaché and the insight that is provided by his communications with the British Government.

“While not expressly stated so in the resolution, those who have closely followed events in Sri Lanka after the end of the conflict would agree that the basis for the successive resolutions on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council stemmed from the allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity (and in some quarters ‘genocide’) said to have been committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE. Especially, the Report of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, commonly known as the ‘Darusman Report’, alleged that ‘a number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths’ (para 137), mostly as a result of indiscriminate shelling by the Sri Lankan military. Therefore, the number of civilians killed forms a very important element in truth-seeking especially when the difference is over 30,000.

“While Lord Naseby does not take issue with those advocating reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka including the need to investigate any allegations of human rights violations, Lord Naseby does take issue with those in authority be they the UK government or any other Government as well as the UN and particularly the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council in Geneva if they appear to be ignoring the above context behind the resolution as well as circumvent the significance of the insight provided by Col. Anton Gash which corroborate a large number of other sources that confirm a casualty figure of around 7,000-8,000 (of which about 20% were LTTE cadres who are said to have thrown away their uniforms resulting in Tamil civilian casualties of about 6,500).

“Lord Naseby is concerned that the principles of natural justice are possibly being disregarded as the Gash Despatches reveal that British authorities knew that the estimates propagated by the Darusman Report were based on flawed information. The FCO had this information at their disposal to disprove some of the Darusman Report’s contentions, especially to counter that the estimated casualty figures could not have been as high as 40,000. Almost every western media report to this day, continues to quote this high estimate of 40,000 for war casualties, without questioning its reliability, whilst failing to mention the numerous other independent assessments, from sources who were present on the ground in Sri Lanka during 2009, that consistently point to an estimated death toll in the region of 7,000 – 8,000. In its search for the truth, it would seem morally improper that UK should have allowed the Darusman Report to have been used without contention and facilitated subsequent resolutions on Sri Lanka to have been formulated using estimates that starkly contradicted Britain’s own evidence. After not disclosing its own military attaché’s evidence to the Human Rights Commission, the FCO then took the unhelpful step of attempting to suppress this information when Lord Naseby sought a Freedom of Information request. Britain’s motives in playing a prominent role in seeking and encouraging UNHRC Resolutions on Sri Lanka since 2009 that sought to establish the truth regarding allegations of Human Rights violations, whilst at the same time effectively prohibiting its own relevant information from being considered by the Human Rights Commission, may need to be called into question. Lord Naseby fought for the full disclosure of the Gash Despatches, yet this was not finally granted as the Information Commission Tribunal sided with the FCO, which insisted on heavy redactions being maintained. Nevertheless the redacted Gash Despatches do provide an invaluable insight.

“Lord Naseby acknowledges that the death of any civilians is deeply regrettable however, it is noted that this was an armed conflict between a democratically elected government and a terrorist outfit, the Tamil Tigers, who were proscribed by leading nations including most of those supporting the resolution. It is inevitable that armed conflicts create casualties, made worse in this case by 300,000 Tamil civilians being herded into a war zone against their will by the Tamil Tigers. In effect, this was a mass hostage situation and the Sri Lankan armed forces took action to release the Tamil civilians. Despite this evidence, the casualties remained remarkably low. Moreover, there is nothing from the UK’s own defence specialist, who was allowed access to the theatres of the conflict in 2009, which indicates that Sri Lanka’s security forces were directed by their government to break the principles of conducting operations in a way that was beyond the bounds of military necessity, nor that Sri Lanka’s armed forces did not take due diligence to avoid civilian casualties by conducting their operations with regard for distinction and proportionality. The British government should acknowledge the evidence of their own military attaché whilst continuing to wholeheartedly support the UN Resolution in collaboration with Sri Lanka to secure a long term sustainable peace for all communities on the island.

“Therefore, Lord Naseby wishes to reiterate that the context is vital to any possible war crime prosecution that may arise and 40,000 or more civilian deaths could be tantamount to genocide and/or crimes against humanity if proven that it was part of government policy to do so. However, a casualty figure of 6,500 is a totally different scale beyond the scope of such atrocities, while acknowledging that there may have been certain individual incidents that may perhaps constitute to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

“It should be noted that at no stage has Lord Naseby attempted to claim that the Gash Despatches show that the civilian casualties were “trivial” or that these matters should not be investigated. On the contrary, in common with most observers and other nations who supported the resolution, Lord Naseby urges Sri Lanka’s authorities to honour their commitments to the UN Human Rights Council by conducting credible investigations and where there are incidents that their security forces may have committed alleged violations, then the appropriate due processes of justice should follow.

“It is against this background that Lord Naseby last week forwarded a full set of papers consisting of: the Hansard transcript of the debate he initiated in the House of Lords on October 12th, the entire copies of the heavily redacted pages of Col Gash’s despatches, in itself only available after nearly 3 years of persistent challenging of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, his interpretation of the un-redacted parts and the substantial corroborative evidence from many other sources. These were all sent to the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres; the Human Rights team at the UNHRC in Geneva, namely the High Commissioner, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and the nine UN Special Procedures mandate holders, each of whom have visited Sri Lanka in their official capacity. They all received a personal letter from Lord Naseby outlining the key issue of the hugely misleading figure in the Darusman Report of 40,000 Tamil civilians killed whereas the truth is about 6,500 and seeking their support for a correction.

“Lord Naseby makes it quite clear that he shall pursue every organisation and the persons involved to ensure that the Darusman Report figure on civilian casualties is publicly amended to reflect that the truth about an estimated 6,500 Tamil civilians who died at the end of the Sri Lanka conflict. Truth must and will win out however inconvenient that may be to the authorities. A guiding light for Lord Naseby in all this has been a quote attributed to be by Mahatma Gandhi: “First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack You, Then You Win.”

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island

December 11, 2017, 10:29 pm

Deputy Leader of the breakaway JVP faction National Freedom Front (NFF) parliamentarian Weerakumara Dissanayake yesterday received SLFP membership from President and SLFP leader Maithripala Sirisena.

Former MP and Chairman of NFF Piyasiri Wijenayake and North Central Province PC member P. B. Kumara, too, received SLFP membership.

Anuradhapura District MP Dissanayake switched his allegiance to President Sirisena close on the heels of another UPFA MP Sriyani Wijewickrema belonging to Mahajana Eksath Peramuna representing the Digamadulla electoral district deserting the JO.

A senior spokesperson for the NFF yesterday told The Island that the party was confident Dissanayake’s move wouldn’t cause a major problem.

The NFF parliamentary group originally comprised five members, Wimal Weerawansa, Weerakumara Dissanayake, Padma Udaya Shantha, Niroshan Premaratne and Jayantha Samaraweera.

The NFF official said that the party would field candidates under the banner of Podujana Peramuna in all districts except in the North and Batticaloa.

Meanwhile, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader MP Udaya Gammanpila lashed out at the coalition for creating a situation that led to MP Wijewickrema quitting the JO. Addressing the media at PHU office at Pita Kotte, Gammanpila said that Wijewickrema was the only woman MP to address their inaugural rally at Nugegoda on Feb 18, 2015. Unfortunately, the way she had been treated at meetings of the Digamadulla nominations committee finally led to her move, MP Gammanpila alleged.

Gammanpila quoted MP Wijewickrema as having told Ampara District leaders last Saturday at the final meeting of the nominations board that even a killing could take place unless issues could be settled amicably. Emphasizing that he under no circumstances endorsed MP Wijewickrema’s demands pertaining to nominations, the MP said that she should have been given an opportunity to present her case.

Gammanpila claimed that former MP and NFF member Jayantha Wijesekera, too, had joined the SLFP as he was deprived of an opportunity to discuss problems for three days. Had the leadership addressed Wijesekera’s concerns, he wouldn’t have abandoned the JO, he said.

Declaring that his party would field candidates in 13 districts, MP Gammanpila said that he had recently clashed with UPFA heavyweight MP Bandula Gunawardena to ensure justice for another party. Gammanpila said the issue arose over allocation of time and space at meetings in the Homagama electorate.

Gammanpila said he didn’t want to name those responsible for the situation as such discourse could cause more desertions.

The PHU leader warned of dire consequences unless all parties reached consensus on nominations and prevent their members switching allegiance simply on the basis of not receiving nominations. The MP said the Podujana Peramuna was really struggling to accommodate requests as the outfit was overwhelmed with prospective candidates.

Shenali D Waduge

The world is demanding to know how and who killed the LTTE. Based on this same logic shouldn’t we have the right to know who created, who funded, who armed, who financially supported, who provided logistics & material support, who promoted & campaigned on behalf of the LTTE? The beginning of the story should matter more than the end. A new government must hold a Commission of Inquiry into how LTTE terrorism started and all the stake holders involved.

What is curious is that the Tamil New Tigers (TNT) was launched on 22 May 1972 the same day as the Republican Constitution of Sri Lanka by V. Prabakaran who was barely 18 years at the time. It was on 17 September 1972 that the TNT bombed a carnival held at the preset Duraiappah Stadium. Where did Prabakaran get the bombs? Is it a coincidence that Prabakaran traveled to India before forming TNT? Coincidentally TNT also stands for explosives! Why did Prabakaran spend two years in India and returned only in 1974?

Within months of returning Prabakaran’s first victim became the Mayor of Jaffna – Alfred Duraiappah in July 1975. The killing of M Canagaratnam TULF MP who joined UNP in Colombo in January 1978 became LTTE’s 1^st attack outside North East Sri Lanka. In April LTTE murdered 9 Tamil policemen including Inspector Bastianpillai when they raided a LTTE training camp. In May 1978 the JR Government proscribed LTTE and Prabakaran was included into a list of 38 wanted men. That didn’t stop LTTE from blasting the Air Ceylon aircraft the very day JR Government introduced its new constitution on 7 September 1978.

Tamil New Tigers became rechristened LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) on 5 May 1976 same time as the Vaddukoddai Resolution. Note timing of the formation of the TNT on the same day as the Republican Constitution and the formation of LTTE & Vaddukoddai Resolution just before a major shift in Sri Lanka’s political system with the 1977 elections & another constitution in 1978 barely 6 years after its first constitution.

LTTE was not the only militant outfit – EROS Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students or Eelam Revolutionary Organisers was formed in London in 1975 by Eliyathamby Ratnasabapathy and its student wing-the General Union of Eelam Students (GUES) was subsequently formed in Madras. EROS and GUES split and formed EPRLF – K. Padmanabha was its leader.

How and who helped them link up with the Palestinian Liberation Organization as PLO provided EROS and LTTE training in Lebanon.

What is interesting is that Tamils in both India & Sri Lanka have been peddling pseudo-historical interpretations to justify a homeland & self-determination. Can the same race evolve in two separate countries demanding homelands using the same criteria? In India Tamil angst was against Hindi domination while in Sri Lanka it was against Sinhalese majority. India dealt with separatism through 16^th amendment while Sri Lanka brought the 6^th amendment.

What needs to be reiterated is that India’s discussions on the Tamil issue with the Sri Lankan counterparts came ONLY AFTER Tamil militants emerged from training in India and after creating a path to use Tamil Nadu as a logistics hub & support base. India obviously found a great means to exert diplomatic pressure upon a geopolitically vulnerable neighbor.

There are reasons to claim India had a role in the creation of Tamil militancy.

JN Dixit, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka’s interview in 1985 claims India decided to stop training & assistance to Sri Lankan Tamil Groups – it confirmed India had been both training & providing assistance to Tamil groups. www.rediff.com

Dixit’s memoirs also speak of arming Sri Lankan Tamil youth claiming it a policy blunder of PM Indira. these boys who were trained by us from 1977” (Dixit, Assignment Colombo) Though India claimed to have stopped material support by Wikileaks cable of 5 April 1988 quotes Dixit agreeing to pay LTTE Rs.5m per month from July 1987 onwards. LTTE also got Rs.110m from MGR Ramachandran Tamil Nadu Chief Minister according to Mark Salter, author of ‘To end a civil war, Norway’s Peace Engagement in Sri Lanka”. www.ceylontoday.lk and explains why JRJ labelled LTTE as ‘the private army of MG Ramachandran’. LTTE too confirms exchange of money MGR gave us Rs.6 crore’ expressindia.indianexpress.com

That India did not trust Prabakaran completely is established in the manner RAW chief Gauri Shankar Bajpai admitted Col Kittu (Sathasivam Krishnakumar) was used as an Indian mole inside the LTTE. This was confirmed by RAW chief Gauri Shankar Bajpai in his affidavit to the Jain Commission. He was not India’s only mole – Mahaththaya, Prabakaran’s deputy was also kept to secure India’s interests. timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Karunanidhi in his affidavit to the Jain Commission says It is a well-known fact that the LTTE and other Sri Lankan Militant camps were established in India ever since 1982 in tune with the policy of the Central Government at that time. The Tamil militants were given military training and allowed to have their own training camps in India”.

