Courtesy Adaderana

The Director General of Health Services has confirmed three more deaths of Covid-19 infected persons, increasing the total number of coronavirus deaths in the country to 99.
 
One of the deceased is an 87-year-old male from Colombo 08, who passed away at the Colombo National Hospital today (26). The cause of death is cited as a bacteria infection with Covid-19 infection and chronic lung disease.

An 80-year-old resident of Bambalapitiya who was receiving treatment at the Mulleriyawa Base Hospital after being identified as a Covid-19 patient had passed away on November 25. The cause of death is reported as high blood pressure, pneumonia and a heart attack caused by Covid-19 infection. 

The other is a 73-year-old woman from Peliyagoda who had passed away at the Colombo National Hospital on November 23. The cause of death is cited as high blood pressure, diabetes and a stroke resulting from COvid-19 infection. 

Ada derana

By Rohana R. Wasala

I do not normally speak as a Sinhalese, and I do not think that the leader of this council ought to think of himself as a Sinhalese representative, but for once I should like to speak as a Sinhalese and assert with all the force at my command that the interests of one community are the interests of all. We are of one another, whatever race or creed.

• D.S. Senanayake, 1945 (‘Don Stephen Senanayake’ by H.A.J. Hulugalle, 1970)

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in his address to the nation, on completion of his first term in office, on November 18, 2020, touched on a number of crucial points. Any less committed executive president would normally choose to fight shy of the foremost of these: the ever growing threat to the survival of the Sinhalese as a race, their country, their Buddhist religious culture, and their ancient archaeological heritage; he also made mention of the challenges of extremism and foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs. These are directly connected with national security. He called for investments rather than loans from friendly nations; the president also briefly outlined how the government is managing poverty alleviation, Covid-19 containment, and improvement of public administration. Excerpts from the president’s speech as gleaned from the media (some parts of the following two paragraphs are my own renderings – unmarked – from the Sinhala spoken text as I heard it, with my own comments in parentheses):

‘A year ago, more than 6.9 million voters in this country elected me as your new President. It is no secret that the majority who voted for me then were Sinhalese. They rallied (round me) because they had legitimate fears that the Sinhala race, our religion, national resources and the heritage would be threatened with destruction in the face of various local and foreign forces and ideologies that support separatism, extremism and terrorism. The main appeal made by the people to me was to, Protect the Country’. (There is overwhelming evidence to show that, throughout their very long history, the Sinhalese fought to protect the country from invaders for all those who lived there; they have always been real patriots, not racists. The minorities didn’t trust him under the influence of the few racists among minority politicians.This was in spite of both Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa bending over backwards to please the minorities and plead with them for their support during both elections. – RRW)

‘During this short period of time we have taken steps to ensure the security of the country as requested by the people. The public should not have any apprehensions in this regard any longer. …..We have contained the danger of any kind of extremism raising its ugly head. There will be no room for indulging in drug trafficking or directing the underworld from within the walls of prisons as happened in the past.  The era of betraying our war heroes, of accepting any agreement for short-term gain, of allowing foreign forces to interfere in the internal affairs of the country, has come to an end…… I act on the principle that the post of president is not a position of privilege, but that it is an onerous responsibility….. An administration that protects the rights of all citizens regardless of racial or religious differences will be established during my tenure. I have always acted in accordance with the pledge I made in the sacred precincts of the Ruwalweli Maha Seya to protect the unitary status of the country and to safeguard and nurture the Buddha Sasana as per the Constitution, the supreme law of this country. I meet with an advisory council comprising leading Buddhist monks of the Three Chapters every month to seek their advice on matters pertaining to governance….It was because the people highly rated the manner in which I performed my duties within this period that they gave a two thirds majority in parliament. Public opinion is the perfect measure of my success, not the organized false propaganda spread by political opponents through the social media………I am a person who has constantly faced challenges and successfully dealt with them. I am not afraid of empty threats. I am not used to running away from problems instead of solving them. I don’t want to please anyone in expectation of votes. What I want is to usher in an era of prosperity  for the people as promised. I will not hesitate to take any step in accordance with my conscience in pursuit of that goal. I love my country. I am proud of my country. Teruvan Saranai!’ (End of direct reference to the President’s speech. The following comprises this writer’s reflections.) 

Post-independence politics in Sri Lanka has been characterised by a continuous struggle between exclusive minority communalism and inclusive majority nationalism, in the form of roughly thirty years of cold war between the two and another thirty years of open conflict, which ended with the defeat of armed separatism in 2009. (In the same breath I would like to emphasize this fact: In each of the minority communities – mainly Tamils and Muslims – only a handful of politicians act as communalists, but they contrive to electorally dominate the community while their really progressive, often younger, rivals get sidelined. The vast majority of ordinary Tamils and Muslims, like ordinary Sinhalese, are not racial extremists or religious fanatics.) Minority communalism (found only among opportunistic politicians) has gradually acquired a religious dimension with intensifying fundamentalist Christian and Islamic subversive activities targeting Buddhists and Hindus; Islamists have been active particularly since the early 1970s. On top of this, Sri Lanka’s strategic geographic location has led global and regional superpowers to be actively engaged in exploiting these anti-majority movements to their advantage, thereby condemning Sri Lanka to constant political destabilization, economic stagnation, and deterioration of national security, sovereignty and independence. 

Sinhalese politicians (like most ordinary Sri Lankans) have always been true to the idea of continuing as the united nation and the unitary state that the British left them. This was the vision articulated by D.S. Senanayake, who came to be revered as the Father of the Nation as he had provided the final victorious leadership to the independence struggle. Senanayake didn’t believe in claiming any special status for the Sinhalese although he was not unaware of the horrendous discrimination that the Sinhalese were subjected to by the Euroean colonialists as the conquered in need of being kept under control; 1915, for example, was not such a distant memory to him. Every prime minister from 1948 to 1978, and every executive president since then have been extra-careful not to violate that ideal. President Gotabaya is reasserting the same principle of national unity, without which there will be no national security nor economic development nor political independence. 

