Empower PCI: JFA on NDTV India issue

November 5th, 2016

By Our Correspondent

Guwahati: Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) expresses concern over the recent directive from the Union information & broadcasting  ministry to take Hindi news channel ‘NDTV India’ off air for 24 hours with effect from 01 hours on 9 November  till 01 hrs of 10 November 2016.

The directive came after an inter-ministerial committee set-up by the I&B ministry found the news channel violating the programme code set under the Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules, 2015. According to the committee’s observation, the NDTV India in a live telecast had revealed  the crucial and strategically sensitive information when the terror attack on the Pathankot air base was being carried out.

The JFA argues that the news channels of the country should be brought under the purview of Press Council of India (PCI) with more power to the quasi-judicial body to deal with such situations. In need, the council can be named as Media Council of India (MCI), said the JFA in a statement issued to the media outlets.

We also demand appropriate initiatives for the news channel employees for their due benefits in the line of Majithia Wage Board meant for the print media employees including the journalists,” said JFA president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria

Aborting the hard won peace to placate the implacable – II

November 5th, 2016

By Rohana R. Wasala

Continued from Wednesday, October 26th, 2016

Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the UN, Draper reminds the reader, praised President Sirisena for the government’s ‘extraordinary progress’ in working towards ‘a durable peace, an accountable democracy, a new relationship with the outside world, and expanded opportunities for all’. Actually, Power’s alleged observation is only hollow-ringing diplomatic rhetoric. However, she was not all wrong. The president was associated with the really extraordinary progress made towards achieving durable peace, restoring democracy to those who had been denied it under terrorism,  expanded opportunities for all , and  effective and  independent relationships with the outside world, all of which were achievements of the previous government of which he was a prominent member. That is the factual situation that is being obscured by the West and its supportive media.

One of the very few valid observations that Draper makes in his essay is that it’s not Power or other foreign officials whom the government needs to win over, but the Tamil minority. But it is a truism as stale as old beer. Our national leaders realized this even before the end of British occupation. To stop  the minorities, particularly the Tamils, feeling alienated has been a genuine concern of all post-independence governments. That is exactly what the previous administration focused on, and was in the process of doing everything possible to that end. This is evident in the fact that, during its tenure, while Sri Lanka’s overall economic growth rate reached 7%, Jaffna’s growth rate reached 22%! As soon as the conditions were settled enough there, the government held provincial council elections in the north in the full knowledge that the Tamil National Alliance, proxies of the defeated LTTE, would win, and that the government allies would lose despite all that it did for the region unconditionally as a national responsibility. Former Tamil Eelamist rebels like Douglas Devananda (EPDP) and Karuna Amman (LTTE), the latter Prabhakaran’s erstwhile right-hand man, were included in the cabinet; and various peace building activities among young people of the north and south were organized, accelerated infrastructure development work was initiated even before the war ended, and so on. There is no space here to write more about the subject.

Draper’s assertion that Tamils have been left behind by the country’s postwar progress and that they feel embittered by ‘the Sinhalese majority’s seeming indifference to their plight’ is completely false, as borne out by the aforementioned facts. The people in the southern districts knew that the previous government allocated extra funds for the development of the north and east provinces, at their expense to some extent; but the southerners never grudged it. They understood that the government had to pay more attention to those provinces than to others because they were the worst hit by the separatist terrorism that had ravaged the country. Isn’t that one reason less for the international community to worry about ethnic ‘reconciliation’ in our country?

Draper’s research on Sri Lanka has been perfunctory at best. That is because, apparently, truth is not an essential part of his epic purpose of rationalizing Western bullying of hapless Sri Lanka. That could be why he tries to put the political and military leaders of the government that rescued the country from terrorism in such a bad light. But, occasionally, he pays them unintentional tributes. For when he says that the ‘well-groomed, galloping metropolis that bears no visible scars of war’, he is mentioning something achieved under the able management of the former president’s brother Gotabhaya, who headed the Urban Development Authority, in addition to playing a number of other roles, after the successful end of the war.

As Draper has observed, roughly equal numbers of Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims populate Colombo and they have been living there in complete harmony. However, he adds an unnecessary reservation by saying that they do so with ‘only occasional displays of hostility’. It is only a figment of biased Draper’s warped imagination. To suggest that there has been a tradition of ‘occasional displays of hostility’ among the Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim communities in Colombo is entirely wrong. Unfortunate, treacherously instigated clashes between Sinhalese and Tamils in 1958 and 1983 (where the latter suffered more) were isolated incidents (in which Muslims were left unharmed); the Sinhalese as a community totally and sincerely condemned those violent incidents. Both Buddhist and Hindu cultures abhor violence in any form.

Draper writes: The city maintained a surprising  show of composure on the night of January 8, 2015, when Sri Lanka astonished the world by ousting the autocratic regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa through a largely peaceful and untainted election.” It was actually the outgoing government’s achievement. Rajapaksa used periodically due elections to test public approval of his policies. He was not unusually authoritarian. But he or anyone else in the same position, must be sufficiently firm as a leader in order to rule effectively.

In a sweeping observation that pays little regard to facts, Draper claims that the Sirisena administration has begun to reform the ‘corrupt judiciary system’, privatize ‘bloated agencies’, and reckon with immense debts incurred from ‘dubious’ infrastructure contracts awarded to Chinese companies. Any fair-minded observer will not fail to see that allegations of ‘a corrupt judiciary’, ‘bloated agencies’ (by which Draper probably means public corporations allegedly filled with too many cronies of politicians in power), and ‘dubious infrastructure contracts awarded to Chinese companies’ reflect a deliberate misrepresentation of what actually happened under the government that was later ousted. These things are for competent Sri Lankans to decide. Can any outsider, least of all a stooge of a manipulative external power, make derogatory statements that reflect on mutual relations between two sovereign nations that he knows nothing about, and has no connection whatsoever with?.

Draper’s contradictory characterization of the Northern Province as the (exclusive, as he implies) ‘homeland’ of the ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ is wrong because of many reasons, of which I am going to mention only one or two here. One is that the whole of the island is the homeland of all Sri Lankans; there cannot be an exclusive homeland in it for each community. Another reason is that more than 50% of all Tamils in the country live outside the north and east provinces; these include Indian Tamils brought to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), which was then a part of the British empire like India itself, to work on coffee and later tea estates owned by British planters. If a particular region of the island is assigned to one ethnic community as its homeland on the basis of population size, then there must be at least three homelands in this country: one for the Tamils, one for the Muslims, and another for the Sinhalese majority. The majority of ordinary Sri Lankans are not asking for such fragmentation of the country, but it could be forced on them by the powers that be.

Historically, however, Sri Lanka is the only homeland of the Sinhalese; they have no identity without reference to this their country of origin. Tamil Nadu means Tamil country. That is their historical homeland. That is where the Tamil Hindu culture developed.  This does not mean that only the Sinhalese must live in this country, or that the others must go elsewhere. Draper says ‘Eelam’ is the Tamil name for Sri Lanka. That is not right unless it happens to have derived from ‘Hela’ (an ancient Sinhalese name of the island). However, as well known, ‘Eelam’ is the name of the Tamil state the separatists want to create in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Draper may not have been told by his Tamil informants that the Sinhalese call this island just ‘Lanka’, the same name that Tamils pronounce as ‘Ilankei’. In other words, Ilankei is the Tamil version of ‘Lanka’. Sinhale (from which ‘Ceylon’ comes) was also known as ‘Hela’ or ‘Heladiva’ (the island of Hela). ‘Eelam’ could have derived from Hela. But there is no historical or archaeological evidence to show that Tamil Hindu culture evolved in Heladiva (It evolved in Tamil Nadu, India). Instead, there is overwhelming historical and archaeological evidence to prove that the island civilization has been fashioned by the Sinhalese over at least 2600 years of recorded history. It was always the Sinhalese who defended the country against invaders. They fought the European invaders of the past five hundred years just as they fought off 17 South Indian incursions from time to time before. (To be concluded)

RESPONSE TO FORMER PRESIDENT MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA’S STATEMENT ON MUSLIMS AND TAMILS TALKING TO THE “JOINT OPPOSITION”.

November 4th, 2016

By Noor Nizam, Convener – The Muslim Voice”. November 4th., 2016.

The late T.B. Jaya said that the Muslims should not put all their eggs in one basket”. Will the Muslims do this now?, Insha Allah.

It was reported in the popular Tamil website for Muslims – the www.jaffnamuslims.com that, at a meeting held this week at the residence of MP Prasana Ranathunge situated in Udugampola in the Gampha district, the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa had made a statement to the effect that the Tamils and the Muslims are talking to the Joint Opposition Group” to extend their support in the future political activities of the Joint Opposition Group”. While stating that the Yahapalana government” is continuously making allegations against the Joint Opposition Group” and the SLFP MP’s, local government politicians and the SLFP supporters at the grass level who are supporting the JO, that they are supporting campaigns that are harming the Tamil and Muslim communities, Mahinda Rajapaksa vehemently has opposed them as false propagander undertaken by the Yahapalana Government” and the UNP. It is time up that the Muslim Community in Sri Lanka should take serious note of what former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said at the above meeting.

It is time up that a NEW POLITICAL FORCE that will be honest and sincere, to stand up and defend the Muslim Community politically and otherwise, especially from among the YOUTH, and safeguard the DIGNITY of our community has to emerge from within the Sri Lanka Muslim Community to face any new election in the coming future, Insha Allah.

It is true that we have allowed the affairs of our community to be taken control of unscrupulous, dishonest, deceptive, self-motivated, selfish, corrupt and manipulating Muslim politicians, Muslim political party leaders, Ulema and Media personnel, that has led our community to be considered as a 2nd., class community in Sri Lanka. In politics, we are considered as the community of political naanaas who turn the way their Fez Cap turns” to support any political party that comes to power for the personal gains of the political leaders of the Muslim parties. The Muslim politicians have hoodwinked and betrayed the Muslim Community wholesale. We need to think with our heads” NOT our hearts”, Insha Allah. Politically analyzing the Muslim Community of Sri Lanka, we may be a community of around 1.97 million persons (Ummah) by population, but as a political power, WE ARE A POWER TO OURSELVES, you should realize, Insha Allah. That is the representation of our COMMUNITY and The Muslim Voice” is a VOICE from among that Community, Alhamdulillah. We have a Muslim Vote bank of nearly 600,000(maybe more) in the 26 districts and 9 provinces of Sri Lanka. If we are UNITED as a Muslim political Force, we can achieve what late T.B. Jaya, S.L. Naina Marikkar, Cassim Ismail, Cassim Umar, Mactan Ismail, Ash Sheik Mohamedu Fazi, S.N. Ismail, L.M. Sapur, M.K. Saldin, N.H.M. Abdul Cader, Makan Makar and A.R. Razcik (later referred to as Sir Razick Fareed) achieved during their times in Nation Building, Independence, MUSLIM-Sinhala UNITY and National/Local Politics, Insha Allah.

The late T.B. Jaya said that the Muslims should not put all their eggs in one basket”. What did this mean? It meant that the Muslims should be represented in both the National Sinhala political parties. If the above great Muslims Leaders would have lived today, they would have just DECLARED that what THE MUSLIM VOICE” is ADVOCATING POLITICALLY is the appropriate move for the present times, Insha Allah. Mahinda might have been a bad example of a leader for the Muslims, between 2010 and 2015, but we cannot discard him as a political power. IT IS TIME UP THAT THE MUSLIMS SHOULD ALSO JOIN THIS POLITICAL FORCE NOW, Insha Allah.The rest we have to leave to God AllMighty Allah.

ACTC – ITAK – TULF – TNA – LTTE – LTTE Fronts & India are all demanding the same – A Separate Tamil Nation

November 4th, 2016

Shenali D Waduge

The aims and objectives of All Ceylon Tamil Congress, ITAK in 1949, the TULF & the Vaddukoddai Resolution of 1976, formation of LTTE in the same year/month, demands of LTTE in Thimpu Principles/ISGA solution and India’s Indo-Lanka Accord and 13th amendment have strikingly similar demands. Taken together these highlight a very concerted effort with foreign support to divide an island nation using an ethnic group as bait for the political aspirations of a handful of elite caste/class whose gameplan fits well with the geopolitical desires of parties/countries and organizations that have propped the players over the years. Demands for self-determination, self-rule, internal self-determination are all terminologies created by the British/West indoctrinated into locals through colonial education system. The initial demands for separatism during British rule when India’s Tamil Nadu sought self-determination and were refused. India passed the pillow to Sri Lanka where Tamils who descend from India’s Malabar coast and adjoining areas have taken over the clarion call on behalf of All Tamils. Sadly the context of these calls have not been grasped by the Sri Lankan politicians

India’s solution – Indo-Lanka Peace Accord of 1987

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Indo-Sri_Lanka_Accord – historical lies merging north and east as prize catch Trinco Harbor was in the East.

India forced the 13th amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka introducing the white elephant provincial council system. http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/document/actsandordinance/13th_amendment.pdf

All Ceylon Tamil Congress

Oldest Tamil political party founded in 1944 by G G Ponnambalam who demanded 50-50 representation for Tamils who were hardly 10% of the population at the time. British rejected demanded claiming it a ‘mockery of democracy’

ACTC joined LTTE-backed TNA in 2001 elections.

On 20th November 1947 the President of the ACTC sent a telegram through the Governor’s Office to the Secretary of State for the Colonies:

The Tamil people of Ceylon have rejected the Soulbury Constitution in as much as at the general elections not one Tamil candidate of the U. N. P. was elected to Parliament and all but one of the Tamil Representatives who voted for the acceptance of the White Paper of 1945 in the defunct State Council were (sic) defeated. The All Ceylon Tamil Congress demands a free constitution for Ceylon conferring sovereignty on its people with equal freedom for all communities and calls for a constituent assembly to frame a constitution acceptable to all sections of the people. An Unitary Government with present composition of legislature and structure of executive totally una­acceptable to the Tamils. In the absence of a satisfactory alternative we demand the right of self-determination for the Tamil people.”  

What you should be asking yourself is why should Tamils demand self-determination in 1947 – Tamils suffered no discrimination by Sinhalese before independence. In fact they were the privileged minority enjoying the best of education, in turn jobs in public sector and better living. Of course not only Tamils enjoyed these privileges only the high caste/class Tamils who had converted to Christianity/emerged from Christian missionary schools.

ITAK – Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi

Formed on 18 Dec 1949 (a year after Sri Lanka gained independence from the British)

ITAK says ‘Shamasthi’ stood for Federalism why have they replaced it with ‘Innaipatchchi’ in 2008? What does Innaipatchchi mean?

Excerpts from speech by Samuel J. V. Chelvanayagam, 1949, Maradana, Ceylon.  http://dh-web.org/hrsits/SJV1949.html

We have met together with the common aim of creating an organisation to work for the attainment of freedom for the Tamil speaking people of Ceylon.”

Tamil speaking people were divided into three groups: Muslims, Indian Tamils and Ceylon Tamils.”

The 15th National Convention of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi which met in Vauniya on 5, 6, 7 September 2014. The ITAK passed 15 resolutions https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/full-text-of-the-itak-15-resolutions-including-merger-of-the-north-and-east-provinces/

  1. ITAK assures to take forward the political aspirations of the Tamil People until the objective of ‘autonomous rule in the North East based on the principles of self-determination and shared sovereignty within a united, undivided Sri Lanka’ is achieved.
  1. ITAK invites Tamil, Muslim political parties, formations, forces and all progressive forces within Sri Lanka to join struggle through a new constitutional arrangement based on maximum devolution to solve the ethnic conflict. Requests India, international community and people of Sri Lanka not to permit GOSL to breach provisions of Indo-Lanka Accord. ITAK resolves that the Indo-Lanka agreement should be implemented in full.
  1. GOSL has failed to keep its promises on a) war crimes investigations b)resettlement, rehabilitation and livelihood support c)political solution to India and international community. GOSL is accused of gender based and other violence on women and children. GOSL is colonizing Tamil areas. ITAK appeals to India and international community to halt ‘genocidal actions of the government”.
  1. ITAK thanks USA and other countries and diaspora for March 2014 UNHRC Resolution. ITAK commits to assist them to conduct international inquiry. ITAK requests Tamil people to give evidence before the inquiry and ITAK assures to make available ‘avenues’ for this purpose. ITAK claims ‘our people have no faith in the present internal inquiry’.
  1. ITAK expresses concern about forced disappearance during, prior to and after the end of the war. ITAK appeals to GOSL and international mechanism that those responsible must be identified and punished and those alive returned to their next of kin and compensation paid for those dead.
  1. ITAK says thousands of Tamils displaced internally or taken residence outside of country. State aided colonisation schemes have changed demography and population percentage. Parliament seats in Jaffna district reduced from 9 to 6. People must be resettled in Valikamam North and Sampoor.
  1. ITAK appeals to repeal PTA – Prevention of Terrorism Act. Former combatants released must be integrated into society and given assistance in education and jobs.
  1. Suppression of media freedom must be removed. Corruption, dictatorship and family rule brought to an end and good governance restored. 18th amendment to be repealed. Independent institutions established. Executive Presidential system abolished.
  1. ITAK condemns majoritarian forces. State aided colonization to be halted. Dual citizenship must be given to Tamils who have settled overseas.
  1. GOSL has neglected Tamil people’s economic condition using discriminatory policies.
  1. Dispute between Tamil fishermen from India and Sri Lanka must not continue. Bottom-trawling that destroys marine bed to be banned. Indian Govt, Tamil Nadu State, Sri Lankan Government and NPC ‘Government’ to act jointly to find a solution. People from the south coming with the assistance of the army and navy must be stopped
  1. Exploitation of those who depend on palmyrah should cease and no intervention from central ministry. Thikkam distillery has to be handed back to employees and given back to the NPC.
  1. Natural resources – minerals, forests, sand in ‘Tamil areas’ to be preserved. Iranaimadu water project to be re-formulated. Arumugam Plan to be implemented.
  1. National question can be solved only through maximum possible devolution of political power to the merged NorthEast province”.
  1. If the GOSL continues ‘suppressing our people, grabbing more land, destroy our people’s wealth, subject our women and children to abuse and keep postponing the achieving of a political solution’ before the end of 2014 ITAK resolves to ‘commence a non-violent struggle in the lines of Mahatma Gandhi from January next year (2015)’. ITAK appeals to international community including India to support.

Sampanthan’s speech at the 14th Annual ITAK convention in 2012 Batticoloa covered the following points : http://www.tamilcanadian.com/article/6255

  • ITAK ‘political symbol of the Tamil Nation with its own political culture and ideals’
  • ITAK ‘single most recognized political organization both here and abroad, which embodies the political aspirations of the Tamil people’
  • ITAK remembers the ‘Tamil youth who sacrificed their lives in armed struggle’  (These Tamil youth were all LTTE cadres – R Sambanthan is glorifying terrorists and he is Sri Lanka’s Opposition Leader!)
  • ITAK is gathered following ‘our victory in the passage of the recent Resolution at UN Human Rights Council’
  • ITAK created by SJV Chelvanayagam father of the Tamil Nation to establish self-determination of the Tamil people. ‘This objective is evident in both the name of the party and the manner in which it operates’. (Very clear about the objective – Sinhalese are just the excuse)
  • ITAK is the leader of the TNA alliance
  • ITAK is now the ‘legitimate representative of the Tamil people’
  • Tamil United Liberation Front, of which our party was a member took the historical decision to establish the separate government of Tamil Eelam in 1976’ (there is little point in sitting to discuss any solutions because the aim of these Tamil elite is a separate nation – nothing else. They have been using Sinhala discrimination to reach their goal and build an acceptable case foe separation)
  • India will never welcome a political solution in Sri Lanka that does not accord with the interests of India’. (Eelam goal has to have India’s blessings because India has been eyeing annexing Sri Lanka for centuries)
  • ‘Our expectation for a solution to the ethnic problem of the sovereignty of the Tamil people is based on a political structure OUTSIDE that of a UNITARY GOVERNMENT, in a UNITED SRI LANKA in which Tamil people have all the powers of government needed to live with self-respect and self sufficiency’. (this is echoing the 1947 demands by ACTC to the British – note yahapalana is also using UNITED Sri Lanka term.
  • ‘North and East of Sri Lanka are the areas of historical habitation of the Tamil speaking people’. (lies)
  • ‘Meaningful devolution should go beyond the 13th Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1987’. (what good is devolution when the plan is a separate nation?)
  • ‘our priority now is to expose the Sri Lankan government that for so many years in the past attempted to describe the ethnic problem and a ‘terrorist problem’”. (why is LTTE banned by 32 countries)
  • The international practice prevalent during the mid eighties, when the intervention of India occurred, has now changed. Although the issue at hand is the same, the prevailing conditions are different. The struggle is the same, but the approaches we employ are different. Our aim is the same, but our strategies are different. The players are the same, but the alliances are different. That is the nature of the Tamil people. Although we still have the same aim, the methods we use are now different.” (so what is the use in solutions when the objectives are spelt out in black and white)
  • United States and India are to a great extent supporting our position.” (we saw this with the regime change)
  • the Sri Lankan government will eventually be forced to include our participation in schemes being implemented for the economic development of our people. However, until then, we must be patient.” (ask little now more later theory)

TULF Tamil United Liberation Front

In 1972 combining the ACTC and ITAK (Federal Party) Tamil United Front was formed which later became TULF in 1976.

Vaddukoddai Resolution emerged from the first National Convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front meeting at Pannakam (Vaddukoddai Constituency) on the 14th day of May, 1976 by Chairman S.J.V. Chelvanayakam. http://www.sangam.org/FB_HIST_DOCS/vaddukod.htm

5 objectives were declared

  1. State of Tamil Eelam to consist of North & Eastern provinces to all Tamil speaking people
  2. Constitution of Tamil Eelam based on principles of decentralization. No foremost place to any religion or territorial community.
  3. Tamil Eelam will assure equal status to all
  4. Tamil Eelam will be a secular state with equal protection to all religions
  5. Tamil will be language of the State but Sinhala speaking minority can educate and transact in Sinhala subject to reciprocity of Tamil speaking minority in Sinhala state.  (didn’t they demand equal language rights – if so why make only Tamil language of the state?)

The Convention called upon Tamil youth to ‘throw themselves fully’ to ‘fight’ for freedom and to ‘flinch not till the goal of a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam is reached”.

TULF Manifesto 1977

http://www.sangam.org/FB_HIST_DOCS/TULFManifesto77.htm

The TULF formed an alliance with the three Indian backed paramilitary groups, Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF), Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), to contest the 15 February 1989 election. The alliance won 3.40% of the popular vote and 10 out of 225 seats in the Sri Lankan parliament.

Note: Prabakaran set up Tamil New Tigers (TNT) on May 22, 1972 at the age of 17 immediately after the Republican Constitution of Sri Lanka. In 1975 he killed Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiappah. He rechristened TNT as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on May 5, 1976 just days before the Vaddukoddai Resolution calling youth to fight for freedom.

The TULF Manifesto also stated that Eelam would be ultimately established either by peaceful means or by direct action or struggle.”

The racism of the manifesto is alarming.

TULF 1994

Then TULF President, M. Sivasiththamparam, petitioned the court on July 8, 1994 for cancellation of the Jaffna poll. TULF pointed out the absurdity in having an election in the Jaffna electoral district as only about 10 per cent of the population lived in the area, under government control, whereas the rest lived with the LTTE. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=112090

TULF Manifesto 2010

http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/03/election_manifesto_full_text_t.html

TNA – Tamil National Alliance

TNA formed on 1st October 2001 month after 9/11 and the US War on Terror.

TNA 2001 election manifesto

http://www.tamilnet.com/img/publish/2010/03/TNA_Election_Manifesto_2001.pdf

  1. Recognition of the Tamils of Sri Lanka as a distinct nationality.
  2. Recognition of an identified Tamil homeland and guarantee of its territorial integrity.
  1. Based on the above, recognition of the inalienable right of self-determination of the Tamil nation.
  2. Recognition of the right to full citizenship and other fundamental democratic rights of all Tamils who look upon the island as their country.’

The immediate aims and objectives of the Tamil Alliance comprising the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) and the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) are the following: –

o  The immediate lifting of the economic embargo currently in force in parts of the northeast province

o  The withdrawal of the residential and travel restrictions foisted on the Tamil nationality

o  The immediate cessation of the war being currently waged in the northeast

o  The immediate commencement of the process of negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE) with international third party involvement.

TNA 2004 election manifesto https://www.tamilnet.com/img/publish/2010/03/TNA_Election_Manifesto_2004pdf.pdf

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2014/10/26/dont-deal-with-pro-ltte-tna/

  • Find a political solution to the Tamil national problem based on the acceptance of the fundamental proposals regarding (Tamil Nation’s) Tamil homeland, Tamil Nation, Tamils’ right to self-government (autonomy).
  • TNA on Muslims – Muslims have Tamil as their Mother tongue like the Tamils and on the recognition that they have lived in amity amongst the Tamil in the Tamil homeland, the TNA has decided that any solution to the Tamil national problem must incorporate matters and features that reassure the distinctiveness, security, culture and economy of the Muslims.
  • Sinhala nation should accept ISGA document put forward by the LTTE which contains excellent proposals
  • The high security zones and armed forces camps which are located in areas populated by Tamils disregarding their welfare, priority given to strategic interest of warfare, should be removed and arrangements made for the Tamil people to return and settle in their places of residence.  (were these not the demands now being met?)
  • The armed forces’ interdiction and oppression imposed must be lifted
  • The international community should step forward and directly assist in the pressing humanitarian needs and economic development schemes and improve the economic life of the Tamil nation.
  • The political prisoners unreasonably held in jail for years should all be released forthwith. (LTTE cadres are not political prisoners)
  • An international judicial inquiry should be conducted to deliver justice to our people (this has been the demand since 2004)
  • All the provisions of the cease-fire agreements must be completely fulfilled and peace and normalcy should prevail in our homeland.
  • The LTTE has for the past two years put up with the violent, surly behaviour of the armed forces without impairing the conditions for peace and observing the cease-fire and acting steadfastly and firmly towards the path of peace. Hence, the international community should create the environment by removing the restrictions put in place by certain countries on the LTTE, the authentic sole representatives of the Tamil people, so that they could, with authority, dignity and with equal status conduct talks with the government of Sri Lanka.
  • Accepting LTTE’s leadership as the national leadership of the Tamil Eelam Tamils and the Liberation Tigers as the sole and authentic representatives of the Tamil people, let us devote our full cooperation for the ideals of the Liberation Tigers’ struggle with honesty and steadfastness. Let us endeavour determinedly, collectively as one group, one nation, one country, transcending race and religious differences, under the leadership of the LTTE for a life of liberty, honor and justice for the Tamil people. Let us work side by side with the LTTE, who are fighting for the protection and autonomous life of the Tamil speaking people, for the political initiatives under their leadership.

TNA 2010 election manifesto

http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/03/full_text_general_election_201.html

  • Tamil people a distinct nationality
  • Tamil speaking Northern & Eastern provinces are historical habitation of the Tamil people peoples.
  • Tamil people are entitled to right of self-determination
  • Power sharing arrangement must be established in a unit merged Northern and Eastern Provinces based on a federal structure
  • Devolution of power over land, law and order, socioeconomic development including health, education, resources and fiscal powers
  • Direct foreign investment in the North & East
  • Tertiary education
  • Demilitarization return to pre-war 1983
  • Resettlement of Tamil people in their original places, housing and livelihood to be restored.
  • Compensation paid to loss of lives, maimed as a result of military campaign
  • Releasing persons detained without charges
  • Tamils who fled country must be allowed to return
  • Creation of employment opportunities for youth with participation of International Community & Tamil Diaspora
  • No displaced persons
  • Special commission to  uplift socially and economically disadvantaged sections of society
  • TNA will raise standard of living of fishing communities providing them access to modern technologies
  • Increasing salaries of government servants and private sector employees
  • Equal status to women,
  • TNA assures to secure employment opportunities to unemployed graduates

TNA 2013 election manifesto (Northern Provincial Council election)

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/full-text-tnas-northern-provincial-council-election-manifesto-2013/

  • The Tamils are a distinct People and from time immemorial have inhabited this island together with the Sinhalese People and others
  • The contiguous preponderantly Tamil Speaking Northern and Eastern provinces is the historical habitation of the Tamil Speaking Peoples
  • The Tamil People are entitled to the right to self-determination
  • Power sharing arrangements must be established in a unit of a merged Northern and Eastern Provinces based on a Federal structure, in a manner also acceptable to the Tamil Speaking Muslim people
  • Devolution of power on the basis of shared sovereignty shall necessarily be over land, law and order, socio-economic development including health and education, resources and fiscal powers.

TNA 2015 Parliamentary Election Manifesto – issued by the TNA comprising of ITAK, TELO, EPRLF and PLOTE.

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/tna-manifesto-full-text/

  • The Tamils are a distinct People with their own culture, civilization, language and heritage and from time immemorial have inhabited this island together with the Sinhalese People and others (slight change to their earlier stand)
  • The contiguous preponderantly Tamil Speaking Northern and Eastern provinces is the historical habitation of the Tamil People and the Tamil Speaking Peoples
  • The Tamil People are entitled to the right to self-determination in keeping with United Nations International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which Sri Lanka has accepted and acceded to
  • Power sharing arrangements must continue to be established as it existed earlier in a unit of a merged Northern and Eastern Provinces based on a Federal structure. The Tamil speaking Muslim historical inhabitants shall be entitled to be beneficiaries of all power-sharing arrangements in the North-East. This will no way inflict any disability on any People.
  • Devolution of power on the basis of shared sovereignty shall be over land, law and order, enforcement of the law so as to ensure the safety and security of the Tamil People, socio-economic development including inter-alia health, education, higher and vocational education, agriculture, fisheries, industries, livestock development, cultural affairs, mustering of resources, both domestic and foreign and fiscal powers.
  • Direct foreign investment in the North-East should be facilitated resulting in new industries and employment opportunities being created for youth
  • Avenues for tertiary education should also be set-up so that those who cannot enter universities can pursue higher education in relevant fields

Anandasangaree writes to Narendra Modi in 2014 and says TNA is LTTE proxy http://www.mea.gov.lk/index.php/en/news-from-other-media/5352-mr-modi-tna-is-a-lttes-proxy-anandasangaree-

In a letter to Indian PM Modi TULF leader Anandasangaree says

TULF MP Mavai Senathirajah who is in the process of reviving the Federal Party (ITAK) visited Killinochchi had meetings with the LTTE Deputy Political Commissar Thangan on 14-10-2003. The revival of the Federal party is being undertaken at the behest of the LTTE”…. The TNA was started by four parties of which TULF was one. The TULF was replaced by ITAK without any reference to anybody or to the party concerned. All concerned parties should now accept that both the TNA and the ITAK had been revived by dishonest means on the instigation of the LTTE to look after their interest. It is this TNA that nominated candidates for all electoral districts in the North and in the East for the 2004 elections, Mr. Tamilselvan retaining half the number of slots in each one of the electoral districts. Of all the members elected to the 2004 Parliament, majority belonged to the LTTE.”