The affidavit of Shri K Mohandas Director General Police (Para 13 Jain Commission) is noteworthy ….The issue had become very sensitive, and meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s advisors were working overtime, giving facilities to the militants, particularly the TELO (Tamil Ealam Liberation Organisation) to be trained in the use of modern arms in the camps organised in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi and elsewhere. The idea was that after the training, they would be supplied with arms and sent to Northern Sri Lanka to engage the Sri Lankan troops in guerrilla action. It was supposed to be a top secret operation without even the knowledge of the State Government and its Intelligence agency. (at least as far as Tamil Nadu was concerned.”

The Jain Commission report gives lists of where Tamils were trained & by whom. India stands guilty.

Is this not state sponsored terrorism?

India’s former Union Law Minister Ram Jethmalani is also on record to say PM Indira created LTTE to protect Indian interests at a time China & Pakistan were establishing power in Sri Lanka.

Was it not on this backdrop that the Indo-Lanka Accord was forced upon Sri Lanka after threatening Sri Lanka when it cornered Prabakaran in Vadamarachchi in May 1987? Had Prabakaran been caught by the Sri Lankan Troops we would not have had to endure murders & mayhem from 1987 to 2009.

Having thus placed men in arms in the Jaffna peninsula with the insinuation that Sinhalese in particular the military was not welcome it is important to note that it was the Indo-Lanka Accord that officially peddled the notion of North East being traditional homeland of Tamil speaking people. Baffling is why UNP Govt and key advisors agreed to accept such a false & mythical notion as it is was on this false basis that the N-E was merged though in reality we know that the merger came because Trinco harbor that India wanted was in the East of Sri Lanka and the subtle way to merge territory was by claiming a false territory. The 13^th amendment and its clauses in particular land & police are all Indian-drafted and these are all in India’s interests by using Tamils & Tamil politicians to demand its full implementation as a proxy. Who stands to gain from full implementation of 13a – Tamils or India. The answer is clear.

India therefore stands guilty of not only helping nurture armed militancy but officially endorsing a false homeland concept that was purely made for India’s geopolitical advantage. If India had wanted to create a Bangladesh out of Sri Lanka’s northern or eastern territory it would have done so but in the case of Tamils & Sikhs we see the Indian Centre adopting a different strategy & tactic.

Nevertheless, militants and militancy is not easy to handle. The orphans created don’t necessarily remain with their adopted mother. History has many examples of how monsters have changed hands. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak and Gaddafi were all CIA assets later gone astray. Similarly, it is important to capture the timeline of LTTE and Prabakaran being 100% in control of India and thereafter straying to other foster parents.

When did LTTE move hands from being 100% controlled by India to being controlled by West & the Church?

Not very many terrorists are lucky to have their leaders funerals held in Norway and their diplomats sobbing before the coffin! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHqC9DmDWhA Not many foreign envoys shed tears and give emotional interviews bemoaning they did not spend much time with Prabakaran http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2017/08/20/i-regret-we-could-not-spend-more-time-with-prabhakaran-says-erick-solheim/

You don’t see Church Fathers/Sisters taking part in LTTE demonstrations, keeping orphaned children to be handed as child soldiers when needed, even placing their names on petitions against a sovereign government or using their NGOs to help LTTE advance their agendas while they themselves carry out their conversion & destroying of Eastern cultures agendas. If this allegation is not true why has the Vatican not taken action against those in robes that have been openly promoting the LTTE. The Vatican has not even investigated their links to terror.

https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/tamil-eelam-a-church-funded-political-project-shenali-waduge/

https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/world-vision-christian-ngo-engaged-in-culture-murder-not-social-service-v-k-shashikumar/

Pictures speak a thousand words https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/09/26/ltte-terrorism-church-links-can-someone-explain-these-photos/

In determining when LTTE moved away from India to become the orphan of the West the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi is important. Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination continues to be plagued in controversy. It came close on the heels of the Bofors scam. While every unexpected murder is shrouded in controversy and conspiracy theories Rajiv’s death is no different & also points to Church & NIS links to LTTE contract. http://postcard.news/untold-story-insider-plotted-rajiv-gandhis-murder/ When nothing is in black and white these versions should not be brushed aside. Rajiv’s wife a staunch Catholic eventually went on to lead Congress though Subramaniam Swamy has made allegations against her for linking with LTTE to smuggle Indian artefacts out of India & sold in Italy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oYZJeXZOuE

It is curious to note the many Christian/Catholic NGOs operating in the North throughout the period LTTE ran its defacto rule. It was always the Church heads who were at the forefront of demands made by LTTE when in reality 90% of the Tamil populace were Hindus. There were no Hindu religious leaders coming forward on behalf of Tamils. All of the LTTE fronts that emerged after the elimination of the LTTE leader in 2009 were all domiciled overseas most holding foreign passports and openly advocating a separate state. Even after proscribing 16 entities as LTTE fronts in 2014 no foreign government chose to investigate their links to terrorism and providing material support. A handful of arrests over the years have all that has been done. The Australian woman who trained children and women to become suicide bombers & commit suicide when caught remains happily in the UK.

The West has shown no sincerity to their own claimed ‘war on terror’ and most of these LTTE front heads are seen regularly visiting and striking relationships with not only UN officials but foreign MPs as well. With the power of their illegal and illicit international network covering money laundering, credit card scams, human smuggling, narcotics etc they have been able to virtually purchase these foreign players to speak on behalf of them – the coterie of such includes foreign MPs, UN officials, authors, media etc and these are all part of a bigger nexus that has nothing to do with giving people self-determination or a homeland. People and issues are simply a means of advancing and camouflaging bigger objectives and motives. All LTTE fronts are operating from Western countries whose intelligence are well aware of what they are up to.

If India used Tamils and Tamil grievances to arm twist Sri Lanka to sign the Indo-Lanka Accord, change constitution and introduce 13^th amendment, pushed bogus homeland theories to justify merging two provinces which had Trinco harbor and is now pushing for ETCA for Indians to legally invade Sri Lanka and attempting to take Mattala, Sampur and other strategic assets it is no different to how the West and India combined to push the Cease Fire Agreement that placed terrorists on par with a national army and virtually gave territory to terrorists officially.

Therefore, it is interesting to not only know how and why Tamil militancy emerged but whether its setting up by India had a foreign connection or link to it initially. We cannot omit to take stock of the fact that South India launched its self-determination bid far before it started in Sri Lanka. That connectivity in palming off India’s headache to Sri Lanka cannot be ruled out. There is little doubt that India stands guilty of fostering terrorism and India is no amateur at it either as Sri Lanka was not its first case of arming insurgents. The other important question is exactly when did LTTE get re-adopted and aligned to Western & Church objectives and without LTTE leader and key ground force leaders, what role or clout India has and was it because India was losing control that it indirectly wanted LTTE eliminated because by that time India had made the necessary moves to politically and economically entrap Sri Lanka.

Let’s not forget that if, even within LTTE there had been moles and agents as had been in the case of other Tamil militant groups, even governments also have moles and paid agents therefore even a national policy is likely to get hijacked and waylaid by these politicians on foreign payroll and agent advisors & consultants.

Be that as it may only a Commission of Inquiry with a mandate to investigate how Terrorism started, who started it, who helped indirectly & directly will spill the beans on every individual, organization, politician, military personnel, state officials, foreigners, NGOs, INGOs, UN, foreign MPs, foreign governments that had been involved. That such an inquiry was proposed immediately after the military defeat of LTTE in May 2009 and stopped by most-likely paid agents & advisors goes to show that while we fervently want to know the truth, those who claim to want to know the truth do their utmost to hide the truth because they have played a role in it. Such are the hypocrisies that prevail.

Nevertheless, we can confidently assume that India, the West, Foreign Governments, the Church, nexus of illegal international players have all been involved and had played a role in Tamil militancy and the existence of these high profile players explains why no action was ever taken against LTTE other than cosmetic bans confined to paper only.

Shenali D Waduge

 ලසිත දුමින්ද

මෙලෙස මුදල් දීම අවභාවිතාවක්‌ නොවේද? බෙංගමුවේ නාලක හිමි
අගමැති පිංකමක්‌ කරන වෙලාවේදීත් මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂට මඩ ගහනවා – ගලගම ධම්මරංසි හිමි

ජනතාවගේ කැමැත්තක්‌ නොමැති ආණ්‌ඩුව අද විහාරස්‌ථාන මාර්ගයෙන් ජනතා කැමැත්ත දිනා ගැනීමේ අසාර්ථක උත්සාහයක නිරතව සිටින බව ජාතික හිමිකම් සංවිධානයේ සභාපති බෙංගමුවේ නාලක හිමියෝ පැවැසූහ. 
 
 නාරාහේන්පිට අභයාරාමයේ ඊයේ (08 වැනිදා) පැවැති මාධ්‍ය හමුවකදී එසේ සඳහන් කළ ජාතික හිමිකම් සංවිධානයේ සභාපති බෙංගමුවේ නාලක හිමි මෙසේද පැවැසූහ.
 
 අගමැතිතුමනි, මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතා මොනවද කළේ අතුරලියේ රතන හිමි දන්නවා. උන්වහන්සේගේ පන්සල සකස්‌ කළේ පසුගිය රජයයි. එහෙම කරගත් රතන හිමි අද පසුගිය රජයට විරුද්ධව එකතු වුණා. මේවා ජනතාව දන්නවා. 850 ක්‌ පමණ වූ භික්‍ෂුන් වහන්සේලා අරලියගහ මන්දිරයට වැඩම කරවලා උන්වහන්සේලාට මුදල් දීම පගාවක්‌ විදිහටයි අපි දකින්නේ. ඉදිරියේ ඡන්දයක්‌ තියාගෙන හාමුදුරුවරුන්ට පගාවක්‌ දීලා, හාමුදුරුවන් හරහා පළාත් පාලන ආයතනවලට ඡන්දය ගන්නයි මේ පගාව දුන්නේ. මෙහෙම මුදල් දීමට ඉඩදීම ගැන අනාගතයේදී මැතිවරණ කොමසාරිස්‌වරයාට කරුණු කියන්න සිද්ධ වෙයි. හදිසියේම ඇයි හාමුදුරුවන්ට සල්ලි දුන්නේ. කෝටි 40 ක්‌ ආණ්‌ඩුව මේකට වියදම් කරලා. ඒක මුදල් අවභාවිතා කිරීමක්‌ නෙමෙයිද? 
 
 අගමැතිවරයා හිතන් ඉන්නවා ආණ්‌ඩුවට මහජනතාවගේ කැමැත්තක්‌ තිබෙනවා කියලා. නමුත් ජනතා කැමැත්තක්‌ නැහැ. ඡන්දයකට මෙතෙක්‌ කල් නොගිහින් හිටියේ ඒ ජනතා කැමැත්ත නැතිබව දැනගත් නිසයි. දැන් කොහොම හරි පන්සල් මාර්ගයෙන් ඡන්දය ගන්න බලනවා. අරලියගහ මන්දිරයට වැඩම කළ හාමුදුරුවරුන්ගෙන් හතර පස්‌ දෙනෙක්‌ ඇරෙන්න අනිත් කිසිම හිමිනමක්‌ ආණ්‌ඩුවට ඡන්දය දෙන්නැයි කියලා කියන්නේ නැහැ. ඒ පැත්තෙන්
 
 විළිලැඡ්ජා නැති අගමැතිවරයාගේ උත්සාහයත් අසාර්ථකයි. අපි මහා සංඝරත්නයෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටිනවා බෙදුම්වාදයට උඩගෙඩි දෙන වැඩවලට සහාය නොදෙන ලෙසට. ඒ වරද නොකරයි කියා අපි විශ්වාස කරනවා. අගමැතිවරයා නමින් බෞද්ධ වුණාට එතුමාට පව් පින් තේරෙන්නේ නැහැ. මේ රජයෙන් ආගමට වූ සෙතක්‌ නැහැ. උතුරේ බුදු පිළිම ඉවත් කරනවා. බෙදුම්වාදයට කප්පම් දෙමින් ආණ්‌ඩුව කටයුතු කරනවා. 
 