It is a fact that in Sri Lanka there is a simmering problem of religious fundamentalism, which is an incubus that takes away the peace of mind of the majority of the people and disengages their attention from the more vitally important problems that the country is facing as a nation. It is being used as a weapon of destabilization by the powers that be that want to exploit Sri Lanka’s strategic location in the Indian, lately Indo-Pacific, Ocean.  There are numerous fundamentalist Christian and Islamic sects that have been active in the country for several decades. For a long time we thought that they are not of the type that is likely to set the traditionally peaceful mainstream Christians and Muslims against Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils. But we were wrong. It is now clear that religious fundamentalists are a problem to the respective mainstream Abrahamic religions as well, giving rise to internecine doctrinal disputes within those communities. This particularly applies to the Muslim community, sections of which seem to have been radicalised under the influence of foreign sponsored Jihadist groups. It was reported that some young Muslims travelled to Syria to join the IS, and even got killed there. The monks said that they were approached for help by some persecuted Muslims who told them that  there were clashes between Jihadist and traditional Muslims, involving attacks on the mosques of the latter and even murders in the eastern province, where all three communities live together peacefully, though Muslims dominate.

Unlike in the case of traditional Christians and Muslims, the fundamentalist attitude to Buddhists and Hindus is not one of peaceful coexistence. They treat the latter as spiritually misguided subjects  ripe for conversion. The twofold fundamentalist  menace shows no sign of abating in the near future. The most virulent form of religious fundamentalism that is posing a formidable challenge to Sri Lanka’s intercommunal unity and peace right now is Islamist extremism. Activist Buddhist monks and their lay followers allege, based on evidence as they claim, that Jihadist agents have already infiltrated practically every department of life in the Sri Lankan state. (It is upto the authorities concerned to check the veracity of these claims.) The problem could worsen if politicians of both the main parties choose to follow the Three Wise Monkeys’ example: See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil where evil is seen and heard, but nothing is said against it. Unfortunately, successive governments have failed to grab the bull by the horns for reasons that are not far to seek. The expedient political correctness policy of the UNP/SJB and the SLFP/SLPP is a boon to racists and religious zealots, while it betrays the monk and other activists who expose them and oppose them, and the up and coming progressive young Tamil and Muslim politicians who make common cause with those patriotic elements. 

An online Sinhala news website, Lankacnews, reported October 24, 2020 that, according to government sources, there was a possibility that state minister portfolios will be given to two of the nine MPs of the Opposition who voted for 20A. I, for one, originally believed that this was not true; the website could have been reporting an unfounded rumour or somebody’s fabrication. But, another online publication, Colombo Telegraph, which is usually critical of the present government, lamented in a headline: ‘20A Once Again Proved: Muslim Political Opportunists Are Up for Sale’. Meanwhile, the more authoritative and reliable website referred to at the beginning, Lankacnews, again reported (26) that Dayana Gamage, one of the nine SJB MPs who voted for 20A with the government, as saying that she would like to accept, if offered, the post of minister for child and women’s affairs though she did not support 20A in expectation of a ministerial portfolio or any other reward. This faintly hints at such offers having probably been made, after all. If that is true, isn’t it possible that the Muslim MPs were enticed with even bigger quid pro quos? The marked cordiality that minister Chamal and MP Rishad greeted each other with in that picture that shocked us all would not help neutralize such speculation. 

But there was absolutely no need for horse trading with questionable characters in the circumstances. What is the use of legislation passed with assistance from wheeler-dealer politicians whom the majority consider duplicitous? (In the case of 20A, however, their help was not critical; their votes were actually redundant.) Besides, these MPs were (and still are) in a politically vulnerable situation of their own making in which they didn’t know (and still don’t know) which way to look. The latest news I read about Hakeem was that he wanted to launch an internal inquiry into why his four MPs violated his party’s policy of opposing 20A! This is in spite of the fact that he had given his four MPs tacit permission to vote for the amendment. National list MP Dayana Gamage of the SJB told a You Tube journalist that her leader Sajith Premadasa knew beforehand that she was going to vote for the amendment, for her husband had phoned him and told him the night before about her decision, though, later, like Hakeem in the case of his MPs, Premadasa threatened to take disciplinary action against her. There is no doubt that both Premadasa and Hakeem are partly trying to salvage the little prestige that they ever had and that they have now irretrievably lost. Be that as it may, until the government establishes clarity in this respect, negative speculations will not stop. More important, what about the just anger and frustration that the ambitious MPs of the SLPP and allied parties must feel at the danger of some crooks of the Opposition who worked for the downfall of Gotabaya and Mahinda getting ministerial positions that even they were denied?  

Doesn’t this mean that a government which has got an overwhelming popular mandate to rule by restoring law and order, national security, and political and economic stability (all of which had appallingly deteriorated under the previous administration) could not have taken even the first step towards that goal by abolishing the controversial 19A and bringing in the stopgap 20A, without having to buy over MPs or to engineer desertions from the Opposition benches? It is no ordinary mandate: it is a doubly confirmed mandate in the form of a president elected by 69.9  million voters and a prime minister leading an alliance that won 144 seats in parliament, the kind of huge mandate that is not likely to be repeated unless those who have been given that mandate act sensibly.  Whenever is Sri Lanka going to make headway as an independent sovereign nation?  Seventy-five percent of the voters are Sinhalese, who don’t cast their vote on a communal basis. They overwhelmingly account for the above people’s mandate. The passage of 20A with due amendments was what they wanted. If a few anti-majority extremists were allowed to be in a position to decide on its fate, who was to blame for that grievous anomaly? Wasn’t it the fault of the Sinhalese MPs elected by their own people to serve the nation whether they happen to sit in the Government or in the Opposition? (By ‘nation’, Sinhalese Buddhists and the sensible majority of the minorities mean all those who make Sri Lanka their home; that is what ‘people of Sinhale’ had implied before Western imperial powers destroyed the healthy social cohesion in the country through their ‘divide and rule’ stratagem; it is difficult if not impossible for religious and racial extremists among the minorities to understand, let alone appreciate, this fact. On the other hand, the unsophisticated Sinhalese cannot understand, nay, don’t know, that they are being misunderstood as racists and religious extremists in the outside world because of diabolical misinformation about them propagated through the English medium by the minuscule minority of  real racists and religious bigots among those opposed to them.)    