In the same letter Anandasangaree writes that the secretaries of the ITAK, ACTC, Telo & EPRLF endorsed

Accepting the leadership of the LTTE as the National Leadership of the Tamil people and also accepting the LTTE as the real sole – representatives of the Tamil people, we honestly and firmly pledge to give our full support for the struggle the LTTE had undertaken on behalf of the Tamil Nation”.

LTTE – Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

The LTTE aims to create a separate homeland for the Tamils known as the Tamil Eelam (State) in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. The LTTE leadership was organized along a two-tier structure: a military wing and a subordinate political wing. Overseeing both was a central governing committee, headed by the LTTE chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran.  http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/terroristoutfits/LTTE.HTM

Thimpu Principles – demands made by LTTE delegation in 1985

  • recognition of the Tamils of Ceylon as a nation (notice these terms not entering the draft constitution)
  • recognition of the existence of an identified homeland for the Tamils of Ceylon
  • recognition of the right of self determination of the Tamil nation
  • recognition of the right to citizenship and the fundamental rights of all Tamils of Ceylon

Note: Term Ceylon Tamils came to be used only after 1911 prior Tamils were known and referred to as Malabars by Portuguese, Dutch and British. Malabars are from India and have no right to seek self-determination in Sri Lanka while Ceylon Tamils earlier known as Malabars cannot seek self-determination either!

Global Tamil Forum

http://www.globaltamilforum.org/

Key objectives

  • The creation of an independent, international war crimes accountability mechanism.
  • A negotiated political settlement that ends Tamil marginalisation. GTF, along with other Diaspora groups and Tamil representatives in Sri Lanka, are working towards a Tamil Common Declaration, which will state the conditions conducive to a political settlement that addresses the underlying grievances of the Tamil people.
  • The resettlement of IDPs to their places of origin.
  • An investigation into the fate and location of persons reported to have been disappeared.
  • The publication of a detainee database list.
  • The demilitarisation of Tamil areas and the restoration of complete civil administration to all militarised government departments and national institutions.
  • The end of the Sinhalisation of Tamil majority areas, with immediate effect. (matches demands made by Northern Chief Minister Wigneswaran)
  • To engage with civil society in South of Sri Lanka, in order to facilitate better understanding of each communities concerns and problems on the island.

Transnational Government for Tamil Eelam

The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) is a political formation to win the freedom of the Tamil people on the basis of their fundamental political principles of Nationhood, Homeland and Right of self-determination. http://www.tgte-us.org/about.html

It is not difficult to see that there is a very concerted and coherent call by ITAK, TNA, remnants of LTTE, LTTE fronts and even India to seek a separate nation. Their demands are aligned to the initial quest for self-determination in Tamil Nadu calling for a homeland for all Tamils of the world. The wordings used have been carefully articulated over the years so as to curry flavor with other self-determination quests and aligned to the UN (West’s instrument and puppet) who will be the mechanism to deliver these goals.

Sambanthan’s 2012 speech made in Batticoloa to the Tamil people is crucial to understand the psyche.

Although the issue at hand is the same, the prevailing conditions are different. The struggle is the same, but the approaches we employ are different. Our aim is the same, but our strategies are different. The players are the same, but the alliances are different. That is the nature of the Tamil people. Although we still have the same aim, the methods we use are now different.”

Sambanthan says the issue (self-determination for Tamils) is the same.

Sambanthan says the struggle (self-determination for Tamils) is the same

Sambanthan says their aims are the same (but strategies are different)

Sambanthan says the players are the same (but alliances are different)

Sambanthan ends by saying That is the nature of the Tamil people. Although we still have the same aim, the methods we use are now different”

Where are our Sinhala politicians one has to wonder and what have they being doing about these calls to counter them with historical facts and evidence and place proper factual arguments before the world’s public who have been fooled all these years with lies and distorted history?

We have to now seriously wonder whether the UNHRC resolutions drafted on behalf of the US & other Western sponsors were drafted by these Tamils with India’s nod of approval.

Shenali D Waduge

Bond scams: MR holds entire govt. responsible

November 4th, 2016

by Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island

Former President and Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that the ruling UNP-SLFP coalition leaders including President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe should take the responsibility for Central Bank bond scams.

Rajapaksa says action should be taken against all those accused of mega fraud running into billions of rupees. The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and the Financial Crimes Investigating Division (FCID) will not investigate members of thecurrent administration.

Addressing a gathering at UPFA MP Prasanna Ranatunga’s Udugampola residence, the former President vehemently denied government accusations that former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had created the Aava group now causing mayhem in the Jaffna peninsula. “We are being accused of creating Aava group. Some members of the government propagate lies. We have never done anything inimical to the national interest”, ex-President Rajapaksa insisted.

The former President alleged that the government had been propagating lies to deceive the people and also to cover up its repeated failures. “Less than two years after the last presidential polls, the country is in chaos and experiencing political turmoil.”

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Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa addressing gathering at Udugampola, Gampaha on Thursday

Comparing the situation in the Northern region now and during his administration, the former President said that normalcy was restored during his time. The then government created an environment conducive for all communities to live in harmony, Rajapaksa said, alleging that the yahapalana government had undermined security. The former President expressed concern about the Sinhalese not being able to visit the Northern region in case the government allowed further deterioration of the security situation there.

The former President said Tamil speaking people had now realised that they blundered by being party to a foreign conspiracy to topple his administration. Alleging that the government was in the process of introducing a new Constitution to appease those who had been promoting separatist sentiments, the former President stressed the need for defeating that attempt.

The former President alleged that some of those who had entered parliament through the UPFA National List were engaged in mud slinging campaign at the behest of the new leadership. Rajapaksa also condemned President Sirisena for appointing UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister at the expense of D. M. Jayaratne soon after the last presidential polls. The President said he was not responsible for causing a split in the party

 

MP Ranatunga said that the electorate was awaiting an opportunity to rectify the unpardonable mistake of ending the Rajapaksa rule. The MP said that people had been deceived by yahapalana leaders to engineer the former President’s defeat. The Mahinda loyalist alleged that those who had been rejected by the electorate but entered parliament through the National List were working overtime to undermine the group with the former President.

ජාත්‍යන්තර ඊළාම් ඩයස්‌පෝරාවට එරෙහිව ක්‍රීයා කළ යුද හමුදා බුද්ධි ප්‍රධානියා

November 4th, 2016

-කීර්ති වර්ණකුලසූරිය උපුටා ගැන්ම දිවයින

මේ අතර ඊයේ (03දා) මැදපෙරදිගින් ප්‍රකාශයට ඇරෑබ් නිවුස්‌ පුවත්පත පැවසුවේ යාපනයේ සිදුවූ ක්‍රියාදාමයන් නිසා හමුදා බුද්ධි ප්‍රධානියාව ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් කර ඇති බවයි. උතුරේ අස්‌ථාවර තත්ත්වයක්‌ ඇති කිරීමට මොහු ක්‍රියාකරන බවට සිවිල් සංවිධාන විසින් පැමිණිලිකර තිබූ බවද එම පුවත්පත වැඩිදුරටත් හෙළි කළේය.

ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ යුද හමුදාවේ බුද්ධි සේවා ප්‍රධානියා ලෙස කටයුතු කළ බ්‍රිගේඩියර් සුරේෂ් සාලේ පෙරේදා (02 දා) සිට එම ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් කෙරුණි. ඔහුගේ ධුරයට බ්‍රිගේඩියර් විඡේන්ද්‍ර ගුණතිලක පත්කරනු ලැබීය.

බ්‍රිගේඩියර් සැලේ ඉවත්ව යැම සම්බන්ධයෙන් අපමණ සතුටට පත්වූයේ ඊළාම් ඩයස්‌පෝරාවයි.

ඊට හේතු පාදක වූ ප්‍රධාන කරුණ වූයේ ඊළාම් ඩයස්‌පෝරාව සහ වන්නියේ කොටි ජාත්‍යන්තර ජාලයේ ප්‍රධානී මනිවන්නන් කස්‌ත්‍රොa අතර පැවැති සබඳතා අනාවරණය කර ගැනීමට ඔහු ක්‍රියාකිරීමයි.

වන්නි මෙහෙයුම් සමයේ කොටි ජාත්‍යන්තර ජාලයේ තොරතුරු සොයා ගනිමින් ක්‍රියාකළ බ්‍රිගේඩියර් සුරේෂ් සැලේ පසුගියදා මෙරට සිවිල් සංවිධාන ක්‍රියාකාරීන්ගේ වෛරයට ලක්‌විය. ඔහුව ධුරයෙන් ඉවත්කරන ලෙස සිවිල් සංවිධාන ක්‍රියාකාරීහු ජනපති මෛත්‍රිපාල සිරිසේන මහතා වෙත කියා සිටියේය.

බ්‍රිගේඩියර් සැලේ ප්‍රංශයේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ බුද්ධි නිලධාරියා ලෙස සේවය කරද්දී පැරිසියේ ශ්‍රී ලාංකික දේශප්‍රේමීන් හා එක්‌ව ප්‍රංශ කොටි ජාලය ගැනත් ඔවුන් අරමුදල් එකතු කරගන්නා අයුරුත් සොයාගනු ලැබීය.

ඒ වන විට ඔහු තානාපති කාර්යාලය තුළ ක්‍රියාත්මක වූයේ අන්වර්ථ නාමයකිනි. මේනිසා ඔහු කොටි ජාත්‍යන්තර ජාලයේ ඉලක්‌කය විය. මේ පසුබිම මැද කොටි හිතවාදීන් ජිනීවා මානව හිමිකම් කවුන්සිලයට ඔහුට එරෙහිව පෙත්සමක්‌ද යවනු ලැබීය. යුද්ධය අවසන් වී වසර කිහිපයකට පසු එවකට බුද්ධි ප්‍රධානියාව සිටි මේජර් ජනරාල් කපිල හෙන්ද්‍ර විතාරණ සේවයෙන් විශ්‍රාම ගැනීමත් සමගම බ්‍රිගේඩියර් සැලේ එම ධුරයට පත්විය.

මෑතකදී අධිකරණ බලධාරීන් විසින් හමුදා බුද්ධි අංශයට චෝදනාවක්‌ ඉදිරිපත් කරමින් බුද්ධි අංශ පරීක්‍ෂණවලට සහය නොවන බවට චෝදනා කළේය. පොලිස්‌ නිල සුනඛ අංශය භාරව සිටි සහකාර පොලිස්‌ අධිකාරි කුලසිරි උඩුගම්පොළ කොළඹ මුත්තයියා පාරේ හමුදා බුද්ධි ඒකකයට ගොස්‌ රහස්‌ තොරතුරු ලබා ගැනීමෙන් පසු ඇතිවූ විපත හමුදා බුද්ධි අංශයට අමතක නැත.

පෙරේදා හමුදා බ්‍රිගේඩියර්වරයා එම ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් කිරීමට සතියකට පෙර මඩ වෙබ් අඩවියක්‌ පැවසුවේ බුද්ධි ප්‍රධානියා එම ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් කිරීමට තීරණය කර ඇති බවයි. මේ අතර හමුදා බුද්ධි අංශ ප්‍රධානි ධුරයෙන් බ්‍රිගේඩියර් සුරේස්‌a සැලේ ඉවත් කළ බවට පුවත ඉතා වේගයෙන් ඊළාම් ඩයස්‌පෝරාවට පැතිර ගියේය.

ඔහු එම ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් වීම විදෙස්‌ගත ශ්‍රී ලාංකික දේශප්‍රේමී ජනතාවට එල්ලවූ පහරක්‌ විය.

ඔහුව හමුදාපති විසින් ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් කිරීම ගැන අතිශයින්ම ප්‍රභෝදයට පත්වී ඇත්තේ යහපාලනප්‍රේමීන් යනුවෙන් හඳුන්වාගත් සිවිල් සංවිධාන ක්‍රියාකාරීන්ය. එහෙත් මෙරට බහුතර ජනතාව හෝ ද්‍රවිඩ සංධානය හමුදා බුද්ධි අංශ ප්‍රධානියා ඉවත් කළ යුතුයෑයි ඉල්ලා සිටියේ නැත.

මෙහිදී නැගෙන බරපතළ ප්‍රශ්නය නම් ජනාධිපතිවරණයට කලකට පෙර අටවාගත් කීප දෙනෙකුට සීමාවූ සිවිල් සංවිධාන ක්‍රියාකාරීන් සුළුතර කණ්‌ඩායමට රජය හිස නැමිය යුතුද යන්නය. බයිලා ගායකයෙක්‌ පවා සිවිල් සංවිධාන ක්‍රියාකාරීන් අතරට එක්‌වීමෙන් එම සිවිල් සංවිධානවල තත්ත්වය සනාථ වේ.

2009 මැයි මස 19 දා වන තෙක්‌ මේ සිවිල් සංවිධාන ක්‍රියාකාරීන් කොහේ සිටියේද. කොටුව – නුගේගොඩ, ගල්කිස්‌ස, රත්මලාන, වැලිවේරිය, පිළියන්දල ඇතුළු ස්‌ථාන රැසක ප්‍රභාකරන් බෝම්බ තබා අමු අමුවේ ජීවිත හානි සිදු කරද්දී මේ සිවිල් සංවිධාන ක්‍රියාකාරීන් දකින්නටවත් ලැබුණේ නැත. මොවුන් අද බිය සැක නැතිව දේශපාලන රැස්‌වීම් පවත්වන්නේ, ගමන් බිමන් යන්නේ හමුදා බුද්ධි අංශයට පිංසිදු වන්නටය. කොළඹ බෝම්බ පිපිරීම් ගණනාවක්‌ සිදුකිරීමට සැලසුම් කර සිටි මොරිස්‌ නමැති ත්‍රස්‌ත සැලසුම්කරු අල්ලා ගැනීම සඳහා හමුදා බුද්ධි අංශයට මහත් පරිශ්‍රමයක්‌ දැරීමට සිදුවිය. එම තත්ත්වය මෙරට බොහෝ පිරිසකට අමතක වී ඇත.

මේ අතර ඊයේ මැදපෙරදිගින් ප්‍රකාශයට ඇරෑබ් නිවුස්‌ පුවත්පත පැවසුවේ යාපනයේ සිදුවූ ක්‍රියාදාමයන් නිසා හමුදා බුද්ධි ප්‍රධානියාව ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් කර ඇති බවයි. උතුරේ අස්‌ථාවර තත්ත්වයක්‌ ඇති කිරීමට මොහු ක්‍රියාකරන බවට සිවිල් සංවිධාන විසින් පැමිණිලිකර තිබූ බවද එම පුවත්පත වැඩිදුරටත් හෙළි කළේය.

මේ පසුබිම මැද සුළු පිරිසකට රටේ ජාතික ආරක්‍ෂාවට මැදිහත්වීමට ඉඩදිය හැකිද යන බරපතල ප්‍රශ්නය පැනනැගී ඇත. එවන් වාතාවරණයක්‌ මත ඇමරිකානු රජය සිවිල් සංවිධානවලට ඩොලර් පන් ලක්‍ෂයක්‌ පිරිනැමීමේ යටි අරමුණු අවබෝධ කර ගත යුතුය.

ඊශ්‍රායල් අගමැති බෙන්ජමින් නෙත්න්යාහු පැවසුවේ ඊශ්‍රායලය ර¹ පවතින්නේ බුද්ධි අංශය මත යන්නයි.

– කීර්ති වර්ණකුලසූරිය

 

යහපාලනය නමින් ජනතාවට පුන්නක්කු කැවීම

November 4th, 2016

තේජා ගොඩකන්දෙආරච්චි

ඔක්තෝබර් මස 28 වනදා කෝප් කමිටු වාර්තාවත් එලි දුටුවේය. පාර්ලිමේන්තුව පමනක් නොව මුලු රටම කඩිගුලක් සේ අැවිස්සින. බහුතරයකගේ අදහස වූයේ අග්‍රාමාත්‍යවරයා ඉල්ලා අස්විය යුතු බවය. කෝප් කමිටු වාර්තාව මගින් හෙලිදරව් වූ මහ බැංකු බැඳුම්කර වංචාවට හිටපු මහ බැංකු අධිපති අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන් ඍජුවම සම්බන්ධ බවත්, ඔහුට බැඳුම්කර නිකුත් කිරීම සඳහා වෙන්දේසි ක්‍රමය යොදා ගැනීමට උපදෙස් දී ඇත්තේ අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ බැවින් මේ පිලිබඳ වගකීම අග්‍රාමාත්‍යවරයාද සමව භාර ගත යුතු බවත් බොහෝ දෙනාගේ අදහස විය. ඔක්. 28 වනදා මේ කතාව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ කියැවෙත්දී ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂයේ බාධා කිරීම් මැද අගමැතිවරයා පැවසූ වචන වලින් කිහිපයකි මේ.

”ජනාධිපති මෙෙත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මැතිතුමාගේ යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුවකට පුලුවන් වුනා මේ කටයුත්ත කරන්න” (මොන කටයුත්තද? බැඳුම්කර වංචාවද? හෙලිදරව්වද? දෙකමද?)

“පාර්ලිමේන්තුව ජය ගත්ත. ජනතාවගෙන් සමාව ඉල්ලන්න ඕන. ලැජ්ජ වෙන්න ඕන” (කවුද?)

මෙසේ පැවසූ ඔහු ”අපි හොරුනුත් යහපාලනයට හැරෙව්වා” යි දෙවරක් පැවසීය.

ලක්ෂ්මන් කිරිඇල්ල ඇමතිවරයා පැවසුවේ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ රජය සමයේ කෝප් කමිටු වාර්තා 30 ක් කුණු බක්කියට විසිකල බවයි. කෝප් කමිටුව ආරම්භ වූයේ 1979 දී බැවින් 2005 ටත් පෙර කමිටු වාර්තා කීයක් කුණු බක්කියට ගොස් ඇතිදැයි අපි හරියටම නොදනිමු.

මහ බැංකු බැඳුම්කර නිකුත් කිරීමත්, ඒ හා බැඳුනු මූල්‍යමය කරුණුත් සම්බන්ධ න්‍යායික කොටස ආර්ථික විද්‍යා විෂයයට අයත් දෙයකි. මේ සිද්ධිය සිදුවී වසර 1 1/2 ක ට පසුව හෝ ජවිපෙ නායක අනුර කුමාර දිසානායක විසින් ඉතා සරළ භාෂාවකින් මේ න්‍යායයන් පිලිබඳ පැහැදිලි කරන කතාවක් රැගත් වීඩියෝවක් මේ දිනවල සමාජ වෙබ් අඩවි ඔස්සේ සංසරණය වෙයි. එබැවින් මීට සම්බන්ධ පරිබාහිර කරුණු ගැන සොයා බැලීමද වැදගත්ය.

තම රජය විසින් සිදු කරන ඕනෑම දෙයක ප්‍රතිඵල නරක් වූ විට ඒ පිලිබඳ වගකීම පසුගිය රජයට පවරන පුරුද්ද නම්, මේ රජයේ වගකිව යුත්තන් වෙත තවමත් නොඅඩුවම තිබේ. මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ රජය විසින් කෝප් කමිටු වාර්තා 30 ක් කුණුු බක්කියට විසි කල බව ලක්ෂ්මන් කිරිඇල්ල පවසන්නේ එහෙයිනි. ”අපි හොරුනුත් යහපාලනයට හැරෙව්වා” යි අගමැතිවරයා පුන පුනා පවසන්නේ එහෙයිනි. අපට අසන්නට ඇති ප්‍රශ්නය නම් අද මේ එක කමිටු වාර්තාවකට එරෙහිව මේ තරම් විශාල ජන මතයක් ගොඩනැගෙන පරිදි වැඩ කරන්නට රජයට එරෙහි විවිධ සමාජ කොටස් වලට හා මාධ්‍යවලට හැකි නම්, වසර 10 ක් තිස්සේ වාර්තා 30 ක් කුණු බක්කියට  විසි කරන තුරු මොවුන්  සිටියේ කොහේද? එය ඔවුන්ගේ උදාසීන බව හෝ දුර්වල බවය. එදා මාධ්‍ය නිදහස නොතිබූ බව ඔවුන් කියනු ඇත. නමුත් අද ද ඔය කියන තරම් මාධ්‍ය නිදහසක් තිබේද? මාධ්‍ය හමුවලදී මාධ්‍යවේදීන් අසන ප්‍රශ්නවලින් ඔවුන්ට පැනවී ඇති සීමාවන් පැහැදිලිව පෙනේ. රාජිත සේනාරත්න වැනි ඇමතිවරුන් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ට කතා කරන කර්කෂ  ස්වභාවය, අගමැතිවරයා සහ ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසින් මාධ්‍යයට එල්ල කරන අපහාස උපහාස හා තර්ජන තුල මේ මාධ්‍ය  නිදහසේ සැබෑ නිරුවත දෘශ්‍යමාන වේ.

කෝප් කමිටු වාර්තාවෙන්  හෙලි වූ කරුණු පිලිබඳව, සන්ධානයෙන් රජයට එක්ව සිටින ඇමතිවරුන් මුලින් මුලින් සිංහයන් සේ ගර්ජනා කලෝය. ඒත් දැන් දිනෙන් දින ගෙවී යත්ම ඒ හඬවල් හෙමින් වියැකී ගොසිනි. ”මේක ඔය තරම් ලොකුවට කෑ ගහන්නට දෙයක් නොවේ” යැ යි අගමැතිවරයා කිසිදු ලැජ්ජාවක් නැතිව පවසන විට ඔහු විසින් ‘යහපාලනයට හැරවූ හොරු’  ද ටිකෙන් ටික  නිහඬ වෙති. මේ නිහඬතාවය තුල, අගමැතිවරයාගේ නිර්ලජ්ජිත වදන්ද, උපහාසය මුසු යෙදුම්ද ඉවසා සිටීම තුල මේ සන්ධාන ඇමතිවරු ඔප්පු කරන්නට යන්නේ අගමැති සාධාරණයි කියාද?

කෝප් කමිටු වාර්තාව නිකුත්ව ගෙවී ගිය මුල් දින 2,3 තුල මාධ්‍යයට අදහස් පලකල ඇමතිවරු කිහිප දෙනෙක් පැවසුවේ අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන්ව මහ බැංකු අධිපති ධූරයට  පත් නොකරන ලෙස  තමන් අගමැතිවරයාට කොතෙකුත් කියූ බවයි. ඔහු ඊට කන් දී නොමැත. බලාගෙන යන විට අගමැතිවරයා කටයුතු කර ඇත්තේද හිතුමතේය. මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂට පමනක්  ඇඟිල්ල දිගු කලත් මේ ක්‍රමය තුල තිබෙන්නේද ඒකාධිපතිවාදයමය. රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ අඩු තරමින් ජනාධිපති මෙෙත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේනට වත් මායිම් නොකරයි. ඔහු එවැන්නෙකු බව 2002 දී ත් ඔප්පු කලේ චන්ද්‍රිකා කුමාරතුංග ජනාධිපතිනිය සම්පූර්ණයෙන්ම කපා හැර එල්ටීටීඊ සංවිධානය සමග ඊනියා අවබෝධතා ගිවිසුම අත්සන් කිරීමෙනි.

අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන් නැමති ශ්‍රී ලාංකික සම්භවයක් සහිත සිංගප්පූරු ජාතිකයා මහ බැංකු අධිපති තනතුරට රැගෙන ආවේ රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහය. අද කතාබහට ලක්ව තිබෙන පර්පෙචුවල් ට්‍රෙෂරීස් සමාගම, අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන්ගේ දියණිය වන අංජලී මහේන්ද්‍රන් හා 2012 දී විවාහ වූ අර්ජුන ඇලෝෂියස්ගේය. 2014 දෙසැම්බර් 30 දක්වා මෙවන් ගණුදෙනු සඳහා ඔහු ඉදිරිපත් කල උපරිම ලංසුව රු. මිලියන 250 ක් විය. නමුත් 2015 දී එය රු. මිලියන 300 – 3000 දක්වා ඉහල ගොස් ඇත. රු. මිලියන 27 – 150 දක්වා  පරාසයක වූ ඔහු ලබාගත් ලංසුද රු. මිලියන 50 -3000 දක්වා වැඩිවී තිබේ. එබැවින් මේ අසාමාන්‍ය මිල වැඩිවීම් තුල බැඳුම්කර නිකුතු සම්බන්ධ යම් අවභාවිතයක් සිදුවීද යන සැකය එම සමාගමේ නවතම මූල්‍ය වාර්තාවලින්ම හෙලිවූ බව මේ ප්‍ර්‍රශ්නය ඇරඹුමේදීම ඇතිව තිබිනි. නමුත් 2015 ජනවාරි 26 දින පත් වූ මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයා මේ සම්බන්ධව නැගෙන චෝදනා ප්‍රතික්ශේප කල අතර, 2016 ජුනි 30 දා යින් අවසන් වන ඔහුගේ නිල කාලය දිගු කරලීම සඳහා ඔහු හා පෙල ගැසුනේ අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහය. ඔහුු ITN නාලිකාවේ සාකච්ඡාවකට එක් වෙමින් මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයාගේ නිර්දෝශී භාවය කියා පෑවේය. එදා ඔහු පැවසුුවේ යමෙකුට චෝදනා කරන්නට ඕනෑම අයෙකුට හැකි වුනත් එම චෝදනා ඔප්පු වන තුරු  ඒ අය වරදකරුවකු කරන්නට කිසිවෙකුට නොහැකි බවයි.  නමුත් මේ න්‍යාය හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරයාටද අදාල වන බව අමතක කල අග්‍රාමාත්‍යවරයා ඔහු සම්බන්ධව කතා කරන විට පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේදීද, ප්‍රසිද්ධ වේදිකාවේදීද ‘හොරා’ ‘හොරා කෑවා’ වැනි වචන වලින් ඔහුව හෙලා දැකීමට නොපැකිලුනේය. වෙන එකක් තබා ජයග්‍රහණය කර ඇස් පනා පිට නිදහස ලබා දුන් බෙදුම්වාදී යුද්ධය ගැන පවා ‘දුටුගැමුණු’ චරිතයක් ගැන සෝපාහාසීව කියමින් ඉතිහාසයේ ලියැවුනු ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨ රජ කෙනෙකුගේ මෙහෙවර අවතක්සේරුවට ලක් කලේය.

මා දන්නා පරිදි අප රටේ ඉහල තනතුරක සේවය සඳහා විදේශිකයෙකු පත් කරන විට ඔහුට ගෙවන දීමනා ඔහුට ඉල්ලා සිටිය හැක. එමෙන්ම අදාල තනතුර සඳහා අවශ්‍ය සුදුසුකම් සැපිරූ ශ්‍රී ලාංකික පුරවැසියෙකු රටේ නොසිටිය යුතුය. එසේ නැතිව ‘අපි මේ ගණන ගෙවනවා’ කී පලියට මේ වාණජකරනය වූ ලෝකයේ වෘත්තීය සුදුසුකම් ඇති පුද්ගලයෙකු එම තනතුර භාර ගනීවි යයි සිතිය නොහැක. ඒ අනුව මේ මහබැංකු බැඳුම්කර සිද්ධියේදී සිදු  වූ  පාඩුවට අමතරව මාස 17 ක් තිස්සේ අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන් නම් විදේශීය ආර්ථික විශේෂඥයාට ගෙවූ පඩි නඩි හා වෙනත් දීමනා තීරණය වන්නට ඇත්තේ මේ පදනම යටතේය. ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂය විසින් 2016 ජුනි මස 03 වන දින පැවැත්වූ මාධ්‍ය හමුවකදී මේ බව හෙලිකරන ලදී. ශ්‍රී ලංකා මහ බැංකුව විසින් අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන්ට නිකුත්කර තිබූ බැර පතක (Credit Card) වාර්තාවකට අනුව 2015 වසරේදී ඔහුගේ ආහාර (රු. මිලියන 3.6), හෝටල් ගාස්තු (රු. මිලියන 4.7), සංග්‍රහ (රු. මිලියන 1.7), චාරිකාවන් (රු.650,000), විදේශයන්හිදී මිලට ගත් ඇඳුම් (රු. මිලියන 2.1) ක් ද වශයෙන් වැය කල මුදල් සටහන් වන බවට වන ලිඛිත සාක්ෂි සහිතව ඔවුහු ඉදිරිපත් කලහ. මේ අවස්ථාවේදී කලබල වූ රජය මෙම චෝදනා ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කරමින්, මේ රහස්‍ය තොරතුරු පිටතට දුන් පුද්ගලයන් පිලිබඳව පරීක්ෂණයක් අරඹන බව කියා සිටියේය. කෙසේ වුවද දේශපාලකයෙකු හැර කෙතරම් ඉහල තනතුරක් දැරුවත් අප රටේ සාමාන්‍ය පුරවැසියෙකු නඩත්තු කිරීම සඳහා මෙවන් වියදමක් යාවිද කියා අප සිතා බැලිය යුතුය.

2016 ජුලි මස 02 වන දා හිටපු මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයා නැවත පත්කර ගැනීමට අග්‍රාමාත්‍යවරයා තුල වූ උනන්දුව හා අවශ්‍යතාව සාධාරණීකරනය කරමින් ඇමති ලක්ෂ්මන් කිරිඇල්ල කට ඇරියේය. කෝප් කමිටුවේ සොයා ගැනීම් තුල සඳහන් වන විගණකාධිපතිගේ වාර්තාව ඔහුගේ ”මතයක්” පමනක් බවත්, අර්ජුන මහේන්ද්‍රන් යනු වරදකරුවකු නොවන බවත් පැවසූ ඔහු අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන් යනු ඔක්ස්ෆර්ඩ් සහ හාවඩ් සරසවිවල ඉගෙන ගත් අයෙකු බැවින්ද, ඔහුගේ අති සාර්ථක විදේශ සේවා වාර්තාවන් නිසාද ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ සේවය කිරීම ප්‍රශ්නයක් නොවන බව පැවසීය. අවසානයට ඇමතිවරයා කීවේ අප රටේ පුරවැසියෙකු නොවුනද ඔහු අපට සම්පතක් බවයි. 