 එදා අරලියගහ මන්දිරයට වැඩම කළ සිටි මහා සංඝරත්නය අපි දැක්‌කා. ගොඩක්‌ දෙනෙක්‌ අලුතින් පන්සල් හදාගත් හිමිවරුන්. අපි ඒ ගැන කියමින් උඩ බලාගෙන කෙළගසා ගන්නේ නැහැ. බයට වඩා ලැඡ්ජා නැති අගමැතිවරයෙක්‌ යටතේ තමයි අද මේ රට පාලනය වෙන්නේ. රටේ ජනාධිපතිවරයාත් දන්නවා හිටපු රජය කළ දේවල් ගැන. එතුමා පත්තරෙන් දැක්‌කා කියා විහිළු සපයන්න එපා. 
 
 දේශවිමුක්‌ති පක්‍ෂයේ නියෝජ්‍ය නායක ගලගම ධම්මරංසි හිමි –
 
 අරලියගහ මන්දිරයට අපේ මහා සංඝරත්නය වැඩම කරවලා දුන් මුදල් අපේ පන්සල්වලම මුදල්. ඒ මුදල් පිං කැටවල මුදල්. පන්සලේ පිං කැටවල මුදල් එකතු කරලා ආයෙත් පන්සල්වලටම දීපු එකයි කළේ. එහෙම කළ එක ගැන සතුටු වෙනවා. නමුත් අගමැතිවරයා මේ ස්‌ථානයේදී කළේ වෛරී සහගත ප්‍රකාශ. අපි ඒවා පිළිකුළෙන් යුතුව හෙළාදකිනවා. පිංකමක්‌ කරන වෙලාවේ ක්‍රෝධය, වෛරය පතුරවමින් මේ රටට විශාල මෙහෙවරක්‌ ඉටු කළ මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතාට මඩ ගහන එක තමයි කළේ. 
 
 මේ රටේ සමස්‌ත භික්‍ෂූන් වහන්සේලා හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරයාට ආදරෙයි. එතුමා රට, ජාතිය වෙනුවෙන් විශාල මෙහෙවරක්‌ කළා. මුළු චරිතය පුරාම ශ්‍රද්ධාව තිබෙනවා. නාමිකව බෞද්ධ වූ අගමැතිවරයාට සදාචාර අයිතියක්‌ නැහැ හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරයාට භික්‍ෂූන් වහන්සේලා ඉදිරියේ එහෙම ප්‍රකාශ කරන්න. සංඝයා වහන්සේලා භාවිතා කරගෙන තම දේශපාලන අරමුණු ඉටු කර ගැනීමේ පරමාර්ථයෙන් තමයි ඒ වැඩපිළිවෙළ ගෙන ගියේ.

කතු වැකිය උපුටා ගැන්ම දිවයින

වගාවට මුල්තැන දෙන සංස්‌කෘතියක්‌ හදන්නට, ගොවියා රජ කරවන්නට, රට සහලින් ස්‌වයංපෝෂිත කරවන්නට පැමිණි යහපාලන ආණ්‌ඩුව හාල්, පොල්, පිටරටින් ගෙන්වන්නට සැරසෙන බව කියෑවේ. ඉස්‌සර නම් කීවේ ‘හඳෙන් ගෙනැවිත්’ හෝ හාල් දෙන බවය. එහෙව් එකේ පිටරටින් හෝ හාල් පොල් ගෙන්වීමට තීරණය කිරීම ගැන අපේ අහිතක්‌ නැත. එහෙත් දුකට කාරණාවක්‌ තිබේ. එනම් තේ, පොල්, රබර් අපනයනය කරන්නට නම් දරාපු රටකට පොල් පිටරටින් ආනයනය කරන්නට සිදුවීමය. හාල් අතිරික්‌තයක්‌ ඇතැයි කියන, ඒ අතිරික්‌තය බියර් හදන්නට විකුණන රටකට හාල් පිටරටින් ගෙන්වන්නට සිදුවීමය. විශාල කරදරයක්‌ සිදු වූ විට එලොව පොල් පෙනුණා යනුවෙන් කියන කතාවද, කුමක්‌ හෝ පිස්‌සුවක්‌ නටන පුද්ගලයකුට දෙයියන්ගේ හාල් කැවිලා යෑයි කියන කතාවද ඉදිරියේදී කියන්නට තරමක්‌ ලැඡ්ජා සිතේ.

 කෙසේ හෝ හාල් පොල් පිටරටින් ගෙන්වන්නට තීරණය කළ ආණ්‌ඩුව ස්‌ථිරවම එකක්‌ පිළිගෙන තිබේ. එනම් ජීවන වියදම ඉහළ ගොස්‌ ඇති බවය. ඒවා පිටරටින් ගෙන්වන්නට කැබිනට්‌ තීරණය ලැබෙන්නේ ද ජීවන වියදම සියයට 60 ක්‌ ඉහළ යැම නිසා බව වාර්තා විය.
 
 ජීවන වියදම ‘බැලන්ස්‌’ කරන්නට ගත් ඉක්‌මන් ක්‍රියාමාර්ග ගැන ආණ්‌ඩුවට ස්‌තුතිය පුද කළ යුතුය. එහෙත් අපට තිබෙන ප්‍රශ්නය වන්නේ හාල්, පොල්, නිසා ජීවන වියදම ඉහළ යැමටත්, හාල් – පොල් වල මිල ඉහළ යැමටත් ‘ඉක්‌මනක්‌’ බලපෑවේ නැති වීමය. කොටින්ම කීවොත් මේ අත්‍යාවශ්‍ය පාරිභෝගික ද්‍රව්‍ය දෙකේ පමණක්‌ නොව තවත් බොහෝ භාණ්‌ඩවල මිල ඉහළ යැම වත්මන් යහපාලන ආණ්‌ඩුවේ වයස නොව ඊටත් වඩා පරණය. දැනටමත් මේ රටේ ජනතාව හාල් කන්නේ පිටරටින් ගෙන්වන මට්‌ටමෙනි. හාල් එතරම් ගණන් ය. අපේ රටේ සහල් නිෂ්පාදනයක්‌ සිදුවෙනවා ද යන්න සැක සිතෙන තරමටම මිල ඉහළය. එතරම් පරණ ප්‍රශ්නත් විසඳන්නට මේ වන විට ආණ්‌ඩුව ඉදිරිපත් කර ඇති (ඇත්ත වශයෙන්ම ආණ්‌ඩුව නොව ඊට වගකිව යුතු කෘෂිකර්ම අමාත්‍යාංශය මෙහිදී ප්‍රමුඛය) වැඩපිළිවෙළක්‌ අපි දන්නේ නැත. කොටින්ම කීවොත් සහල් නිෂ්පාදනයේ සිට විකිණීම දක්‌වාම ඇත්තේ අර්බුදය. කුඹුරට පොහොර නැතැයි ගොවීහු උද්ඝෝෂණය කරති. අස්‌වැන්න සාධාරණ මිලකට විකුණාගත නොහැකිව උද්ඝෝෂණය කරති. අන්තිමේදී අතිරික්‌තය ගබඩා කරන්නට තෝරා ගන්නේ මත්තල ගුවන් තොටුපළය. රටේ තිබෙන පොල් ඉඩම්, ඉඩම් – නිවාස වෙළෙන්දෝ කුණු කොල්ලයට අත්පත් කරගෙන මුඩු බිම් කර විකුණා දමති. මේවා ගැන ආණ්‌ඩුව ක්‍රියාත්මක කළ ප්‍රතිපත්තිය කුමක්‌ද? පිටරටින් ගෙන්වන්නට පෙර කවුරු කවුරුත් කල්පනා කළ යුතු කාරණා මේවාය.
 
 ජනතාව රජයෙන් වැඩිපුර දේවල් ඉල්ලුවේ නැත. එහෙත් පසුගිය අවුqරුදු තුනේම ඉල්ලනවටත් වැඩි දේ දෙන’ බවට ආණ්‌ඩුව පොරොන්දු වූ විට ජනතාව තුළ යම් විශ්වාසයක්‌ ගොඩනැඟී තිබිණි. මෙවැනි තීරණවලින් සිදුවන්නේ එම විශ්වාසය බිංදුවට නොව සෘන බිංදුවටම, ගමේ වචනයෙන් කිව්වොත් ලෙල්ලටම වැටීමය. එවැනි ක්‍රියා ඉදිරි මැතිවරණවලට බලපාන්නේ කොහොමද කියන කාරණය ගැන අප කතා කරන්නේ නැත. ඊට හේතුව මොන දේ කළත් යළි යළි රැවටෙන්නට තරම් දක්‍ෂ ජනතාවක්‌ ද මේ රටේ සිටින බැවිනි.

Editorial Courtesy The Island

December 10, 2017, 12:00 pm
US President Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is capable of doing with his restless tongue what his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un, or ‘Rocket Man’, is threatening to do with nukes—wreaking destruction. His decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has plunged the entire region into chaos with violence escalating in the occupied territories of Palestine. All signs are that an unprecedented bloodbath is around the corner—absit omen!

Trump’s decision is, no doubt, a threat to Palestine and global peace. Above all, it has caused an existential crisis to the UN. The US action was widely condemned at the UN Security Council (UNSC) emergency meeting the other day. The US has drawn heavy flak from even its traditional allies. The UK has said it won’t consider emulating the US, which has decided to shift its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

The UN’s raison d’etre stands questioned. If the US is allowed to enjoy unbridled freedom to act as it wishes in contravention of international laws then there is absolutely no need for the UN. What is of crucial import is not so much what the UNSC thinks of the White House decision but what it is going to do about it. How does the world body propose to deal with the US move? This is the moment of truth for the UN.

The success of Trump’s make-America-great-again project hinges on his ability to remove all obstacles, real and perceived, to US effort to dominate a fast changing world, which is throwing up new challenges and threats. President George H. W. Bush started the Gulf War to overcome this problem by making a stunning display of the US military might in a bid to frighten the entire world into submission; all his predecessors have been fighting wars at an enormous human cost. Trump wanted to do a Bush, but baulked at going to war with North Korea as he met his match in the Rocket Man, who has nukes at his disposal and won’t hesitate to push the nuclear button. Trump knows the North Korean nuclear threat is real unlike Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. It looks as if the US were exploring other ways of repositioning and reasserting itself in the emerging new world order. It has apparently opted for a diplomatic war with the rest of the world by defying all UN resolutions and the internationally accepted two-state policy in respect of Palestine and Israel. Trump seems to have told other nations a la Bush, “You are either with us or against us.”

Trump’s Jerusalem decision has obviously gone down well with Israel, but, in fact, it has done the latter more harm than good. The US has provided Israel’s enemies with a fresh rallying point and caused the Jewish nation to lose whatever international sympathy it may have had. Not even the traditional western allies of the US are in a position to back Trump’s decision.

The UN and the UNHRC have been accused of being mere rubber stamps of the US, but they have refused to fall in line anent the Palestine issue as evident from the sheer number of resolutions adopted by them against Israel. The US has apparently sought their total surrender through its latest move.

The biggest beneficiaries of the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as part of Israeli territory will be the various terrorist groups flaunting an Islamic cause. They are likely to make the most of the situation and take their terror campaign to the next level.

Strangely, Sri Lanka has chosen to remain silent on Trump’s decision, as one of our columnists points out today. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government is full of politicians who took MP Wimal Weerawansa to task—and rightly so—for staging a fast opposite UN Colombo Office against the UNHRC’s call for a war crimes probe against this country some years ago. It will be interesting to see what they have got to say about President Trump’s thundering slap on the UN.

Israel and Palestine will have to reach a settlement and co-exist someday. The only way to enable them to achieve that goal so their future generations will be able to live in peace is to adopt a solution in keeping with the UN resolutions on the issue. It is hoped that world powers will sink their differences and join forces to rein in the Trump administration.

MOHAN SAMARANAYAKE Courtesy The Island

“It is true; there was always corruption and fraud. But the extent of corruption in Sri Lanka in the last few years is utterly unprecedented”

Thus lamented President Sirisena in the segment ‘My Vision’ in his presidential election manifesto 2015 titled ‘Compassionate Government, Maithri: A Stable Country”. In the same manifesto he promised to ‘provide ten times development’ than that of the last government’s, ‘just by stopping corruption and wastage’.

The UNP led by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, too, made such a solemn pledge in its manifesto “A new country in sixty months: Five point plan” for the Parliamentary Election of 17 August 2015.

The people who were fed up with widespread and uncontrolled corruption during the previous administration believed them. Both leaders were victorious at the respective elections. Mr. Sirirsena became President and Mr. Wickremesinghe, the Prime Minister. What happened thereafter was the complete opposite of what they promised. Here is only one example out of many which, in my view, vividly displays the dishonesty, callous disregard and cynical attitude on the part of our rulers towards the people who elected them to power.