The appointment of two more ministers is constitutionally defensible thanks to a clause that is being retained in 20A as a salutary feature from the now abolished 19A, which nevertheless set limits on the numbers of cabinet and state minister portfolios respectively at 30 and 40. Currently, there are only 38 state ministers; so, there are two vacancies. The Yahapalana coalition rechristened itself as a national government in order to increase the number of ministers beyond these limits until practically every government MP was some sort of minister.  Awarding ministerial positions to corruptible MPs as mere political sinecures just to ensure their mechanical Ayes and Noes on appropriate occasions in the legislature is a despicable ruse that must be put an immediate end to. If it had to be resorted to particularly at this juncture (when the undeniable fact of the majority community being victimized by a few communalist opportunists is so evident), it was all due to there being not enough patriotic Sinhala MPs in the Opposition. Not that all Sinhala MPs in the Government are patriotic either. What I found as an independent observer trying to penetrate the real motives and concerns that drove them as revealed in their speeches and occasional acts during electioneering prior to the August 5 general election was that nearly all of them, with a very few exceptions, were unashamedly narrowly focused self-seekers worried only about their personal ‘political careers’, not about their mandatory obligations to the country/nation. 

But still there is time for them to think, and support, from wherever they are, the only technocrat that we have got since independence in the non-partisan Gotabaya Rajapaksa. I believe GR is free from political ambitions that might distort his vision and that might cause him to baulk at taking action when it is necessary but difficult to do so.  The detractors of the few innocent Buddhist monks who had been warning persons in authority in vain about what the Jihadists were up to for years  do not denounce those Muslim extremists when they bombed some Catholic churches and hotels, and killed and maimed hundreds, but instead only insult these monks as Buddhist zealots and terrorists. 

But the truth cannot be denied that both Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa who were supported by the monks and other patriotic citizens are real national heroes who have served the country in ways that no other leader has ever done since independence. Had it not been for them the separatists would have survived to this day. The country achieved a lot of economic development (highways and vastly improved infrastructure, particularly in the war-damaged north and east provinces, to mention just one example among many) for the country between 2009 to 2015 in the wake of the civil war and despite its disastrous legacy. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s quick response to the first signs of the Covid-19 affliction in March 2020 wiped it out completely before, unfortunately, it made a mysterious re-entry courtesy some unseen or unrevealed agency.  He has just completed one year in office amidst untold obstacles mounted by oppositional elements with communalistic and extremist affiliations sponsored by meddlesome foreign powers as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Communalistic behaviour is out of character for Sinhalese MPs, whatever their other defects.  However, for the time being, there is no alternative for them but to give priority to the problem that the president prefaced his speech with: dealing with the legitimate fears of the majority community that he spelt out. Yet, on the contrary, right now, it looks as though most Sinhalese MPs in parliament are behaving like willing dupes of some Islamist extremists or their sympathisers; they seem to voluntarily assist the miscreants in their stratagems. Chief Opposition Whip Lakshman Kirielle has asked the Speaker in writing (as reported in the media October 31) that a special seating plan on the government side be made for the nine SJB members that he claims have been expelled from the party. Seven of these are Muslims, one Tamil, and one Sinhalese. In effect, the SJB is palming off the extremists that it fostered and used to prolong the Yahapalana misgovernance onto the government, in the apparent vicious hope that they initiate a cankerous relationship with it. Kirielle and the rest of the SJB hierarchy cannot be expected to take kindly to this criticism, but this is my gut feeling.

State minister Dayasiri Jayasekera has long been complaining that the SLFP MPs are not receiving the recognition they deserve within the government. Its leader, former president Sirisena, who was expecting an agrapalaya or an ultimate reward got nothing, but the PM was reported to be ‘creating’ a suitable post for him. Anyway, do these people worry as much about vital national issues including the Grim Reaper abroad in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic? Are the disgruntled SLFP’ers within government ranks trying to rock the boat? The President twittered November 1st that he was presented with a locally produced Lion Flag by state minister Dayasiri Jayasekera. A former provincial Governor Rajith Tennekoon complained that the Lion in this flag was holding the sword by its blade, not by its hilt! and that this was a grave violation of the Constitution, because disfigurement/distortion of the Flag is a criminal offence. Probably, Tennekoon, who is another political activist, was exaggerating an apparent shortcoming in the drawing of the flag. A careful look at the image of the locally produced flag will reveal what I mean: the cross guard that separates the blade from the grip part of the handle of the sword is not properly drawn; it is as if it is not there. Having said this, it is a big defect that must be corrected. Is it a result of a genuine oversight or of an act of deliberate sabotage? Tennekoon’s demand that the circulation of this new local flag be immediately halted must receive the attention of the authorities. (It was later reported that Dayasiri Jayasekera acknowledged this error and took immediate action to rectify it.)