ඉතින් මේ සියලු කතාබහ මධ්‍යයේ, විවිධ පාර්ශ්වවලින් එල්ල වූ විරෝධතා හමුවේ, තම මිත්‍රයා යලිත් මහ බැංකු අධිපති තනතුරට රැගෙන ඒම කල නොහැකි වූ තැන ඔහුව ජාත්‍යන්තර ආයෝජන මණ්ඩලයේ අධ්‍යක්ෂ ජෙනරල් ලෙස පත් කිරීමට අගමැතිවරයා තීරණය කල අතර 2016 ජුලි මස 18,19 දෙදින ඒ සම්බන්ධ ගිවිසුම අත්සන් කිරීමට සිංගප්පූරුව බලා ගියේය.  ඒ අතරම තම මිතුරා කෝප් කමිටුව විසින් නිදහස් කරනු ඇතැයි ඔහු උදක්ම බලාපොරාෙත්තු විය. 

2015 මාර්තු මස බැඳුම්කර ප්‍රශ්නය ගැන විභාග  කරන්නට අගමැතිවරයා විසින් පත්කල ත්‍රිපුද්ගල නීතීඥ කොමිසමේ තිදෙනාම එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයට සම්බන්ධ වූ අයයි. ඒ නිසාද, මෙවන් පරීක්ෂණ සම්බන්ධව ඔවුන් සතු පලපුරුද්ද ගැනද ස්වාධීන පාර්ශ්වයන් අතර ගැටලු පැන නැගී තිබිනි. කෙසේ වුවද එම වාර්තාව ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට නියමිත දින එනම් අප්‍රේල් 23 වන දා ජනාධිපතිවරයා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරියේය.

කෝප් කමිටු වාර්තාවට විශේෂ බලපෑමක් එල්ලකල විගණකාධිපතිවරයාගේ වාර්තාවන් සම්බන්ධව ඔහු අග්‍රාමාත්‍යවරයාගේ සහ මුදල් ඇමතිවරයාගේ දැඩි විවේචන වලට ලක්විනි. මේ ප්‍රශ්නය ඇවිලුනේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා රජය 2015 වසරේදී අනුමත ණය සීමාව ඉක්වමින් රු. බිලියන 3350 ක් ලබාගෙන ඇති බවට විගණකාධිපති ගාමිණී විජේසිංහ මහතා ඉදිරිපත් කල ආන්දෝලනාත්මක වාර්තාව නිසාය. පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අනුමත ණය සීමාව රු. බිලියන 1780 කි. රජය පැවසුයේ තමන් ලබාගත් මුලු ණය මුදල රු. බිලියන 1738 ක් පමනක් බවත්ය. තමන් පෙර ලබාගත් ණය ගෙවීමට රු. බිලියන 1606 ක් වැය කල බව පවසමින් මුදල් ඇමතිගේ වාර්තාවේ, ලබාගත් භාණ්ඩාගාර බිල්පත් සඳහා පෙන්වා ඇත්තේ ඍණ අගයකි(-73) . නමුත් විගණකාධිපති වාර්තාවට අනුව රු. බිලියන 1533 ක් භාණ්ඩාගාර බිල්පත් මගින් ලබාගෙන ඇත. මෙවන් ඍණ අගයක් යෙදීම තුල එම බිලියන 1533 ට සිදු වූයේ කුමක්දැයි විගණකාධිපති ප්‍රශ්න කල විට අගමැති හා මුදල් ඇමතිගේ කෝපය ඔහු වෙත යොමුවිය. ඒ තමන් ජාත්‍යන්තර මූල්‍ය අරමුදලට වග උත්තර බැඳිය යුතු බැවිනි. මෙතැනදී විගණකාධිපතිවරයා නොසැලී තම විෂය දැනුම පිලිබඳ ආත්ම විශ්වාසයෙන් සිටි අතර විගණකාධිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ වෘත්තීය සමිතිය ඔහුගේ  ස්වාධීනත්වය වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටියේය. මෙවන් දෝෂ සහිත වාර්තා නිසා මහජන ධනය සහ සම්පත්  අවභාවිතා වන ආකාරය ඔවුන් විසින් පැහැදිලි කල අතර මේ වාර්තාමය වරද ඉතා දිගු කලක් තිස්සේ  සිදු වෙමින් තිබූ බවත්, ඔවුන් 2014 දී මෙය නිවැරදි කල බවත් විගණකාධිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව ප්‍රකාශ කලේය. මෙවන් වංචා දූෂණ වැලැක්වීම සඳහා විගණන පනතක් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ගෙන ඒමට තමන් 2004 වසරේ සිට උත්සාහ දැරුවත් කිසිදු රජයකට ඒ සඳහා උනන්දුවක් නොවූ අතර වත්මන් රජයේ උත්සාහයද එම වෑයම දියකර හැරීම බවද ඔවුහු චෝදනා කරති.

මේ අල්ල පනල්ලේ ජනතාව පුදුම කරවන අයවැයක් ගෙන එන බව අයවැයට පෙර දළදා වඳින්නට පැමිනි මුදල් ඇමති කියයි. ආර්ථික සමුලුවක් ඇමතීමට අගමැති හොංකොං ගියේය. ජනාධිපති වරදකරුවන්ට දඬුවම් පමුනුවන හැටි පවසද්දී කූල් එකේ තම මගුල් ගෙදර චාරිකාව හමාර කර පැමිනි හිටපු මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයා ”වරදක් කරල නැත්නම් කලබල වෙන්නෙ මොටදැ”යි කියයි. 

ජවිපෙ නායකයා මේ වැනි වංචාවන් ජනතාව විසින් ඉවත නොහෙලිය යුතු ඇයිදැ යි පැහැදිලි කරන්නට උදාහරණ ගෙනාවේය. ඇත්තෙන්ම එය කාලෝචිතය. ආපදාවලින් අවතැන් වූ ජනතාවට වන්දි නොලැබෙන රටේ, ගොවියාගේ පොහොර සහනාධාරය කප්පාදු කරන්නට, කෘෂිකර්මය වනසා දමන්නට කටයුතු කරන රටේ මොනවා හෝ ප්‍රශ්නයක් නිසා ජනතාව වීදි බසින රටේ මේ ආර්ථික න්‍යායයන් ජනතාවට බර වැඩිය. ඒත් එම ප්‍රශ්න එසේ වන්නේ ඇයිද කියා වටහා ගන්නට නම් මේ තත්වය ඔවුන්ට අවබෝධ විය යුතුය. මේ කිහිප දෙනෙකු එක්ව ගසා කන්නේ තමන්ගේ උරුමය බව ජනතාව වටහා ගත යුතුමය. 

මේ ප්‍රශ්න යට ගහන්නට ඕනෑ නිසා මොවුන් නොයෙකුත් අතුරු ප්‍රශ්න ගෙනෙති. අාවා කල්ලිය ගැන චෝදනාව ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ පිට දැමීම හා හමුදා බුද්ධි අංශ ප්‍රධානියා ඉවත් කිරීම මෙවන් උපක්‍රම විය හැක. මන්ද ජනතාව නැඹුරුවන දිශාව අවබෝධ වූ විට මේ කතාවන් හා ක්‍රියාවන් ඔවුන්ට රිදෙන නිල ඇල්ලීමක් බඳුය. නොඅනුමානවම ජනතාවගේ අවධානය මේ ඔස්සේ වෙනත් දිශාවකට හැරවූ විට නොවැම්බර් 10 වනදා කලඑලි බසින්නට නියමිත අයවැයත් සමගම තමන්ට මේ ප්‍රශ්නයෙන් ලිස්සා යා හැකි යයි ඔවුන්ගේ අපේක්ෂාව වනු ඇත.

මේ ගැන අවධානයෙන් නොසිටියොත් ඔබේ පතට හෙනහුරා වැටෙනු ඇති අතර අනුන්ට හොරා හොරා කියමින් ටයි කෝට්, කම්බා හොර නඩය රට  සවාරි ගසමින් අන්‍යයන්ට ආර්ථික සංවර්ධනය ගැන දේශනා පවත්වනු ඇත.

නරින්ට කුකුල්ලූ බාර දුන්නා කිවුවේ ඉස්සර.. දැන් කියන්නේ ‘රනිල්ට මහ බැංකුව බාර දුන්නා වගේ’ කියලා..

November 4th, 2016

lanka C news | ලංකා සී නිවුස්

ශ්‍රී ලංකා රජයට ක්‍ෂණිකව රුපියල් කෝටි 5585ක පාඩුවක් සිදු කරමින් මහදවල් සිදු කළ මහ බැංකු බැඳුම්කර හොරකමේ මහ මොලකරු අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ බව අද වන විට රට හමුවේ ඔප්පු වී අවසන් බවත් ඔහු ධුරයෙන් ඉල්ලා අස් නොවන්නේ නම් ඊට එරෙහිව ජනතාව සමඟ පාරට බැසීමට ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්‍ෂය සූදානම් බවත් ජාතික නිදහස් පෙරමුණේ නායක, පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී විමල් වීරවංශ මහතා අවධාරණය කළේය.

ඔහු මේ බව පැවසුවේ බොරැල්ල එන්. එම්. පෙරේරා මධ්‍යස්ථානයේදී පැවැති ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂයේ මාධ්‍ය හමුවේදීය.

එහිදී වැඩිදුරටත් අදහස් දැක්වූ විමල් වීරවංශ මහතා මෙසේ ද සඳහන් කළේය.

නරියාට කුකුල්ලු බාර දුන්නා වගේ’ කියන කියන කතාව වෙනුවට අද අපේ තරුණ පරම්පරාව කියන්නේ ‘රනිල්ට මහ බැංකුව බාර දුන්නා වගේ’ කියන එකයි. ඉතිහාසය පුරාම මේ රටේ මහ බැංකුව මුදල් ඇමති භාරයේ මිස අගමැතිවරයා භාරයේ තබාගෙන නැහැ. 2015 ජනවාරි 08 සිදු වූ ඔවුන්ගේ ඊනියා බල පෙරළියෙන් පස්සේ, මෙතෙක් මෙරට කිසිදු ජනාධිපතිවරයකු හෝ අගමැතිවරයකු භාරයේ තබා නොගත්, මුදල් ඇමතිවරයා යටතේ පමණක් ගැසට් කළ මහ බැංකුව රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ අගමැතිවරයා යටතට ගත්තේ ඇයි? ඒ වගේම තමන්ගේ ගජ මිතුරා වූ සිංගප්පූරු ජාතික අර්ජුන මහේන්ද්‍රන් මහ බැංකු අධිපති ධුරයට පත් කරන්නේ ඇයි? 2015 පෙබරවාරි 27 වැනිදා සිදු වූ මේ විවාදාත්මක බැඳුම්කර වෙන්දේසියට දිනයකට පෙර එක්සත් ජාතික පක්‍ෂයේ සභාපති මලික් සමරවික්‍රම, මහ ලේකම් කබීර් හෂිම්, නියෝජ්‍ය නායක රවී කරුණානායක යන අය මහ බැංකු පරිශ්‍රය ඇතුළට ගිහිල්ලා මේ ගනුදෙනුවට අදාළ කරුණු සාකච්ඡා කළේ ඇයි? මේ අයට මේ රටේ ජනතාවගේ මුදල් මහා පරිමාණයෙන් කොල්ල කන්න පුළුවන් වුණා. ඒ අනුව ඉතා පැහැදිලියි මේක පූර්ව වශයෙන් සැලසුම් කරලා සිදු කළ මංකොල්ලයක්. මහ බැංකුව අගමැති යටතට ගත්තේ, මේ රටේ පුරවැසියකු නොවන සිංගප්පූරු ජාතිකයකු මහ බැංකු අධිපති ධුරයට පත් කළේ ඒ පූර්ව සැලසුම අනුවයි. ඒ වගේම මේ මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයාට තවත් විශේෂ සුදුසුකමක් තිබෙනවා. ඒ තමයි ඔහුගේ බෑණා ප්‍රාථමික මුදල් නිකුතුවේ සිටින සමාගමක හිමිකරුවකු වීම. රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ අගමැතිවරයා මේ ‘මාමා සහ බෑණා’ යොදා ගෙන තමයි ‘මහ බැංකු රොබරිය’ දුන්නේ.

නරින්ට කුකුල්ලූ බාර දුන්නා කිවුවේ ඉස්සර.. දැන් කියන්නේ ‘රනිල්ට මහ බැංකුව බාර දුන්නා වගේ’ කියලා..

‘අර්ජුන මහේන්ද්‍රන් පත් කළේ ව්‍යවස්ථා විරෝධීවයි’

පුරවැසිභාවය තියා මේ අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන්ට අඩුම තරමින් මේ රටේ රැකියාවක නිතරවීම සඳහා රැකියා බලපත්‍රයක්වත් (උදරන ඡැරපසඑ) තිබුණාද? මේ රටේ පුරවැසියකු නොවන නිසා ඔහු මහ බැංකු අධිපති ධුරයට පත් වීමේදී ලබා දිය යුතු දිවුරුම ලබා දුන්නේ නැහැ. ඒ නිසා අර්ජුන මහේන්ද්‍රන් මේ ධුරයෙහි කටයුතු කළේ මෙරට ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යාවස්ථාවට පටහැනිවයි. ආගමන විගමන නීති උල්ලංඝනය කරමින් රැකියා බලපත්‍රයක්වත් නොමැතිව අර්ජුන මහේන්ද්‍රන් මහ බැංකු අධිපති ධුරය දැරුවේ රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ අගමැතිවරයාගේ පූර්ණ මැදිහත්වීම යටතේයි.

මෛත්‍රී පළමු වතාවේ රනිල්ව බේරුවා’

2015 ජනවාරි 08 වැනිදා බලයට පත් වූ දින 100 ආණ්ඩුව පැවැති සමයේ ඞ්ව් ගුණසේකර මැතිතුමා සභාපති ධුරය දැරූ කෝප් කමිටුව විසින් මහ බැංකු බැඳුම්කර වංචාව පිළිබඳ වාර්තාවක් සකස් කළා. ඒ වාර්තාව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට නියමිතව තිබූ දිනට පෙර දිනයේ රාත්‍රියේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරලා ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන මහතා අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහව බේරා ගත්තා. ‘එදා වගේ අදත් ජනාධිපතිතුමා අගමැතිවරයා බේරා ගනීවීදෝ?’ කියන සැකය අපට තිබෙනවා. ‘එසේ නොවේවා!’ කියා ප්‍රාර්ථනා කරනවා. කොහොම නමුත් එදා ඞ්ව් ගුණසේකර මැතිතුමාගේ සභාපතීත්වයෙන් සකස් කළ වාර්තාව මේ බැඳුම්කර වංචාව සිදු වී මාස කිහිපයක් ඇතුළත උණු උණුවේම එළියට එන එක වළක්වලා ජනාධිපතිවරයා අගමැතිවරයාට බේරා ගත්තා. දැන් ඒ ගනුදෙනුව සිදු වී මාස 21කට පසුව කෝප් කමිටු වාර්තාවක් එළි දක්වලා තිබෙනවා. ‘කලින් වාර්තාව ද මේ එළිදැක්වූ වාර්තාව ද වඩා හොඳ?’ කියන ප්‍රශ්නය මම මෙතැනට අදාළකර ගන්නේ නැහැ. ඒ කවරක් වුවත් අද ලංකාවේ ඉතිහාසයේ පමණක් නොවෙයි ආසියාවේ ඉතිහාසයේ ලොකුම රොබරිය, විගණකාධිපතිවරයාගේ වාර්තාවලින් සහ මහ බැංකුවේ අභ්‍යන්තර පරීක්‍ෂණ වාර්තාවලින් හෙළදරව් වී තිබෙනවා. මේක මහ දවල් සිදුකළ දැවැන්ත සොරකමක් බව එමගින් ඔප්පු වී තිබෙනවා.

‘ක්‍ෂණික අලාභය කෝටි 5585’

මහ බැංකු අභ්‍යන්තර වාර්තාවලට අනුව මේ ගනුදෙනුවෙන් රුපියල් කෝටි 5585ක අලාභයක් ක්‍ෂණිකව සිදු වෙලා තිබෙනවා. ඊට අමතරව ‘අවුරුදු 30ක කාලයකට කෘත්‍රීමව පොලී අනුපාතිකය ඉහළ දැමීම නිසා පොලී පිරිවැය වැඩිවීම ඔස්සේ සිද්ධ වන පාඩුව රුපියල් බිලියන 145කට වඩා වැඩියි’ කියා ආර්ථික විද්‍යාඥයන් අනාවරණයකර තිබෙනවා. රටට ක්‍ෂණිකව පාඩු සිදු වූ මුදලින් (රු.කෝටි 5585) කොළඹ – ගාල්ල අධිවේගී මාර්ගය වැනි මාර්ග දෙකක්, නොරොච්චෝලේ වැනි තවත් විදුලි බලාගාරයක්, හදන්න තිබුණා. රජයේ සේවකයන් ලක්‍ෂ 12ට දෙනවා කියපු රුපියල් 10,000, මූලික වැටුපට එකතු කරලා අවුරුදු 2-3ක් ගෙවන්න තිබුණා. මේ විදියට මහා මංකොල්ලයක් කරපු මේ ආණ්ඩුව අද මහජනතාවට කියන්නේ කුමක්ද? ‘අපි මහ බැංකුව සුද්ධ කළා. ඒකෙන් පොඩි අමාරුවක් ඇවිත් තිබෙනවා. උඹලා වැට් ගෙවපල්ලා’ කියලයි.

‘බැඳුම්කරේ බර ජනතාවට පටවලා’

අපේ කාලයේ රාජ්‍ය සේවකයන්ට ‘උපහාර’ නම් වූ දුරකථන පැකේජයක් දීලා සහන සැලසුවා. අද මොකද වෙලා තිබෙන්නේ? සියලු දුරකථන පාරිභෝගිකයන්ට 50%ක බද්දක් ගෙවන්න වෙලා තිබෙනවා. අද සියලුම භාණ්ඩ හා සේවාවලට 15%ක වැට් බද්දක් පනවලා තිබෙනවා. මේ විදියට ජනතාව මත පටවලා තිබෙන්නේ ‘බැඳුම්කරේ බරයි.’ මේ තමයි අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහගේ ආර්ථික කළමනාකරණ ඥානයේ ප්‍රතිඵල ඇත්තෙන්ම එතුමාට ‘හොඳ ඥානයක්’ තිබෙනවා තමයි. නැත්තම් බෑණාට බැඳුම්කර මිලදී ගන්න සමාගමක් තිබෙන සිංගප්පුරු ජාතිකයකු මහ බැංකු අධිපති ධුරයට පත් කරලා ආණ්ඩුවක් අරන් මාස තුනක් යනකොට මෙහෙම රොබරියක් දෙන්න පුළුවන්ද? (මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ සිනා) ඒක අපට ‘විශිෂ්ට ආර්ථික විiාත්මක ඥානයක්’ ලෙස පිළිගන්න වෙනවා. අද පාරට බැහැලා විශ්‍රාම වැටුප් ඉල්ලන ආබාධිත රණවිරුවන්ට විශ්‍රාම වැටුප් පමණක් නොවෙයි, අතිරේක විශ්‍රාම වැටුපකුත් දෙන්න තිබුණා මේ විදියේ හොරකමක් සිදු නොවුණා නම්. මේ හොරකම සිදු නොවුණා නම් වතුකරයේ ජනතාව ඉල්ලන වැටුපට වැඩි වැටුපක් ඔවුන්ට දෙන්න තිබුණා. ඒ වගේම පොහොර සහනාධාරය අපේ කාලයටත් වඩා වැඩියෙන් දෙන්න තිබුණා මේ හොරකම නොකළා නම්.

‘හොරාගෙන් – පේන අහන්න හදනවා’

මේ රටේ කිසිදු රාජ්‍ය නායකයකුට මේ විදියට ‘අතේ මාට්ටු වුණු’ චෝදනාවක් කිසි දිනක ඉදිරිපත් වෙලා නැහැ. ඒ නිසා මේ චෝදනාවෙන් අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහට බේරෙන්න බැහැ. සමහරු අගමැතිවරයාගෙන් ඉල්ලනවා ‘මේ පිළිබඳව කඩිනමින් පියවර ගන්න’ කියලා. ඒක හරියට ‘හොරාගේ අම්මාගෙන්’ නොවෙයි ‘හොරාගෙන්ම පේන අහනවා’ වගේ වැඩක්. අපි කියන්නේ, ‘මේ හොරකමට සම්පූර්ණ වගකීම ගන්න ඕනේ අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ’ කියලයි. අර්ජුන මහේන්ද්‍රන්ලා විතරක් අත්අඩංගුවට අරගෙන වැඩක් නැහැ. අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ තනතුරෙහි ඉන්නකල් මේ පිළිබඳව නිසි පරීක්‍ෂණයක් සිදු වෙයි කියලා අපට විශ්වාසයක් නැහැ. එක්කෝ අගමැති ඉල්ලා අස්වෙන්න ඕනෙ. නැත්තම් ‘අපේ කර මත බදු බරක් පටවලා අපිව සූරාගෙන කන උඹලා මහා හොරකමක් කළා නේද?’ කියන චෝදනාව අරගෙන දකුණු කොරියාවේ ජනතාව පාරට බැස්සා වගේ අපේ රටේ ජනතාවත් පාරට බහින්න සූදානම් වෙන්න ඕනෙ. මාසකෙට වතාවක් ‘වීර කතාවක්’ කරන ජනාධිපතිතුමාටත් අපි කියනවා ‘මේ මහා හොරකමේ මහ මොලකරු අගමැති ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් කරලා තමන්ගේ වීරකම පෙන්වන්න’ කියලා. එහෙම නොවුණොත් අගමැතිවරයා ඉල්ලා අස්වනතුරු ජනතාව සමඟ මහා පාරේ අරගල කරන්න ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්‍ෂය සූදානම් බවත් අවධාරණය කරනවා.”

අනුරුද්ධ බණ්ඩාර රණවාරණ
මාධ්‍ය ලේකම්,
ජාතික නිදහස් පෙරමුණ22,005 Viewers

THE IDIOCIES IN THE SRI LANKA CONSTITUTION, 3:  DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF STATE POLICY

November 3rd, 2016

DHARSHAN WEERASEKERA

In this installment, I focus on Chapter VI of the constitution, Directive Principles of State Policy.  I shall briefly explain what they are, and what in my view is wrong with them legally as well as practically.

WHAT ARE DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES?

Directive principles are principles intended to guide the State when making policy.  Here are some examples:

‘[Article]   27(2):   The State is pledged to establish in Sri Lanka a democratic socialist society, the objectives of which include:

  • The full realization of the fundamental rights and freedoms of all persons;
  • The promotion of the welfare of the People by securing and protecting as effectively as it may, a social order in which justice (social, economic and political) shall guide all the institutions of the national life;
  • The realization by all citizens of adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, the continuous improvement of living conditions and the full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural opportunities, etc. etc.

27(7):   The State shall eliminate economic and social privilege and disparity, and the exploitation of man by man or by the State.

27(8):   The State shall ensure that the operation of the economic system does not result in a concentration of wealth and the means of production to the common detriment.

27(9):   The State shall ensure social security and welfare.’

In short, directive principles are utopian ideals towards which the State is expected to strive, in order to create a perfectly just and equitable society.  The issue, as with all utopian ideals, is whether such ideas can ever be achieved in practice, and as far as Sri Lanka is concerned, how far the State has advanced towards these goals in the 40 years that the ’78 Constitution has been in operation. (I shall turn to this issue in a moment after discussing the legal problems with directive principles.)

THE LEGAL PROBLEM

There are two problems:  first directive principles are not enforceable, which makes them constitutionally redundant; second, the clash between directive principles and fundamental rights if an attempt is made to make directive principles enforceable.  I shall take each in turn.

REDUNDANCY

Article 29 of the constitution says:

‘The provisions of this Chapter [Chapter VI] do not confer or impose legal rights or obligations, and are not enforceable in any court or tribunal.  No question of inconsistency with such provisions shall be raised in any court or tribunal.’

Generally speaking, a law is of no use if it cannot be enforced, i.e. if there is no penalty or remedy if the law in question is violated.  Since directive principles are not enforceable, there is no penalty if the state does not follow them when generating policy, which means that the public has no assurance that the principles will be followed at all.  Therefore, directive principles are redundant.  Redundant clauses have no place—or at any rate ought to have no place—in a constitution.

THE CLASH BETWEEN DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

Chapter VI of the Sri Lanka constitution replicates the chapter on directive principles in the Indian Constitution.  Under the Indian Constitution also directive principles are not enforceable.  However, in the 1950’s and 60’s a number of Indian States passed laws to make directive principles enforceable, and the Indian Parliament passed a number of amendments to the Constitution to the same effect as well.

As a result, during this period there were a number of legal challenges to the said laws.  The main issue in all these cases was the clash between directive principles and fundamental rights.  Fundamental Rights are by definition individual rights.  Directive principles on the other hand are designed to improve the lot of various groups of people.

What happened in practice when directive principles were made enforceable was that the State in pursuing them and trying to improve the lot of particular groups sometimes encroached on the rights of individuals, who filed suit.  The courts had to decide whether fundamental rights trumped directive principles, or vice verse, in the event of a clash.

The seminal case in this series is recognized as Keshavananda Bharathi v. State of Kerala, sometimes also called, ‘The Case that Saved Indian Democracy.’  In that case, the court ruled that fundamental rights must always prevail over directive principles in the event of a clash, and that this could not be changed even by an amendment to the constitution.

The reasoning of the court was that, giving the State the power to enforce directive principles risked creating a situation where the State, under the pretext of improving the lot of particular groups, would violate the rights of individuals, and that this could not be allowed.  The court said inter alia:

‘Every encroachment on freedoms sets a pattern for further encroachments.  Our Constitutional plan is to eradicate poverty without destruction of individual freedoms.’[1]

I have discussed Keshavananda in a number of articles so will not go into it here.  I only draw the attention of the reader to an assessment of the relative value of fundamental rights and directive principles in the Indian Constitution, by H. M. Seervai, former Advocate-General of Maharasthra, and author of Constitutional Law of India, widely recognized as one of the finest commentaries on the Indian Constitution.  The assessment stems from a consideration of the cases that followed Keshavananda.  He says:

‘The acute conflict of judicial opinion in Minnerva, Waman Rao and Sanjeev Coke led me to think afresh the nature of fundamental rights and directive principles and their interrelation, especially in view of Sup. Ct. judgments which had adopted the generally accepted view that fundamental rights are mainly individual rights whereas directive principles serve the social good and provide for the welfare State.  An eminent scientist, a most distinguished writer, has said wittily that the essence of science is:  ‘Ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.’  Since law is both a science and an art, I asked what may appear to be two impertinent questions.  First, what would have happened if directive principles had not been enacted in our Constitution?  Secondly, what would have happened if justiciable fundamental rights had not been enacted in our Constitution?  My inquiry and analysis led me to the following answers:  If directive principles had not been enacted, nothing would have happened.  If fundamental rights had not been enacted, the answer is not in doubt, for the Emergency supplied the answer:  the result would have been disastrous; our democratic country could have been converted into a Police State, as happened during the Emergency, when the right to enforce fundamental rights was suspended.’[2]

To turn to Sri Lanka, the lesson to be drawn from the above is this.  Since the Sri Lankan Constitution has a chapter on fundamental rights, if an attempt is made to make directive principles enforceable, it will lead to the same problem that arose in India, i.e. there will be an inevitable clash with fundamental rights and courts will have to decide if directive principles take precedence over fundamental rights, or vice versa.

It is reasonable to suppose that, on the said issue, the Sri Lankan courts will rule in a manner similar to the Indian courts, for very much the same reasons as the latter.  But, unlike in India, in Sri Lanka post-enactment review of legislation is not possible, because of Article 80(3) of the constitution.  (I have discussed Article 80(3) in a previous essay.[3])  Fortunately, the State has not tried to make directive principles enforceable to date.

However, if directive principles are included in the new constitution, and an attempt is made to make some of them enforceable (for instance there is talk of making ‘economic rights’ enforceable) it could be dangerous.  The State, under the pretext of improving the economic lot of some group or other, can trample on the individual freedoms of citizens, and those citizens will not be able to challenge the said actions in the courts.       

THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM

A critic might say something like this:  ‘Technically, it is true that directive principles are redundant.  Nevertheless, they can do a great deal of good by shaping the attitudes of policymakers, which in turn will shape the policies themselves.’  I shall leave it to the reader to think of specific examples where it can be demonstrated that directive principles shaped or informed the decisions of policymakers.

In my view, a perusal of various governmental policies over the years reveals that the main factor that has influenced our politicians to decide which policies to pursue has been expediency, especially economic expediency, which is to say, where possible funds are available and how to access them, rather than abstract principles of advancing justice or equity.   I shall cite two recent examples:  the IMF loan obtained by the government in July 2016, and the ongoing negotiations over regaining the GSP-Plus facility.

To digress a moment, recall that one of the main directive principles is:  ‘The promotion of the welfare of the People by securing and protecting as effectively as it may, a social order in which justice (social, economic and political) shall guide all the institutions of the national life.’  The question is whether concerns of justice had anything to do with obtaining the IMF loan or of regaining the GSP-facility.

IMF LOAN  

In June 2016, the IMP approved an extended loan of $1.5 billion for Sri Lanka.  Many observers have pointed out that the said amount is too small for Sri Lanka’s needs at the moment, and in any event, that the loan comes with conditions that have the potential to turn this country into another Greece.  The following is an excerpt from an article in The Island that discusses this issue:

‘Following the great global depression in 2008, it became known that Greece had been overstating the extent of its deficit financing for many years.  This disclosure led to Greece being shut out from global financial markets, and by 2010 was unable to rollover its debt by issuing new sovereign bonds, as Sri Lanka is doing now, and was on the verge of bankruptcy.’