Following the submission of the Cabinet paper no: 16/0309/702/010 by the Prime Minister of the yahapalana government on 17 February 2016, the Cabinet of Ministers, headed by the President, granted approval to lease a building at 228, Sri Jayawardanepura Mawatha, Rajagiriya to house the Ministry of Agriculture at a rent of Rs.21 million per month. It also required a down payment of rent for two years, amounting to Rs. 504 million. The government valuer’s assessment of the value of the same building amounted to Rs. 13.5 million a month, which was Rs. 7.5 million less than the rental agreed by the Ministry of Agriculture. The reason given for the relocation of the Ministry from Govijana Mandiraya in Battaramulla to the proposed location was to provide that space to be used by oversight committees of the Parliament.

On 7 April 2016 the Committee of Public Accounts (COPA) informed the Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture of its inability to approve the leasing of the proposed building without following government procurement procedures. The Secretary of any Ministry is the Chief Accounting Officer of that entity, and must comply with directives from the Auditor General, COPA and the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE). In spite of that, Secretary, Agriculture and the owner of the building, D.P. Jayasinghe Tours and Transport, signed the lease agreement on 8 April 2016.

The most interesting part of this story is, according to sources, the Ministry of Agriculture is yet to relocate to the leased building while the monthly rental is being paid to the owner. A JVP MP told Parliament recently that the electricity bill of the building for the past three months alone stood at Rs. 4.9 million.

Media reported on Thursday, December 7 that a supplementary estimate for Rupees 6,60,40,00 to cover expenses relating to the still unused building including monthly rent and local government taxes was tabled in the House by Minister Lakshman Kiriella, one of the vociferous anti-corruption politicians.

Meanwhile sixteen floors of office space at the recently built and government owned Suhurupaya building in Battaramulla remain unoccupied.

President Sirisena and PM Wickremesinghe, due to their extremely busy schedules with burning national problems may have forgotten what they promised during elections. But where are all the anti-corruption crusaders from the Movement for a Just Society, ‘Puravesi Balaya’,‘Pivitutru Hetak’,‘Janata Pavura’, ‘Vame Kendraya’, ‘Wathman Parapura’, Friday Forum and university dons specially from the University of Colombo Etc. Etc. one of whose main tasks is fighting corruption?

Courtesy  Shanghai Daily

CHINA has accounted for 35 percent of foreign direct investments into Sri Lanka up to September this year, with FDI for 2017 expected to total US$1.36 billion, local media said on Saturday.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Development Strategies and International Trade, there has been a strong uptick” in exports and FDI into Sri Lanka this year.

Data from the Board of Investment indicates a substantial uptick in FDI inflows to the country of US$795.5 million during January to September this year, 80 percent higher than the same period last year and already exceeding the full year 2016,” the statement said.

FDI from China is around 35 percent of FDI to date, while India’s is 16.4 percent and Singapore’s is 9.3 percent,” it added.

Other top 10 countries for FDI into Sri Lanka include Netherlands, Britain, Japan, Malaysia, Sweden, and Australia.

Shenali D Waduge 

How many are aware that Prabakaran was cornered in Vadamarachchi in June 1987? How many are aware that India actually threatened Sri Lankan Government to order its troops to set him free? How many are aware that India helicoptered Prabakaran out of Sri Lanka to India? The order came from the very man that LTTE eventually blew to pieces in India itself. Why would India want to save a terrorist leader? If India had not threatened Sri Lanka to release cornered Prabakaran in 1987 thousands of lives would have been saved. There would have been no 30year conflict. India therefore, has much to account for and not a single apology has been made for what India did to a friendly neighbor.

In 1987 JRJ was President. Lalith Athulathmudali was Minister of National Security. The Overall Operations Commander was Brig. G H de Silva while troops were led by Brig Denzil Kobbekaduwa and Col. Vijaya Wimalaratne. The offensive was launched on 26 May 1987 with 8000 troops from the Gemunu Watch, Gajaba Regiment, Sri Lanka Light Infantry. Lt. Col. Vipul Boteju, Lt. Col. Wasantha Perera, Lt. Col. Sathis Jayasundara, Maj. Gotabaya Rajapakse, Maj. Sarath Handapangoda, Lt. Col. Narada Wickramaratne were noteable figures in charge of the troops.

LTTE had blown up the Thondamanaru bridge to delay troops reaching Valvettithurai and area was heavily mined resulting in many soldier deaths. But troop morale was high. By early June the troops had gained control over entire zone but offensive had to be abandoned following the Indian threat and the forced dropping of food supplies on 3 June 1987 (just 25 tons of food from a country where their own citizens die daily of no food).

The importance of this revelation is that the parippu drop (Operation Poomalai) was on 3 June 1987 giving just 30 minutes notice to the Sri Lankan Government with threats not to react leading to the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord on 29 July 1987 with IPKF landing on 30^th July 1987.

Many of the key personnel who took on the first biggest military operation are sadly not alive today. Many of them killed by the very terrorists they were forced to let loose. Had Prabakaran been caught they would all be alive today.

The takeaway from this is that in 1987 our troops cornered Prabakaran and was about to capture him alive when India threatened to attack Sri Lanka unless it stopped its military onslaught against LTTE. There ended Operation Liberation that commenced on 26 May 1987. The combined troop action with several regiments joining for the offensive & use of diversionary troops was repeated and led to the final defeat of the LTTE in May 2009. Intelligence was also in place helping the Armed Forces pinpoint exactly where Prabakaran was located. Ironically, Operation Liberation mirrored the ‘hearts & minds campaign’ to win over the Tamil people repeated in the military cum humanitarian offensive that ended LTTE leader & ground cadres in May 2009. By 3 June 1987 entire Vadamarachchi area came under the Sri Lankan Security Forces including the main town Velvettithurai the birthplace of Prabakaran.

It was on 21 July 1987 that India sent 6 helicopters to Sri Lanka from India to transport Prabakaran, his wife & family to Delhi. They were kept at the Ashok Hotel in Delhi. He was flown back to Jaffna from Delhi after Rajiv returned to Delhi on 2 August 1987. Close to two weeks in Delhi, Prabakaran would have been biting his nails at his fate if India did not allow him to return! This showed that India kept its cards close to chest making sure Prabakaran had no access to his men until India got what it wanted the Indo-Lanka Accord & the 13^th amendment creating the provincial council system.

However, the country that saved Prabakaran attempted to kill him according to Maj. Gen. Harkirat Singh commander of IPKF who says he was ordered to eliminate Prabakaran twice in September 1987. The order came after India & RAW had begun to train & arm ENDLF (Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front) to replace Prabakaran. ENDLF comprised splinter groups from EPRLF, PLOTE, TELO. If India assured Sri Lankan Government it would disarm militants in 72 hours what was India doing training and arming ENDLF?

India that threatened Sri Lanka not to capture Prabakaran and whisked him off to Delhi using the IPKF declares war on LTTE on 8 October 1987 exactly 70 days after landing in Sri Lanka. IPKF left Sri Lanka in March 1990 and on 21^st May 1991 Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Tamil Nadu. If Gen. Harikat had carried out orders then Prabakaran would be dead & Rajiv Gandhi would be alive too!

There are some puzzling points – India saves Prabakaran from capture by Sri Lankan troops & is transported to Delhi where Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi presents his own bullet proof vest and then India tries to bump Prabakaran off after signing the Indo-Lanka Accord & placing Indian troops in Sri Lanka! But Prabakaran beats Rajiv Gandhi at his own game and Rajiv ends up in smithereens. What does this all add upto?

It could only mean that the Tamil militancy was used as a means to justify Indian presence in Sri Lanka & the Tamil grievance issue is also being used to justify Indian interference in Sri Lanka. That Tamils are aware of this but is using it to advance their own agendas is good to take note of. Let’s all realize that the Tamils that died who were victims of LTTE were all low caste, poor or promising future leaders. Against this 1m Tamils because of LTTE terrorism found their way to live in foreign shores & have helped their families prosper from foreign remittances. Naturally, Tamils are silently thankful for the windfall. 1m Tamils would not be living overseas if not for LTTE terrorism.

If India could exert this much influence over a neighbor it would have been peanuts to influence the 1983 riots thus creating the necessary environment to bring out the LTTE into the open & use the attacks on Tamils as a global propaganda to justify LTTE existence. The Indian role in creating ground work for the 1983 riots was nicely brushed into the background & instead the propaganda channels ensured the Sinhalese were branded as murderers ignoring that the attacks were systematically done with government involvement. Many rumours still remain that Indian intelligence were also heavily involved from the background while the cream of the Tamil society were kept safe & protected.

The Indian roleplay is confusing in the light of certain discrepancies questioning who was ordering whom & who were deciding what cards to play. If Indian intelligence trained Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups clandestinely referring to them as ‘our boys’ it explains why the IPKF were not given proper maps & ill-prepared for the task that Indian Government committed to under the Indo-Lanka Accord. What was the real purpose in Indian troop presence – they did not speak Tamil, they did not know to identify Tamils, Sinhalese or Muslims or even LTTE. Therefore, when Dixit wrote to Delhi on 19 September 1987 that IPKF was totally unprepared for the task at hand we want to know what that ‘task’ actually was.

India is notorious for its poor relations with all of its South Asian neighbors. Destabalizing tactics by Indian governments has been a strategy to keep all of these neighbors under Indian rule of law & influence. India maintains its self-appointed status quo as big-brother by creating influencers for which India demands a role in its solutions. It means India is no neighbor to trust and is not a reliable friend or partner. Sri Lanka’s governments have lacked a diplomatic strategy for India, to maintain cordial relations while not allowing India to bully or bulldoze Sri Lanka or Sri Lankans. Our diplomats & advisors have failed to formulate a plan to counter act / balance & defend Sri Lanka against Indian tirades, instead all have opted to take the appeasing India formula. To deal with countries playing double games, one must also have a double game.

Be that as it may, the brave commanders & troops that led Operation Liberation cornering Prabakaran in his own birthtown and minutes away from capture was stopped by India in 1987. Working on ‘what ifs’ he Prabakaran been captured in 1987 every single person that died by LTTE suicide bomber, LTTE claymore mines, LTTE bombs and assassinations would all be living today including Rajiv Gandhi, R Premadasa, cream of the UNP leadership, Lakshman Kadiragamar, scores of Tamil children would not have been kidnapped and turned into child soldiers, scores of cadres could have done something more than taking to a gun & killing, there would have been no LTTE diaspora giving everyone a headache, there would have been no LTTE illegal international network from which they are drawing millions to buy people, Sri Lanka would not have had to spend trillions on a war budget or repairing infrastructure bombed, the country would have developed and the people would be living in better conditions than they are now. The inability to do all this was because India stopped the capture of Prabakaran in 1987 and India should not only apologize but should compensate for all of the losses.

Instead India wants to take over Trinco turn it into a naval base, take Mattala and turn it into an Indian airforce base to spy on China, force Sri Lanka to sign ETCA and flood Indians into Sri Lanka to turn it into a virtual Indian colony, take Sampur, grab our energy & food security and we have a bunch of fools in Parliament who are clueless to even imagine the consequences and dangers of India’s manoevres.

Shenali D Waduge

චාර්ල්ස් එස් පෙරේරා විසින්

2015  ජනවාරි 16 වනදා  ජනාධිපති  මහින්ද රාජපක්ස මැතිතුමා,  ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස්පක්ෂයේ සභාපතිත්වය,  එස් ඩබ්ලියු ආර් ඩී බණ්ඩාරනායක  මැතිතුමන් විසින් ප්‍රගතිසීලි නොවන  දේශපාලන පක්ෂයක් හැටියට සලකනලද  එක්සත් ජාතිකපක්ෂයෙන්  හා ඊට සම්බන්ධවූ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ විසින් තෝරාගත්  ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රිපාල සිරිසේන මැතිතුමාට පැවරීමෙන්, ලංකාවේ පංච මහා බලවේගයන්ට තමන්ගේ දේශපාලන පක්ෂය අහිමිවූයේය.

ඒ වෙනුවට නව දෙශපාලන පක්ෂයක අවශ්‍යතාවය පිරිමසන්නට මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාගේ අනුශාකත්වයෙන් හා ජී ඇල් පීරිස් මැතිතුමාගේ සභාපතිත්වයෙන් දෙශ පාලන පක්ශයක ශක්තියක් නොමැතිව අනාතවසිට්ය ලාංකික පන්චමහාබලවේගයන්  සඳහා දෙශපාලනමය ශක්තියක්  ලබාදීමට, ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ පිහිටුවීම ඉතාමත් කාලෝචිතය.