The few communalists and religious extremists that there are will try to cripple the government whether they are in it or in the Opposition. However, it is clear that they get little support from the general public. Foreign interventionist powers are laying siege to the country, but they can’t do much damage if Sri Lankans manage to put their own house in order and stick together. In this all Sri Lankans have a collective responsibility. Each community must be united within it and act in solidarity with other communities as equal Sri Lankan citizens, and this must be reflected among the MPs in parliament. Partisan politics must be shelved while bracing to deal with the manifold crises before the nation. People of each faith must take responsibility for and deal with the extremists among them, without giving in to their extremist ideologies. If there is any terrorism, let the government security apparatus deal with that, as they did with the separatists. People of all faiths must be united as a single nation. It will be of the strongest support for overcoming religious fundamentalism in general and the Islamist terrorism in particular if Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus, who share similar peaceful nonviolent religious and cultural values, overcome artificial divisions and enmities of the past and decide to find refuge in each other as children of Mother Lanka against both overt and covert aggression and oppression. That will be the end of meaningless fratricidal separatism as well.

(Ps: Lankaweb readers, please bear with me for having cannibalized parts of one of my own articles that appeared here a few weeks back. This is an appropriately updated,enlarged and enhanced version of the same.) 

Stanley Gunaratne 

The current 1978 Constitution’s “Equality” clauses are meaningless since they are superseded by 600+ personal laws thanks to Article 16 overriding Article 12. 

Article 16 currently permits any personal laws made by Parliament before, or after 1978 to override the Constitution! This flies in the face of equality.

The best Constitution we had was the Soulsbury Constitution which had ironclad guarantees to prevent such nonsense. 

PROPOSAL IN A NEW CONSTITUTION:

THE CEYLON BASIC LAW

(Section 1) The Republic shall ensure the preservation of its ancient heritage, that Buddhism is inviolable, and the apolitical teaching of factual history. All representatives of the people shall be servants of the People and it is their duty to uphold this Constitution, the People’s sovereignty, the Rule of Law, and make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Island.

(Section 2) Unless affirmed by this Constitution, No Law shall:

(a) prohibit or restrict the free exercise of any religion, or

(b) make persons of any community, or religion liable to disabilities, or restrictions to which persons of other communities or religions are not made liable; or

(c) confer on persons of any community or religion any privilege or advantage which is not conferred on persons of other communities or religions

(Section 3) Any Law that has been made before, or made in contravention of this Basic Law, shall to the extent of such contravention be void.

THIS WILL END THIS NONSENSE ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Furthermore:

An “Ethnic Integration Policy” (EIP) for Ceylon must be put in place and enforced to preserve the Ceylonese identity and promote ethnic integration and harmony. It will ensure that there is a balanced mix of the various ethnic communities in all Districts, monitored by a designated Civil Service Housing Board.

The EIP limits shall be set at block, neighbourhood and District levels based on the ethnic make-up of Ceylon:
– For the purchase of a flat, land, or house, a household with members of different ethnic groups can choose to classify their household ethnicity under the ethnic group of any owner or spouse (co-owner or occupier)

– Bands will be set for communities in each district that conform approximately to the overall national demographics of the entire country according to the latest population census
– The four communities are classified as thus; 
Sinhalese, 
Tamil, 
Moor/Malay, 
Burgher or any other community.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

China has   stepped up its diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka after Pohottu government came in.  A very experienced Chinese diplomat Qi Zhenhong   arrived in November 2020 as ambassador to Sri Lanka. Qi Zhenhong was head of China Institute of International Studies, a premier international relations think tank in China. He has an excellent understanding of the complex realities in the Indian Ocean, said analysts.     He comes here at a time when the actions of USA, India and several other countries are rapidly militarizing the Indian Ocean and is applying pressure on smaller nations to join them.  

There were three important meetings between Sri Lanka and China in the months of October and November, 2020, ChinesePresident Xi Jinping spoke with Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa via Zoom in November 2020. The two leaders shared their experience on administrative matters. Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardane, Prof.G.L. Peiris, Namal Rajapaksa, Sagara Kariyawasam and several Provincial Councillers   also participated in the discussion that followed.

A highlevel Chinese delegation, led by Chinese leader Yang Jiechi, visited Sri Lanka in October 2020. They were on a tour which included UAE, Algeria and Serbia. Sri Lanka was their first destination. This was a very significant visit. The delegation met President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Chinese delegation comprised seven members.  Its leader Yang Jiechi holds a position equivalent to Vice Premier. Yang Jiechi was Chinese Foreign Minister from 2007-2013 and China’s Ambassador to US from 2001 to 2005.  He is presently a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and the director of its Central Committee’s Foreign Affairs Commission, a top policy-making body.

Also in the delegation were China International Development Cooperation Agency chairman Wang Xiaotao, Assistant Foreign Minister Deng Lee and the Foreign Ministry’s Asian Affairs Deputy Director General Chen Song.

The leader of the delegation said that the present status of bilateral relations between China and Sri Lanka was highly satisfactory. Maintaining and promoting this friendship is a key priority of President Xi Jingping. China wanted to maintain high-level exchanges and consolidate political mutual trust. President Xi Jinping considered further improvement of China-Sri Lanka relations a priority. 

The delegation   recalled past history. China–Sri Lanka relations have stood the test of time, they said. What continued from the ancient spiritual ties since the visits of Chinese Buddhist monks centuries ago, received a big boost when the Rubber-Rice deal was signed in 1952, even before the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two newly emerged independent countries. The Ceylon–China Trade Agreement of 1952 was undoubtedly the most useful trade agreement negotiated by Sri Lanka and one of the most successful and durable trade agreements in the world, having been in operation for 30 years, the delegation said.

The head of the delegation said that China will firmly stand with Sri Lanka to protect the country’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity at international fora including the United Nations Human Rights Council.

We will support not from words but by action,” said Jiechi. Sri Lanka would shortly sign an agreement with China to obtain a US $ 500 million concessionary loan from her. China also announced a US$ 90 million grant to Sri Lanka, for medical care, education and water supplies in Sri Lanka’s rural areas. Thirdly, the Chinese ambassador met Ajith Nivard Cabraal, State Minister of Money & Capital Markets and Professor W. D. Lakshman, Governor of the Central Bank to discuss financial instruments to be implemented after the Yang Jiechi visit.

Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) held an advanced seminar on governance via video in November 2020.  This was a follow up to the meeting between the two heads of State and the Yang Jiechi visit. The discussion centered on aligning the Belt and Road Initiative with Sri Lanka’s Vistas of Prosperity and Splendor.”

Minister Song Tao of the International Department of Central Committee of CPC, Party Secretary Liu Cigui of CPC Provincial Committee of Hainan Province, and Qi Zhenhong spoke for China. Prof. G.L.Peiris, Sagara Kariyawasam, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Namal Rajapaksa, Ramesh Pathirana and some State Ministers and Mayors from the Western Province spoke for Sri Lanka.

The China-Sri Lanka Belt and Road Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism” was established in June 2020 between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and main political parties of Sri Lanka .The first meeting of the Mechanism,  was  held via video link.   United National Party, Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and People’s United Front of Sri Lanka   participated.

Song Tao, Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, addressed the event. He said China was ready to work with Sri Lankan political parties to strengthen the exchange of experience in state governance, promote bilateral cooperation in all areas and contribute to the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The meeting also approved a joint initiative of the political parties of China and Sri Lanka to support Belt and Road cooperation.

Analysts observed that CPC has established contacts and exchanges with more than 400 political parties and organizations in over 140 countries. CPC maintains friendly relations with a dozen political parties in Sri Lanka both in the government and the opposition.

In November 2020, the  China Reform Forum which is affiliated to the Communist party of China signed an MOU with China-Sri Lanka Cooperation studies Centre at Pathfinder Foundation.  CRF has dialogues with more than   30 countries.  CRF uses these dialogues  to briefs China on its foreign policy.

Sri Lanka had a successful presentation at the Third China International Import Expo (CIIE) held in Shanghai from November 5-10, 2020. The Sri Lanka Embassy in China and Consulate General in Shanghai in coordination with Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) and the Foreign Ministry teamed up with seven Sri Lanka companies to showcase tea, coconut products, and spices including Ceylon cinnamon, herbal products, rubber products and confectioneries at this event.

Twenty-Seven Sri Lanka companies took part in business matchmaking meetings online. An MoU to create an online Sri Lanka Pavilion in Womai.com online platform was signed between the EDB and the China Oil and Foodstuffs Company (COFCO).

China’s Prestige International Company Ltd would promote Sri Lankan products on its JD.Com platform. JD.com is the most popular online platform in China and one of the 500 fortune companies. It is China’s largest online retailer and also the biggest overall retailer. It is the country’s biggest internet company.

Three strategic cooperation agreements were signed between the Prestige International Ltd. and Silver Mills SL Ltd., Stuarts Tea Sri Lanka Ltd. and Saraketha Organic Ltd. These agreements are expected to generate 5.5 million of RMB trade between the parties in 2021.

In November 2020, the Sri Lanka-China Buddhist Friendship Association (SLCBFA), with financial assistance from the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka, commenced a programme to donate dry rations and hand sanitizers to Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka, to overcome Covid 19. They started with Sri Wijayalokaramaya Temple in Rukmalgama, Pannipitiya. (Continued)

MALINDA SENEVIRATN​E

There are all kinds of yahapalanists. There are those who cannot be in denial simply because they were right in the middle of the yahapalana project or rather a project by that name (for good governance was certainly not their cup of tea as history showed and practice demonstrated). Then there are those who opted for a change of clothes. Name change, symbol change, address change etc., didn’t make them unrecognizable. SJB and UNP, telephone and elephant, it’s the same. All yahapalanists. The praise and blame accrue to one and all. Well, add to this the Yahapalana Fan Club made of sideline politicians who are double-headed and double-addressed, i.e. rights advocates and professionals.

Now these worthies are big fans of the 19th Amendment. It was great, they say. And they add, ‘the 20th is draconian and dictatorial; it rolled back the gains of the 19th and is even worse than what JR initially instituted in 1978.’

Where’s the substantiation, though? Let’s take a look.

Let’s start with the brag. The brag of course had to do with the 18th. It also had to do with a peculiar political context where the champion and the intended beneficiary (Ranil Wickremesinghe) led a party that had minority representation in Parliament whereas the man whose powers were to be clipped, Maithripala Sirisena had just assumed office with a majority of the national vote.

The 18th would be effectively repealed, they bragged. It was. The 19th would embody the Yahapalana promise(s). We would have accountability and transparency. Democracy would be enhanced. Good governance assured. Cabinet would be limited to 30 ministers. That was part of the brag. Seniority and meritocracy will mark appointments and promotions, they told us. We know how that fell by the wayside! The independence of the judiciary would be restored, they promised. Well, they made a mockery of the last by turning the Supreme Court into a political circus almost immediately after Sirisena was sworn in as President.

Let’s get to the process which includes the passage of the amendment. It was drafted. Nothing wrong with that. The Supreme Court was petitioned. Nothing wrong with that. The Supreme Court offered a determination. Essentially, important elements of the draft were shot down. Now what did the Yahapalanists do?  Did they follow yahapalana practice to the letter?

Well, the objections were of an order that amending the document in ways that took these into consideration would have violated established parliamentary procedure. Typically, at the committee stage, only minor corrections are made. In other words, yahapalana theory would have required the yahapalanists to withdraw the amendment, get back to the drawing board and come up with a fresh draft.

They didn’t do that. They produced an amendment that was very different to what was tabled. That’s giving a finger to established procedure. Not very yahapalana-like, was it? It only demonstrated (and rather early in the tenure of that regime) that ‘yahapalanaya’ was a lie. A hoax.  It was voted on in the dead of the night by clearly irresponsible and perhaps tired and sleepy MPs. Sarath Weerasekera voted against it. Only he. Kudos to him.