‘The IMF and European financial authorities in two bail-outs loaned Greece a total of about USD 350 billion, which as in the case of the IMF operation in Sri Lanka came with the usual harsh conditionality, which is the standard IMF recipe—deep budget cuts, severe austerity in expenditure and major tax increases—amounting to an overhaul of its entire economy.  For example, the tax on heating oil was increased by 450% worsening the public’s trauma.  As is the expectation in Sri Lanka, the IMF/EEC bail-outs were expected to stabilize the Greek economy and its finances, but the overall effect of the conditionality was to contract the economy by 25% and sharply raise unemployment to a similar level.’[4]

I am not an economist, so am unable to speak with authority on the wisdom of Sri Lanka obtaining the loan in question.  But, it seems to me that there is merit in what the above author is saying.  It is reasonable to suppose that, if justice—justice for the People—is the overriding concern in generating policy, the persons who decided to obtain the loan had an obligation to study its long-term effects to the country, and this ought to have included commissioning a report on the related issues by independent experts.

In my view, they also had an obligation to make any such report available to the public, because members of the public have a right to inform themselves of important matters that affect the ‘national life,’ and they cannot do this if the relevant information is not given to them.  To my knowledge, no such report exists, which I think is indicative of the weight given in practice to the ideals behind the directive principles.  

GSP-PLUS

In 2010, Sri Lanka lost the GSP-Plus facility, which had been a major source of foreign revenue to the country.  After the change of government in 2015, the present Government has been campaigning to regain the facility.  The EU has indicated it might relent, but with stringent conditions.  It is reported that the government has been made to agree to a list of 58 conditions that go far beyond matters of trade.  The following is an excerpt from an article in Lanka Brief that discusses this matter:

‘In its haste to regain the GSP-Plus facility, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has agreed with the European Union (EU) to implement a sprawling list of 58 conditions linking human rights, national security and other domestic concerns with trade, a document obtained by the Sunday Times shows.’

‘Among the 58 conditions imposed are to revoke the Prevention of Terrorism Act, to expedite cases of remaining detainees, to introduce a new Human Rights Action Plan, review status of the Tamil Diaspora organizations and individuals in the terrorist list, to devolve power under the new Constitution, return all private lands to owners in the North, adopt a policy of National Reconciliation and on National Resettlement, finalize the resettlement of all displaced persons, and to ratify the Convention on Enforced Disappearances with accompanying legislation as well as issue certificates of absence.  The EU insists that the conditions be met before Sri Lanka can even consider applying for the GSP plus.’[5]

To fast-forward to October 2016, Prime Minister Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe visited Brussels for the latest round of talks on GSP-Plus, and returned with news that the Europeans were prepared to re-issue the facility.  A statement in the Government’s official news portal www.news.lk says:

‘Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that Sri Lanka would be able to regain the GSP concession to the country between March and May next year, if the current economic and political reforms implemented after President Maithripala Siririsena assumed office are continued without any change.’[6]

Reading between the lines, it is easy enough to see that if indeed the Government has managed to regain GSP-Plus, it is because it has agreed to all or most of the 58 conditions mentioned earlier.  It should be noted further that, some of the conditions, such as the delisting of Diaspora organizations, ratifying convention on enforced disappearances, etc. have been met, and others, including most importantly constitutional reforms which will involve devolution of power to the Provinces, are being fast-tracked.

Thus, again one sees that policy—in this case policy regarding matters that have nothing to do with trade—is driven by the need for cash, and the resulting conditions imposed by foreigners:  at any rate, a very strong suspicion emerges that the driving force behind these policies is the need for cash, rather than concerns of justice of the People.

CONCLUSION

The legal problem with directive principles is that, at best they are redundant and at worst a potential tool for oppressing the People.  The practical problem with them is that there is little or no evidence that they shape the attitudes of policymakers; on the contrary, the evidence is that expediency, in particular the need to access funds wherever possible, is the driving force behind policy decisions.  In short, directive principles are useless.  Will they be repeated in the new constitution?  I bet, ‘Yes.’

Dharshan Weerasekera is an Attorney-at-Law.  His latest book, The Relevance of American Constitutional Principles to Solving Problems of Governance in Sri Lanka, will be in bookstores shortly.

[1] Keshavananda Bharathi v. State of Kerala, 24 April 1971, www.indiankanoon.org,  paragraph 705

[2] H. M. Seervai, Constitutional Law of India, 4th Edition, Vol. 3, Sweet and Maxwell, London, 1996, pg. 2887

[3]‘ The Idiocies in th Sri lanka Constitution, 1:  Articles 4(c) and 80(3)’, 2 October 2016, www.lankaweb.com

[4] C. R. de Silva, Sri Lanka:  Avoiding ‘the road’ to Greece!”  The Island, 13th June 2016, www.theisland..lk

[5] Sri Lanka:  EU proposes 58 Human Rights Conditions to resume GSP Plus,” Sri Lanka Brief, 8-05-2016, www.srilankabrief.org

[6] ‘GSP concession likely between March and May 2017 – PM,’ 21 October 2016, www.news.lk

Legacy of Western Capitalism & Liberal-Secular Value System

November 3rd, 2016

Shenali Waduge

 

History is generally written by the victors therefore after over 500 years of colonial rule there is not much that gets said about the greatness of civilizations that existed before the Age of Discovery and the Papal Bulls that ordered Christian/Catholic explorers to invade, occupy and plunder nations and declare them Christian even if they were inhabited. Not much gets said or written or enters school curriculum about the societies in these ancient civilizations, their inventions, the role that women held, that there were no jails, no police, no UN, no monitors, no peacekeepers because people had values, people respected each other and there were certainly no proxy wars. If anyone disagreed chivalry was such that they didn’t send others to fight their battles, the King always led, and the policy was settled honourably.

There were no mercenaries, or rebels armed secretly or trained clandestinely and certainly there were no false flags, no people were paid to tell lies and given titles for it. In looking at the past and what prevailed – the simplicity of things as against the greed, the chaos, the death and calamities that prevail now we have to wonder what is the development we have gained morally?

The ancient irrigation systems thousands of years old still stand unmatched by any engineering degrees. Today, the rich are dieting to shed of extra pounds, while millions of people do not even have a proper meal.

After years of capitalism we are told 1% own more than what 99% of the world own in total. Where have we really progressed? We are preached peaceful coexistence and harmony but those that preach are also advocating divisions, separatisms and are instrumental in poisoning the minds of people. Reconciliation cannot come without reciprocity. No one can demand what he is not prepared to cede.

No cultures and traditions can be replaced and destroyed just because a handful deems it unpalatable for their thinking. The whole value system has been turned upside down. The experiments have failed but the experimenters continue to indulge in the same destructive solutions. It is time we take a pause and look back, compare the past, look at the traditional values that have been shoved to the corner and realize that it is time we return to the fundamentals of life and simple values, good morals and ethics.

Full Article https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items16/Legacy%20of%20Western%20Capitalism%20and%20Liberal-Secular%20Value%20System.pdf

shenali03111601

Final rites with full state honours for Pandit Amaradeva

November 3rd, 2016

The mortal remains of Pandit Amaradeva will lie at the Independence Square from 10 a.m tomorrow (Friday) till 3 p.m. on Saturday, for the public to pay their last respects.

Final rites will be conducted with full state honours on Saturday.

A week of mourning has also been declared for the veteran vocalist, violinist and composer, who passed away this morning.

Visharada Pundit Amaradeva: Heaven-St(r) uck or In-stream?

 November 9, 2008

(Prof. Suwanda H. J. Sugunasiri,
Founder, Nalanda College of Buddhist Studies,
writing from Toronto, Canada)

That Visharada Amaradeva has ignited a latent rasa bhaava of a musically starved Sinhala people into a kinetic energy for a full half-century many have written about as I have, too (Sunday Observer: http.//www.lanka.net/lakehouse/2000/08/20/ent01.html). But is there anything Buddhist in particular about his music? This is what we will seek to answer in Part I. And in Part II, we will seek to answer a follow up question: Is there anything Buddhist in particular about Amaradeva?

Part I: Bathing a People in a dharmic Musicality

Sitting in the Sunroom of our Forest Hill residence in Toronto, Canada, watching the sun set, I’m listening to song # 18 of his CD, sasara wasana turu. The words echoing the religious sentiment in me are ringing in my ears. Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. I visualize myself at the feet of a Buddha image, paying homage, along with many others – . “Homage to Him the Fortunate One, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Enlightened One”.

Then begins the musical rendering:

paaramitaa bala poorita poojita Buddha divaakarayaano,
wesak poho dina dinoo sayka lowa Buddha divaakarayaano.

To the words of Sri Chandraratna Manavasinghe, our cuckoo turned devotee reminds us why homage is paid (poojita). It is in recognition of ‘the power (bala) of the perfection (poorita) of Perfections (paaramitaa)‘. And He is also the ‘Honoured repository of resplendence’(divaakarayaano), or less poetically ‘the Honoured bringer of the day’, or less literally, ‘the Honoured Sun’, ‘winning over the world on the day of Wesak [=May]’ (wesak poho dina dinoo seyka lowa), a reference to the Buddha’s Enlightenment.

So, our devotee continues to sing. ‘Let’s find solace at the feet of the Sage’ (saenasemu puda di muni siri paaday), and ‘Let’s dip n’ dip in the Ocean of the Virtues of the Buddha’(kimidemu kimidemu budu guna mooday), the enthusiasm heightened in the repetition in kimidemu kimidemu.
Surely why not?

‘Solace bring he did to the whole wide world by offering Nibbana’ (sanasaa mulu lowa nivan labaa dee), along with ‘a bellyful of merit, peace and concentration’ (punya mahodara shaanta samaadhi).
Buddha he is ‘to the entire human and the deathless worlds’ (sanaraamara mulu loka), ‘having defeated Death.’ (maara paraajaya kara), ‘with the cool torrents of compassion and friendliness’ (karuna seetala met daharaa)… And, ‘expelled is the darkness of dukkha suffering of the three worlds’ (pitayay dukanduru may tun lokay) by ‘the light born of the accumulation of the Buddha’s rays’ (buduraes kaeti wee naegi aalokay).

Thus falling prostrate musically at the Buddha’s feet, he also sings of His Teachings, the Dharma.

Let’s listen to # 19 of the CD, the words composed by our radio lovable Karunaratna Abeysekara reminding us that we are indeed ‘born if only to die’ (ipida maeray) and ‘to be born again’ (yali ipiday) in this ‘unstable ocean of samsara‘ (notira sasara saagaray). And don’t we, ‘in between’ (atarature) ‘die without dying, tens of thousands of times’ (nomaeri maeray dasa dahas waray)?. The message must surely have been lost on the few of us still singing it past midnight on our way back from an out-of-town Maname show!

Ironic it surely must have been, too, to sing the words, ‘Why dance, play, horse around in laughter’ (kumata naetum keli kavata sinaadaa), the very wares we, in the Maname troupe, were promoting! ‘There indeed are no obstacles to the Lord of Death’ (maruta nomaeta kisivitakadi baadaa). ‘When Death doth come unannounced, there’s no staying behind, go indeed you have to’ (obata nodannaa maru mehi aa daa / yannata sidu vannay / innata baeri vannay). So (let’s remember) ‘the unstable ocean of samsara’, repeated twice here as if to underscore the message. And now an encouragement and a final reminder: ‘It’s only the good done that remains in this world’ (kala honda pamany melowa rendennay), At least there was solace here. Maname was a ‘good’ done! But, we are asked: “Why on earth don’t you impoverished weaklings (apamana neti beri kam ati minisune) just think of this (reality)(aey meya nositanne)?”

Indeed there is more, singing the praises of the Buddha at his ‘lotus feet’ (siripaa piyumay (to the words of our born poet, Mahagama Sekara) (#.17 of sasara wasana turu), and His teachings of friendliness, compassion and appreciative joy (metta karuna mudita).

“Those who are in the know of the Dharma body (dharmaskandhaa)”, next we listen to our musical voice (# 9 of waelitala..CD) to the words of John Silva, “practice the wonderful precepts, regularly and with commitment” (paywee rakiti sonda seelay nibandaa). A wonderful reminder indeed, is it not, that foundational to liberation is self-discipline (sila), as well known from the threefold division of the Noble Eightfold Path – sila, samadhi, panna ‘self-discipline, concentration, wisdom’?

Then there is the caution against of the dangers of entanglement in lust, leading to ignorance and delusion (raagay paetalee moha vikaaray) (#16, sasara wasana turu)), and an invitation (through Dharmasiri Gamage’s words) to ‘demolish the sins’ (vanasaa paapay) and ‘the net of attachments’ (trsna jaalaa) ‘in this mirage world’ (maayaa lokay) and walk the ‘Path of liberation’ (mokshe margay) and win that ‘absolute peace of Nibbana’ (parama shaanta woo nirvaanay), the song ending in a drone, as if to remind of the illusory nature of things (maayaa).

Not to be forgotten by the maestro is the Sangha either, of whom ‘there are many [who have]cleansed themselves of defilements’ (klaysha nasnaa bhikshu / aetteya boho say) ‘as the City of Anuradhapura now comes into view’ (anuraadha nagaraya daen pene ossay). Among them are the ‘many arhants who are capable of teleportation’ [traveling through the air by the superhuman powers of concentration] (erdiyen yannavu nek rahatungay). And so many of them are there in the sky that ‘the sun’s heat is made to disappear [literally ‘shattered’] by their shadow’ (sevanaelleni hiru rashmiya bhangay). So it is with devotion and pleasure that he watches the leaves of the bodhi tree in Anuradhapura ‘dancing to the beautiful sounds of a vannama (dance beat)’ (natai kola vannama lesa mahabo / sumeeree naadenaa).

His sights end not at the local city as we see him paying homage at the propitious ‘Buddhagaya temple’ (siri buddhagayaa viharay), the very site of Awakening, wishing for liberation (vandinay mo…moksha pataalaa) (#9, swarna vimanaya CD).

Nor are those who seek the comfort of deities forgotten either, as Amaradeva sings, to a faster beat, a song about the Gods of the four quarters ‘satara varam devi’ (# 11 of Sasara..) to the words of Ratna Sri Wijesinghe.

So yes, what is Buddhist about our geeta kokila Amaradeva is that the Sinhala Buddhist has been bathed in a dharmic musicality. Can we indeed not hear a whole family singing together the praises of Buddha whose ‘powers are accrued through the perfection of the paramitaa’? Amaradeva’s singular contribution, to the Sinhala Buddhist, then, is that he has re-kindled, and kept rejuvenated, their saddha (devotion) and bhakti (faith).

If traditionally, such religious stirrings would be limited to a Full Moon day at the temple or to an alms giving, what we have here are the strings of the religious heart plucked in every nook and corner of the island nation, in completely secular contexts, time and time again, day after day, year after year. The quality of saddha, for sure, may not be as in a devout villager falling prostrate at the cetiya or a bo-tree in the calming light of a Full moon night at the temple, to borrow a characterization from our respected doyen, Martin Wickremasinghe. But what is lost in depth is assuredly gained in the breadth of its reach, by getting a whole nation singing off the same page of veneration, a scale that no religious context can be said to have matched or sustained.

Part II: The Spiritual in Amaradeva

We ended Part I by noting how Amaradeva’s is a story of bathing the Sinhala Buddhist in a dharmic musicality. But what about his own spirituality?

Whatever it may be that the many melodies and raga-tala harmonies do or don’t do for Pandit Amaradeva’s own spiritual life, at a personal level, we may never know, any more in relation to him than to any of us. Only he would be privy to it, spirituality being internal (ajjhattika).

What gives us appreciative joy, i.e., mudita, however, is that the Visharad himself stands to benefit from it all, in what could be called a cybernetic punna (merit) loop. A musical dana prompting saddha and bhakti builds a mountain of happiness for a people, which in turn reverberates back in the form of a mountain of punna for donor Amaradeva, as if it were an echo in a mountain range. He may have gained much merit as well by laying the groundwork for a next and next and next generation of creative artistes to bring out not only their own creativity but also their devotion, raising the quality of the massified saddha and bhakti. If Victor Ratnayaka comes to mind (samindu siripaa ringing in your ear?), you get the point.

But something else brings out the mudita in this writer. And that is the pleasurable passing thought that perchance, our music maestro may well be poised, just may be, to be a spiritual maestro as well, should he so decide, in this life, or a next. And this is said in no light vein.

To be a Buddhist is to take refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. By that reckoning, then, to render the social the personal now, Maestro Amaradeva would well fit the bill of a ‘Buddhist’. He sings off the same spiritual page as any one of us Buddhists.

But are his saddha-prompting songs mere words of a ‘Protestant Buddhist’, as a modern day scholar might put it, merely paying lip service? Or are they indicative of a deep saddha in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, felt from the bottom of his heart? To what extent has our musical devotee himself been touched by the spirituality he has kindled in the body politic?

Mindfulness (sati), the Buddha teaches (in the Satipatthana sutta), is the first of the ‘seven qualities of mind on the side of Awakening’ (satta bhojjhanga). Another is concentration (samadhi). Anyone watched Amaradeva on stage – the great concentration and mindfulness he brings to his performance? Then there is the effort (viriya). Any doubt about the effort he has put in to come first on the violin in his class in India and to get to where he is at now? Not to be forgotten is happiness (piti), another bhojjhanga, he protrudes on stage. So would it be an exaggeration to say that all we see on stage is Amaradeva the Happy. A final bhojjhanga is relaxation (passaddhi). Has anyone seen an Amaradeva the Stressed Out on stage?

Then there is the balance he brings to the music, reminding us of Buddha’s remark how good spiritual practice is like a well-tuned string of an instrument – neither too loose nor too taut. Some scholars have gone to the extent of saying that, though etymologically questionable, ‘samana’ (as in Samana Gotama) is from ‘sama’ meaning ‘balance’!

With five qualities supportive of Awakening under his belt, then, with an added balance, we hope we won’t be faulted for saying that our Visharad comes not by chance!

Stage performance is not off-stage performance, you say. Sure, but the point is that our maestro has all these liberational skills in him, albeit in a secular context. What that tells us is that perhaps the skills, though certainly honed in and refined in this life, may have karmic roots in a past life. Ask Mozart, who is known to have composed music at age five, if he thought so. But if my lame thesis has any legs to it, would it be preposterous to suggest that our Amaradeva may well have been a musical virtuoso in a past life, too?

But what has any of that got to do with spirituality? All one can say perhaps is that at most, our Amaradeva seems ‘Heaven-st(r)uck’, so to speak, an entertainer taking the route of sagga magga (Path to Heaven). He seems to be walking the path of the happy lay life, Buddha outlining the principles for those who wish just for that.

But a Buddhist perspective allows the possibility that the musical maestro of this life may have been not just a music maestro in a past life but a spiritual maestro as well. Would you then allow me to be so bold as to say, to put it in standard Buddhist language, that the respected Amaradeva may already have been a streamwinner (sotapanna) in the immediate past life? Once in-stream, Buddha tell us, one needs no more than seven rebirths to win the Grand Prize of Nibbana. And, despite Theravada heresy, who is to say then that our Amaradeva could not win it in this very birth? So was he born into this life to work out some remaining wrinkles?

What a grateful mudita of a people can offer is the wish that for all the saddha and the happiness given to ease their pain in their own lives, the maestro himself be relieved of his own dukkha of sentience in this very life. Transference of some more merit can help. But there is work for the maestro, too – to re-direct the Awakening skills already available to him in a secular context, now towards the other bhojjanga of investigating the dharma (dhammavicaya). Mindfulness and concentration now comes to be on the breath, and on the body (kaya), feelings (vedana), mind (citta) and dhamma, to list the four increasingly subtle satipatthanas (foundations).

Would it be long before Dhammacari Amaradeva comes to be personally experiencing the Dhamma he has been long paragoning, now coming to see reality as it is (yathabhoota naanadassana), with equanimity (upekkha), the last of the bhojjhanga now in full gear? And weakening and eventually jettisoning in the very same process the raga, dosa and moha (greed, anger and ignorance) that is the territory of us sentient beings. A literary image suggests itself – like dew drops on the grass tip (tana aga pini bindu vaenna) in the morning sun (arunalu)!

Visharada Amaradeva, allow me then to offer my pranamaya respects, for rejuvenating the spiritual persona of a people. Would you also allow me, then, to offer the hope that the hard work put in by you bears fruit (phala), in this very life, if not in the next, not in the mythical halls of the Gandharva sabha, but in Nibbana?

Visharada Pandit Amaradeva, 80 years and counting, digaayu waywaa!

https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items09/040109-14.html

Corruption allegations are Sri Lanka’s problem – China

November 3rd, 2016

by Zacki Jabbar Courtesy The Island

The Chinese Ambassador in Colombo, Yi Xianliang, addressing a group of journalists at his Embassy premises on Tuesday night said that he did not think the accusations were true, but if proved correct, his government would take stern action against the offenders

November 3, 2016, 10:10 pm

China says allegations that some of its companies had resorted to bribery and corruption to obtain business contracts in Sri Lanka was not its problem.

The Chinese Ambassador in Colombo, Yi Xianliang, addressing a group of journalists at his Embassy premises on Tuesday night said that he did not think the accusations were true, but if proved correct, his government would take stern action against the offenders

“The corruption allegations are Sri Lanka’s problem and we need not take the blame for it. Our firms enter into legal contracts before commencing any project in any part of the world. If for example a Chinese company has given a donation to an institution for social service projects and the money has not been used for the said purpose, it is up to your authorities to deal with the situation,” he noted, adding that China could not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.

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When it was pointed out by The Island that not all the dollar loans taken by the previous Rajapaksa government were at two percent interest as claimed, the Ambassador admitted that some had been as high as five percent or more. “But, now all loans are being provided at two percent. I asked some of the Ministers in the current government including Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake why they, having criticised Chinese loans as expensive prior to 2015, were accepting them now.”

Asked how much Sri Lanka owed China in loans and interest , he said, “We do not consider them to be expensive. It’s not a big amount for us, but expect a thank you in return, not unfair criticism.”

Xianliang observed that Sri Lanka along with Dubai and Singapore had emerged among the top countries for investment, but if Sri Lanka was to reap the benefits, it had to maintain consistency in policy, otherwise the international community would look elsewhere.

People might decide to change their governments, but that did not mean bilateral agreements could be discarded according to ones whims and fancies of anyone, he added.

Asked what the loss due to the Colombo Port City project being suspended for about one-and-a-half years by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government was the Ambassador revealed that it totaled USD 140 million. “But we will not seek damages from a long standing friend such as you.”

Commercial Counselor Wang Yingqi responding to allegations that some Chinese companies had produced substandard work, said that it had not been proved.

 

If evidence was produced, they would be replied to with facts and figures, he stressed.

President Sirisena (2016) confronts Commissioner Colebrooke (1832)

November 3rd, 2016

Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.

Colebrooke: Moses of Ceylon?

President Sirisena is on record as the first state leader (or politician) ever, to publicly point out the artificial and arbitrary nature of the division of the island of Sinhale (Ceylon) into nine provinces by the foreign white master. If the country had dedicated political leaders with wisdom (vision), one of the first things they would have done after 1948, was to re-demarcate the island’s provinces and districts taking into consideration its agro-economy, ecology and geography.  A look at the administrative unit map of the island prior to British occupation should have convinced them of this national need. In 1832, Colebrooke divided the island into five provinces from a colonial perspective, to colonial advantage. On its foundation evolved the Colombo paradigm, the use of the port of Colombo to drain island’s resources out, and to create a Euro-centric (Europe is superior) Colombo crowd enjoying the fruits of colonial socio-economic fabric. It was this phenomenon that the JVP in 1971 described as ‘Kiri (milk) to Colombo and Kakiri (melons) to villages.’

The only beneficiary of this Colebrooke formula, directly, was SJV Chelvanayagam, who used an artificial land boundary as the basis to locate a homeland in the Eastern Province, violating the universal truth that a homeland is a natural, organic and functional historic entity and not lines drawn on a paper. Thus, Tamil Nadu carved out of the Madras Province is the Tamil homeland. It is mind-boggling that not a single study was undertaken either before or after Chelvanayagam’s myth on the (un)suitability of this nine-province division in an island which has a physical geography of a complex central mountain mass and 103 rivers radiating from it. The two Monsoon seasons complicate the matter further. Yet, this formula was accepted like a God-given natural feature for the island just like the Pidurutalagala mountain range or the Mahaveli River. This is why president Sirisena’s public statement against the Colebrooke formula is of historical significance.

Blind acceptance of Colebrooke boundary scheme as if it was a divine gift, meant that it acted as the underskirt of the country’s spatial skirt. All colonial and post-colonial processes that created spatial patterns on the land surface had underneath this provincial undergarment. Thus, new districts were carved out within it. An adjustment was made on its borders at Weli Oya, during security minister Lalith Athulathmudali’s tenure on strategic grounds, where three of the unit boundaries met. During the time of package deals, some adjustments were proposed to create a union of regions. The B-C and D-C agreements in 1957 and 1965 respectively, followed the lines of the underskirt. This underskirt became the skirt in 1987 with the 13th Amendment, especially with the merger of NP and EP, a synthetic marriage in which two artificial pieces were projected as a natural whole. Ever since, different minority groups are struggling to figure out how this underskirt could be converted to a nice and pretty looking ethnic/race skirt. Thus, President Sirisena’s statement is indeed a challenge, and if followed by action, a threat to these confused-exposed race-based political hands.

World’s silliest capital city move

The closest disagreement with the Colebrooke formula was the suggestion made by some Buddhist monks prior to 1948 to move the capital city from Colombo to Anuradhapura. Indeed, some think that SWRDB had actually entertained this idea when he was the longtime local government minister. Such suggestions are different from the mentality of some people to remove white governors’ names or statutes from roads and junctions. It is a collective awakening of the desire to remedy the accidents of the past, by forward-looking people on a new path of real independence (it is not clear if Anagarika Dharmapalama said something about the need for this spatial boundary adjustment).

Brazil, Pakistan and Myanmar are three examples of countries moving their respective capital cities from a sea port to an inland location for economic, strategic and historical reasons. In this regard, Sri Lanka has a world record as the silliest capital city mover. Colombo region was a marshy area to begin with, and the capital city was moved 15 miles away to a marshy, already crowded flood-prone area based on petty political fancies creating environmental and social costs to people in both the new and old locations.

GSN explosion: a missed opportunity

Under the Colebrooke formula a province is divided into districts and districts to DRO units with each DRO in charge of grama seva niladharii units (GSN). During President Premadasa’s time the total number of GSN units was increased from 4,000 to 14,000. On what basis this decision was taken was not explained, other than may be the excuse to serve people more efficiently with better access, just like the original five provinces were gradually increased to nine to reduce the distance between the Kachcheri and the peasant.  Was there a research study or was it an arbitrarily demarcated cheap job done as a partisan job of employment project? A massive spatial demarcation such as this could have been utilized as means to solve so many problems in the country including mismanagement, sustainable development and the international favorite called meaningful devolution.  If one comprehends that the national-level as well as the grassroots -level spatial demarcations are arbitrary schemes which cannot meet the new needs and demands of the nation, the correct path to be taken is not an issue of  antho-jata-bahi-jata.

King Kosol’s Sixteen Dreams

The best way to fathom the gravity of general mismanagement, erosion of ethical and moral values in the society and the total breakdown of discipline in the country is to look at the sixteen dreams prophesied in the Maha Supina Jathakaya. This is a much better index than the indices such a failed state, manufactured by the western global index industry, including those by some UN agencies. The global youth development index is the latest.

For a person visiting his country of birth, the insecurity and the instability of the kind that the late Ven. Gangodawila Soma was explaining, is visible everywhere. Two mega reasons for this plight of the country are (1) the blind introduction of the free market liberal economy in 1978, and (2) the fear of death knowingly or unknowingly sunk deep into the hearts and minds of the people during the Tamil terrorist suicide bomb era. JVP terror in 1971 and in 1988/9, and the manner in which the state eliminated them was also a significant footnote in this saga.  A survival of the fittest atmosphere had developed, and two generations have mental scars of the violence that took place. The state-sponsored private capitalism created a generation willing to sell even one’s mother or daughter for money.  Recently, a new law was proposed to tackle the crisis of abandonment of elderly parents on roadside by their children.

Unlike in some other countries there were no national policies or systematic, non-partisan national planning on national development, which even a country like India has with a stable public service sector. Thus, partisan politics destroyed the fabric of socio-economic development of people. This has happened while two other basic trends ruined the country since the 1960s. One was the gradual destruction of structural democracy in the country, such as erosion of the independence of the judiciary, rule of law, the concept of the separation powers, or abolition of the Senate. The other was the destruction of territorial democracy, the representative democracy after 1978 where voters lost the right to elect a representative of their choice, instead of a political party deciding it for them. Actually, the explosion of GSN units could also be considered as an extension of political party arm deep into the villagers’ daily life. So there is now a parliament that its speaker has compared to a toilet and a society without Hiri-Oththappa (fear and shame). Rich people import luxury cars using money remitted by poor women cleaning roads and toilets in Arab countries. Man is becoming the chief enemy of mankind in Sri Lanka.

Ronnie de Mel Syndrome

The decline in the country which is apparent but denied by politicians in power is a result of rapid politicalisation of all governmental entities by partisan politics. One could say that an evil trinity is ruling the country today, helping capitalist exploitation. The officer from top to the peon, the politician at all levels and the NGOs are in this triangle. Despite its class bias (the rich and the powerful always manipulated the system behind the scene for their benefit as succinctly described in the late S.L. Gunasekera’s biographical book, Lore of the law and other memories, 2011) the Soulbury constitution served the country reasonably well. But the 1972 constitution of Colvin and Felix Dias destroyed the public service by giving the Public Service Commission’s job to the cabinet.

Ronnie de Mel once described the resulting direction of wind from his housewife’s perspective. When he was a CCS officer his wife prevented him joining politics as an MP’s had no powers. MPs had to obey the officer. But then in the late 1960s his wife (daughter of Sir Leo Fernando, one of the richest in Ceylon), gave him the green light to quit the CCS job and contest parliamentary elections. Politicians look at the next election and officers are forced to look at long-term effects of their decisions, which promote stability of the system of governance. A happy balance is required for the long-term well-being of the people. Unfortunately this did not take place. Instead, what the country got was a messy situation of good intentions gone wrong or bad intentions continuing.

Ceylon in 1948: two countries

After nearly five centuries of colonial exploitation policies, by 1948 there were two countries in Ceylon: the rich, westernized, Euro-centric Colombo country and the poor Sinhala-Tamil speaking undeveloped rural Ceylon. Attempts made to reduce this gap did not work as witnessed from the 1971 JVP insurrection, and again in 1988/9. The diagnosis by the Youth Commission Report (March 1990) ended up as more words and no action or disorganized partisan political fuel such as the increase of GSN units from 4,000 to 14,000, just to give one example. There were other issues lying in backwaters such as the Kandyan Peasantry Commission Report of 1951.