එස් ඩබ්ලියු ආර් ඩී බණ්ඩාරනායක  මැතිතුමන්ගේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා  නිදහස් පක්ෂයෙ අන්තර්ගත  දේශපාලන දැක්ම මේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණතුල අන්තර්ගතව  ඇති බැවින්,  ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මැතිතුමා නායකත්වයදෙන ශ්‍රී ලංකා  නිදහස් පක්ෂය අලියාගේ පුකෙන් වැටුණු දිවුල්ගෙඩියක්මෙන් හිස්ය.

ළඟ අනාගතයේදී  පවත්වනවායයි කියන ප්‍රාදේශීය සභා චන්දයට පොදූජනපෙරමුනෙන් එදිරිපත්කරන සභිකයන්ට චන්දයදීමෙන් රට අගාදියකට ඇදදමාගෙන යන ඉලව් යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුවට අනතුරුහැඟවීමක් කලහැකිය.

පොදූජනපෙරමුනෙ අපේක්ෂකයින්ට අපහසුතාවයන් ඇතිකිරීමට සිරිසෙන-රනිල් දෙපල අනොමය උත්සාහයක් ගන්නවා ඇත. ඊට මුහුණදීමට ජනතාව දැන්මම සුදානම් විය යුතුය. මේ සඳහා මුන්ගේ පළමුවන උත්සහායවෙන්නේ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාගේත්, පොදුජනපක්ෂ නායකයින්ගේත්, ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂනායකයින්ගේත් චරිත ඝාතනයන් විශාල ලෙස ගෙනයාමයි.

එමෙන්ම ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මැතිතුමාට සුපුරුදු 2015 අගෝස් තුමාසයේ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාට, ඔබ දිනුවත් අගමැතිකම ඔබට නොදෙමෙයි” වශයෙන් ලියු තර්ජනාත්මක ලිපි මෙවරද ලිවීමට ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන පෙළඹීමට ඉඩ නැතිවා නොවේ.

මේවාට පොදුජනතාව රැවටිය නොයුතුයි. සිරිසෙන-රනිල්ගෙ යහපාලනය තක්කඩි හොරුබවට කරුනුකාරනා දැනටමත් එළිවී තියෙනවා. නමුත් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා  හෝ පොදුජනපක්ෂ නායකයින් හෝ ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂනායකයින්ගේත් හොරකම් ගැන ගෙන යන චරිත ඝාතන, හා මඩගැසීම් කිසිම සාක්කි නැතිව කරන බොරු ප්‍රචාරයන්ය. 

මොවුන් කවරෙක්වත්  බටලන්දේ කොමිසන්  වාර්තාව වැනි කොමිසන් වාර්තාවකින්  මිනීමරුවන් හෝ මැරවරයින් බවට සඳහන්වී නැත.

සමහරක් ඊනියා දේශපාලන විචාරකයින් හා මද්‍යස්ථ මාද්‍යවෙදීන්යයි කියාගන්නවුන් කිසිම හේතු සාධක නැතිව කියනවා මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ රජයකාලයේ මාද්‍ය වෙදීන් බොහෝමයක් මැරුවාය, සුදුවෑන් රථ වලින් මිනිසුන් පැහරගෙනගියාය ආදීවශයෙන්. නමුත් මෑතකදී Lankaweb හී  ශේනාලී වඩුගේ මහත්මිය ලියු ලිපියක ඈ හේතුසහගතව ලීයනවා එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ ආන්ඩුකාලවලදී කොපමණක් මාද්‍යාවේදීන් මරාදෑමුවාද කියලා.

එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ ආන්ඩු අපෙරටෙ විනාෂමකාරි ආණ්ඩු බවට ඕනෑතරම් සාක්ෂිතියෙනවා. අදත් යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුවේ වඩාත්ම  බලවත් එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයයයි රට විනාෂකිරීමේ ප්‍රතිපත්‍යය ගෙනයන්නේ. ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මැතිතුමා ඔවුන්ගේ අතකොලුවක්වී හමාරයි.

මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ රජයකාලයේ ශ්‍රී ලංකාව අතීශයින් දියුණුවුණා පමණක් නොවේ රට එක්සත්ව, ආරක්ෂිතව, හා සාමයෙන්යුතුව පැවතුන බව නැ කියන්න කිසිවෙකුවටවත් පුළුවන්කමක් නැ.

ඒ නිසා අපේ රට නැවතත් වැටී තිබෙන අගාදියෙන්  මුදවාගෙන, රට එක්සත් කරලා, බෞද්ධ සංස්කෘතික ප්‍රභෝදය ඇතිකරන්නත්, ජාතික සමගිය ඇතිකරන්නත් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා ගේ සහභාගිත්වය රටට අවශ්‍යයි.

මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා දෙමලුන්ටවත් මුස්ලිම් කාරයින්ටවත් විරුද්ධව කටයුතු කළේ නැති බව තතු දන්නවුන් දන්නවා. ඔහු දෙමළ ත්‍රස්තවාදීන්ට විරුද්ධව මිස දෙමළ ජනතාවට විරුද්ධව කටයුතු කලේ නෑ. නමුත්  දෙමළ දේශපාලකයින් හා පිටරටවල සිටින දෙමළුන්, මවාපෙන්නන්නේ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා ඇතුළු සිංහල ප්‍රජාවම දෙමල විරෝදීන් හැටියටයි.

ඒ බොරුව එසේ තියෙද්දෙන්,  නමුත් බුද්ධිමත් දෙමළ මුස්ලිම් ජනතාව මේ බොරුමගඩිවලට අසුනොවී සිංහල ජනතාව සමග එක්වී කටයුතු කලයුතු කාලය එළඹී තිබෙන බැවින් ලඟඑන ප්‍රාදේශීය සභා චන්දයට පොදූජනපෙරමුනෙන් එදිරිපත්කරන සභිකයන්ට චන්දය දීමෙන් ලංකික ජනතාවගේ සමගිය තහවුරුකරගන්න බුද්ධිමත් දෙමළ මුස්ලිම් ජනතාවගෙන් ඉල්ලාසිටින්නෙමු.

Mahinda Gunasekera

SHOCKING !  His Excellency Atul Keshap, Ambassador for the USA in Sri Lanka, and Acting Asst. Secretary of State, Ms. Alice Wells are seen participating in a Protest Rally in Colombo, organized by the Tamil National Alliance representing the political opposition to draw attention to those Tamils alleged to be missing in Sri Lanka.  The US Ambassador and Actg. Asst. Secretary of State are clearly violating the first principle of diplomatic privilege by their joining such a protest rally.

Those allegedly missing could well be living in the USA, UK, the EU, and the rest of the developed countries, as it is well known that they have flocked to these countries in dilapidated boats, minus their identity papers, or with forged documents, to claim asylum and refuge by cooking up tales of discrimination, torture and harassment to gain access to the economically advanced western nations. They have bypassed Tamilnadu in South India, just twenty (20) miles from Sri Lanka’s northern coast where over 72 million Tamils live, to which region they are linguistically and culturally linked, to travel half way around the globe  taking numerous risks to benefit as economic refugees.

It is also known that some of these asylum seekers have taken up new identities in the lands to which they migrated. It is also estimated that over a million Sri Lankan Tamils have taken up residence in the western world during the last three decades, who also contributed to the war chest of the Tamil Tiger Terrorists with many claiming to have left Sri Lanka for fear of the Tamil Tigers conscripting them for their separatist war effort. The number of Tamils reported as “missing” is said to be about 14,000 to 15,000, with a further 5,000 to 6,000 members of Sri Lanka’s Security Forces too have been reported as Missing in Action. The alleged “missing” Tamils may well be among those who have taken advantage of the conflict to gain access to the economically developed west.

Mahinda Gunasekera

Sri Lanka: Understanding Trump’s foreign policy

Asian Tribune Foreign Policy Note

Washington, D.C. 02 September (Asiantribune.com):

Who is Alice Wells who just visited Sri Lanka, met officials including the country’s president Maitripala Sirisena?Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs Alice Wells

Does she represent Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda? Has Sri Lanka researched what the Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda is?

Did Sri Lanka know that Alice Wells – acting assistant secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, I reiterate –acting not confirmed by the US Senate, who was recalled from her ambassadorial position in Jordan by the Trump administration in June at King Abdullah’s request?

Does Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry know that Alice Wells was working very closely with the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Under Secretary (Political) William J. Burns to develop the Obama administration policy agenda to pave the way for Sri Lanka to face international scrutiny for war crimes and accountability for its military action during the final phase of the Eelam War IV?

Does Sri Lanka know that it was Ms. Wells who assisted the Clinton State Department to coordinate with UN Office of Under-Secretary General to initiate Sri Lanka scrutiny in UNHRC, Geneva?

Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs Alice Wells (C), Ambassador of the United States to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Atul Keshap (2R) and Sri Lanka’s opposition leader R. Sampanthan (R) attend a candle light vigil for the minority Tamils missing since the end of the island’s drawn out Tamil separatist war in May 2009, in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo on 30 August 2017 – AFPFor Sri Lanka’s information, Alice Wells returned to the United States in 2009 after completing her diplomatic assignments abroad and served in several high-profile staff positions.

Until 2011, she was executive assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns. Wells was then named executive assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, working with her until 2012. At that time, she moved to the White House, becoming special assistant to the president. It was during this period that Washington initiated international scrutiny of war crimes, violation of international humanitarian law, and accountability for the military actions during the final phase of the war with Tamil Tigers etc.

The Asian Tribune has been raising questions connected to Sri Lanka’s humiliation before the international community initiated by the Obama’s White House special adviser and UN ambassador Samantha Power, Obama’s National Security adviser Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton State Department when the Rajapaksa administration had its reigns in Sri Lanka, and since the advent of the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe administration, questioning if its Ministry of Foreign Affairs commenced a study of the Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda to get out of the UN agenda put in place by Obama-Clinton duo dismissing the intervention of global jurists in domestic affairs.

Asian Tribune can confidently say that there were only two Sri Lankan diplomats since the conclusion of the Eelam War IV in May 2009 who took utmost efforts to minimize or eliminate the Western agenda on Sri Lanka in Geneva: Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka and Tamara Kunanayakam.

Sri Lanka’s Sirisena-Wickremasinghe administration is yet to distance itself from the machinations of the Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. If it does not understood that the State Department’s most recent visitor acting” assistant secretary Wells doesn’t represent Trump’s global agenda, Sri Lanka has not comprehended the Trump administration’s true nature in regard to foreign dealings and what changes his secretary of State Rex Tillerson is making in his shop.

The Trump administration has not isolated itself from world affairs but has taken certain policy decisions with the knowledge of how previous American administrations used their foreign-policy tools to subjugate developing Third World nations such as Sri Lanka not to interfere in domestic affairs of other nations unless America’s national security and economic power is threatened.

Most recently as August 21 at the military base Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, President Donald Trump on the topic ‘Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia’ declared: But we will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands, or try to rebuild other countries in our own image. Those days are now over. Instead, we will work with allies and partners to protect our shared interests. We are not asking others to change their way of life, but to pursue common goals that allow our children to live better and safer lives. This principled realism will guide our decisions moving forward.”

When asked about the implications of the ongoing purge – immediately following the abortive military coup in Turkey in 2015 – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump echoed: What right do we in the United States have to criticize the condition of human rights elsewhere?

Here’s Trump: I think right now when it comes to civil liberties, our country has a lot of problems, and I think it’s very hard for us to get involved in other countries when we don’t know what we are doing and we can’t see straight in our own country. We have tremendous problems when you have policemen being shot in the streets, when you have riots, when you have Ferguson. When you have Baltimore. When you have all of the things that are happening in this country — we have other problems, and I think we have to focus on those problems. When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger.”

Trump, as the 45th president inaugurated on 20 January 2017, has not changed his position, and in fact, embedded the above sentiments into his foreign policy agenda.

Trump’s secretary of state Rex Tillerson has led to the convening of the State Department’s Executive Steering Committee to draft new statements on the department’s purpose, mission and ambition as part of the overall reorganization of the State Department and USAID, revealed in an internal email that went out on July 28.

This internal email reveals the State Department’s draft statement on its purpose as: We promote the security, prosperity and interests of the American people globally.”

The State Department’s draft statement on its mission is: Lead America’s foreign policy through global advocacy, action and assistance to shape a safer, more prosperous world.”

The department’s draft statement on its ambition is: The American people thrive in a peaceful and interconnected world that is free, resilient and prosperous.”