The substance. As mentioned it was about giving power to a man who, at that point, did not have the trust and confidence of the people. One must mention that Wickremesinghe’s swearing-in was also a travesty of established procedure. The incumbent was sacked by way of the newly sworn in President signing a letter. Immediately, i.e. before the letter was delivered, President Sirisena appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe

So it was done. It was done in such a way that no one knew who really called the shots. Ball-passing between the Prime Minister and the President became a common occurrence. Finger-pointing was frequent. It was the easy out for a bunch of people lacking imagination, suffering innovation-lack and who were absolutely incompetent. Things were so confusing that it took the  Supreme Court to say what was what and that too only with respect to dissolution-power. This was when Sirisena joined forces with Mahinda Rajapaksa in late 2018.

Cabinet-size. This was a joke. On paper, we got the number 30. It was cheered. It was bragged about. On paper also was this neat device called ‘National Government’ which the amendment-drafters left undefined. ‘In a National Government, cabinet size would be determined by Parliament. The matter finally hit the ‘constitutional experts’ in the yahapalana camp only when it could no longer be hidden. When Sirisena took the SLFP out of the coalition, Jayampathy Wickramaratne, the big boss behind the drafting, unashamedly said that since the SLMC (Sri Lanka Muslim Congress) was with the UNP, it remains a ‘national government.’ In other words, in his mind, a bloated cabinet was still constitutional! The yahapalana braggarts maintained a dead silence on the matter.

Much was made of the Constitutional Council (CC) which, the braggarts claimed, corrected the clauses of the 18th that crippled independent institutions. However, in reality, it was Ranil Wickremesinghe’s whims and fancies that held the day. The composition of the CC, naturally and understandably tilted in favor of the regime. It was politician-heavy, which of course wasn’t quite yahapanish. However even the non-politicians (non-political only because they weren’t in Parliament, let’s keep that in mind!) were partisan. Check the names of those ‘civil society’ people in the CC, the names of those appointed to various commissions and the appointments and promotions recommended by the commissions themselves. Friends and loyalists. That’s it. Why else would some of these ‘independents’ resign the moment Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected President?

So now we have the 20th. Much of the confusion has been sorted out. Some of the better elements of the 19th have been retained. Are we ok now? Of course not. Cabinet size is still not cleared, although President Rajapaksa has kept it within the ceiling mentioned in the 19th. The CC just rubber-stamped Wickremesinghe’s wishes. President Rajapaksa has far more sway and that’s not necessarily a good thing.  Nevertheless, unlike the yahapalana braggarts, he has recommended that the six senior most judges be promoted to the Supreme Court. The yahapalana regime didn’t do that, not even with the so-called democracy-safeguards instituted to ensure independence of the judiciary. If it was Sirisena, Wickremesinghe or even Mahinda Rajapaksa, this might not have been the case. That itself shows the flaw. It should not be dependent on whether or not the incumbent values meritocracy.

Sri Lanka has a long way to go to resolve a simple issue: what’s best for us, a parliament-led system or an executive presidential system of governance? The proposed new constitution might sort this vexed issue out and hopefully in a way that effectively blocks the possibility of abuse.

That said, the 19th is nothing like its champions make it out to be. A piece of trash that did away with another piece of trash (the 18th). Stank. Get over it already.

malindasenevi@gmail.com

A paper submitted By  The Sri Lanka Study Circle 

The COVID Attack 

In the first quarter of 2020, the world was plagued by a COVID virus which has, as at now, caused the deaths of over a one and a half million people. 

A tiny bug has literally brought the world -the globalised world – to a standstill with economies dislocated, education retarded, food chains ruptured, ‘goods and services’ chains scuppered and health services disrupted. 

The virus has adversely affected, albeit in different ways, both the purveyors of globalisation and those dragooned into globalisation.  

Globalisation impacted 

Globalisation is a socio-economic and political template created and thrust upon the world by the global money-lenders operating out of America and Europe; it spells out the rules on how the world, as a single unit, should conduct itself, politically, economically and socially.  

This ‘Globalisation’ template broadly established many parameters, such as: The food, the services, the goods, the medicines, each country is permitted to produce and consume: The tariffs  to be imposed when countries engage in trading: The mandatory use of the American dollar in international transactions: Fixing the value of all the currencies in the world to the dollar: Determining the wage rates applicable to each country: Determining the prices payable for the resources of each country: Determining the rate of  interest to be applied in each country: Determining, the total value and conditions of financial loans -including rates of interest and prior compliance requirements- that would be advanced to a country: Coaching countries seeking loans to parrot the geo political script in public fora: and many more.  

The underlying theme in the ‘Globalisation’ template is that ‘private-interest’ shall always prevail over ‘public-interest’ and that the land of a country is, but a mere commodity, to be bought and sold and made accessible to the global money lenders; in the Globalisation model, the engine of development is the ‘Private’ sector.  

These notions are quite contrary to the views of Sri Lanka, clearly enunciated in the Country’s Constitution. Public interest shall always prevail over private interest; the Country’s land is not a commodity for trade but a priceless resource, belonging to all Sri Lankans, that sustains man and nature. 

Globalisation cause of poverty, bondage and loss of Sovereignty  

In the Globalisation template there is no place for sovereignty, for the former colonies of Europe and America; the need, for the architects of ‘Globalisation’, is to possess and control the land and resources of these former colonies. 

To induce these former Colonies to accept the ‘Globalisation’ template, the Global Loan sharks allured the leaders of these countries by zeroing in on their frailties; these leaders thereafter frog-marched their countries into the inevitable debt trap.  

The tactics adopted by the Global loan sharks are no different to the tactics adopted by their local cousins, the ‘Poli-Mudalalies’. 

And the end result of ‘Globalisation’ has been poverty, indebtedness and bondage to the countries at the apex of the ‘Globalisation’ pyramid.  

Sri Lanka is at the base of this pyramid. 