The threat of Marxism was a major concern (hence remove Indian Tamil votes) but under the cover of Section 29, reasonable redress of discrimination and loss of rights of the Sinhala Buddhists were shelved. In 1956 this did not happen in a reasonable fashion, because the government changed but the power of the ruling elites did not change. In 1962 they tried to capture power via a police-navy coup.

High costs dry zone settlement schemes apart, partisan politics always had an agenda named concern for the villages. This was a lip service only with some marginal results as a side effect. A real and genuine concern for village welfare cannot happen by going to Anuradhapura for a celebration in the day time and returning to Colombo in the night. The civilizational trinity, village-tank-temple, has been a popular slogan, with fancy names given and changed from time to time: Jana Saviya, Gam Udava, Gama Naguma, Samurdhi, Divi Naguma and back to Samurdhi. What most people do not know is that there was an excellent village development program named Gami Diriya which operated free of politician meddling, and instead of supporting, it was sabotaged by a jealous minister. This reminds a similar village development and crime eradication program implemented in the 1940s by Ven. Kalukondayave Pragnasekara Mahanayaka Thero with the help of Justice Akbar and ASP Osmand de Silva. It had Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim participation with nationwide coverage, but the then governmental establishment sabotaged it. The 99 point program it implemented is still relevant to village problems today.

Empowerment of villagers

Village as the center of development took a new turn during Eelam war and especially after the collapse of the Eelam project. The idea of Gram Rajjya was promoted by several organizations and by individuals. Sarvodaya was behind it for decades. The Tissa Vitharana APRC report as well as the LLRC report recommended it. The Abayawardena Report on local government Reforms (in 1999) strongly suggested going back to pre-1978 era of local government institutions. The concept of Jana Sabha was promoted after the war victory but then suddenly abandoned. Instead, a Divinaguma monster department was rushed into existence. Jana Sabhas must be non-political party based locally elected units with powers given by a constitutional amendment.

R2P’s unmajoritarian sibling

Western democracies have vibrant city and county governmental units acting as buffers to soften undemocratic steps of a central government. Instead of promoting such local government units, western authors promote a new idea to control their former colonies in the guise of democratic human rights. With this strategy they help countries to break into pieces, aggravating rather than healing conflicts that they themselves had created in their former colonies. Sri Lanka’s Euro-centric (Europe is superior) new set of constitution-making masters are taking this path of creating unmajoritarian institutions” to control what they called the tyranny of majority.” They do not believe in the concept of discrimination with reason” which for example, has been used in India, USA and Malaysia to redress injustices done to the majority community under colonial rule.

Promoted by white Eurocentric writers like the American professor Donald Horowitz, this method creates regional ethnic minority elites (for meaningful devolution such as under the 13th amendment) and slowly weakens the central governments in former colonies (it may take a decade or two or more), until a new Kosovo or South Sudan (or even a separate country of Scotland) is established splitting countries. Thus, the new policy of creating unmajoritarian institutions” is a sanitized” version of the old divide and rule policy, providing ladders to separatist monkeys to carve out separate countries, soon fighting as two states along the new border lines. 

Ethnic quota systems in employment, security forces etc., second chambers, panel or rotating systems of office bearers are methods which will create more friction than conciliation under this strategy. For Example, Tissa Vitharana’s APRC majority report proposed a Tamil policeman in each Sinhala village! Already, South Sudan started an internal war. American professor Joseph Nye also supports this Horowitz strategy, calling it the Soft Path to deal with the conflict-ridden former colonies. No need to send army (hard path) when the goal could be achieved using diplomacy, R2P or human rights of minorities.

Real democracy of empowering people (not separatist party politicians) locally, is not in Horowitz-Nye project embraced by local Marxist and Christian constitution-making masters in Sri Lanka. Horowitz’s formula stops at regional ethnic politicians’ level, and it failed in Nigeria and Lebanon, two cases that Horowitz used to cite as success stories.  It is also interesting to note that in his writings Horowitz did not mention even once the concept of Panchayathi Raj Institutes in India based on consensus politics (God speaks in five, if five people agree, god is with them). Horowitz was clueless about the Sri Lankan Gamsabhava.

Sri Lankan villagers are today divided so hopelessly due to green, blue and red party politics.  Fortunately, LLRC did not buy the Horowitz path” of devolution which would empower” Tamil separatist politicians.  LLRC promoted meaningful empowerment of people at the village level to deal with social, economic and spatial inequities prevalent in the island, but it did not propose a mechanism.

If majoritism is an adverse result of Bentham’s theory of greatest good for the greatest number, the solution comes from the consensus/community politics found among tribal governments in Africa and North America before the Columbus and Vasco da Gama visits. For example, in the 1750s Benjamin Franklin pleaded with the 13 American states to study and follow the consensus politics found among the native indigenous tribes.  It is strange that the promoters of this strategy of non-majoritarian politics did not consider the Panchyath system in India or the Gam Sabha concept in Sri Lanka. Nye and Horowitz are totally silent about this path of consensus governing at local scale. Not only they ignore it, they are silent on the new western concept of the need to follow small scale, first advocated by Schumacher as Small Is Beautiful and Buddhist economics and advanced further by Kirkpatrick Sale (Human Scale, 1980). The Bio-regional vision is what Buddhists followed spiritually and practically including the right of birds to have a share of the paddy harvest.

Solution to Sri Lanka’s problems

The falsity of two-party representative democracy was getting exposed both in Sri Lanka and in the USA for the past so many decades. In USA it has come to a climax now at the 2016 presidential election stage. In Sri Lanka it is a case of King Kosol’s Dreams come true. Perhaps, this was the reason why successive presidents of the country paid lip services to Buddhist ideals. President Sirisena said several times that he will govern the nation using Buddhist principles. These principles are nothing but acceptance of reasonableness in decisions affecting people differently due to spatial, social, political, economic and environmental (pollution, floods, landslides) inequalities that exist. These play on an ethnic map of Sri Lanka which is like a scrambled egg.

A breakaway from the Colebrooke formula is the reasonable Buddhist path. It is also the path of science, geography and ecology in a world of global warming and global corporate invasion. Sustainable growth is possible only by thinking outside this box. The first step of this paradigm shift is the appointment of an expert panel to study how the lowest civil administration units (GSNs) could be re-demarcated as bio-regional, ecological (hydrological) units. In New Zealand this is the law. Local government units there must follow river basin boundaries. This is essentially what Sinhale society had for 2500 years known as the trinity of village-water tank-temple. With water-related criteria the actual number of GSN units could be around 4,000 and not 14,000.  These could function as Jana Sabhas, similar to Panchayath Institutions in India with powers given by the constitution. Because these units are natural ecological units they form parts of larger river basins. They could be combined to form districts or provinces.  The map below is an attempt by the retired geographer C. M. Maddumabandara to create seven large river basins for Sri Lanka, replacing Colebrooke’s division. All kinds of spatial units needed for administrative purposes could be formed combining these GSN units such as health, police, forest, education etc.

Benefits of this paradigm shift

People are not getting their daily basic needs fulfilled due to inefficient, unorganized, corrupt, bribe-taking government services which are highly politicalized. Empowering Jana Saba units with powers to take care of matters that can be locally handled, these public sector mismanagement defects could be solved. Samurdhi work can be done via local Jana Sabha, without partisan politics. Take this recent example (October 16, 2016) about the new National Marga Sathi-Gami Pubuduva (Road week village awakening) of minister of highways and higher education. In Nuvara Eliya district, Valapane divison at Nildandahinna, he organized one week program to undertake: (1) road improvement (2) awareness of digital technology (3) solid waste management (4) coconut cultivation (5) licenses for land owners (6) cement distribution (7) awareness of communicable and non-communicable diseases (8) home gardening and fertilizer use (9) distribution of agricultural equipment, and (10) occupational guidance for GCE-AL students. Are these not matters that can be better handled by a Jana Sabha on a continuing basis without politicians?

Acceptance of ecology-based GSN units and making them Jana Sabha units with local ten member team elected on non-political party basis to handle locally, matters such as health, environment, primary education, dispute settlement etc. is also the answer to global Tamil fight for a Tamil country located in this Island. The current project to implement non-majoritarian instruments in Sri Lanka is clearly the path of Eelam, and border wars thereafter, which must be avoided at any cost. When Tamils and Muslims have thousands of Jana Sabhas their community aspirations (group rights) can be achieved without being a threat to the majority Sinhala society.  No Sri Lankan president can stop the world Tamil movement for a separate Tamil country, but he or she can prevent that there is no real estate in this island to plant it. Meaningful devolution must be effective empowerment of village people and not what Tamil politicians dreamt since the early 1920s.

How this new paradigm could be implemented was presented to the LLRC. This plan was discussed with former president Rajapaksa at least three times and he entrusted his secretary to work on this plan. Presidents are ruined by those who pretend to be their loyal servants. Under the American Fulbright scholarship program, the first person selected was not a researcher or an academic but a young CCS cadet. This person became secretary to six PMs and two presidents.  The American embassy thus had its Fulbright ears at the cabinet meetings. This is how the real world operates.

Seven River Basins

·cjw031116 ·

  • Yalpanam
  • Raja Rata
  • Dambadeni
  • Mahaveli
  • Deegavaapi
  • Kelani
  • Ruhunu

·         (Compare this map with the nine-province
map which cuts all major rivers into artificial
pieces).

බැඳුම්කර මහ හොරු රකින ‘ෆුට්‌ නෝට්‌’ කල්ලියේ බොල් තර්ක

November 3rd, 2016

– ශ්‍යාම් නුවන් ගනේවත්ත

කෝප් වාර්තාවට එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් ඉදිරිපත් කළ අනෙකුත් පාද සටහන් වල ඇත්ත තත්ත්වයද අපි ඉදිරි ලිපි මගින් අනාවරණය කරමු. එම පාද සටහන් තුන බිඳවැටුණු පසු අනෙකුත් පාද සටහන් බොහොමයක්‌ම පදනමක්‌ නැති බොල් තර්ක බවට පත්වේ. අදාළ කෝප් වාර්තාවේ 15 වන පිටුවේ, 2008.01.07 දිනැති මහ බැංකුවේ මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකාව මගින් 2008 වසරේදී සෘජු ක්‍රමය මගින් (භාණ්‌ඩාගාර බැඳුම්කර නිකුත් කරන ක්‍රමය) අරමුදල් අවශ්‍යතා සපුරා ගැනීමට තීරණ කර තිබුණු බව සඳහන්ව ඇති අතර ඊට පළමු පාද සටහන එක්‌ කර ඇති එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරු කියන්නේ එසේ සෘජු ක්‍රමය මගින් අරමුදල් අවශ්‍යතා සපුරා ගැනීමට තීරණය කර තිබුණේ මාස තුනක කාලයකට බවය. එහෙත් මහ බැංකුවේ මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකා අනුව මෙය නිවැරදි නොවන බව මහ බැංකුවේ ඉහළ පෙළේ ආරංචි මාර්ග වලින් අපට දැනගන්නට ඇත.

“බැඳුම්කර මගඩිය”ට එරෙහි සටනේ තවත් සුවිශාල ජයග්‍රහණයක්‌ ලබා ගැනීමට අපව හැකිව තිබේ. එනම් බැඳුම්කර ගනුදෙනුවලට අදාළ කෝප් වාර්තාව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට හැකි වීමයි. වරදකරුවන්ට දඬුවම් දීම කෙසේ වෙතත් මේ කෝප් වාර්තාව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට පොදු ව්‍යාපාර කාරක සභාවේ සභාපති සුනිල් හඳුන්නෙත්ති මහතාට හැකි වීමම අපි දකින්නේ විශාල ජයග්‍රහණයක්‌ ලෙසය. ගිය වර ඩිව් ගුණසේකර මහතාගේ සභාපතිත්වය යටතේ සැකසූ බැඳුම්කර කෝප් වාර්තාවට සිදු වූ දේ අපට හොඳටම මතකය. එම වාර්තාව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමටවත් ඉඩ නොදී පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හරින ලදී. ඒ නිසා ‘බැඳුම්කර මගඩිය’ පිළිබඳ තොරතුරු රැසක්‌ සමාජගත නොවී වළලා දැමීමට මේ හොර මගඩිය රකින්නන්ට අවස්‌ථා ලැබිණි. එහෙත් මෙවර ඊට අවස්‌ථාව නොලැබිණි. ඒ සම්බන්ධයෙන් කටයුතු කළ සියලු දෙනාටත් විශේෂයෙන් එම කාරක සභාවේ සභාපති සුනිල් හඳුන්නෙත්ති මන්ත්‍රීවරයා ඇතුළු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ටත් (‘ෆුට්‌ නෝට්‌’ කල්ලිය හැර) එසේම රජයේ විගණකාධිපතිවරයාටත් ජනතාව වෙනුවෙන් අපගේ විශේෂ ස්‌තුතිය පුද කළ යුතුව තිබේ.

එසේ ස්‌තුතිය පළ කරන අතරම මෙවර කෝප් වාර්තාවේ සිදු වූ තවත් සුවිශේෂී දෙයක්‌ ගැන ඇත්ත තත්ත්වය හෙළිදරව් කළ යුතුව තිබේ. එනම් එක්‌සත් ජාතික පක්‌ෂ මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් පිරිසක්‌ කෝප් වාර්තාවේ නිර්දේශ සඳහා පාද සටහන් (Foot note) ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමයි. මේ පාද සටහන් ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමේ අරමුණ කුමක්‌ද? එමඟින් ඉදිරිපත් කර ඇති තර්ක ඇත්තද? මේ ප්‍රශ්න අප අවධානයට ලක්‌ කළ යුතුව තිබේ. මීට පෙර කෝප් වාර්තාවලට කිසිම අවස්‌ථාවක පාද සටහන් ඉදිරිපත් නොකළත්, මේ බැඳුම්කර කෝප් වාර්තාවට පාද සටහන් ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට මේ එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරු විශාල උනන්දුවක්‌ දක්‌වා ඇති අතර, ඒ සඳහා මහ බැංකුවේ සහායද ගෙන තිබේ. එහෙත් මෙම පාද සටහන් බොහොමයක්‌ පදනමක්‌ නොමැති පුහු බොල් තර්ක බවටද අප වෙත ඉතා විශ්වාස කටයුතු ආරංචි මාර්ගවලින් තොරතුරු ලැබී තිබේ. ඒ අනුව අපට පෙනෙන්නේ මේ ‘ෆුට්‌ නෝට්‌’ කල්ලියේ අරමුණ අර්ජුන ක්‌ලීන් කිරීම බවය. එහෙත් මේ හෙළිදරව්වත් සමග අර්ජුන ‘ක්‌ලීන්’ වීම කෙසේ වෙතත් ෆුට්‌ නෝට්‌ කල්ලියේ උත්සාහය ‘ඩර්ටි’ බවද හෙළිවනු ඇත. ඒ පිළිබඳව දීර්ඝ වශයෙන් සාකච්ඡා කොට එම පාද සටහන්වල ඇත්ත තත්ත්වය හෙළිදරව් කළ යුතුව තිබේ. මේ ලිපිය ඒ සඳහා වන ආරම්භක පියවරකි.

එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් විසින් ඉදිරිපත් කරන ලද පළමු පාද සටහන් තුන ගැන පමණක්‌ මේ ලිපියෙන් අපගේ අවධානය යොමුවේ. කෝප් වාර්තාවට එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් ඉදිරිපත් කළ අනෙකුත් පාද සටහන් වල ඇත්ත තත්ත්වයද අපි ඉදිරි ලිපි මගින් අනාවරණය කරමු. එම පාද සටහන් තුන බිඳවැටුණු පසු අනෙකුත් පාද සටහන් බොහොමයක්‌ම පදනමක්‌ නැති බොල් තර්ක බවට පත්වේ. අදාළ කෝප් වාර්තාවේ 15 වන පිටුවේ, 2008.01.07 දිනැති මහ බැංකුවේ මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකාව මගින් 2008 වසරේදී සෘජු ක්‍රමය මගින් (භාණ්‌ඩාගාර බැඳුම්කර නිකුත් කරන ක්‍රමය) අරමුදල් අවශ්‍යතා සපුරා ගැනීමට තීරණ කර තිබුණු බව සඳහන්ව ඇති අතර ඊට පළමු පාද සටහන එක්‌ කර ඇති එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරු කියන්නේ එසේ සෘජු ක්‍රමය මගින් අරමුදල් අවශ්‍යතා සපුරා ගැනීමට තීරණය කර තිබුණේ මාස තුනක කාලයකට බවය. එහෙත් මහ බැංකුවේ මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකා අනුව මෙය නිවැරදි නොවන බව මහ බැංකුවේ ඉහළ පෙළේ ආරංචි මාර්ග වලින් අපට දැනගන්නට ඇත.

එනම් ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට භාණ්‌ඩාගාර බැඳුම්කර හඳුන්වාදෙන ලද්දේ 1997.02.14 දිනැති මහ බැංකු මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකාවෙනි. එමගින් වෙන්දේසි ක්‍රමයේදී සපුරාගත නොහැකි යම් හිඟ මුදල් ප්‍රමාණයක්‌ අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල වෙත නිකුත් කිරීමෙන් සපුරා ගන්නා ලෙස දක්‌වා තිබේ. ඉන්පසු 2008.01.07 දිනැති මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකාවට අදාළ අනුමැතිය යටතේ දක්‌වා ඇත්තේ 2008 අප්‍රේල් මාසයෙන් පසුව පොළී අනුපාත (ඵලදා අනුපාත/Proposed yield Rate structure) නැවත විමර්ශනය කිරීමට ඉඩ සලසා ඇති බව මිස සෘජු ක්‍රමය මාස තුනක කාලයකට සීමාකර ඇති බවක්‌ නොවන බවද එම ආරංචි මාර්ග හෙළි කරයි.

ඉන්පසු දෙවන සහ තුන්වන පාදසටහන් වලට අදාළ තත්ත්වය සාකච්ඡා කරමු. ඒ අනුව මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකා අංක MB/PD/01/26/2008 මගින් සෘජු ක්‍රමය යටතේ බැඳුම්කර නිකුත් කිරීම සඳහා භාවිත කළ යුතු පොලී අනුපාතිකය හා එකී සෘජු නිකුත් කිරීම් කළ යුතු පාර්ශ්වයන් ඉතා පැහැදිලිව දක්‌වා ඇත. පසුව 2008.05.02 දිනැති මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකාව මගින් සෘජු නිකුත් කිරීම් සඳහා යෝජනා කළ පොලී අනුපාතිකයන් (ඵලදා අනුපාතිකයන්) 2008 මැයි මස සිට දෙසැම්බර් කාලය තුළ භාවිත කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය අනුමැතිය ලබාදී තිබේ. ඉන්පසු 2008.10.07 දිනැති මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකාවෙන් සිදුකර ඇත්තේ රාජ්‍ය ණය අවශ්‍යතා සපුරා ගැනීමේදී 2008 සැප්තැම්බර් මස සිට ක්‍රමයෙන් වර්ධනය වන අපහසුකාරී තත්ත්වය පැහැදිලි කොට එකී තත්ත්වයන් තුළදී රජයේ මූල්‍ය අවශ්‍යතා සපුරා ගැනීම සඳහා ගතයුතු ක්‍රියාමාර්ග නිර්දේශ කිරීමයි. ඒ අනුව 2008 ඔක්‌තෝබර් මස සිට අර්ථ සාධක අරමුදල හා අනෙකුත් මූලාශ්‍රයන් වෙත සෘජු ක්‍රමය යටතේ ද්විතීයික වෙළෙඳපොළ අනුපාතයට වඩා සියයට 0.05 ට වැඩි ඵලදා අනුපාතිකයකට (පොලියකට) බැඳුම්කර නිකුත් කිරීමටත්, අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල සහ අනෙකුත් මූලාශ්‍රයන් වෙත ද්විතීයික වෙළෙඳපොළ ද්‍රවශීලතාව වර්ධනය කිරීමට ක්‍රියාකාරී ලෙස සම්බන්ධ වන ලෙසත් ඉල්ලා සිටීමට අවසරය ලැබී ඇති බවත් මහ බැංකු ආරංචි මාර්ග වලින් පැවසේ. බැඳුම්කර නිකුතූන් සම්බන්ධයෙන් සෘජු ක්‍රමය යන්න මුලින්ම සඳහන් වන්නේ 2008.10.07 දිනැති මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල පත්‍රිකාවේය. මේ අනුව කිසිම අවස්‌ථාවක භාණ්‌ඩාගාර බැඳුම්කර සෘජු ක්‍රමයට නිකුත් කිරීම සඳහා ඇති අවසරය අවලංගු කිරීමක්‌ කර නොමැති අතර එය අද දක්‌වාද වලංගුව පවතින බව මහ බැංකු ආරංචි මාර්ග පෙන්වා දෙයි.

එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ගේ දෙවන පාද සටහනට පදනම් කරගෙන ඇත්තේ 2016 ඔක්‌තෝබර් මස 24 දිනැති මහ බැංකුවේ රාජ්‍ය ණය දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ අධිකාරිවරයා විසින් අත්සන් තබන ලද ලිපියකි. මේ ලිපිය එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ගේ පාද සටහන තැබීමේ අවශ්‍යතාව සඳහාම කලින් සැලසුම් කරගෙන ගෙන්වාගෙන තිබෙන බවට අප වෙත තොරතුරු ලැබී තිබේ. මහ බැංකුවට ප්‍රශ්නයක්‌ යොමුකර එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ගේ අවශ්‍යතාවට ගැලපෙන පිළිතුරක්‌ මහ බැංකුවෙන් ගෙන්වා ගැනීමේ සැළසුම කෝප් සාමාජිකත්වය දරණ එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරයකුගේ නිවසේ පැවැති සාකච්ඡාවකදී ගෙන ඇති අතර එයට මහ බැංකවේ බැඳුම්කර ගනුදෙනු සම්බන්ධයෙන් චෝදනා එල්ලවී ඇති නියෝජ්‍ය අධිපතිවරයකු සහ රාජ්‍ය ණය දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ තවත් නිලධාරියකු සහභාගි වී ඇති බව ද දැනගන්නට ඇත. මෙකී කෝප් වාර්තාව මුලින් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට තිබුණේ 2016 ඔක්‌තෝබර් 25 දිනය. මේ ලියුම ඉතාම කඩිමුඩියේ ගෙන්වාගෙන ඇත්තේ 2016 ඔක්‌තෝබර් 24 දින හෙවත් ඊට පෙර දිනය. සාමාන්‍යයෙන් කෝප් එක ඉල්ලා සිටින තොරතුරු මෙතෙක්‌ ලබා දුන්නේ මුදල් මණ්‌ඩල අනුමැතිය සහිතව මුදල් මණ්‌ඩලයේ ලේකම්වරයා විසින් වුවද මේ අවස්‌ථාවේ එජාප පාද සටහන් අවශ්‍යතාව සැපිරීම සඳහා කඩිමුඩියේ යවන ලද ලිපිය යවා ඇත්තේ එම නිසි ක්‍රමවේදයට පටහැනිවය. තවද එම ලිපිය, සත්‍ය තත්ත්වය විකෘති කිරීමට එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් යොදාගෙන ඇති බවද මහ බැංකු ආරංචි මාර්ග හෙළි කරයි. අඩු තරමේ මෙවැනි ලිපියක්‌ නිකුත් කළ යුතු වන්නේ මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයාය. රාජ්‍ය ණය අධිකාරිවරයාට තනිවම අත්සන් කර කෝප් එකට ලිපි යෑවීමට බලයක්‌ දී තිබේද? මෙය මහ බැංකු අධිපතිව රයා පිළිතුරු දිය යුතුය. ඉතා කඩිනමින් ෆැක්‌ස්‌ මාර්ගයෙන් මේ ලිපිය ගෙන්වා ගෙන අදාළ පාද සටහන කෙටුම්පත් කර තිබුණත් එම 2016.10.24 දිනැති පැවැති කෝප් රැස්‌වීමට යෑවූ ලිපියේ සඳහන් පරිදි රජයේ හිමිකාරිත්වය දරණ ආයතන (captive Sources) සඳහා සාජු ක්‍රමය මගින් භාණ්‌ඩාගාර බැඳුම්කර නිකුත් කිරීම සඳහා සහ ගෙවනු ලබන පොලී අනුපාත සඳහා මූල්‍ය මණ්‌ඩලය අනුමැතිය ලබාදී ඇත්තේ 2008 මැයි මස සිට දෙසැම්බර් මාසය දක්‌වා කාලය සඳහා පමණක්‌ බවට ඇති සඳහන නිවැරදි නොවන බව මහ බැංකු ආරංචි මාර්ග මගින් හෙළි වේ. මහ බැංකුවේ තෙරතුරු කෙළින්ම ලිපියක්‌ මගින් අත්සන් කර වෙනත් අර්ථ නිරූපණයක්‌ ලැබෙන පරිදි පාර්ලිමේන්තු පොදු ව්‍යපාර කාරක සභාවට යෑවීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් අදාළ නිලධාරියාට එරෙහිව විනය ක්‍රියාමාර්ග ගැනීමට මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයා සූදානම්ද? එසේ නැත්නම් හොරු රැකීම සඳහා අදාල පාද සටහන් තැබීමේ එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ගේ අවශ්‍යතාව ඉටු කරදීමට වත්මන් මහ බැංකු අධිපති ආචාර්ය ඉන්ද්‍රජිත් කුමාරස්‌වාමි මහතාද සහාය දී ඇති බවට සැකයක්‌ ඇතිවීම වැළක්‌විය නොහැකිය.
[Divaina]

Joint Opposition  delighted by Chinese envoy disproving UNP accusations Higher interest rates

November 3rd, 2016

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island

November 3, 2016, 10:04 pm

The Joint Opposition yesterday thanked China for publicly countering lies propagated by the UNP- led government as regards loans received by the Rajapaksa administration.

Top JO spokesmen former External Affairs Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris and MP Bandula Gunawardena said that China had set the record straight. Recollecting the dirty UNP campaign in the run up to two national level polls in January and August 2015, Prof. Peiris said that some had gone to the extent of alleging that corruption in Sri Lanka couldn’t be tackled unless Chinese investments were drastically pruned.

MP Gunawardena accused Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake of pursuing an anti-China policy detrimental to Sri Lanka.

The JO said the Chinese response to the government should be examined in the context of th e financial crisis caused by Central Bank bond scams. The JO commended the Chinese position underscored by Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Yi Xianliang during a media briefing at the Chinese Embassy on Tuesday evening.

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Yi Xianliang

Prof. Peiris said that China had provided the wherewithal to wage war against the LTTE and at the conclusion of the conflict threw its weight behind Sri Lanka at various international forums. Strongly denying accusations that China was pursuing a hidden agenda here, the top envoy commented on the allegation levelled against the previous government of taking massive loans at high interest rates from China.

The Ambassador stressed that there was absolutely no basis for claims that China had provided loans to Sri Lanka at a higher interest rate. He said he had even discussed the claims with Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, adding that if Sri Lanka was not happy then it did not need to turn to China for more funds “We give loans to developing countries like Sri Lanka at 2 per cent interest.”

Having accused China for imposing unfair interest rates on Sri Lanka, the current government had obtained loans at much higher rates from non-Chinese sources, the Chinese envoy said.

Fiscal challenges ahead of Budget 2017

November 3rd, 2016

By Prof. Sirimevan Colombage Courtesy The Island


The forthcoming Budget 2017 is to be presented in the midst of many macroeconomic vulnerabilities manifested by persistent fiscal deficits. Revenue generation is constrained by the limitations in mobilizing direct taxes which have led to a continuous rise in the indirect tax burden making the tax system more regressive hurting the poor and further widening income inequality. Meanwhile, the slowing down of GDP growth inhibits any autonomous increase in revenue collection. The debt stock continues to rise reflecting a high level of fiscal sustainability risks in the medium term. Given the revenue constraints and the unlikely expenditure cuts, bringing down the budget deficit as envisaged in the IMF-supported program seems a daunting task.

Fiscal Consolidation Agenda

The Budget 2017 needs to be framed in conjunction with the fiscal target contained in the three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement agreed with the IMF in last June (Table). With the anticipated increase in tax revenue of about 1.2 percent of GDP annually during 2017-18, the budget deficit is expected to decline from 5.4 percent of GDP in 2016 to 4.0 percent of GDP by 2018. A corresponding decline in the primary deficit (program’s fiscal anchor, which excludes interest payments) to near-zero levels is expected for the coming years.

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Indirect Tax Burden on the Rise

The total government expenditure for 2017 is projected to be 18.8 per cent of GDP as against the total revenue of 14.0 per cent leaving a budget deficit of 4.8 per cent of GDP. Around four fifths of the total revenue is generated from taxes. Dependence on indirect taxes has risen while the direct tax component remained stagnant over the last decade (Figure 1). The revenue generated from income taxes is less than 20 per cent of the total tax revenue, and hence, the balance 80 per cent of total tax revenue has to be collected through indirect taxes. Sri Lanka’s income tax component is one of the lowest in the world (Figure 2).

The burden of indirect taxes is usually passed on to individuals who consume the goods and services subject to such taxes irrespective of their income levels.Indirect taxes are considered as a regressive form of taxation since the low-income earners are overburdened by indirect taxes imposed on essential consumer goods and services such as food, medical care, clothing and public utilities. Given the difficulties in collecting income taxes which are a direct form of taxation, the goods and services consumed by masses have been increasingly subject to various forms of indirect taxes, thus, exerting enormous pressures on the cost of living of the poor. As a result, the equity objective of taxation has been significantly undermined over the years.

VAT takes the brunt

An immediate challenge faced by the fiscal authorities is to bring down the budget deficit to 4.7 percent of GDP in 2017 from 5.4 percent this year in compliance with the EFF arrangement. This is to be achieved by raising the tax revenue from 11.8 percent of GDP this year to 12.9 percent of GDP in 2017. For this purpose, broadening the tax base for income tax and VAT, and tax administration reforms are planned. The government has already taken action to raise the VAT rate and to broaden its base while the other envisaged tax reforms are yet to see the light of day. This move contrasts with the government’s declared policy stance to reduce the indirect to direct tax ratio from the present level of 80:20 to 60:40.