The existing (fiscal year 2016 and before) State Department Mission Statement runs as follows: The Department’s mission is to shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people everywhere. This mission is shared with the USAID, ensuring we have a common path forward in partnership as we invest in the shared security and prosperity that will ultimately better prepare us for the challenges tomorrow.”

The significant difference is the deletion of justice and democracy.

On May 3, addressing the department staff, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared, if we condition too heavily that others must adopt this (American) value that we’ve come to over a long history of our own, it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.”

In March, Secretary Tillerson was absent when the state department issues the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices Worldwide. This was the first occasion the secretary of state was absent when the American administration’s human rights report was released.

In a another example, the State Department will soon eliminate the www.humanrights.gov website and move its contents to an alternate web address, www.state.gove/j/drl, the Asian Tribune is in a position to report.

If Sri Lanka has no capacity to understand this bit – this bit – that the Obama White House and Clinton State Department adopted a policy to humiliate Sri Lanka in the past, but this time, Sri Lanka is humiliating itself for reasons unknown to even erudite persons like Dayan Jayatilleka and Tamara Kunanayakam.

– Asian Tribune –

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane  Source: Ceylon Today 

The Gangodawila Magistrate’s Court on 7 December ordered the Police to speed up their investigations into the sexual assault cum abuse of children at the Darun Nusra orphanage in Dehiwala and refer their findings to the Attorney General’s Department.

This Muslim orphanage Darun Nusra is run by Al-Muslimaath, of which Dr. Mareena Reffai is the founder.

All the girls at the orphanage were below 18 years and had been placed under the care of the Department of Probation who had sent the children to this orphanage.

A silent protest was held in front of the Court, in support of the 18 girls subjected to sexual abuse while they were in care of this Muslim orphanage, and against the Muslim perpetrator who committed the offence. The protest was organized by a collective of various humanitarian organisations, activists and volunteers. The perpetrator – 62-year-old Mohamed Sarippuge Mohar, was living at the orphanage premises.

The perpetrator is being accused under one charge of grave sexual assault and eight charges of sexual abuse. However, he is presently out on bail.

Shiraz Noordeen, the Counsel representing several teenagers, noted that the fact that the Police investigation with regard to the case had not been concluded has resulted in justice being delayed. “The lethargic process of the Police investigation has undermined this case.” Accordingly, the Magistrate ordered the Kohuwala Police to conclude the investigations and refer the case to the Attorney General’s Department for advice.

The group of counsels representing the teenage orphans informed the Court that the Kohuwala Police had failed to record the statement of a volunteer teacher at the orphanage.

The National Child Protection Agency is presently investigating the issue and preparing its report.

Ceylon Today has previously learnt that Dr. Reffai had, despite being notified on repeated occasions of “the despicable act of sexual molestation of the girls at Darun Nusra, which were committed by the suspect and had been taking place since 2015,”, turned a blind eye to it and continued to employ the perpetrator until he was arrested this year.

Source: Ceylon Today 

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane

Courtesy corporatecrimereporter.com Editor 

Fifty-five years after Rachel Carson in Silent Spring warned about the dangers of DDT and unchecked pesticide use, a former Reuters reporter is raising the red flag about the pesticide treadmill we can’t get off of.

In Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science (Island Press, 2017)investigative journalist Carey Gillam lays bare details about the 40-year push to prominence of the world’s most popular pesticide: glyphosate, known commonly as Monsanto’s Roundup.

Gillam is currently research director at US Right to Know.

Gillam says that glyphosate is the most widely used agrichemical in history – a pesticide so pervasive it’s in our air, our water, our food, and even our own bodies.

In Whitewash, Gillam explores the legal claims of thousands of Americans who believe Roundup caused their cancers, and exposes the influence of a multi-billion-dollar industry that has worked for decades to keep consumers in the dark and regulators in check.

Gillam unveils industry communications and regulatory documents that reveal corporate ties to a cast of players, from journalists and regulators to mommy bloggers and scientists at public universities.

Carey Gillam

Gillam traces what she calls the corruption of science,” uncovering stories of how agribusiness has taken advantage of useful” government employees and censored or discredited scientists to bury evidence of harm.

Gillam shows how political influence has been at work for years in regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Adminnistration (FDA), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – the very agency created as a result of Carson’s findings in her book Silent Spring.

Both the EPA and the European Commission are currently analyzing whether to keep glyphosate on the market or limit its use, and U.S. cancer claims are moving closer to trial amid rising global interest in the truth about this deeply pervasive pesticide.

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer – part of the World Health Organization – came to the conclusion that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic.

What do you mean by the corruption of science?

We have dug up documents through the Freedom of Information Act and state record requests. And we have documents that have come to light in litigation that is now pending against Monsanto,” Gillam told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. It’s an eye opening, jaw dropping trove of evidence that Monsanto has been working very hard over many years to bury evidence of harm from this chemical and trumpet their own research.”

The documents show that Monsanto has put together an army of surrogates and soldiers –   professors, academics – people who appear to be independent of Monsanto, but who in fact, behind the curtains, are having money funneled to their organizations, to their universities, to their research programs. In exchange, some of them are having Monsanto write the presentations that they deliver. They are taking drafts that Monsanto will put together and their name will be put on an independent positive review of glyphosate. In fact, Monsanto wrote it. That is not disclosed anywhere. The documents show that Monsanto used the term ghostwriting for certain research papers. They essentially bring scientists on, pay them money, and put their names on research reports. But Monsanto does the writing and the editing. Monsanto lays this out in internal documents.”

You could go on and on. One that sticks with me is a case where Monsanto wanted to set up an organization that would appear to be independent of Monsanto that would write reports or stories that would criticize scientists or journalists or others who were writing things not positive about glyphosate or GMOs.”

In their emails, they say – you can’t let anybody know Monsanto is behind this, we have to keep Monsanto in the background.”

And they formed that organization and it has been up and running and doing what they want it to do – attacking the credibility of scientists and others who raise questions about Monsanto and glyphosate.”

What about reporters?

Monsanto has made a concerted effort to train reporters on how to report on the industry. They are holding boot camps and bringing in these supposedly independent professors and others to train these reporters and others how to think about the science and the issues. They are trying to influence press coverage.”

When they realized that I wasn’t going to follow the corporate narrative, they tried to pressure and bully me. They will offer exclusives and lure in journalists that will give them stories that will make the journalists look good in the eyes of their editors. As long as the reporter sticks to a certain narrative, they are fine. They bully reporters who don’t follow the narrative. I was told more than once or twice that there were no facts wrong in my story. They said that the problem with my stories was something called false balance. I should not be presenting two sides to a story. I should only be presenting their side.”

Who told you that?

I heard that from Monsanto PR people. I heard it from the industry public relations people at BIO. I heard it from numerous players for Monsanto and the chemical industry. They wrote about this in one of the documents. They called it Carey Gillam and false balance.”

They accused me of presenting both sides when only one side was valid.

When did you leave Reuters?

Late 2015.”

Why did you leave?

The industry pressure was part of the reason. It became increasingly difficult to convince editors that the stories were valid. During the first twelve to thirteen years, I had a solid editor who wasn’t afraid of industry criticism, who wasn’t afraid of pressure. The editorial management changed in the last couple of years before I left. It was just different. I had an editor who didn’t have a background in agriculture, didn’t know the industry at all, who told me for instance that glyphosate wasn’t a big story, wasn’t going to be a story, nobody was concerned about glyphosate. That was shortly before 2015 when the International Agency on Research on Cancer classification became top news all around the world. It was becoming difficult to do my job. So I went somewhere where I could do my job.”

You use the term corruption of science. But what about corruption in government? Why hasn’t the government acted forcefully and moved against glyphosate?

There is a long history within the Environmental Protection Agency of protecting corporate interests. Of course, it all comes back to money. And in some of the documents, Monsanto is clear – we want the EPA to do this one thing.”

And Monsanto spends a lot of money on lobbying and campaign contributions. And we are going to lean on these lawmakers. And they are going to lean on these publically appointed officials within EPA. And they are going to tell the EPA –  we want this to happen. And you see that in these internal documents.”

There is also the revolving door. When officials leave the EPA, they can get lucrative jobs within the chemical industry – if they are friendly, if they are useful. There was an EPA official overseeing the glyphosate cancer review. He left the EPA and almost immediately started getting work with the chemical industry. And Monsanto loved this guy. They talked about it in their internal documents, how useful he could be. And how they wanted him to be the one they were dealing with, instead of somebody else on the glyphosate issue.”

There were three top EPA officials that Monsanto went to to try and kill a glyphosate review by another federal agency. They didn’t want it. They said they were worried that this other federal agency would agree with the International Agency for Research on Cancer and find problems with glyphosate. And they asked the three top people at EPA to help kill the review. And those guys jumped right on it and killed it.”

I don’t know. Is that corruption? Is that collusion? Is that collaboration? Is that just good buddies? I don’t know, but it seems to have served the corporation better than it served the public.”

What is the status of the private litigation against Monsanto?

There are about 3,000 plaintiffs around the United States who are suing Monsanto alleging that Monsanto knew and covered up the evidence that its glyphosate gave them or their loved ones cancer. Obviously, some of these people have died, so their family members have sued. Some of them are alive and suffering from cancer right now. Several hundred of those lawsuits have been consolidated in federal court in California. And that’s where we have seen the bulk of these discovery documents come to light. And Monsanto has been fighting tooth and nail to keep them secret and keep them sealed. And it has been a real battle in the courts. But they have gotten several hundred pages of documents unsealed.”

Have any of these cases been settled or gone to trial?

No. The first trials are set for June 2018.”

When was the first case filed?

The first cases were filed in 2015, after the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic. The lawsuits have been mounting rapidly. There have been cases filed almost every week. The International Agency for Research on Cancer found the most positive link between glyphosate and non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. All of these plaintiffs are suing over non Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”

I see on your web site that you will appear before the European Parliament next month. What will you be saying?

The agenda has changed a couple of times. Monsanto Chairman Hugh Grant was invited to be on a panel discussion with me before the European Parliament members. And he declined to attend. They are changing the discussion a bit. The discussion is supposed to be about EPA regulations and how the science has been handled and how the regulation has been handled. I will be addressing that topic, what we have uncovered – the arm twisting and the influence that Monsanto has brought to bear upon the agency that makes determinations about the safety of the chemical.”

[For the complete q/a format Interview with Carey Gillam, see 31 Corporate Crime Reporter 37(10), September 25, 2017, print edition only.]

 

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE

“සකල දේශවාසී ගෝතයිනි මතකය අවදි කරව්; තොපිලට නැතිවීමට ඇත්තේ තොපිලගේ දීනකම් පමණයි”  — කාලකන්ණි මාර්ක්ස් (කාල් මාක්ස් ගේ මුනුපුරු)

1988 වර්ෂයේ අග භාගයේ මුළු රටම එක්තරා පොස්ටරයකින් වැහුන.  ‘මේ කව්ද? මොනවාද කරන්නේ?’ යන ප්‍රශ්න දෙකෙන් හදපු පෝස්ටරයක්. පාට තැඹිලි.  කිතුහලය ප්‍රචාරණය වෙනුවෙන් දේශපාලනයේ යොදාගත් පළමු අවස්ථා ව මෙයයි.  ලංකාවේ.  අදහස වික්ටර් හෙට්ටිගොඩ සහ ජී. ඩබ්. සුරේන්ද්‍ර යන අයගේ.  ඇලෙව්වේ අරඹවෙලගේ  දොන් උපාලි රන්ජිත් නොහොත් සොත්ති උපාලි.  ඒ කාලේ ඒ විදිහ පෝස්ටරයක් රට පුරා අලවන්න පුළුවන් කමක් තිබුනේ සොත්ති උපාලි වගේ අයට විතරයි.

පසුව, මේ ප්‍රශ්නවල ට උත්තර සැපයූ පෝස්ටරයක් රට පුර ඒ අයම ඇලෙව්ව.  උත්තරය පටන්ගත්තේ වචන දෙකකින්: ‘මෙයා තමයි…’  ඉන් එහාට තිබුනේ රණසිංහ ප්‍රේමදාස ගේ පම්පෝරිය.  ප්‍රේමදාස ගේ ජනාධිපති මැතිවරන සටන් ආරම්බ වුනේ එහෙමයි.

කුතුහලය අවුස්සන පෝස්ටර් වටයක් පහුගියදා දකින්න ලැබුන.  ඔක්කොම ගෝඨා ගැන. ඒ කියන්නේ ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ගැන.