Globalisation wobbles 

With COVID 19, Globalisation has taken a major whack; the countries which contrived the globalised template and controlled the pyramidal structure from their imperious positions, have suddenly found the pyramid wobbly and unstable. 

The countries at the base of the Globalisation pyramid, although ‘wounded’ by COVID, have discovered that COVID has loosened the shackles of ‘Globalisation’; these countries are in a position, now, to free themselves from Globalisation and walk away from this trap of ‘perpetual bondage’.  

American threatens Brandix type operations 

 The Americans too, realise that COVID has caused a situation where some ‘captive’ countries are contemplating escape from their captors; to counter the collapse of the ‘Globalisation’ model and to prevent a mass escape of the captive countries from the bondage of Globalisation, the captors are menacing the captives with the threat of  deliberately infecting them with COVID ; the captors are hectoring the captives to follow the ‘New Normal’ rules which could lead to a situation, like in America, where people are literally  dying like dogs, on the streets.  

There is strong suspicion, among the people, that this modus operandi was adopted in the Brandix-COVID- Cluster- Bomb case; the people are eagerly awaiting the results of the criminal investigations that have been initiated.  

In Sri Lanka, all the post COVID solutions, proposed by notorious American agents, are based on continued activity within the framework of the impaired ‘Globalisation’ template.  

This would be disastrous. Conceding that a vaccine for COVID 19 is found, what happens when, for example, COVID 30 hits us? 

The Government has gone into shell shock; after eight months of COVID it has yet to come out with a holistic plan to tackle the post COVID scenario. There has been no thinking ‘outside the box’ in this regard. 

With the lockdowns, many people have lost their jobs, some work on half pay and others are unable to generate a daily income; their power to purchase food for the table has dwindled. There is uncertainty, gloom and fear in these homes. 

The Plan – Human lives first 

Taking Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs as a start point, the Country’s slogan should be ‘Human Lives First’.  

The Government needs to adopt a strict zero tolerance policy for deaths by COVID. Within this policy framework the Government must ensure that primary needs of food, shelter, clothing, health and education are provided to all the people.  

In this paper, the Sri Lanka study circle presents a broad outline of a plan to ensure that all Sri Lankans, poor and rich, young and old will never ever go hungry. The plan is in a skeletal form and needs to be fleshed out.  

The COVID attack was a revolutionary attack on human civilization and this plan to provide food, as a response, we dare say, is revolutionary. Many sacred cows may have to be sacrificed in the implementation of the plan. 

The people would have to be put on a war footing to ensure the plan is implemented expeditiously. 

In this plan, the Study Circle recognizes that Sri Lanka is a very fertile country and most, if not all, of the food that people eat can be grown here. And this includes fruits too. 

The project would be a government led initiative. 

Perforce therefore, we need to begin immediately growing all our needs in respect of food by way of crops, plants, creepers, trees, etc, etc after: 

• Making an assessment of population distribution  
• identifying localities where these crops etc would be grown 
• identifying requirement of local organic fertilisers, local non-chemical weedicides, potential anti-fungal and pest control requirements.  
• Identifying Warehouse requirements. 
•  Identifying transport requirements to plantations, warehouses and retail outlets. 
• Doing research and making plans to prevent crop failure and making back-up plans in the event of such failures.     
• Finding markets for excess produce 

In this plan, the Government shall buy all the produce from the farmers, store them in Government warehouses, where necessary, and distribute them to the distribution Centres. 

The people have a choice in buying the food of their liking. 

Print Purple Money 

To provide the people with purchasing power to purchase their food requirement, the Government will distribute, for example, Rs: 30,000/= per month to each and every family.  

From where would the Government find the money to give the people?  

Yes, they will print the money, but this money will be different to the normal currency in circulation; for example, it would be purple in colour and this can only be used for purchasing and selling food. 

The money thus printed will not create inflation since it would be used to purchase the food produced; there would be inflation if the food targets are not met. 

Excess supplies of food produced can be bartered with other countries to obtain essentials which cannot be grown/made here. 

Dump the Dollar 

We shall develop bilateral Agreements with countries, closing the books on previously regulated global tariffs. Wherever possible we shall do barter trading, disregarding the US dollar as the global currency of exchange. 

The ‘purple’ currency will run parallel to the normal currency; the ‘purple’ currency will only buy food and ensure that people have a full plate of food in front of them, always; this is not a burden to the Government.  

With time, Sri Lanka would have a highly developed agricultural sector where production, distribution and research will be at the highest of levels.  

Even if we are plagued by a COVID 20 or 25 or whatever, one thing is certain; no Sri Lankan will ever go hungry or be malnourished.   

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA.

Sri Lanka’s worst quisling who was kicked out of parliamentary politics by the Maha Sangha and the patriotic people of Matara and was forced to become a political orphan who exposed his economic lacuna by attempting to criticize the visionary and futuristic budget 2021budget due to sheer jealousy with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksea.  Unlike this ignoramus nincompoop, the budget has been hailed by the business community, academics and economists as a as a long term futuristic budget while this lintgerie designer says that it is a budget that facilitates money laundering.  This political discard seems to be very familiar with money laundering as the British Parliamentarian Lord Sheikh Ahmed said in the British House of Common that he met Samaraweera and he was very friendly with Tamil diaspora elements in Britain.  There were many allegations that this political orphan was the main money launderer of the Tamil diaspora as he had the impunity of passing through Customs unchecked due to his Ministerial portfolio. 

Issuing a media message this quisling has said that the budget 2021 which has no vision or programme of work has only facilitated for money laundering by the government’s political cronies.  The message translated from Sinhala as published in the Lanka C News website says that the government has acknowledged that the economy collapsed during the past year and has hence the budget has facilitated money laundering as a stimulus for improving the economy and this would place the country in a dangerous situation in respect of international monetary policies.