The Value Added Tax (VAT) rate has been raised from 11 percent to 15 percent effective from November 1. The VAT base has been broadened to cover certain previously exempted items including milk powder, electric and electronic items, cigarettes, liquor, perfumes, jewellery and coal. Lease or rent of residential accommodation, telecommunication services and health care services will also be subject to VAT. These tax changes will have ripple effects on the cost of living of the ordinary people.

The government anticipates that the VAT revisions will bring about a revenue boost of around Rs. 100 billion from the present level of Rs. 280 billion to Rs. 380 billion by next year. However, it is not easy to generate VAT revenue as expected due to its complexities in the refunding process and other administrative challenges. A significant number of businessmen and manufacturers evade paying VAT and Nation Building Tax (NBT). There are only 15,000 VAT payers and 23,000 NBT payers, according to the Inland Revenue Department. Sri Lanka also has experience in huge VAT refunding frauds in the past.

Revenue Loss from Tax Incentives

The government has granted various forms of tax incentives with a view to attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) over the last several decades. They include corporate tax holidays, import duty exemptions and tax concessions for dividends. Both the Board of Investment (BOI) and the Inland Revenue Department grant such concessions. The revenue loss on account of tax incentives is estimated to be around 1.35 percent of GDP in 2012-13 which is approximately equal to corporate tax collection. This is a major factor that has led to reduce the direct tax component of the country.

The effectiveness of these tax incentives is questionable in the context of low FDI inflows which are still less than $ 1 billion per annum. There is no mechanism to assess the benefits of the tax incentives or to estimate the foregone revenue losses. The low mobilization of corporate taxes reflects that the incentive receiving sectors do not contribute sufficiently to government coffers to offset the revenue losses.

Expenditure Cuts Unlikely

The space for cutting down expenditure is extremely limited as most of such outlays are already committed or cannot be curtailed for social and economic implications. The government will have to spend almost the entirety of its revenue for interest payments and amortization payments on public debt in 2017. Hence, it is compelled to borrow to meet other recurrent and capital expenditure.

The major current expenditure items include salaries and subsidies, apart from interest payments which account for around one third of recurrent expenditure. The expansion of the public sector staff mostly for political reasons has become a severe burden on the budget costing the government one fifths of its current expenditure for paying salaries. The transfers made to loss-making public enterprises year after year too balloons expenditure without generating adequate returns.

Fiscal Sustainability Risks Imminent

The projected fiscal outlook for 2017 onwards reflects vulnerabilities in the areas of financing needs and debt sustainability. The envisaged fiscal consolidation to overcome the sustainability risks entirely depends on increased revenue mobilization as no expenditure cuts are earmarked. In the background of the lack of an effective program to raise income tax collection or to rationalize the widespread income tax incentives, the total burden of revenue increase falls on indirect taxes, mainly on VAT. This leads to make the tax system further regressive hurting the poor. The downward effect of the tax revisions on GDP growth is inevitable further restraining revenue mobilization.

(The writer, an economist, academic and former central banker can be contacted at sscolom@gmail.com)

Loss due to Feb. 27 bond scam exceeds Rs. 125 bn – Joint Opposition

November 3rd, 2016

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island

The Joint Opposition yesterday acknowledged that none of those who had faced serious accusations during the previous SLFP-led PA and UPFA administrations had given up portfolios and positions temporarily to facilitate investigations.

Asked by The Island whether those in the Joint Opposition had practised what they preached now, top JO spokesmen Prof. G. L. Peiris and MP Bandula Gunawardena said the Central Bank bond scam couldn’t be compared with any other case examined by parliamentary watchdog committees, COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) and PAC (Public Accounts Committee).

Gunawardena insisted that the unprecedented fraud had jeopardised national economy and undermined the investor confidence.

The JO couldn’t name a single politician who had stepped down on his or her own or were directed by the party to do so during their administration. The Island sought an explanation regarding the UPFA’s failure to take tangible action on the basis of COPE and PAC reports against the backdrop of their demand that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe quit thereby facilitating a proper investigation into the alleged scam.

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The JO refused to be drawn on the issue of Dr P. B. Jayasundera receiving appointment as Secretary to the Ministry Finance in spite of him being faulted by the Supreme Court over infamous Lanka Marine Services deal also exposed by COPE during the then MP Wijeyadasa Rajapakse’s tenure as the watchdog’s Chairman.

Alleging that former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran had allowed Perpetual Treasuries run by his son-in-law Arjun Aloysius to use the Central Bank and the entire banking system to their advantage, both Prof. Peiris and MP Gunawardena emphasized such a project wouldn’t have been possible without PM Wickremesinghe’s knowledge. Underscoring the fact that the Central Bank had been under Premier Wickremesinghe’s supervision since the last presidential polls in January 2015, Prof. Peiris insisted that an independent investigation wasn’t possible as long as the UNP leader remained at the helm. Therefore, Premier Wickremesinghe should quit and the licence issued to Perpetual Treasuries to function as a primary dealer suspended pending investigation, Prof. Peiris said.

Both Prof. Peiris and MP Gunawardena said that it would be the responsibility of the Central Bank’s Monetary Board headed by Arjuna Mahendran’s successor Dr. Indrajith Coomaraswamy to act decisively regarding the allegations.

Acknowledging that Perpetual Treasuries had received the licence during the previous administration in 2013, JO spokesmen pointed out that the Monetary Board should examine the circumstances under which the Mahendrans’ outfit had recorded a massive growth. In 2014, Perpetual Treasuries share among 16 primary dealers engaged in the lucrative business had been just one per cent, but in the wake of presidential polls, the outfit increased its share to a staggering 43 to 46 per cent, Gunawardena said.

The Monetary Board owed an explanation as regards Perpetual Treasuries receiving a staggering Rs. 66 bn from the Central Bank between Feb 2015 and March 2016 to facilitate the controversial project, MP Gunawardena said. Of some Rs 89 bn released to primary dealers, Perpetual Treasuries had received Rs 66 bn or 75 per cent of the total amount, the MP said, adding that the outfit recorded a staggering Rs 10.1 bn after tax profit.

Gunawardena asserted that Feb 27, 2015 bond scam had caused over Rs 125 bn loss over a thirty year period.

Prof. Peiris said that Central Bank Governor Coomaraswamy had lodged a complaint with the CID recently seeking their intervention to identify the person or persons behind the leaking of confidential internal investigation conducted by the CB into the clandestine operation undertaken by the Mahendrans. Alleging that Coomaraswamy had acted on the instructions of PM Wickremesinghe Prof. Peiris said that the same person was reluctant to request the police to investigate the massive bond fraud.

The JO vowed not to allow the government to sweep the robbery under the carpet.

Prof. Peiris insisted that the conduct of Bank of Ceylon (BoC) bigwigs as well as the Minister in charge of state banks should be inquired into against the backdrop of the revelation that the premier state bank, too, provided funds to the Mahendrans’ outfit.

MP Gunawardena said that the UNP couldn’t absolve itself of the responsibility and massive financial turmoil caused by involving the Central Bank in fraudulent project.

Greece Bonds – the reality

November 3rd, 2016

By Ajith Nivard Cabraal Former Governor, Central Bank of Sri Lanka

In terms of Section 66 (1) of the Monetary Law Act, the Monetary Board is responsible for the management of the international reserves. In keeping with such authority and responsibility, the Monetary Board has approved Foreign Exchange Reserve Management Guidelines to empower and guide the officials of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) to manage the international reserves.

The decision making structure and process is described in the Guidelines which set out, inter alia, that the Governor has been delegated the authority by the Monetary Board to define and set the overall parameters for reserve management operations and the control of risks including the preferred trade-off between different risks faced and the Bank’s tolerance for loss in any given year. The Guidelines also require the performance of the portfolio to be reported to the Monetary Board on a quarterly basis or as and when deemed necessary. Further, the Guidelines provide for a Foreign Reserve Management Committee (FRMC) which is responsible for making policy recommendations to the Deputy Governor and the Governor on matters concerning the management of the foreign reserves and making decisions pertaining to operational aspects of foreign reserve management.

As a policy, the CBSL manages the foreign reserves in order to safeguard and enhance the value of its overall reserves as well as generate a reasonable income from its investments. Such management of the investments of the Reserves are carried out on a “pool” basis, which is the manner in which reserves are managed all over the world.

The track record of the investment activities of the Central Bank over the past 15 years is set out in the Table below. From such Table, it would be observed that the returns generated by the reserve management activities in the 2 years (2010 and 2011), had been well above the benchmark average US Fed Fund rate, and had yielded substantial profits of US$ 341 million in 2010 and US$ 430 million in 2011. The profit in 2011 has been arrived at, after making provision for all losses, which clearly shows that reserve management in 2011 had been highly successful in enhancing the value of the total portfolio, whilst also providing for the losses that had occurred in the highly challenging and volatile global environment.

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In April 2011, when the CBSL purchased Greece Government Bonds, Greece’s Credit Rating by Fitch Rating Agency was BB+, which is 3 rating notches higher than Sri Lanka’s present credit rating of B+ (Negative). Thereafter, on 20th May 2011, Fitch downgraded Greece to B+ (Negative), which is the same rating as that of Sri Lanka at present. About 7 weeks later, on 13th July 2011, Fitch downgraded Greece further to CCC when Greece was on the verge of default.

Therefore, if it is now contended (in hindsight, of course) that Greece Government Bonds were not a viable option to invest in, in April 2011, it logically follows that Sri Lankan Government Bonds, at the present time, will be a worse investment option, as per the International Rating Agencies’ ratings. If a contention is made by a person in authority to that effect, it will be noted that such assertion could also place the Sri Lankan Government’s current outstanding debt (Government debt as at 30/06/16 was Rs. 9,062.2 billion as per Central Bank data) in a highly vulnerable position, as well.

After the matter regarding the investment in Greece Bonds by the CBSL was raised at the Committee on Public Enterprise (COPE), the circumstances surrounding the investment were examined in depth by the Auditor General (AG). Thereafter, the AG confirmed that no irregularity had occurred and gave a report on 11th October 2012 to the Chairman of COPE, while also acknowledging that the CBSL had made a substantial profit in that year. After such report, COPE acknowledged that, although a loss had occurred, no wrong or illegal activity had taken place. It was also noted that the required procedures were followed by the CBSL and that proper disclosures and reporting requirements were adhered to. Accordingly, the final COPE report on the subject did not refer to the investment in the Greece Bonds, and no further follow up action was recommended by COPE.

In the meantime, in 2012, a Fundamental Rights Case No: 457/2012 in relation to the Greece Bonds investment was also filed against the Monetary Board by Sujeewa Senasinghe, MP. It was argued by Upul Jayasuriya, PC. The Attorney General appeared for the Monetary Board. After hearing the FR case for nearly 2 years, “leave to proceed” was refused by a 3- Judge Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice K. Sripavan, (now Chief Justice), Justice R. Marasinghe and Justice S. De Abrew with the order that, “Considering the totality of the circumstances, it is neither possible nor desirable to hold that the Members of the Monetary Board in taking a decision to invest in Greece Bonds, have acted arbitrarily, unreasonably and in a fraudulent manner.” (See the Supreme Court Judgement dated 18.09.2014 in the website of the Supreme Court).

In this connection, a few significant extracts from the Supreme Court Judgement may be relevant:

“The Auditor General in his letter dated 11th October 2012 addressed to Hon. D.E.W Gunasekara, Chairman on Public Enterprises (with a copy to the Governor, Central Bank) has stated though the Central Bank had incurred a loss from the investment in Greece Government Bonds, it has earned a total net profit of US$ 430.2 million on International Reserve Management during the year 2011….”

“The investment in Greece Bonds and its trade forms part of the risk management strategy. If all investments are maintained as risk free investments the return would be negligible. The Central Bank therefore has to select a mix of low risk and risk bearing investments expecting a reasonably high return.”

“The decision to invest in such Bonds was based on the trade-off between different risks faced and the Central Bank’s tolerance for higher risk on a very small part of its portfolio (only 0.6% of its portfolio was invested in Greece Bonds). Investing in high yielding sovereign paper is an integral part of fund management of many funds in the world and the Central Bank too had followed a similar practice in investing a tolerable proportion of its resources (0.6%) in Greece Government Bonds. When the Euro Zone took a turn for the worse several weeks after the investments were made, in mid July 2011, the Central Bank sold a part of Greece Bonds at a loss of US$ 6.6 Million. This measure was taken to mitigate the risk of the Greece investment losing further value due to subsequent development in the Euro Zone. Such loss has been taken into consideration in computing the profit/gains for the year 2011 amounting to US$ 430.2 Million.”

Internationally, the (hypothetical) benchmark safest investment is considered to be in US Government Treasuries. On that basis, a totally risk averse Investment Fund could decide to place its entire funds in US Treasuries only, and thereby (theoretically) suffer no loss. If the CBSL too had followed that total risk-averse path, (as also referred to in the Supreme Court judgement), and invested the entirety of its average reserves of around US$ 6,500 million in 2 year US Government bonds in the year 2011, the total return that the reserves could have earned would have been a mere US$ 16.2 million only. As against such a return, the CBSL has been able to generate an income of US$ 430.2 million through its investment strategies, which then works out to an additional US$ 414 million or 26 times the return that would have been the yield on hypothetically “no risk” instruments only.

It must also be mentioned that, as per CBSL financial statements, CBSL made its highest-ever average return of 6.6% on its reserve, and its highest-ever reserve management profit of US$ 430.2 million, in 2011. (See Table). In comparison, in the year 2015, after managing a foreign reserve of a value similar to that of 2011, the CBSL made a profit of US$ 111 million only. In that context, if the CBSL administration in 2011 is blamed by some persons for the particular “losses” in the investment in Greece Bonds even while making an overall profit of US$ 430.2 million in 2011, such persons will have to blame the CBSL administration in 2015 a lot more for being able to generate a profit of only US$ 111 million in 2015.

UNHRC and EU are silent on hate crimes against Chinese immigrants in France

November 3rd, 2016

A killing in Paris: Why French Chinese are in uproar

  • Members of the Chinese community in Paris wave French flags and hold placards during a demonstration on September 4, 2016 in Paris, following the death of Zhang Chaolin and also calling for greater security measures.Image copyrightAFP
Image captionChinese communities in France say they are sick of being targeted with violence

David Liu, a Chinese Frenchman, says he walks around Paris with “fear in his chest”.

The 22-year-old student was assaulted and robbed by a gang of youths in a side street when he was in primary school.

It was a long time ago, but he still crosses the road if a large group of people are coming his way. After all, everyone in his family has been targeted in a similar fashion.

France’s ethnic Chinese population have long suffered casual racism and been stereotyped as easy targets for crime. But they say they have now reached breaking point.

In August, 49-year-old tailor and father-of-two Zhang Chaolin died in hospital after being attacked by three teenagers. He had been walking in a quiet street in the north Paris suburb of Aubervilliers.

Zhang was reportedly kicked in the sternum and fell, striking his head on the pavement. The aim of the attack was allegedly to steal his friend’s bag.

The tailor had nothing on him except sweets and cigarettes.

In response, on 4 September, at least 15,000 ethnic Chinese turned out in Paris’s Place de la Republique to give vent to their deep feelings of insecurity.

Estimated at more than 600,000 people, France has Europe’s largest Chinese community. But they have not been in the country as long as more prominent migrant groups, including those from Africa.

Family members and relatives hold a portrait of Chinese Zhang Chaolin as people light candles and lay flowers during a tribute ceremony, outside the city hall in Aubervilliers, north-eastern suburbs of Paris, on August 14, 2016.Image copyrightAFP
Image captionThe death of Zhang Chaolin has sparked mass street protests against anti-Asian racism
Media captionActor Frederic Chau: “The same thing happened to my mother”

David was born in Paris to parents who migrated from China in the early 1990s. He says he has been asked publicly if he eats dogs, and has been called a “spring roll head”.

He has also been told to “go back to his own country” and “go and work with his little Chinese hands”.

Such jibes might be familiar to east Asian migrants and their descendants across the West. As with British Chinese, French Chinese say that racist comments toward them are tolerated, in a way that they are not for more established migrant communities.

But in France, there is a sense that Asian migrants are targeted with particularly nasty violence.

“[These attacks] are because of the beliefs they have about us,” says David, who is too fearful to use his real name.

‘Weak and cashed-up’

A working-class and immigrant-heavy area, home to more than 1,200 mostly Chinese wholesalers, Aubervilliers is an important European textile centre. Buyers come from far and wide to haggle over Italian-made coats and Chinese-made shirts.

Activists say at least 100 attacks against Chinese nationals were reported in the suburb in just the first seven months of this year. France does not keep statistics based on ethnicity, so it is difficult to know the real number of incidents.

Meriem Derkaoui, the suburb’s communist mayor, condemned Zhang’s murder as “racist targeting”.

Community groups say such attacks are driven by a perception that Chinese people are weak, will not fight back and carry a lot of cash.

A photo taken on February 2, 2011 shows the entrance of the 'Centre Euro Chine' business center in Aubervilliers, north of ParisImage copyrightAFP
Image captionAubervilliers, a working-class suburb, is one of Europe’s most important textile centres

During a recent trial of three youths accused of 11 attacks in a three-month span in Aubervilliers, the defendants insisted the ethnicity of their targets was just a coincidence. But when interrogated by police, they reportedly admitted to seeing Chinese people as “easy targets” with money on them.

In interviews with the BBC, several ethnic Chinese shopkeepers and residents of Aubervilliers said they felt that the level of violence was getting worse.

“It’s getting out of hand. The situation had stabilised in recent years, but now it’s broken out again,” says Franky Song, 20, who works in a jeans shop in the CIFA Fashion Business Center. Inter-communal relations in the area have deteriorated, he adds.

In this shopping centre, home to a few hundred clothing wholesalers, everyone would know someone who had been assaulted, he said. “We have the businesses, but not the build, so they take advantage of us.”

Franky Song
Image captionFranky Song, 20, was born in France but his parents are from Wenzhou
View of parked delivery vans and shops at the CIFA-Fashion Business CenterImage copyrightAFP
Image captionTraders at the CIFA-Fashion Business Center say they feel unsafe

Heng, a middle-aged lady who has run a florist’s with her husband in Aubervilliers for 17 years, joined the recent protests because of the “horrible situation” in the suburb. Her shop has been broken into twice, and her insurer will no longer cover it.

The anger of people like Franky and Heng is mostly directed towards the state, which they say has failed to protect them. Zhang’s death was the final straw. It prompted a community normally regarded as quietly focused on work and family to take a public stand.

‘We’ve had enough’

“Asian people are not used to being in the spotlight; they like to be in the shadows,” says Frederic Chau, a well-known comedian and actor of Cambodian-Chinese descent. He has played a high-profile role in the “Safety for All” campaign, which previously organised demonstrations in 2010 and 2011.

“To be more than 20,000 people in the Place de la Republique to make this protest – it’s not normal, for us, [especially] for my mother, my father, my uncles.

“But doing this is necessary because we have had enough. We have to do something to change the mentality in France.”

As one of the Indochinese refugees who arrived in France in the 1970s with the legal right to residence, Frederic is part of an ethnic Chinese community considered better integrated in French society than their mainland Chinese counterparts.

France’s colonial history meant that some of these refugees from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia – many, like Frederic, of Chinese descent – already spoke French.

The Chinese wholesale trade in Aubervilliers, on the other hand, is dominated by migrants from Wenzhou, a city in China’s southeast known for its entrepreneurial migrants. They mostly arrived in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the first generation struggling with the French language.

French actor Frederic Chau poses on the red carpet on September 9, 2016 in the northwestern sea resort of Deauville, as part of the 42nd Deauville US Film FestivalImage copyrightAFP
Image captionFrederic Chau is working on a film called Made in China, about growing up as an Asian in France

Ya-Han Chuang researched the integration of Chinese migrants for her doctorate at Paris-Sorbonne University. She says that compared to the Indochinese, these mainland migrants have struggled to accrue “cultural capital”.

“The fact that they tend to work in and inherit family enterprises creates some more barriers,” she says.

But Rui Wang, the son of Wenzhounese migrants and president of the Association of French-Chinese Youth, belies the stereotypes.

Born in China but raised in France, he casually quotes French philosophers and sociologists like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Pierre Bourdieu. Articulate and driven, he has written to Prime Minister Manuel Valls to warn him that the situation in places like Aubervilliers is “explosive”.

He describes how husbands will pick up their wives and children from metro stations and schools in groups of five to six people for safety reasons.

In La Courneuve, near Aubervilliers, look-outs are posted near weddings to prevent robberies. Security information and patrols are coordinated via the WeChat messaging app.

Rui Wang
Image captionRui Wang wants more security cameras and police officers deployed in areas like Aubervilliers

“There is an anger that has accumulated for too long,” Rui says.

The association’s immediate demands are straightforward: more police and security resources. Since the demonstrations in August and September, extra police officers have been promised for Aubervilliers. But according to Rui, city hall says it cannot afford to provide more security cameras.

The mayor did not respond to requests for comment on these issues.

The recent protests have captured rare media and political attention for a community unused to the limelight. Alain Juppe, a former prime minister and likely presidential candidate, visited the family of Zhang Chaolin in early September.

Speaking to French-Chinese in the area, he condemned rising incidents of “anti-Chinese racism” and spoke of France “finding harmony between its communities”.

French right-wing Les Republicains (LR) party's mayor of Bordeaux and candidate for the LR party primary Alain Juppe (R) shakes hands during a visit to the Chinese community in Aubervilliers, near to Paris, on September 8, 2016.Image copyrightAFP
Image captionAlain Juppe visited Aubervilliers in early September

This is equally important for Rui. He wants more support from the government for social projects that build links between different migrant communities.

Frederic Chau, the actor, feels the same way. He describes his family home’s doormat as being like a border between France and China when he was growing up: “I rejected my origins, I wanted to be whiter than white”.

Now, he has fully embraced his Cambodian and Chinese origins, and is proud of them.

What France’s Asians want now, Frederic says, is to be “considered French”.

When perceptions change, they hope a sense of security will follow.

Related Topics

Minister Daya Gamage invites Iranian investors to invest in Sri Lanka ඇමති දයා ගමගේගෙන් ඉරාන ආයෝජකයින්ට ඇරයුමක්

November 3rd, 2016

Media Secretary to the Minister of Primary Industries ගරු අමාත්‍යතුමන්ගේ මාධ්‍ය ලේකම්ගරු අමාත්‍යතුමන්ගේ මාධ්‍ය ලේකම්

Minister of Primary Industries Daya Gamage said on Wednesday that direct trade between the two countries can be more beneficial for both nations. Minister Gamage made the remarks in a meeting with Iranian Deputy Minister of Agricultural Jihad for Commercial and Agricultural Industries Ali-Akbar Mehr-fard in Tehran, Iran on Wednesday (Nov. 2nd).

In the meeting, Minister Gamage underlined development of cooperation in the field of agriculture & oil and said technology level in Iran is high and Sri Lanka can use the technologies in the fields of agriculture and industries.

He invited officials of Agricultural Jihad to visit Sri Lanka and called for holding joint meeting with Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture.

Minister Gamage advised the Iranian businessmen, who are eager to access markets in India and Bangladesh, to invest in the new market of Sri Lanka.

Iranian Deputy Minister Mehr-fard said that agricultural capabilities of Iran and Sri Lanka are complementary to each other and there are no competitive crops, so by establishment of working groups, joint commissions between public and private sectors of the two countries’ joint projects should be defined. ‘To settle monetary problems and banking issues, the Central Banks of the two countries should find necessary mechanism’ he added.

Mehr-fard further said that Iran produces 117 million tons of agricultural crops worth 76 billion dollars annually and in some products like Pistachio, Saffron, Date, Raisin, Apple and citrus Iran is among top ranking states.

‘Iran is world’s second date producer and the third in raisin’, said Mehr-fard, adding that in dairy industry also Iran has gained good progress and exported 600 million dollars dairy last year. Iran needs 80,000 tons of tea annually, 25,000 tons of which is produced internally, according to the official.

He suggested that the two sides may work on it in a joint venture.

Mehr-fard added that processing industries are also suitable ground for bilateral cooperation. According to the statistics published by Iran’s Customs House, Iran exported 15.59541 million dollars to Sri Lanka in the first half of this year and imported 74.564.400 million dollars from the country.

Bharatha Thennakoon

Media Secretary to the Minister of Primary Industries

Thursday 3rd, November 2016

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ශ්‍රී ලංකාව හා ඉරානය අතර සෘජු වෙළද සබදතා ප්‍රවර්ධනය කිරීම දෙරටටම වාසිදායක ප්‍රතිපත්තියක් වනු ඇතැයි ප්‍රාථමික කර්මාන්ත අමාත්‍ය දයා ගමගේ මැතිතුමා පැවසීයත

ඉරානයේ සංචාරයක නිරත දයා ගමගේ මහතා ඇතුළු ධූත පිරිස, ඉරාන රජයේ කෘෂිකර්ම නියෝජ්‍ය අමාත්‍ය අලි-අක්බර් මර්-ෆාර්ඩ් මහතා ඇතුළු පිරිසක් සමග ඊයේ (03) පැවති හමුවක දී අමාත්‍යතුමා මේ බව කියා සිටියේය.

එහිදී අදහස් දැක්වූ අමාත්‍යතුමා වැඩිදුරටත් කියා සිටියේ, ඉරානය මේ වන විට භාවිත කරමින් සිටින තාක්ෂණය හා උපක්‍රමයන් ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ කෘෂිකාර්මික හා කර්මාන්ත අංශයේ සංවර්ධනය වෙනුවෙන් උපයෝගී කර ගැනීම කෙරෙහි අවධානය යොමු කරන බවයි.

එහිදී දයා ගමගේ මහතා, ඉරාන ආයෝජකයින්ට, කර්මාන්තකරුවන්ට, ආයෝජකයින්ට හා ඉරාන රජයේ ධූත මණ්ඩල වලට ආරාධනා කර සිටියේ ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ ආයෝජනය කිරීම හා ශ්‍රී ලංකාව සමග වෙළද සබදතා පුළුල් කිරීම කෙරෙහි අවධානය යොමු කරන ලෙසයි. ඒ සදහා මෙරටට පැමිණෙන ලෙස ද එතුමා එම පිරිසෙන් ඉල්ලීමක් කළේය.

ආයෝජන සදහා ඉන්දියාවේ හා බංග්ලාදේශයේ ඇති අවස්ථාවන් හා ඉඩප්‍රස්ථාවන්ට වඩා හොද තත්ත්වයක් මේ වන විට ලංකාවේ නිර්මාණය වී ඇති බව ද එතුමා කියා සිටියේය.

මෙහිදී අදහස් දැක්වූ ඉරාන රජයේ නියෝජ්‍ය කෘෂිකර්ම අමාත්‍ය මර්–ෆාර්ඩ් මහතා, ද්වීපාර්ශවීය සබදතා පුළුල් කරමින් වෙළද හා කාර්මික අංශයේ දියුණුව වෙනුවෙන් කටයුතු කිරීම සුදුසු බව යෝජනා කළේය.

 

භාරත තෙන්නකෝන්

ගරු අමාත්‍යතුමන්ගේ මාධ්‍ය ලේකම්

2016 නොවැම්බර් 03

 

Interview with CBK in November 2003 – after taking over the 3 key portfolios from UNP

November 3rd, 2016

Talking Heads with Chandrika Kumaratunga (Aired November 2003)

 

https://youtu.be/oy-bkhZVfQk

ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකාරණයේ හදවත කම්පනය කළ ගල් අඟුරු ටෙන්ඩරය  ‘සුවිස් සිංගප්පුරු සමාගමට‘ පුදයි. යහපාලන රජයේ දෙවන දුෂිත ගනුදෙනුව විගණන වාර්තාව ලබන සතියේ.  ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ විභාගය 16 දා. 

November 3rd, 2016

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන් උපදේශක  – දුෂණ විරෝධී පෙරමුණ

 නොරච්චෝල විදුලි බලගාරය සදහා ගල් අඟුරු මිලදී ගැනීමට සදහා කැදවා තිබූ කුප්‍රකට ‘ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ හදවත කම්පනය‘ කළ ටෙන්ඩරය නැවත අදාළ සමාගම වෙතම ලබා දෙන ලෙස කැබිනට් මණ්ඩලය තීරණය කොට ඇත.

ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය විසින් විභාගයට ගැණුනු නඩු අංක  SCFR394/2015 යටතේ අගවිනිසුරුවරයා ප්‍රමුඛ ත්‍රීපුද්ගල හ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ විනිශ්චය මණ්ඩලය මෙම නඩුව මහජන මුදල් සම්බන්ධයෙන් වන නිරීක්ෂණයක් ලෙස සදහන් කළේ ‘ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ හදවත කම්පා කළ බව‘ ය.

ස්විස් සිංගප්පූර් සමාගමට ටෙන්ඩරය පිරිනැමීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් ප්‍රසම්පාදන කමිටුව කැබිනට් මණ්ඩලය නොමග යවා ඇති බව නඩු තීන්දුවේ දැක්වේ.  එසේ තිබිය දී,  වත්මන් ගල් අඟුරු වෙළෙදපොලේ මිලට වඩා 11%ක් වැඩිපුර මිලකට නොරච්චෝල වෙත ගල් අගුරු මිලදී ගැනීම සදහා විදුලි බල හා බලශක්ති අමාත්‍යාංශයට කැබිනට් මණ්ඩලයෙන් ඉල්ලා තිබුණි.  කෙසේ නමුත්, කැබිනට් මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡාවේ දී පවා අදාළ ටෙන්ඩරය ප්‍රශ්නකාරී සමාගමට ප්‍රධානය කළ බව නිවේදනය කරනු නොලැබීය.

අදාළ ටෙන්ඩරය මගින් රටට දැවැන්ත මුල්‍ය පාඩුවක් සිදුවන බව පවසා මාධ්‍යවේදී සුභාෂ් ජයවර්ධන ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයට (SCFR 349/2016) පෙත්සමක් ගොඩු කොට ඇත.  එය 2016-11-16 දින සලකා බැලීමට නියමිතය. 

දුෂණ විරෝධී පෙරමුණ 2016 සැප්. 23 දින අල්ලස් හෝ දුෂණ කොමිෂන් සභාවට මේ පිළිබද පැමිණිල්ලක් ඉදිරිපත් කොට ඇත.  එසේ තිබිය දී,  ගල් අගුරු ටෙන්ඩරයේ නොමැති කොන්දේසි ඉදිරිපත් කරමින් නැවත ගල් අගුරු මිලදී ගැනීම සිදුවන්නේ නම් එමගින් රටට බිලියන 2 ක ට ආසන්න පාඩුවක් සිදු විය හැකිය.