මුලින්ම ආවේ ගෝඨා ගේ පෝස්ටරය: ‘ගෝඨා අපේ’ .  ජාතකය ‘අපි වෙනුවෙන් අපි’.  කෙලින්ම යුධ ජයග්‍රහණයත් ත්‍රිවිද හමුදාවේ සියළු දෙනාත් සංඛේතාත්මකව ගෝඨාට යා කරන පෝස්ටරයක්.  පොඩි කුතුහල්-කැම්පේන් එකක් අර ප්‍රේමදාස ගේ එක වගේ.  පුංචි ඡන්දෙට ගෝඨා ඉදිරිපත් වෙන්නේ නැති බව පැහැදිලියි.  එහෙනම් මේ ගෝඨා එන්නේ ජනාධිපතිවරණයට වෙන්න ඕන.  ඒ කියන්නේ 2020 දී ගෝඨා ඉල්ලනවා කියන එක නැත්තම් ‘2020 දී ගෝඨා ඉල්ලුවොත් හොඳයි’ කියන එක.

කාට හරි රිදිලා.  කවුරු හරි බය වෙලා.  එහෙම නැත්තම් ඔය පෝස්ටරය ගැන කලබල වෙන්න ඕනේ නැහැනේ.

කොහොම හරි ‘රිට(ර්)න්’ එකක් දාන්න ඕන කියල හිතන්න ඇති.  ඉතින් ‘රිට(ර්)න් පොස්ටරයකුත් ගැහුවා.  එකක් නෙවෙයි.  දෙකක්ම ගැහුවා.

එකක මෙහෙම තිබුන: ‘අපි වෙනුවෙන් මිනීමරුවෙක්.’  අනිත් එක ඊට වැඩිය නිර්මාණශීලීයි: ‘ගොතා බය අමතකද?’  ලේ පැල්ලමකුත් සමග.

දැක්ක ගමන් මට මතක් වුනේ  නමින් සිංහල වූ ඒත් සිංහල කතා කරන්න බැරි කොළඹ ඉන්න සමහර උදවිය ගෝඨා ගේ නම උච්චාරණය කරන විදිහ.  ඉතිහාසය ගැන වැඩිය නොදන්නා නිසා වෙන්න ඇති.  නැත්තම් සිංහල කියවගන්න බැරුව ඇති.  වැඩිය ඇහෙන්නේ නැති නමක් ඉංග්‍රීසි පත්තර වල දැක්කම එක එක විදිහට උච්චාරණය කරන්න පෙළඹෙනව.  එයාල ගෝඨා ගේ නම මිස්ප්‍රොනවුන්ස් කරනවා මට ඇහිල තියෙනවා.  එයාල ගෝඨා ට කියන්නේ ‘ගෝටබයා’ කියල. ‘ගෝට’ සහ ‘බයා’ අතර පොඩි හිස්තැනක් තියෙන විදිහටයි උච්චාරණය කරන්නේ.  ඒ කියන්නේ ‘ගෝ-ටබයා’ නෙවෙයි ‘ගෝට-බයා’ කියල.

කොහොම වුනත් මේ ‘ගොතා බය’ කියන පද පෙරළිය නියමයි.  බොහෝ දේ කියන්න උත්සහා කරනවා.  නොකියූ දේවලුත් කියවෙනවා.  ඒ ගැන කතා කරමු.

ඇත්තටම ගෝඨා ට බය වෙන්න ඕනද?  සතියකට පෙර ‘අඩෝ! මම බය නෑ ඩෝ!’ කියල පෝස්ටරයක් ගහපු කෙනෙක් ඉන්න රටක ගෝඨා ට  නෙවෙයි මොකෙක් ට වත් බය වෙන්න ඕනේ නෑ නේ (අර ‘මම බය නෑ’ කියපු හාදය ට ඇරෙන්න). ගෝඨා ගැන බය වෙන්න හේතුවක් නැති නම් ගහන්න තිබ්බේ මේ වගේ එකක් කියලයි මට හිතෙන්න ‘ගෝඨා ට එන්න කියාපිය….මම ඕකට බය නෑ ඩෝ!’  එහෙමත් නැත්තම් අර බිග් මැච් එකක වගේ මේ විදිහට දාන්න තිබ්බ: ‘ගොඨලාට අපි බය නෑ….බය නම් අපි එන්නෙත් නෑ!’

මට පේන විදිහට පොස්ටරෙන් නොකියවෙන දේ කියන දේ ට වඩා ප්‍රබලයි: ‘ඇත්තම කතා ව මම (අපි) ගෝඨා ට බයයි.’ ඒ ගෝඨා ගේ චන්ඩි පාට් නිසා කියල කියන්න පුළුවන්, ඒත් මට නම් හිතෙන්නේ ගෝඨා ගැන බය වෙලා තියෙන්නේ තම තමන්ගේ (ඒ කිව්වේ පෝස්ටර් මාස්ටර් ල ගේ) දේශපාලන අනාගතය ගෝඨා නිසා කේස් වෙයි කියල.

කෙසේ වෙතත්  ගෝඨා පිලිබඳ බයක් නෙවෙයි නේ මෙතන තියෙන්න…මෙතන බය මතක් කරන්න කියන්නේ ‘ගෝතයෙක්’ ගැන.  ආයෙත් පෝස්ටරය මතක් කරමු: ‘ගොතා බය අමතකද?’

ගෝතයෙක් කියන්නේ සාමාන්‍ය වහරේ වැඩකට නැති කෙනෙක්, කාලකන්ණියෙක්, නිකමෙක්, වාතයක්.  එහෙම එකෙක් ට බය වෙන්නේ මොනවටද?  එහෙම එකෙක්ට කාව වත් බය කරන්න පුළුවන් ද?  ඒ වගේ එකෙක් ට ද මෙච්චර බය වෙලා තියෙන්නේ?  එතකොට අපි ඔය කියන ගෝතයා කෙසේ වෙතත් පෝස්ටර් වීරයාගේ වීරත්වය ගැන මොනවාද තීන්දු කල යුත්තේ?  ඒකා ඔය ගෝතයාටත් වඩා දුර්වලයෙක් වෙන්න  ඕන කියලයි මම නම් නිගමනය කරන්නේ.

ඒ වුනාට ගෝඨා ට බය වෙන්න හේතු නැත්තෙමත් නැහැ.  සහෝදරයා ගේ බලය තමන් වෙත ආරෝපණය කරගත්ත කෙනෙක් ගෝඨාභය කියන්නේ.  තමන් ගේ බලය හෝ දේශපාලන/ඥාති සම්බන්කධ කම් පාවිච්චි කරමින්  විවිධ ප්‍රතිවාදීන් ට තරවටු කරපු ඥාති හිතමිත්‍රාදීන් ගේ තක්කඩිකම් වලට අවසර දුන්න නැත්නම් අතහිත දුන්න එහෙමන් නැත්තම් අඩුම තරමින් සිය නිහඬ අනුමැතිය හරි දුන්න කෙනෙක් ගෝඨා.  ඔහු ගෝතයෙක් නෙවෙයි, ඒත් අහිංසකයෙකුත් නෙවෙයි. පහුගිය රජයේ බලගතුම නිලධාරියා ගෝඨා.  සිද්ද වූ මැරකම් ජඩකම් ගැන ගෝඨා නොදන්නවා විය නොහැක.  ඔහුට බය විය යුතුය.  විශේෂයෙන්ම ඔහු ට මේ රටේ විධායක ජනාධිපති වීමට උවමනාවක් තියෙනවා නම්, එම උවමනා ව සාක්ෂාත් කර ගැනීම සඳහා වටපිටාවක් නිර්මාණය වෙමින් පවතිනවා නම් ඒ ගැන යම් තක්සේරුවක් තිබිය යුතුයි (බය වීම කෙසේ වෙතත්).

අපි යමු මුලටම.  ඒ කියන්නේ මේ ‘ගෝතා බය’ මතකද අමතකද කියන එක.

ඒ ගැන මට මෙහෙම දෙයක් හිතෙනවා.  අමතක නැහැ, ඒත් එහෙම බයක් තියෙන බව පිළිගන්න සූදානම් නැහැ.  කල්පනා කරලා බැලුවම මේ රට පාලනය කරපු සහ කරන බොහෝ දෙනෙක් වැඩකට නැති, කාලකන්ණි, වාත පොරවල්.  ඒ වුනාට ඒ නිකමුන්ට අපි ජනතාවක් හැටියට බයයි.    ඒ කියන්නේ අපි ගෝතයින්ට බයයි.  ගෝතයෝ එද්දී නැගිට්ටෙනවා.  ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාවේ පහසුවෙන්ම මතක් වන වචන දෙක මතක් වෙනවා.  මැඩම්.  සර්.  මඩම් කියල කියවෙනවා. සර් කියවෙනවා.  සමහරවිට අපි අපටත් හොරෙන් හිතනවා වෙන්න පුළුවන් ඒ විදිහට ආමන්ත්‍රණය කෙරුවම එයාලගේ ගෝත ස්වභාවය අපටම අමතක වෙලා ඒ අමතක වීමත් සමගම අපේ දීනකමුත් මැකිලා යනවා කියල.

ඉතින් අපි සර්ලව මැඩම්ලව බලයට පත් කරලා ‘අඩෝ සර්ල ව මැඩම්ලව බලයට පත් කෙරුවේ අපි තමයි ඩෝ!’ කියල පොර ටෝක් දෙනවා.  අපේ ගෝත කම් එතකොට අපට අමතක වෙනවා.  එහෙම නැත්තම් ගෝත සෙට් එකක් බලයට පත් කරලා එයාලට සර් නැත්තම් මැඩම් කියල ආමන්ත්‍රණය කරනව.  සර් මැඩම් කියල ආමන්ත්‍රණය කෙරුවම අපි බලයට පත් කරලා තියෙන්නේ ගෝතයින් නෙවෙයි නෝනාවරු මහත්තුරු කියල හිත හදාගන්න පුළුවන්.

එහෙම බලනකොට ගෝතයින්ට බය වෙනවා කියන්නේ අපිටම බය වෙන එක, මොකද අපි තරම් වැඩකට නැති, කාලකන්ණි, වාත පොරවල් මේ ලෝකේ කොහෙවත් ම නැහැ. අපට පුළුවන් නම් අපටම බය වෙන්න, අපට අපේ බය නැති කරගන්නත් පුළුවන් වෙන්න ඕන.  ගෝතකමින් මිදෙන්න අවශ්‍ය නම් ඒක තමයි කරන්න ඕන.

වැදගත් ම දේ තමයි ගෝතකම අමතක නොකිරීම.  ගොතකම් හඳුනා ගැනීම, ගොතකමින් මිදී ම සඳහා අනිවාර්ය පුර්වකොන්දෙසියක්.

ගෝඨා ට බය අය බයවෙද්දෙන්.  ‘අපි බය නෑ ඩෝ!’ කියල කෑ ගැසුව දෙන්. එහෙම කරල ගෝඨා ව නෙවෙයි මොන ගෝතයෙක් වත් නවත්තන්න බැරි බව එයාලට කවද හරි තේරෙයි.  නොතේරුණත් අපට මොකෝ? අපට වෙන කාර්යයක් තියෙනව.  අපි ගෝතයින්ට බය බව තේරුම් ගැනීම.  ගෝතයින්ට බය බවත් ගෝතයින් අපව බය කරන බවත් අමතක වුන බව මතක් කිරීම. ආයේ අමතක නොකරන්න තීන්දු කිරීම.  සතුරා ඉන්නේ ඈත තැනක නොවේ, අප තුලම බව තේරුම් ගැනීම.

ගෝතයින් විසින්, ගෝතයින් සමග, ගෝතයින් සඳහා ආණ්ඩුවක් වෙනුවට පුරවැසියන් විසින් පුරවැසියන් සමග පුරවැසියන් සඳහා වන ආණ්ඩුවක් ගැන එතකොට අපට කතා කරන්න වරම් ලැබෙයි.

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando  Courtesy Ceylon Today

The term ‘Dutch Burgher’ is used to identify the ethnic group involving the descendants of Dutch Origin, who settled down in Ceylon after the British took over the Southern and Western coastal areas. In the early 17th century, Portuguese and Ceylonese Kingdoms ruled the country constantly, by battling with each other. Although the Portuguese were never able to hold full autonomy in the administration of Ceylon, their ruling was somewhat oppressive. The Dutch remained continuously engaged in a protracted war of independence from the Spanish rule.

Finally the King of Kandy invited the Dutch to help defeat the Portuguese. They eventually established a governorate, under the management of the VOC [Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie], the United East Indian Company, commonly referred to as the Dutch East India Company. In turn, the British overthrew them in 1796, and ruled the country till 1948, when Ceylon finally gained independence from foreign dominance.