 කැබිනට් තීරණය

2016-11-01 දින රැස්වූ කැබිනට් මණ්ඩලය විසින් ස්විස් සිංගප්පූර් සමාගමෙන් 2017-04-30 දින දක්වා  ගල් අගුරු මිලදී ගැනීමට තීරණය කර ඇත.

මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ රජය යටතේ ගල් අගුරු මිලදී ගැනීමෙන් ලබා ගත් කොමිස් මුදල් උපයෝගි කොට ගෙන චන්ද්‍රිකා ගුවන්ගත කිරීම, මාධ්‍ය ආයතන මිල දී ගැනීම පිළිබද චෝදනා කළ යහපාලන රජය යටතේ සිදු වූ දැවැන්තම ටෙන්ඩර් මගඩිය ‘ගල් අගුරු ටෙන්ඩරය‘ යි. 

රටට සිදුවන පාඩුවේ ස්වාභාවය පරිමාව 

ස්විස් සිංගප්පූර් සමාගමෙන් ගල් අගුරු මිලදී ගනු ලබන්නේ මිල සූත්‍රයක් පදනම්කරගනිමිනි.

එනම්, 58÷51.85 × අදාල මාසයේ දර්ශක මිල  යන සූත්‍රයයි. 58 යනු ස්විස් සිංගප්පූර් සමාගම 2015 සැප්තැම්බරයේ ගල් අගුරු ටොන් 1ක් ලබාදීමට එකග වූ මිල යි. 51.85 යනු 2015 සැප්තැම්බරයේ දර්ශක මිලයි. මේ දෙක තේරුම් ගන්නා ඕනෑම අයකුට පැහැදිලිවන කාරණයක් ඇත. එනම් දර්ශක මිල 51.85 ට පවතිද්දී 58 බැගින් ස්විස් සමාගමෙන් මිලදී ගන්නේ යැයි පදනමකට එන්නේ  ඇයි ද යන්නයි. 58 , 51.85 න් බෙදු විට 1.17 ක පමණ අගයක් ගනියි. එය දර්ශක මිලෙන් වැඩිවූ විට නිතැනින්ම දර්ශක මිලට වඩා 1.17 ක පමණ වැඩි අගයක් ගනියි.

එහෙත් ක්ෂණික මිලදී ගැනීම් ක්‍රමය යටතේ ගල් අගුරු මිලදී ගැනීමේදී දර්ශක මිලට වඩා අඩු මිලකට බොහෝ අවස්ථාවල ගල් අගුරු මිලදී ගෙන ඇත.

ස්පොට් ටෙන්ඩර් ක්‍රමය යටතේ සිදු කළ මිලදී ගැනීම් මගින් ලංකා රජයට සිදුවී ඇති ලාභය මෙසේය.

ක්ෂනික මිලදී ගැනීම් ගල් අගුරු ටෙන්ඩරය සිදුකල මාසය එම මාසයේ දර්ශක මිල (ටොන් 1ක්)

ඇ.ඩොලර්

ක්ෂණික මිලදී ගැනිම සදහා තෝරාගත් අවම ලංසුව

(ටොන් 1)

ඇ.ඩොලර්

එම කාලයේම ස්විස් සමාගමේ 58÷51.85×දර්ශක මිලට ආදේශ කල විට ටොන් 1ක් මිලදී ගැනීමට සිදුවන මිල

ඇ.ඩොලර්

ස්විස් සමාගමෙන් මිලදී ගැනීමෙන් සිදුවන අලාභය         (ටොන් 01ක් සදහා) ඇ.ඩොලර්
01 2015 සැප්තැම්බර් 54.29 55.70 60.73 5.03
02 2015 ඔක්තෝබර් 51.85 51.29 58.00 6.15
03 2016 ජනවාරි 52.39 49.85 58.60 8.75
04 2016 අප්‍රෙල් 53.64 50.25 60.00 9.75
05 2016 සැප්තැම්බර් 65.89 64.77 73.71 8.94
06 2016 ඔක්තෝබර්6 67.31 78.90 75.29 -3.61 (ලාභයි)
07 2016 ඔක්තෝබර් 83.04 90.60 92.89 2.29
           

විදුලිබල හා බලශක්ති අමත්‍යාංශය විසින් ස්විස් සිංගප්පූර් සමාගමෙන් ගල් අගුරු ටොන් මිලියන 11 ක් පමණ මිලදී ගැනීමට නියමිතය.

අවසන් වරට ක්ෂනික මිලදී ගැනීම් යටතේ ගල් අගුරු මිලදී ගෙන ඇත්තේ ටොන් 1, ඇ.ඩො. 90.60 බැගිනි. එවිට දර්ශක මිල පැවතී ඇත්තේ 83.04 හිය. එය ස්විස් සමාගමේ මිල සූත්‍රයට අනුව ගැලපු විට මෙසේය (58÷51.85×83.04=92.88 ) ගැනීමට සිදුවන්නේ 92.88 බැගින්ය. ඒ අනුව පැහැදිලිවන්නේ ඇ.ඩො.  2.28 ක්  ටොන් එකකින් පාඩුවන බවයි. එය ලක්ෂ 11 ක් මිලදී ගැනීමේදී ඇ.ඩො. ලක්ෂ 25කි. රුපියල්නම් මිලියන 368.67 කි.

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන්

උපදේශක  – දුෂණ විරෝධී පෙරමුණ                                                         2016 නොවැම්බර් 03

ෆුට් නෝට් කිසිවකට මා එකග නෑ.. ‘ෆුට්නෝට් පිල’ සුනේ සුන් කරමින් විගණකාධිපති නිශ්චිත ප‍්‍රශ්ණ තුනක් අසයි..

November 3rd, 2016

 lanka C news | ලංකා සී නිවුස්

ෆුට් නෝට් කිසිවකට මා එකග නෑ.. ‘ෆුට්නෝට් පිල’ සුනේ සුන් කරමින් විගණකාධිපති නිශ්චිත ප‍්‍රශ්ණ තුනක් අසයි..

මහ බැංකුවේ බැඳුම්කර මගඩිය සම්බන්ධයෙන් කෝප් කමිටුවට තමන් විසින් ඉදිරිප්ත කල විගණකාධිපති වාර්තාවේ ඇති කිසිදු කරුණක් වෙනස් කිරීමට සදහා තමන් කිසිසේත්ම එකග නොවූ බව විගණකාධිපති ගාමිණි විජේසිංහ මහතා දැඩිය අවධාරණය කර සිටී.

කෝප් වාර්තාවේ පාද සටහන් සම්බන්ධයෙන් තමන් දැරු මතයේ කිසිදු වෙනසක් නැතැයිද පවසන ඔහු කිසිදු පාද සටහනකට තමන්ගේ අනුමැතිය නැති බවත් එම පාදසටහන් යොදාගෙන කර ඇත්තේ විගණකාධිපති වාර්තාව වෙනස් කිරීම බවද පවසයි.

‘වසර තිහක බැදුම්කරයක් නිකුත් කලේ කුමක් නිසාද, ඒ මොහොතේ තිබූ පොලි අනුපාතය ඉහද දමා අදාල බැදුම්කරය නිකුත් කලේ මන්ද’ ආදී බොහෝ ප‍්‍රශ්නවලට අද වන තෙක් පිලිතුරු ලැබී නැතැයිද ඔහු වැඩි දුරටත් සදහන් කරයි.

ගජ බින්න මාට්ටුයි.. බැඳුම්කර මගඩිය ගැන පාච රණවක එදා කී කතාව සහ අද කියන කතාව වීඩියෝ සහිතව පෙන්වයි..

November 3rd, 2016

lanka C news | ලංකා සී නිවුස්

ඒකාබද්ද විපක්‍ෂය විසින් කොළඹදී පැවැත්වූ මාධ්‍ය හමුවේදී පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත‍්‍රී උදය ගම්මන්පිල මහතා මෙසේ අදහස් පල කලේය.

බැඳුම්කර මගඩිය ගැන පාච එදා කී කතාව සහ අද කියන කතාව

පසුගිය සදුදා උදෑසන මාධ්‍ය හමුවක් පවත්වලා මෙම බැදුම්කර මගඩියේ වගකීම භාරගෙන අගමැතිතුමා ඉල්ලා අස්විය යුතුයි කියලා. මම ප්‍රකාශ කරාම එදා හවස මාධ්‍ය හමුවක් කැදවන ගරු පා ච රණවක ඇමතිතුමන් අගමැතිතුමා මේ හොරකමට සම්බන්ධ නෑ. එතුමා ප්‍රතිපත්තිමය උපදෙසක් පමණයි ලබා දීලා තියෙන්නේ. ඒ නිසා එතුමා ඉල්ලා අස්විය යුතු නෑ කියලා කියනවා. මම කැමතියි ගරු පා ච රණවක ඇමතිතුමන්වම උපුටා දක්වමින් අගමැතිතුමා ඉල්ලා අස්විය යුත්තේ ඇයි කියලා පෙන්නුම් කරන්න එතුමගේම අතීත කතා වලින්. එතකොට මේ විවාදය උදය එදිරිව පා ච නෙවෙයි පා ච එදිරිව පා ච. මෙතුමා මාර්තු මාසයේ Daily Mirror පුවත් පත සමග කල සම්මුඛ සකච්චාවකදී මෙතුමා ප්‍රකාශ කරනවා අර්ජුන් මහෙන්ද්‍රන් මහ බැංකු අධිපති තනතුරට සුදුසු නෑ. ඒක ඇත්ත. අපේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ හතර වන උපලේඛනයේ තියෙනවා දිවුරුමක් ලබා දෙන්න ඕනේ කියලා. ඒ දිවුරුමෙන් කියන්නේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවට සහා නීතියට අනුකූලව අවංකව ඉටු කරන බවට ද, එතුමා හොර වැඩක් කරන්න ආව නිසා අවංකව කියන දිවුරුම දෙන්න කැමති වුණේ නෑ. ශ්‍රී ලංකා ජන රජයට පක්ෂපාත වන බවට ද සිංගප්පුරු පුරවැසියෙකුට වෙනත් කිසිම රටකට පක්ෂපාත වෙන්න බැරි නිසා ශ්‍රී ලංකා ජන රජයට පක්ෂපාත වනවා කියන්න බෑ. ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව ආරක්ෂා කොට අනුගමනය කරන බවට ද ගෞරව බහුමානයෙන් ප්‍රතිඥා දෙමි කියලා. මේ දිවුරුම එතුමා දුන්නේ නෑ කියලා හිටපු කෝප් සභාවේ සභාපති ඩ් ව් ගුණසේකර මහතා එතුමාගෙන් ප්‍රශ්න කරද්දි එතුමා පිළිගත්තා. සිංගප්පුරු ජාතිකයෙක් මහ බැංකු අධිපති තනතුරට නුසුදුසුයි කියන පදනමින් රණවක ඇමතිතුමා කැබිනට් මන්ඩලයේ දී ප්‍රකාශ කලා කියලා කියනවා. අගමැතිතුමා ඒ විරෝධය නොතකා, ඒක මගේ තීරණයක්, එයා ගැන වගකීම මම භාර ගන්නවා කියලා එතුමාව පත්කලා කියලා. ඒක නිසා අගමැතිතුමා වගකීම භාර ගත යුතුයි කියලා ප්‍රකාශ කරන්නේ මම නෙවෙයි ගරු පා ච රණවක ඇමතිතුමන්.

https://youtu.be/zsNzT6cLTsM

පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හරිනවා ජූනි මාසයේ 26වැනිදා. ජුනි මාසයේ 27වැනිදා මාධ්‍ය හමුවක් තියලා එතුමන් කියන,ඒවා මාධ්‍ය වාර්තාත් කලා, ඒ අතරින් මම රිවිර පුවත් පත සහ ලංකාදීප පුවත් පත උපුටා දක්වන්නම් බැදුම්කර සිද්ධියේ කෝප් වාර්තාව යටගහන්න ඕනේ නිසා ආණ්ඩුව විසුරුවා හැරියා” එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ නායකයා ජනාධිපතිතුමා ලවා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරියේ කෝප් වාර්තාව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට එන එක වලක්වන්න ඒක ලංකාදීප පුවත් පතෙත් තියෙනවා. පුවත්පත් දෙකම ජුනි මාසයේ 29වැනිදා. එතකොට පා ච රණවක ඇමතිතුමන්ට අනුව වගකීම බාර අරගෙන නුසුදුස්සෙක් පත් කරන්න අගමැතිතුමා කටයුතු කර තියෙනවා. පා ච රණවක ඇමතිතුමාට අනුව අර්ජුන් මහෙන්ද්‍රන්ගේ හොරකම වසන් කිරීමට උත්තරිතර පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හරින තැනට අගමැතිතුමා පත්වී තිබෙනවා. පසුගිය වසර එකහාමාරක් 2015 පෙබරවාරී 27වෙනිදා ඉදන්  2016 ඔක්තොම්බර් මාසයේ 24වැනිදා වෙනකම්ම එජාප මන්ත්‍රීවරු මාධ්‍ය හමු තියලා කිව්වේ, රූපවාහිනි විවාද වල තර්ක කලේ, වේදිකාවේ ගිරිය පුප්පන් කෑගැහුවේ, පොත් ලිව්වේ, කොප් කමිටුවේ දී විගනකාධිපතිට තර්ජනය කලේ, කොප් කමිටුවේ හොරු අල්ලන්න ඉදිරිපත් වුණු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ට අපහාස කලේ අර්ජුන් මහෙන්ද්‍රන්ගේ හොරකම සගවන්න. නායකයා තමයි එජාප මන්ත්‍රී රැළගේ ක්‍රියාවට වගකියන්න ඕනේ.

රණවක ඇමතිතුමා කියනවා ප්‍රතිපත්තිමය තීන්දුවක් පමණයි මහබැංකු අධිපතිට අගමැතිතුමා උපදෙස් දුන්නේ ඒක නිසා  වගකියන්න ඕනේ නෑ. සම්පුර්ණයෙන්ම වැරදියි. ලංකාවේ සෑම සංස්ථාවක්ම සහ ව්‍යවස්ථාපිත මණ්ඩලයක් පිහිටුවන පනතක වගන්තියක් තියෙනවා ඇමතිවරයා විසින් වරින් වර සමාන්‍ය හෝ විශේෂ නියෝග කළමණාකරන මණ්ඩලයට ලබා දෙනු ඇත. ඒ නියෝග පිළිගැනීමට කළමණාකරන මණ්ඩලය බැදීසිටි කියලා. උදාහරණයක් විදිහට ලංකා බැංකුව පිහිටවපු  ලංකා බැංකු අඥාපනතේ 33වන වගන්තියේ මේ ආකාරයට සදහන් කර තිබේ.  හැබැයි මහ බැංකුව පිහිටවපු මුල්‍ය නීති පනතේ මම දවස් ගණනක් තුන් වතාවක් විතර කියෙව්වා කොතනවත් එහෙම දෙයක් සඳහන් වෙන්නේ නෑ. මහ බැංකුවේ මුදල් මණ්ඩලය  පත් කරන්නේ  අමාත්‍යවරයා නෙවෙයි ජනාධිපතිවරයාය  . මුදල් මණ්ඩලයට හෝ මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයාට නියෝග දිමේ බලය ඇමතිවරයාට ඒ පනතින් ලබා දීලා නෑ. ඒ ඇයි? විශේෂ හේතුවක් තියෙනවා. ආණ්ඩුව සහ දේශපාලකයන් කරන්නේ රාජ්‍ය මුල්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්තිය තීරණය කිරීම. මොනවටද බදු ගහන්නේ, මොනවටද සහන දෙන්නේ. ඒවයි ආර්ථිකය. සමහර විට අස්ථායි වෙන්න පුළුවන්. මහ බැංකු පනතේ 05 වන වගන්තියේ කියනවා මහ බැංකුවේ වගකීම තමයි මුල්‍ය ස්ථායිකරණය. ඒ කියන්නේ පොලි අනුපාතය, විනිමය අනුපාතය, උද්ධමනය ස්ථාවරව පවත්වාගෙන යාම සහ මුල්‍ය පද්ධතිය ස්ථායි කරණය. ඒ කියන්නේ බැංකු කඩා වැටෙන්නේ නෑ කියලා ස්ථායි කර ගැනීම. ඒ නිසා තමයි මහ බැංකු අධිපතිවරයාට බලය නැත්තේ වෙන්දේසි කරනවද? සෘජු ක්‍රමයට බාර ගන්නවාද යන්න ප්‍රතිපත්තිමය තිරණ වලට ඇගිලි ගහන්න. ඒක තමයි අර වගන්තිය දාලා නැත්තේ.

මන් මේ කියන කාරණය නීතිමය කාරණයක්, මහ බැංකුවේ සිටින ජේෂ්ඨතම නිළධාරියා වන ජේෂ්ඨ නියෝජ්‍ය අධිපති අචාර්ය පී එන් වීරසිංහ 2016 ජුලි මාසයේ 07වැනිදා කොප් කමිටුව ඉදිරියේ සාක්ෂි දෙමින් ප්‍රකාශ කරනවා.

කොප් කමිටුවේ සභාපතිතුමා අහනවා නියෝජ්‍ය අධිපතිතුමාගෙන් ප්‍රතිපත්තිමය තීරණයක් ගන්න පුළුවන් කාටද? අචාර්ය පී එන් වීරසිංහ මහතා කියනවා තිරණ ගන්න පුළුවන් මුදල් මණ්ඩලයටත් මොකද 2008 වසරේ මුදල් මණ්ඩලය ගත්ත තීරණයක් මේ ගැන තියෙනවා. මේ දෙක මිශ්‍ර කරලා තීරණයක් ගන්න කියලා එතකොට ඒ තීරණය වෙනස් කරනවා නම් කරන්න පුළුවන් මුදල් මණ්ඩලයට පමණයි.

එතකොට සභාපතිතුමා අහනවා මුදල් මණ්ඩලය හැර ඒ ප්‍රතිපත්තිමය තිරණය ගන්න වෙනකාට හරි පුළුවන්ද? අචාර්ය පී එන් වීරසිංහ මහතා කියනවා වෙනත් යෝජනා ගෙන්න එක එක්කෙනාට පුළුවන් පස්සේ අපේ අධිපතිතුමත් කියනවා අපි දැක්කා පස්සේ කාලේක අගමැතිතුමත් කිව්වාය කියලා. එහෙම අගමැති නිර්දේශ කලත් ඒක ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න නම් මුදල් මණ්ඩලයේ අනුමැතිය නීතිමය ආකාරයට අවශ්‍ය වෙනවා. මා කලින් කිව්ව කාරණය මගේ මතයක් නෙවෙයි මහ බැංකුවේ සිටින ජේෂ්ඨතම නිළධාරියා වන ජේෂ්ඨ නියෝජ්‍ය අධිපති අචාර්ය පී එන් වීරසිංහ මහතා සාක්ෂියට කියනවා අගමැතිට එහෙම උපදෙස් දෙන්න අයිතියක් නෑ. බලය තියෙන්නේ මුදල් මණ්ඩලයට පමණයි.

එතකොට නුසුදුස්සෙක් පත් කරලා ඒ වගකීම බාර ගැනීම, පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැර සොරුන් ආරක්ෂා කිරීමට උත්සහා දැරීම, වසර එකහාමාරක් පුරා එජාප මන්ත්‍රීන් හොරුන් රකින තැනකට මෙහෙය වීම, තමන්ට කිසිම බලයක් නැති මුල්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්ති වලට ඇගිලි ගැසීම කියන වරදවල් හතර අගමැතිතුමා කල තිබෙන නිසා තමයි අපි කියන්නේ අගමැතිතුමා බැදුම්කර සිද්ධියේ වගකීම බාරගෙන වහාම ඉල්ලා අස්විය යුතුයි කියලා. නමුත් පා ච රණවක ඇමතිතුමා දැඩි මතයක ඉන්න නිසා අගමැතිතුමා ඉල්ලා අස්වීමේ අවශ්‍යතාවයක් නෑ කියලා. ගරු ඇමතිතුමාට අභියෝග කරනවා එන්න මා සමග විවාදයකට මම ඔප්පු කරලා පෙන්වනම් අගමැතිතුමා වගකිව යුත්තේ ඇයි කියලා.

පා ච රණවක ඇමතිතුමත් අපි දන්නවා අලපාලු ආර්ථිකය වැනි ගැබුරු ආර්ථික කාරණා සම්බන්ධයෙන් පොත්පත් ලිව්ව ආර්ථික විද්‍යාව විෂය පිළිබඳ ප්‍රවීණයෙක්. මගේ ආර්ථික විද්‍යාව පිළිබඳ දැනුම  මොකක්ද කියලා මම කියන්නේ නෑ. මොකද අනිත් හැමෝටම වඩා එතුමා මගේ ආර්ථික විද්‍යා පසුබිම පිළිබඳ හොද දැනුමක් තියෙනවා. ඒ නිසා මෙම විවාදය මග හරින්න වෙන හේතු දක්වන්න කිසිම හේතුවක් නෑ. එතුමා මා කිව්ව දේ අභියෝග කල නිසයි මම එතුමට අභියෝග කරන්නේ. පාලු මාධ්‍ය සංදර්ශන වල වලං බිදින්නේ නැතුව එන්න අපිත් එක්ක විවාදයකට අපි ඔබට පහදා දෙන්නම් අගමැතිතුමා ඉල්ලා අස්විය යුත්තේ ඇයි කියලා.

පසුගිය කාලේ මාධ්‍ය වල වැඩි අවධානයක් යොමු වුණේ පර්පෙචුවල් ට්‍රෙෂරීස් සමාගමට බිලියන එකොළහක ලාබයක් ලැබීම. ලංකාවේ තියෙන දැවැන්ත සමාගම් පෙරලා මේ සමාගම් දැවැන්ත ලාබයක් ලැබීම මාධ්‍යයට ප්‍රවෘත්තියක් තමයි. හැබැයි ඒ සමාගමේ ලාභය නෙවෙයි ආණ්ඩුවේ පාඩුව. ඇයි මේ සමාගම මේ ලබන්නේ වසර එකහාමාරක ලාභය. හැබැයි මේ බැදුම්කරය නිකුත් කරලා තියෙන්නේ වසර 30කට. වසර 30 පුරාම මේ අලාභය වෙනවා. ඒවගේම මේ කාරණයේ දී අපි ගණන් හදලා බැලුවා හිටපු මහ බැංකු අධිපති අජිත් නිවාඩ් කබ්ලාල් මැතිතුමා, අචාර්ය නාලක ගොඩහේවා මැතිතුමා ඇතුළු මේ ආර්ථික කේෂ්ත්‍රයේ විද්වතුන් පිරිසක් ගණන් හදලා බැලුවා මෙහි සමස්ථ මුල්‍ය පාඩුව කොපමණද? 8.85% තිබුණු බැදුම්කර වල පොලි අනුපාතය මේ ගණුදෙනුව නිසා 11.76% දක්වා ඉහල නැගුනා. මේ ගණුදෙනුවෙන් විතරක් වුනු පාඩුව බිලියන 8.7ක්. හැබැයි මතක තියා ගන්න එදා ඒ ගනුදෙනුවෙන් ඉහල නැග්ග පොලි අනුපාතය ආයේ පල්ලෙහාට වැටුණේ නෑ. එදයින් පස්සේ මහ බැංකුව විසින් 63 වතාවක් භාණ්ඩාගර බැදුම්කර සහ භාණ්ඩාගර බිල්පත් වෙන්දේසි කරලා තියෙනවා. ආණ්ඩුව දැන් ඒ සෑම එකක්ම ණයට ගන්නේ අඩු පොලියට නෙවෙයි වෙළදපොල තුල කෘතිමව නැග්ගවූ වැඩි පොලී අනුපාතයට. මේ 63න් වතාවේම කොච්චරක්ද කියලා බලද්දි සමහර ඒවා මාස 03 භාණ්ඩාගර බිල්පත් සමහර ඒවා අවුරුදු 30 භාණ්ඩාගර බැදුම්කර. මේ සියල්ලේම කාලය පිරෙන කොට 2015 දෙසැම්බර් 31 දක්වා නිකුත් වුනු 63න් වෙච්ච පාඩුව පමණක් බිලියන 1554යි. ත්‍රිලියන 1.6ක්. මෙවැනි පාඩුවක් මගේ දැනුමේ හැටියට ලෝක ඉතිහාසයේ කෙහෙන්වත් වාර්තා වෙන්නේ නෑ. මීට වඩා හොද ඔස්තාර් කෙනෙක් ඉදලා තියෙනවා කියලා අපිවත් දැනුම්වත් කරන්න කියලා මේක රකින්න අදටත් කතා කරන ආණ්ඩුවේ ඇමතිවරුන් ගෙන් අපි ඉල්ලීමක් කරනවා.

මේ අපි කිව්වේ ආණ්ඩුවේ පාඩුව. දැන් ආණ්ඩුව ගත්තොත් 2013 වසරේ  ආණ්ඩුව ගෙව්ව පොලිය බිලියන 463ක්. 2014 ඒක 446 දක්වා බිලියන 17කින් අඩු වුණා. එතකොට අපේ ආණ්ඩුවේ ප්‍රවනතාව වුණේ ආණ්ඩුවෙන් සමුගන්න කොට වාර්ෂිකව ගෙවන ණය පොලිය, පොලි බර අඩු කරමින් ඇවිල්ලා ඉන්නේ. අපි අඩුකරගෙන ආපු පොලිය අඩු කරගැනීම මේ මහ බැංකු බැදුම්කර වංචාවෙන් පොලිය ඉහල නැගිමේ ප්‍රතිපලයක් විදිහට 2015 වසරේ පමණක් බිලියන 64කින් රාජ්‍ය ණය පොලිය වැඩි වෙලා තියෙනවා. දැන් මේ බිලියන 64 හොයා ගන්න ඕනේ. දැන් 2016 වන විට ඒක බිලියන 100ක් වෙලා තියෙනවා. ඒ නිසා අද මේ අයට සිද්ධ වෙලා තියෙනවා වැඩි වැඩියෙන් බදු ගහන්න. රාජපක්ෂ ණය වලට ගෙවන්න කියමින් අද මේ අය වැට් බදු හදුන්වා දීලා අහිංසක දුප්පත් ජනතාවගේ ඊරිමාංශ හුරාගෙන කන්නේ මේ මහබැංකු වංචාවෙන් ඇතිවුණු වැඩි ණය පොලිය ගෙවා ගන්නයි. පොලිය විතරක් නෙවෙයි අද ජනතාවගෙන් ඇහුවොත් දැන් අවුරුදු 2කට වඩා ලිසීං වල වාරිකය වැඩියිනේද? බැංකු අයිරාවක පොලිය වැඩිවෙලා නේද? නිවාස ණයක් ගන්න ගියාම වෙනදට වඩා පොලිය වැඩි වෙලා නේද? මේ සියල්ල වැඩි වුණේ මේ වංචාව නිසා. ඒකට හේතුව තමයි බැංකුවක් අඩුවෙන්ම පොලියට ණය දෙන්නේ ආණ්ඩුවට හේතුව ආණ්ඩුවක් බංකොලොත්වෙන්නේ නෑ ආණ්ඩුව තමයි සල්ලි අච්චු ගහන්නේ. ගෙවන්න තියෙනවා නම් වැඩියෙන් අච්චු ගහලා ගෙවන එකයි තියෙන්නේ. ආණ්ඩුවට දෙන ණය තමයි අවදානම් අඩුම ණය. ඊට පස්සේ තමයි පොලිය ටිකෙන් ටික වැඩිවෙන්නේ. ආණ්ඩුවට ණය දෙන පොලිය කෘතිම ලෙස ඉහල ගියාම බැංකු අනෙක් අයට දෙන ණය පොලිය අනුපාතිකව වැඩිවෙනවා. අනිත් අයට දෙනකොට අවදානම වැඩි නිසා වැඩි පොළියක් අයකරන නිසා. හොයලා බලන්න 2013ට වඩා දැන් බැංකුවෙන් ලිසිං කම්පනියෙන් අය කරන ණය පොලිය වැඩිද කියලා.

වි‍ශේෂ කාරණයක් කියන්න ඕනේ නීතිමය කාරණයක් ආණ්ඩුවෙන් තර්කයක් ගේනවා අර්ජුන් ඇලෝසියස් මේකට වගකියන්න ඕනේ නෑ කියලා. මහ බැංකු අධිපති ධුරයට ඔහු පත්වෙන්නේ 2015 ජනවාරි මාසයේ 26. අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන් සහ පර්පෙචුවල් ට්‍රෙෂරීස් සමාගමේ අධ්‍යක්ෂක ධුරයෙන්  2015 ජනවාරි 16 වැනිදා ඉවත් වෙනවා. ඔය ගණුදෙනුව වෙන කාලේ මම හිටියේ නෑ මාව අත්අඩංගුවට ගන්න ඕනේ කියා එක එක්කෙනා කියලා තියෙනවා. මම ඕවට නෑ කියලා. අර්ජුන් ඇලෝසියස් වෙබ් අඩවිවලට කියලා තියෙනවා. මේ සම්බන්දව සුප්‍රකට නඩුවක් තියෙනවා අපි සමාගම් නීතිය ඉගෙන ගද්දි දෙවැනි ලෝක යුද්ධ කාලේ 1944 එංගලන්තය තහනම් කරලා තිබුණා ජර්මන් සමාගම් වලට ව්‍යාපාර කරන්න. ජර්මන් ව්‍යාපාරිකයන් මොකද කලේ අදුරණ ඉංග්‍රිසි ජාතිකයන්ට කිව්වා ඔයාලා සල්ලි දාලා ව්‍යාපාර පටන්ගෙන අපේ බඩුටික විකුණන්න. මේ සම්බන්දව නඩුවක් පැවැරුවා උසාවියේ. ව්‍යාපාරයේ සියළු දෙනාම ඉංග්‍රිසින් නිසා මේක ජර්මන් කියන්න බෑ කියලා  තර්ක කලා. උසාවිය තීරණය කලා නෑ මුණ වසා සිටින රෙදි කඩ අයින් කරලා රෙදි කඩ ඇතුලේ සැගවී සිටින්නේ කවුද කියලා බලන්න උසාවියට අයිතියක් තියෙනවා. ඒ නිසා ලංකාවේ නීතියටත් ඒක අදාලයි. ඒ ඉංග්‍රිසි නඩු තින්දු ලංකාවෙත් භාවිතා කරනවා. ඒ නිසා අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන් අධ්‍යක්ෂ ධුරයෙන් ඉවත් වුණත් ඔහු අධ්‍යක්ෂ ධුරයක් දරන පර්පෙචුවල් හොල්ඩින් සිල්ප් ලිමිටඩ් සමාගමට තමයි පර්පෙචුවල් ට්‍රෙෂරීස් සමාගම අයිති. මේ වංචාවේ ලොකුම කුට්ටිය යන පුද්ගලයා තමයි අර්ජුන් ඇලෝසියස්. ඒ නිසා අර්ජුන් ඇලෝසියස් අත්අඩංගුවට ගන්න කිසිම නීතිමය බධාවක් නෑ. නීතිපතිතුමනි ඔබ ව්‍යාකුල වෙලා වසර එකහාමාරක් කල්පනා කරන බව පේනවා. අපි නොමිලේ නීති උපදෙස් ලබා දෙන්න අපි සුදානම් කියලා නීතිපතිතුමාට සිහිපත් කරන්න කැමතියි.

– අරවින්ද අතුකෝරල

මරදාන දුම්රිය ඉඩම් පවරා ගැනීම වහා අත්හිටුවන ලෙස ඉල්ලීම

November 3rd, 2016

All Ceylon Railway Employees’ General Union 

ගරු ප‍්‍රවාහන හා සිවිල් ගුවන්සේවා අමාත්‍ය,
නිමල් සිරිපාල සිල්වා මැතිතුමා,
ප‍්‍රවාහන හා සිවිල් ගුවන්සේවා අමාත්‍යාංශය,
සෙත්සිරිපාය, බත්තරමුල්ල.

මරදාන දුම්රිය ඉඩම් පවරා ගැනීම වහා අත්හිටුවන ලෙස ඉල්ලීම – CGR – 2016.11.03

දුම්රිය දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ කර්මාන්තශාලා කිහිපයක් හා ගොඩනැගිලි නඩත්තු අංශ පිහිටා ඇති මරදාන දුම්රිය භූමිය කිසිදු දුම්රිය බලධාරියකුගේ අවසරයකින් තොරව කොළඹ නාගරික සංවර්ධන අධිකාරිය විසින් මැනුම් කටයුතු සිදුකර ඇත.

දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ රාජකාරී අවශ්‍යතාවලට බාධාවන අයුරින් මෙම ඉඩම් පවරා ගැනීමට කොළඹ නාගරික සංවර්ධන අධිකාරිය කටයුතු කිරීම බරපතල ප‍්‍රශ්ණයක් බවට පත්ව ඇත. කිහිප අවස්ථාවකම බලහත්කාරයෙන් මෙම ඉඩම් මැනීමට නාගරික සංවර්ධන අධිකාරීයට අයත් මිනුම්දෝරු මහතුන් පිරිසක් ගෙන ඇති උත්සාහයන් වැලක්වීමට එම භූමියේ සේවය කරන දුම්රිය සේවක පිරිසට හැකිවූ අතර දුම්රිය භූමියේ පිහිටි කර්මාන්තශාලවල හා ගොඩනැගිලි අංශ සේවකයින්ට එරෙහිව පැමිණිලි කොට මරදාන පොලීසියේ නිළධාරීන් වැඩබිමට කැඳවා ඇති අතර සාමාකාමී වැඩභූමියකට පොලීසිය කැඳවීම සේවක උද්ඝෝෂණයක් ඇතිවීමට හේතුවිය හැකි බවත් අවධාරණය කර සිටිමු. 

දුම්රිය සේවය පවත්වාගෙන යාමට හා සංවර්ධනය කිරීමට අවශ්‍භූමිය අත්‍යාවශ්‍යයෙන්ම දුම්රිය දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව සතුව තිබිය යුතු වන අතර, දුම්රියේ කටයුතු වලට බාධා වන අයුරින් දේශපාලන බලය උපයෝගීකර දුම්රිය ඉඩම් පවරා ගෙන සිදුකරන කවර සංවර්ධනයක් වුවද රටේ ජනතාවට හෝ දුම්රිය සේවකයින්ට ප‍්‍රථීපල ලැබෙන්නක් නොවන බව පෙන්වා දෙමු.

පසුගිය මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ආණ්ඩුවේ ආරක්‍ෂක ලේකම් විසින් දේශපාලන බලය යොදා ගෙන පවරා ගත් මරදාන දුම්රිය ඉඩම්වල තිබූ ගොඩනැගිලි බිමට සමතලාකොට  නොලේජ් පාක්  තාක්‍ෂණ ගම්මානයක් ඇති කරන බවට ප‍්‍රකාශ කලත් එසේ හැදූ  නොලේජ් පාක්  එකක් නොවෙන බව පෙන්වා දෙන අතර පෞද්ගලික සමාගම් කිහිපයකට එම භූමිය ලබාදී දුම්රිය දෙපාර්තමේන්තු කටයුතු වලට බාධාවන අයුරින් කටයුතු කල බව අවධාරණය කර සිටිමු. 

මෙම ඉඩම් මැනීම හා පවරාගැනීම පිටුපස, සොරකමක් හේතුවෙන් වැඩ තහනම් කරන ලද ඉහලම දුම්රිය පරිපාලන නිළධාරියෙකු සිටින බවත් විවිධ පෞද්ගලික ජාවාරම් කිරීමට ආණ්ඩුවේ අනුදැනුම සහිතව එක්තරා ජාවාරම් කල්ලියක් කටයුතු  කරමින් සිටින බවත් දැන ගැනීමට ඇත.

දුම්රිය දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ සේවාවට බාධාවක් වන කිසිදු ජාවාරමකට ඉඩ නොදිය යුතු බවත්, එසේ කටයුතු කලහොත් ඊට එරෙහිව වෘත්තීය ක‍්‍රියාමාර්ගයකට පිවිසීමට කටයුතු කරන බවත් එවැනි තත්වයකට දුම්රිය සේවකයින් පත් නොකොට දුම්රිය ඉඩම් පවරා ගැනීමේ කටයුතු නතර කරන ලෙසත් මෙම ජාවාරම් පිටුපස සිටින කල්ලි කණ්ඩායම්  කවුද යන්න සොයා බැලීමට පියවර ගන්නා ලෙසත් ගෞරවයෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටිමු.

 

ස්තූතියි, 

මෙයට විශ්වාසී,                                                              

එස්.පී. විතානගේ

සම කැඳවුම්කරු

සම්බන්ධීකරණය – 071-4953060

COPE REPORT – Accepting Accountability: Men of Integrity Resigns

November 2nd, 2016

Shenali Waduge

An accessory is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but who does not actually participate in the crime. Guilt by association or you are known by the company you keep makes a person guilty by their association with known wrongdoers. Complicity is the act of helping or encouraging another individual to commit a crime. It is also commonly referred to as aiding and abetting. One who is complicit is said to be an accomplice. But, even though an accomplice does not actually commit the crime, his or her actions helped someone in the commission of the crime. The concept of accomplice liability means an accomplice faces the same degree of guilt and punishment as the individual who committed the crime. The issue at hand is that 2 COPE Parliamentary reports on the Sri Lankan Central Bank Bond Scam has found Arjuna Mahendran the Central Bank Governor guilty and questions why the Prime Minister the icon of Westminster democracy and beacon of good governance known by his supporters as Mr. Clean is going all out to whitewash his friend. What the nation expects of the PM is that he take accountability of the scam given that Mahendran’s appointment was made inspite of objections and Arjuna Mahendran himself is on record to say ‘I acted on instructions of the Prime Minister’. Resignation is the most honourably thing to do.

Please find below a list of resignations by Prime Ministers some on allegations of corruption, some for involvement in sexual scandals, some for bribery, others before being impeached and some simply due to policy. This is what we expect of leaders who came into power promising good governance. Having opened up so many entities for bribery, corruptions etc it is puzzling why no one connected to the PM or the yahapalana government are being charged, getting arrested or put into prison given that the current government is comprised of MPs who were holding portfolios under Rajapakse rule during which time the PM and his party came out with files accusing them. Why are these cases not been investigated?

Resignations

  • 1957 – British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned as Prime Minister after ordering an end to the Suez Canal operation allegedly misleading the House of Commons over the degree of “collusion” with France and Israel
  • 1963 – British Secretary of War John Profumo resigned following sexual relationship with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler in 1963
  • 1969 – French President Charles de Gaulle resigned after defeat in a constitutional referendum
  • 1970 – Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaysia resigned following election defeat
  • 1973 – US Vice President Spiro Agnew under President Nixon resigned on financial irregularities – on charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy.
  • 1974 – US President Richard Nixon resigned following Watergate Scandal. Becoming the only President to resign from office.
  • 1974 – Prime Minister of Japan Kakuei Tanaka resigned on charges of corruption and sexual promiscuity.
  • 1974 – Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir resigned following the Yom Kippur War.
  • 1976 – 5th President of Ireland Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh resigned on a matter of policy
  • 1977 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin resigned
  • 1981 – Spanish Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez
  • 1981 Hussein Onn Prime Minister of Malaysia resigned due to health conditions
  • 1984 – Pierre Trudeau Canadian Prime Minister
  • 1986 – Musa Hitam Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia to President Mahathir Mohamed resigned citing irreconcilable differences
  • 1989 – David Lange Prime Minister of New Zealand resigned over differences over ‘Reagonimics’ economic policy with his government.
  • 1990 – Geoffrey Howe – British Deputy PM to Margaret Thatcher resigned over government policy on the European single currency
  • 1990 – British PM Margaret Thatcher resigned after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership
  • 1990 – Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew
  • 1991 – President of USSR Mikhail Gorbachev
  • 1994 – Japanese PM Morihiro Hosokawa following allegations of bribery
  • 1994 – Japanese PM Tsutomu Hata became 80th PM of Japan for 9 weeks only.
  • 1995 – British PM John Major resigns as Leader of the Conservative Party
  • 1996 – Madagascar President Albert Zafy resigned following impeachment
  • 1997 – Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Sir Julius Chan resigned following multimillion-dollar contract with Sandline International, a mercenary organization
  • 1997 – President of Albania Sali Berisha following the Ponzi pyramid scheme
  • 2001 – Philippine President Joseph Estrada allegations of corruption
  • 2003 – Robin Cook Leader of the House of Commons resigned in protest of the invasion of Iraq
  • 2003 – Clare Short British Secretary of State for International Development resigned in protest of the invasion of Iraq
  • 2006 Snyder Rini, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, facing riots after only eight days in office
  • 2007 – Iajuddin Ahmed, President of Bangladesh, in his capacity as chief adviser during the 2006–2007 Bangladeshi political crisis
  • 2007 – Romano Prodi, Italian Prime Minister, after losing a vote of no confidence
  • 2007 – Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, stepped down as leader of the Labour Party on (June 27), during his third term. Deputy Leader John Prescott and Home Secretary John Reid, and several other Cabinet ministers, followed suit, including Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and Justice Secretary Lord Falconer
  • 2007 – Su Tseng-Chang, Taiwanese Prime Minister, after failing to secure election as his party’s candidate for the 2008 presidential election
  • 2010 – David Laws, Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the United Kingdom (May 30) Forced to resign over expenses abuse allegations, after it emerged he had channelled tens of thousands of pounds in public money to his longtime partner
  • 2016 – David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom resigned after the United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union

India must receive special mention for the moral high ground taken by MPs and Ministers resigning following public outcry over debacles. A train disaster almost always end up with the Railways Minister resigning.

The yahapalana government came into power promising good governance in 2015. Within days Ranil Wickremasinghe appointed long time friend as Governor Central Bank despite islandwide opposition from all quarters citing that he was a Singaporean citizen and questioning how he could function as a governor given that Singapore law does not allow dual citizenship. His links to Raj Rajaratnam, now in US prison for insider trading was also cited. All these factors were however ignored.

It is alleged that Parliament was dissolved in 2015 before DEW Gunasekera could table his 1st COPE Report under chairmanship of DEW GUnasekera. The 447 page report had opposition from the UNP members. The UNP Finance Minister even defended Arjuna Mahendran

Ranil Wickremasinghe’s response was that the interim report was illegal and breached the Parliamentary Privileges Act. The PM even challenged COPE Chairman to a debate not with him but with Sujeewa Senasinghe. In July 2015 Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said that when the new Parliament meets, his party will appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate – which he did not. http://www.colombopage.com/archive_15B/Jul07_1436282152CH.php The PM went to the extent of writing to the Secretary-General of Parliament against Dew Gunasekera.

Sri Lanka : Sri Lanka PM says COPE report on Central Bank …

www.colombopage.com

Sri Lanka : Sri Lanka PM says COPE report on Central Bank bond issue illegal (Sri Lanka – latest news stories and top headlines)

The subject of the probe was a 30-year bond auction for Rs.1 billion on February 27, 2015. The CB received 36 offers amounting to Rs. 20 billion.  Earlier CB officials had given an indicative rate that interest rates of 9.5 per cent would be taken into consideration with such pre-auction advice being the usual practice. However instead of selling one billion rupees worth of bonds they ended up issuing ten billion rupees worth at an enhanced interest of over 11 per cent. Central Bank increased offer to Rs 10 billion with Rs 5 billion to Perpetual Treasuries. Of this, Rs 3 billion was given at 12.5%, there driving up yields of 30-year bonds to 11.73% from 9.5% and also drove yields across other tenures.

A three-member lawyers committee appointed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that the Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran had no direct role in deciding to accept bids over and above the one billion rupees stipulated in the 30-year bond tender and accept up to 10 billion rupees.

The 2nd COPE Report under Chairmanship of Sunil Handunnetti proposes that legal action be taken against Arjuna Mahendran and all others involved and steps taken to recover the loss from those guilty.

The public are of the overall opinion that the scandal is payback for all MPs bought in Singapore from Rajapakse’s govt to create the regime change.

Arjuna Mahendran is on record for saying that he acted on instructions of the Prime Minister. It is totally baffling why the Independent Commissions are silent on such a national issue where billions of losses have taken place.

We do not expect such ugly practices from a Prime Minister that has projected himself to the world and his supporters as being a Mr. Clean and a Visionary. Listening to the interviews with former COPE Chairman Dew Gunasekera and the report tabled by Sunil Handunnetti it is clear that Arjuna Mahendran is no man of integrity and his former workplaces must feel very embarrassed to be associated with him while the PM’s actions in trying his best through his party MPs to stall and stop the report release goes to show a lot of hanky panky is taking place. All these go against what the PM projects himself to be.

People want a leader who practises what he or she preaches, who follows through on promises and who “walks the talk.”. People judge integrity by the consistency, credibility and reliability of a leader’s behaviour.

If the PM is a man of integrity the best thing he can do and should do is to resign. The public must demand answers and actions from those in authority against every person responsible for the Bond Scam irrespective of whether they are foreigners or Sri Lankan. If Mahendran has been found guilty this must be indicated officially to the Singaporean authorities and action taken against him. The rest of Parliament must also immediately demand action as should the public and one wonders where the good governance activists are of late!.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWBqutKKhW8 interview with Gomin Daysri and Pratiba Mahanama

Pethikada Sirasa TV 26th October 2016

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SFaOMlx_rU&feature=youtu.be
DEW Gunasekera – pl listen to this interview

News 1st Prime time 10PM Sirasa TV 30th October 2016 Clip 2

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http://newsfirst.lk/english/2016/10/cope-report-cbsl-bond-scam-need-know/153047

The COPE report on CBSL Bond Scam – All you need to know – Newsfirst

newsfirst.lk

The COPE report confirmed today that the former Governor of the Central Bank Arjuna Mahendran is directly responsible for the Bond Scam. The recommendation

Providing Security Services on Outsourced Basis 2016 for the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

November 2nd, 2016

Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 . Canada

2 November 1016

Rt. Hon. Maithripala Sirisena
President of Sri Lanka
President’s Secretariat
Colombo 1, Sri Lanka.

Attn:  Dr. Indrajith Coomaraswamy
Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka

Dear Mr. President:

Re: Providing Security Services on Outsourced Basis 2016 for the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

On 08.09.2016, your Minister of Finance, Ravi Karunanayake has sought a favour (cronyism) for his friend Minister of Regional Development, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka from Dr. Indrajith Coomaraswamy, Governor of the Central Bank, in a letter written on 08.09.2016 (Ref:FA/KADS/E/4093/16)  to consider the tender submission by Mr. Sarath Fonseka’s son-in-law Mr. Danuna Tillakaratne, Director of United Guards Global (Pvt) Ltd, at Greenlands Lane, Colombo 5, for the above Security Services for the Central Bank, which is culpable of immorality, as the 24 gamme minissu   across the island when I asked them in February, kohomadha oya aluth arnduwa?”  They all snickered and told me, Oya okkoma hora yakku mahaththaya!”  Little wonder!

Mr. President, it is a fact that you are weighted down by an albatross necklace of rocks of  mindless stupidity of members of your Yahapalanaya government and especially by the Central Bank Bond Scandal, and you do not need another heavy rock added to your albatross necklace to bring your Yahapalanaya ‘Good Governance’ Government and you to your knees.  Do you, now?

The call is yours, Mr. President, to rein in the two Ministers and rap their knuckles hard and tell them you abhorred nepotism and cronyism of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration,  and that you will not tolerate such sordid, vile and unacceptable nonsense from the two Ministers from hence forth.    And if it happens again that you will show them the door. It is your call Mr. President to keep your Yahapalanaya Government clean which has become tarnished in many ways and many times and they are beyond being white- washed.  Your government is no more lily-white,

And I will now take this opportunity to address Dr. Indrajith Coomaraswamy on this issue in this letter.

Sir, as far as that letter of request by Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake as a favour for his colleague Minister Sarath Fonseka, you got enough on your plate to clean up after the former Governor’s  Bond scandal which is eating your institution  like  by thousands of grovelling hungry termites.  You are in your right to tell these two Ministers to go and fly kites at Galle Face green and that you will not tolerate such political interference in your administration of the Central Bank.  Let’s show these Yahapalanaya Ministers that you hold high of your integrity and  independence that you have been entrusted to, and  that it will be up to you to make decisions for the good of your country.  Let’s have some honesty, Sir, let have some gumption.

Thank you gentlemen,

Sincerely,

Asoka Weerasinghe

(a concerned  and a passionate expat Sri Lankan)

ravisletter

Signs of desperation

November 2nd, 2016

Editorail Courtesy The Island


The UNP MPs who made a futile attempt to dilute the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the Treasury bond scams have sought to question the eligibility of the Auditor General’s Department to investigate the frauds at issue and put out a report thereon. They have blown, out of proportion, some limitations Auditor General Gamini Wijesinghe has mentioned in the report as regards the investigation in question. (What they have left unsaid is that he has compared his department’s expertise etc with those of the Central Bank.) Real professionals make no pretence to omniscience unlike politicians who think no end of themselves.

Interestingly, the protesting UNP MPs themselves have endorsed the COPE recommendations which follow from the conclusions premised mostly on the assumptions based on the findings in the Auditor General’s report. Thus, in the final analysis, these vociferous MPs have, in endorsing the COPE recommendations, subscribed to the outcome of the Auditor General’s report. (Elementary, my dear Watson!)

Having pathetically failed to frighten the Auditor General into submission with barks and affronts and incurred public opprobrium as a result, the UNP MPs are now assailing the credibility of his department. Their consternation is understandable. Having yelled at a female Central Bank official who testified before the COPE and scared her out of her wits, the heroes in kapati suit thought they could bulldoze their way through. But, when they took on the Auditor General they found themselves in the same predicament as the proverbial woodpecker which pecked on a banana trunk.

It is a pity that Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy has not emulated the Auditor General, who has been bold enough to brave the wrath of a bunch of conceited government MPs in the name of the truth. The country needs many more intrepid public officials like Wijesinghe to keep politicians who are full of themselves in their place.

An otherwise articulate Central Bank Governor did not sound convincing at Tuesday’s media briefing, where questions were raised on the bond frauds. He sought to obfuscate the issue with gobbledygook and cut a pathetic figure in the process.

The question is how competent the UNP MPs are to pass judgment on the Auditor General’s Department officials. Do they think they possess better qualifications than the state auditors to probe the bond scams at issue? It was Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who told Parliament last year, when the issue of bond frauds was first raised, that the members of the House did not know a Treasury bond from James Bond. Many a true word is spoken in jest! The less said about our lawmakers’ educational qualifications the better. Thankfully, the COPE based its findings on the Auditor General’s Department report.

How can those who question the state auditors’ eligibility to investigate the Central Bank bond scams argue that Financial Crimes Investigation Division and the CID are competent to investigate financial frauds? Suspects are arrested and remanded on the basis of their findings! Our experience with the self-important CID officials who have ‘interrogated’ us over various issues at the behest of their political masters during the last so many years is that they should be sent back to school. It is thanks to them that the conviction rate remains as low as four percent. They are however much better than the members of parliament who question journalists on breach of privileges etc. We hope we won’t be denied the pleasure of being summoned by the COPE over our news items on its report. COPE findings and recommendations we reported on have been endorsed by 16 out of 26 members of the watchdog committee! We stand vindicated.

Let the ‘yahapalana’ politicians berating the Auditor General, out of sheer desperation, having failed to derail the COPE probe, be told that no amount of barking will help them dupe the public. They have laid bare their true faces.

Chinese envoy says SL is ‘unfair’ to term Chinese loans as expensive

November 2nd, 2016

Adaderana November 2, 2016  10:26 am

 China’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Yi Xianliang, on Tuesday, said it was unfair for Sri Lanka to term loans given by China’s EXIM Bank as ‘expensive’ and questioned the government as to why it had sought fresh loans from China if the interest rates were ‘too high’.

I have noted that some media and ministers have termed these loans as expensive. As you know we maintain a regular interest rate of 2 percent, not only for Sri Lanka,”

I have already spoken to Ravi Karunanayake, Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister. I know he has criticized this issue many times, publicly. All the Chinese business people complain to the Chinese government as to why loans are given to other countries at 2 percent. For them it is atleast 5 percent. So this is really unfair for Sri Lanka to call these rates expensive,” the Ambassador said.

Sri Lanka’s previous government, headed by Mahinda Rajapaksa who was dubbed as a pro-China ally, borrowed millions of dollars from China’s EXIM Bank and other lenders for development projects. However the present government, who is facing a debt crisis due to the large borrowings by the Rajapaksa regime, especially for projects which have not generated any profit, is now renegotiating the loan terms with China.

Relations between China and Sri Lanka were strained when the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena was sworn in last year, as Sirisena had suspended many Chinese projects started by Rajapaksa, citing corruption.

This included a mega 1.4 billion dollar Port City Project, now known as the Colombo International Financial City.

After obtaining the necessary environmental permits and changing the original agreement, the project was given a nod in March this year. The project formally resumed on Oct 29, with Ambassador Xianliang stating that the Chinese investor was burdened with a loss of 1 million dollars per day due to the suspension of the project. The total loss incurred for the 1.5 year suspension is 140 million dollars.

However due to the close ties shared between China and Sri Lanka, the Chinese investor had dropped its compensation claims from the Sri Lankan government, Xianliang said.

China which held a tight grip over the island nation during the Rajapakse period, has over the year’s become Sri Lanka’s largest Foreign Direct Investor. According to the the Chinese Ambassador, China has completed infrastructure construction projects worth 15.5 billion US dollars in Sri Lanka by the end of 2015.

China also has direct investments of 409 million US dollars, which is increasing rapidly.

In addition, China has also largely contributed to Sri Lanka’s Tourism industry which suffered a severe blow due to the 30 year civil conflict. Statistics showed that nearly 200,000 Chinese tourists traveled to Sri Lanka from Jan to Aug 2016.

Following China’s development contribution to Sri Lanka, the Chinese Ambassador said that the Sri Lankan public and the government should have a more ‘thankful attitude’ towards China

For a long time, we have supported and assisted Sri Lanka in international forums and bilateral business fields. We did nothing to damage Sri Lanka’s interests. But the media always have some negative reports without facts. We are willing to accept criticism if its based on true facts.”

Speaking further on the loans provided by China’s EXIM Bank to Sri Lanka, the Chinese envoy said that his country had conducted serious assessments on these loans granted and these loans were granted to improve the country’s infrastructure as infrastructure was crucial for social and economic development.

He stressed that an interest rate of 2 percent interest was very low. Ambassador Xianliang further said that China and Sri Lanka shared strong relations and said that both countries should respect each other.

We insist on zero intervention in the internal affairs of any country. These are the international rules described in the UN Charter. We have no hidden agenda here, our system is very transparent.”

The Ambassador further dismissed allegations that Chinese companies involved in mega development projects were involved in bribery in Sri Lanka.

We have agreements and contracts which were checked by the Attorney General, the Sri Lankan Cabinet, the Sri Lanka Parliament. If there are any bribery allegations against Chinese companies, China will of course punish those people involved.”

Three years ago, China, initiated a movement to combat bribery and corruption. I do believe that Sri Lanka’s political situation should not be linked to China’s cooperation and assistance. If you talk about Chinese projects in Sri Lanka, some media automatically link it to bribery. All the Chinese big companies involved in projects in Sri Lanka are state owned.

They must follow the strict rules set by China. They also have to follow the law here.”

Meanwhile, the Chinese Envoy said that Sri Lanka can attract up to 5 billion dollars worth of Chinese investments in the coming 3 to 5 years if it maintains a clear and consistent business policy.

He said both countries were discussing a FTA and the next round of talks would be held in China this month.

He further said that to attract more foreign investments including those from China, investments promotion policies, management system and legal system were expected to be further improved in Sri Lanka.

(Courtesy – Newsin Asia)

-Agencies

 KILLING OF UNDERGRADS : A REPLY TO UNIVERSITY TEACHERS

November 2nd, 2016

Gamini Gunawardane 

I refer to the letter by a group of University dons under the title Killing of Undergrads Must be Condemned” that appeared in ‘The Island” of 29th October.

Death is undoubtedly sad occurrence. But it does happen. When it occurs due to police shooting, it is really serious. When the victims happen to be young students it certainly is a matter for serious concern and general condemnation is natural. Hence the consternation is understandable.

For this reason, the police establishment has acted swiftly, had the culprits arrested and remanded and moved the CID to investigate before the President and the Prime Minister could issue orders to the police top brass to do so, because it is the standard police procedure. Though there may be justifiable doubts whether the police themselves could do an impartial investigation on their own men, particularly in a highly charged situation, there is no better investigational arm in this country other than the CID. The CID has already established its credibility when it successfully did an investigation recently against one of its own DIGs and obtained a conviction of murder against him.  Hence mpartial action against leser minions is a greater possibility.

Having said all that, let us acknowledge that killings by police shooting happens not only in this country, but elsewhere in the world too especially in the US and UK who advocate strict observance of Human Rights by other countries but not by themselves. Of course that does not mean that Sri Lanka police should follow their example.

In assessing what happened in Jaffna let us appreciate the fact that the police there are working not under normal conditions but under pressure where the environment is highly chraged in the context of the racist politicians doing their utmost to rouse the people into racism. As pointed out by the academics, as much as Jaffna and the rest of the North and East are just emerging out of a protracted war where its people have faced untold suffering and loss,” the police in these provinces too have suffered the same aberrations and trauma losing so many lives and limbs of their comrades and hostility during the past30 years. They are not made of steel but of flesh, blood and nerves.

It was night time when the shooting had occurred at two motor cycle riders who were riding away ignoring signals to stop. Police were in tension as they were on the lookout for armed gangs who were on the rampage robbing and intimidating many innocent people raping the widowed and young women. Thus the question at issue is whether opening fire at them is justifiable or not.

The late Snr. DIG Leo Perera when he was an SP, once remarked that, when an ‘O’ level passed constable (we are told that many of our Legislators do not even have that qualification!)  makes a split second decision to open fire, a Judge seated under a fan, surrounded by the Law books and New Law Reports, assisted by a team of legal luminaries decides after argument and due deliberation, whether the killing was justified or whether the constable used excessive force under the circumstances! Such is the irony of the situation which may not be within the grasp of our University intellectuals.

Thus, rather than rushing to issue highbrow condemnatory statements in such situations, it behoves the people such as the University Academics endowed with such vast knowledge, lend their knowledge and competence to improve the condition of the police which may be a positive gesture to prevent or reduce such tragedies as the case at hand. We should really be working together to make our police to become a better police service. . For. it is ou police Nobody else will do it for us. We will be its direct beneficaeries. In fact, in the past we have had the benefit of such assistance from the University fraternity who worked with us towards that goal. It was really a matter of mutual leaning. I recall the Late Prof. Nandasena Ratnapala who worked with us indefatigably to improve the mindset of the police, to rise out of being a Colonial relict. The Police Department printed one of his books and circulated it among all ranks. We also ha hand Prof. Sarath Wijesuriya lending his hand at changing the attitudes of police officers. We also had other non- academic intellectuals and professionals working with us in this direction. Looking through the signatories to this statement, I do not recall among them any academics who had worked with the police to bring out such positive results.

In regard to sentiments aexpressed by the University Academics on the plight of the two University students who were killed inJaffna, it sruck me that they did not express the same concern for the Students of the South, who were assaulted by their fellow students in the Jaffna University who had refused to go back to that University in fear of further harrassment. They were some thousand odd and the Acdemics and the students there do not sem to consider that University as a National University but a provincial University in the North. Does not that cause some worry to these learned men?

These University dons have also noted with great sadness, all university students who had been put to death in the past. They however do not seem to be much concerned with the thousands of Tamil children who were conscripted into the battle ranks by the LTTE and met with their death. Also they do not seem to condemn the LTTE for the rape of young women cadres in the bunkers used as ‘Comfort Corp’ of the Terrorists. Also they do not seem to be sad about the wanton killing of their own Academics such as Dr. Rajini Thiranagama by the LTTE. They do not seem to have any concern for the many police officers who died in their attempt to ensure a peaceful environment for the University Academics and others to live and to carry on their academic work. There wasn’t a whimper from them when, 600 policemen who were ordered by the government to surrender, were made to dig their own graves and were shot dead and buried by the LTTE IN 1990. Such were the sacrifices made by police for the sake of ushering peace for this country.

Since these Academics have very justifiably expressed their grave sadness at the killing of so many students in the past, I would also invite them to do their mite to wipe out the most uncivilized Ragging from their Universities where several students committed suicide and left the campuses unable to bear the cruelty of fellow seniors, under their nose.

Gamini Gunawardane 


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