Dutch Burghers

The Dutch Burghers were a distinct, but small ethnic group within the larger Eurasian community, otherwise called just plain ‘Burghers’, which was considered to be of more mixed lineage, mainly of British origin. They made their own distinctive contribution to the political, economic, and social fabric of the country and figured, with distinction, in its Executive, Legislative, and Judicial spheres. They provided leadership in the Private Sector and adorned all the esteemed professions with outstanding personalities. Their reputation was an acknowledged one of impartiality and fair-mindedness, winning the confidence and admiration of all other sections of the country’s multi-racial, multi-religious and essentially trilingual society.

“Dutch Burghers of Sri Lanka were dependents of the nine hundred families, who were fine, felicitous and a vintage mix. They were an effervescent cocktail of which, there is no other like it, in the whole world! Dutch Burghers, essentially the middle class in all the towns of Ceylon, had risen to eminence at the Bar and occupied the highest positions on the Bench. They largely enjoyed in mercantile pursuits, as writers and clerks, filling the places of trust in every administrative establishment, from the department of the Colonial Secretary to the humblest police court. Those who have settled, maintained the great traditions of their fathers and forefathers and, lent their rich savours to build the nation they were proud to call Sri Lanka.”

R.G. Anthonisz was instrumental in founding the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon in 1908, the first President of which was Hon.F.C. Loos (1908-1911), followed by such eminent personalities as R.G. Anthonisz (1916-1930), Dr. R.L. Spittel (1936-1938), Dr. R.L. Brohier (1953-1955); R.S.V. Poulier (1955-1957), Hon. Justice P. Colin-Thomé (1978-1988), et al.

The Dutch Burgher Union remains the only forum for the Dutch Burgher community to express its sense of identity, whilst not compromising the fundamental obligation it discharges to its Motherland, Sri Lanka. The members of the DBU celebrated the birthday of St. Nikolaas’, with a fete held annually on the fifth of December, the eve of the Feast of Sinterklaas (as he was known to the Dutch). For the small Dutch Burgher community in Ceylon, the Christmas season was heralded, as it was in Holland, with this event. The fetes held during the decades prior to the mass migration of the members of this community were conducted in an authentic traditional manner.

90th anniversary

The Dutch Burgher Union celebrated its 90th Anniversary in 1998, with a series of events, the climax of which was a Grand Dinner-Dance held at the 5-Star Oberoi Hotel. This was the first time a social event of this magnitude, attended by 450 guests;

and was organized by the DBU, outside their own premises at the Union building. Tickets were sold out in days, purely through publicity by word-of-mouth, leaving many disappointed. Mr. Peter Kuperus, Charge d’ Affaires of The Royal Netherlands Embassy in Sri Lanka and Mrs. Kuperus, as Chief Guests, graced the occasion. A special souvenir designed as a ‘valuable keepsake’, was produced with contributions from reputed Dutch Burghers and eminent scholars, amongst whom were Dr. K.D. Paranavitana, Mrs. Christine Wilson [daughter of Dr. R.L. Spittell, Ms. Deloraine Brohier, Mrs. Maureen Seneviratne (nee Milhuisen), Mr. Wilhelm Woutersz, a retired career Diplomat, Mrs. Christobelle Oorloff and Mrs. Anthea Muller. Some selected extracts from a book titled, “Rare Recipes of a Huis-vrouw of 1770”, found in the extensive library of Mr. R.S.V. Poulier were also reproduced in the souvenir.

Banana leaf and Lamprais

Of the recipes selected, “lamprais”, introduced to Ceylon by the Dutch from Indonesia, was, perhaps, the most widely appreciated. With polythene still to be invented in the 1600s and 1700s, and paper unsuitable for wrapping curries and ‘sambols’, which tended to seep through, on account of its high porosity, the banana leaf was found to be ideal for the purpose, in that it was hygienic and its waxy nature minimized permeability, preventing seepage and preserving the food wrapped in it for longer periods. Banana leaf imparts a desirable flavour and fragrance to the rice wrapped in it, which is very distinctive in lamprais. The banana leaf has now been found to contain a high percentage of polyphenols, like Green Tea, which means there are other health benefits as well. With Sri Lanka’s latest ban on polythene use, banana leaves could be introduced as the ideal alternative to wrap not only ‘lamprais’, but the common ‘bath packets’ too!

The Burgher community in Sri Lanka diminished drastically over the years, due to a significant scale migrating to Australia, and with inter-community and inter-racial marriages amongst Sri Lankans, both within the country and beyond its shores, all such defining lines are becoming increasingly blurred and will soon cease to be of any relevance.

tilakfernando@gmail.com

By C.A.Chandraprema Courtesy The Island

December 9, 2017, 7:13 pm

With nominations set to open on Monday for the first 93 local government institutions, frantic last minute moves are being made to form an alliance between the Joint Opposition and the SLFP faction in the government. The initiative in these moves is from the latter rather than the former. Several public figures like Ven. Elle Gunawansa thera have been involved in these negotiations on the assumption that the Sirisena faction of the SLFP is more progressive than the UNP and therefore, the Joint Oppositioin should form an alliance with them in order to keep the UNP and the TNA at bay. Ven. Gunawansa has put forward three main conditions on which he hopes the two estranged factions of the SLFP will be able to unite – halting the process of formulating a new constitution, halting the privatization of national assets and filing action against the persons involved in the bond scam.

What is missing is the main demand put forward by the Joint Opposition which is that the Sirisena faction should leave the government before serious consideration can be given to their request to field a joint list for the elections. This was a demand put forward for practical reasons – the impossibility of the opposition and a part of the government running a joint campaign against the government. The fact that the monks have chosen to de-emphasise this fundamental demand put forward by the JO indicates that theirs is an agenda based quest – to put a stop to the constitutional reform process, to stop privatization and to have the bond scam culprits brought to book. These are laudable objectives no doubt, but whether an election alliance can be forged on such an agenda is questionable.

In the first place, these three demands assume that the SLFP Sirisena faction is against the new constitution, against privatization and are willing to prosecute those at fault with regard to the bond scam. We have to bear in mind that when Arjuna Ranatunga was opposing the agreement with China Merchant Co in relation to the privatization of the Hambantota harbor, President Sirisena himself removed Ranatunga from that post and replaced him with Mahinda Samarasinghe and it was the latter who worked with his UNP colleagues to sell of the rights to the Hambantota port to China Merchant Co. Then when it comes to the new constitution, members of the SLFP like Dilan Perera and Nimal Siripala de Silva have been as vocal as anyone in the UNP on the need to devolve power in the manner recommended in the documents put out so far by the subcommittees and steering committee of the Constitutional Assembly. Furthermore, when Ven. Medagoda Abhayatissa had met the President to speak to him about the constitution, the former had told Ven. Abhayatissa that the Tamil people have an issue and that some solution has to be given to this problem.

Referring to the people of the North, Sirisena had even said “Egollange mune le binduwak ne”. To this Ven. Abhayatissa had replied that this so-called Tamil problem is that of the Tamil people not having a state of their own and that this is not an issue that can ever be resolved in Sri Lanka. What that exchange shows is that the President Sirisena himself is committed to the new constitution proposed by the UNP except to the part where the executive presidency is abolished. President Sirisena if at all is even more beholden to the TNA than is Ranil Wickremesinghe. The only reason why President Sirisena is the President today is because of the majorities he received from the northern and eastern provinces. The people of the North gave him more votes than they gave Vigneswaran. So he is acutely aware of his obligations to this constituency. Even in the early days of the yahapalana government, President Sirisena was in the habit of saying that during the Rajapaksa era various things had been distributed to the people of the North but that not one of the recipients had a smile on their faces. He was implying thereby that the only thing that will put a smile on the faces of the northern Tamils are not various chattels but the granting of their political demands. So to imagine that Sirisena is more progressive than Ranil Wickremesinghe with regard to the constitution is obviously a mistake.

As for filing action against the culprits in the bond scam, that will be a matter of political strategy. Once the report of the bond commission is in the hands of the President, it will become a weapon with which he can manipulate the UNP at will. In the event that Sirisena wishes to contest the presidency next time, the bond commission report will be the tool he will use to ensure that there is no UNP candidate and that he is the UNP’s candidate for the second time. He may not use it to file action against the UNP simply because the bond scam happens to be a crime. So to imagine that Sirisena is more progressive than Wickremesinghe would be a major folly. In terms of rhetoric the official SLFP sounds better than the UNP but what counts is what they do in practice. One gets the impression that the Sirisena faction which is in partnership with the UNP appears to be progressive only because they are a passive partner in this government. It is the UNP that drives policy and we see the SLFP responding to this policy sometimes from a populist standpoint and that is what gives them an appearance of being different.

There is also an element of the good cop, bad cop routine in the way the UNP and the SLFP cooperate with one another in running the government. The UNP puts forward a proposition and the SLFP seemingly opposes it only to agree to it later saying that the original proposal has been modified appropriately. This is in fact a better way of handling public opposition without confronting it head on. For all these reasons, the UNP and the SLFP faction in the government are one. After voting with the UNP to hand over the Hambantota Port to China Merchant Co on Friday and voting with the UNP again to pass the budget in Saturday, it would be rather odd for the SLFP Sirisena faction to be handing in nominations this week as a partner of the Joint Opposition. Would the JO want to be seen in public with such a partner? With nominations set to open on Monday and close at noon on Thursday, time is running out for decisions to be made.

The fiction of President Sirisena being able to hold his own as a political party leader is now being proved to be just that, a fiction. What President Sirisena needs now is not futile posturing but an exit strategy. The best option for him now will be to simply refrain from fielding any list at all on the grounds that those contesting on the JO list are members of the SLFP. By not contesting, he will avoid being defeated and he will also be able to claim that he did not allow the party to be divided. By not contesting the JO he will be able to (at least partly) wash off the sins of August 2015 when he deliberately undermined the UPFA campaign by saying that he would not make Mahinda Rajapaksa the Prime Minister even if the UPFA won and sacking the general secretaries of the SLFP and the UPFA and appointing his own loyalists to those positions on the eve of the poll. In fact, it is the bitter memory of August 2015 that has prejudiced members of the JO against any move to unite the two factions of the SLFP. If Sirisena does not field his own list and gives the JO a free run to confront the UNP, the acrimony between the two estranged factions of the SLFP will abate, and unification may become possible at some point in the future combined with an amicable exit strategy for Sirisena.

Bracing for the financial shocks of 2018

Last week the IMF completed the third review of Sri Lanka’s Extended Fund Facility arrangement and approved the disbursement of a further US$ 251.4 million. In doing so, the IMF observed that the government had met the fiscal targets and passed the laws necessary for income tax reform and they pointed out that tax revenue had to increase further to meet Sri Lanka’s high debt burden. The main purpose of the IMF programme for Sri Lanka is aimed at reducing the fiscal deficit. In layman’s terms this means collecting more money to pay for government expenditure. The IMF in disbursing the latest tranche observed that “it is important to build on the progress made and accelerate reforms to further reduce fiscal… vulnerabilities… The new Inland Revenue Act will make the tax system more efficient and equitable, and generate resources for social and development programs.” We pointed out in analyzing the budget for 2018 that the government was preparing to milk the people dry and indeed that’s what is on the cards from April 2018 onwards when the new Inland Revenue Act comes into effect.

According to the budget for 2018, total government revenue has to increase from an estimated Rs. 1,997 billion in 2017 to Rs. 2,326 billion and increase of Rs. 329 billion in just one year. Tax revenue is expected to increase from Rs. 1,749 billion in 2017 to Rs. 2,034 in 2018 an increase of Rs. 285 billion. Guess who’s going to be forking out all this money? In 2018, the government dipping directly into the pockets of people will not be the only horror in store for us. The IMF statement in releasing the latest tranche of the Extended Fund Facility further observed that    ‘weak financial performance of state-owned enterprises increases the importance of further fiscal consolidation’ and recommended that ‘structural reforms’ and ‘energy pricing’, will support fiscal consolidation. What is meant by the term structural reforms is usually privatization and what is meant by energy pricing is increasing the prices of fuel. There is already a demand from LIOC to increase fuel prices which is being kept down with some effort.

The problem however is that the ‘energy pricing’ and ‘structural reforms’ referred to will be coming at a time when the government will be having to face elections – first to the local government institutions, then the provincial councils and then the presidential elections. The signs are that 2018 and 2019 are not going to be happy years for the yahapalana government. Apart from these shocks that one can see coming, there are the shocks that come unexpectedly and at all times under this government. As we go to press, the country is in the middle of a major railway strike and a shortage of aviation fuel.