This lingerie designer who accidently became a Finance Minister and who acknowledged that the portfolio was much above his capabilities as it was a portfolio that had been previously held by eminent persons of this country such as J.R.Jayawardene, Dr. N.M.Perera, and Mr. Felix R. Dias Bandarabaike states that the budget has given an amnesty of Tax concession of paying only 1% for investing the undeclared foreign and locally held money. ( It must be reminded that a similar method was adopted by Sri Lanka’s best ever Finance Minister Dr. N.M.Perera to pull out hidden currency notes by cancelling the validity of currency notes high denominations within a target period and through this measure he was very much successful in drawing out all hidden money in tthe country. The people who were hoarding money queued up in front of Banks for several days with suitcases of money to get it exchanged for new currency notes. This ignorant and chicken brained lingerie designer may be unaware and cannot understand the deep rooted values of these economic strategies which even surprised many well-known reputed economists. And it was such a progressive minded government that father together with C.P.de Silva toppled by backstabbing Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1964).

He says that the global policy formulator on money laundering that Financial Task Force FATF had Sri Lanka on its Gray List” following efforts made by the Ministry of Finance Sri Lanka was removed from that list in October 2019.  (He acknowledges by this statement that Sri Lanka was designated as a country facilitating money laundering until October 2019, including the period he was the Finance Minister of this country. He says that since that there are international restrictions on money laundering that foreign banks may not accept money transfers to Sri Lanka). 

This political orphan further states that this government has no proper plan for economic development of this country and that is why they are looking forward for an economic policy like this and claims that this government obtained the votes of the people of this country by misleading them to vote for rescuing the country.

(Economically dwarfed this lingerie designer says that there are criteria to prove that the country is marching backward economically.  He says that under the guidance of Ranil Wickremasinghe the mega marketing agent for selling the country’s national and natural resources) that he made surplus budgets in the years 2017 and 2018 after about 45 years.This statement is a shameless acceptance that but budgets presented by him were babies of Ranil Wickremasinghe and not his own).

He further states that controlling the economy on a visionary basis, in order to stimulate private investments which was very essential for the country the Enterprise Sri Lanka” programme was launched (it has been commented by many qualified and eminent economists that this was a programme forced on Sri Lanka by the IMFin order to strangle the country’s economy under their watch) their government was able to make available more than Rs. 90,000 to the private sector at low interest rates.  In addition to this that their government carried out development work in all electorates at a cost of Rs. 300 Million  under the Gamperaliya programme. (The effect of this wild boasting was clearly indicated in both Presidential and Parliamentary election and he was forced to withdraw his own nomination, UNP was decimated to 2.5% country wide polling in the General Election, which even put an end to Ranil Wickremasinghe’s several decades of political life. ).

This quisling says that although his government decided in 2018 to provide annually for 10 berst Advanced Level passed students to study in popular international Universities, the people will understand the objective of this government which attempts to build a money laundering economy., (Why they waited until 2018 to take decisions.  Was it to fool the voters in the ensuing elections?  What happened to the free Tab computers for Advanced Level students and the Free Wi Fi services that were promised at the very beginning of their government?).

This quisling asserts that by introducing subjects like salary increases for the plantation workers the budget which decides about the direction of the economy has been diluted and it is sad to note the budget has created a wrong precedence by this measure.  (It is not surprising to find this measure hurting this lingerie designer because Ranil Sirisena destructive government in the first few weeks of its coming to power held a one to one meeting with the CWC leader late Mr Arumugam Thonda,man and promised to increase the daily wage of the plantation workers to Rs. 1,000 and for the last 4 ½ years this promise was not fulfilled despite plantation workers staging wage increase demand demonstrations almost daily in upcountry towns such as Hatton, Nuwara Eliya, Talawakele, Kotmale etc..The representatives of plantation workers participating in the Shakthi TVs weekly Minnal” programme profusely thanked the government for the wage increase from January and flayed yamapalana government for cheating them for the last 41/s years )

He says that this government has proved during the last 12 poya day period that that it doesnot have a strategic plan.  It has been said that the objective of the budget is to reduce poverty through extensive village development, and increase of employment opportunities and increase of avenues of working environment.  But the proposals and programmes that has been presented by the budget are unrealistic and it happens to be mere announcements.  (What happened to the programmes and measures announced by the Sirisena/Ranil government?  What happened to the 100 days fancy programme from which Sirisena dissociated during his last few months saying that it was an absurd programme?  What happened to the one million employments promised?  How many were given employment for the last 4 ½ years?> What happened to the much bloated Kuliyapitiya Valkswagen vehicle producing factory and the Horana Heavy duty tyre manufacturing factory? Why there was a peculiar hurry to get the MCCagreement signed?  It was said that western investors are in queue to come and invest in the country.  How many of these imaginery investors came and wha tinvestments they made?  Why MOUs signed with India to hand over Trinco Oil Tank Farm, Colombo Port Terminal, the proposed Sampur coal power plant and the proposed Kerawalapitiya LNG plant and to sign ECTA? What benefit the country achieved from the Sri Lanka Singapore Agreement?)..

Generally immediately after presenting a Budget people expect some immediate cocessions for their life standards.  But this budget has neither provided such concessions or hopes.  (Well, it was the practice of the previous four budgets presented by Bond Ravi and this quisling to increase VAT, prices of goods and hurl many promises that never took place.  Under hose budgets the concession givern to the people was to reduce the price of Beer and liquoraaaaa with a view to making this country a boozers’ paradise.)

Immediately after this government came to power the economy of the country was destroyed by giving tax concessions to its cohorts and thereby the country lost a revenue of about Rs. 700 Billion .(Immediately after the yamapalana government came to power the country’s historic ever robberies the Treasury Bond Scams were carried out on two consecutive years and the country lost trillions of U.S.Dollars.  Only those benefited by these robberies were Bond Ravi and the so-called shameless Foot Note Gang and some other government MPs.)

The Budget indicates that the estimated revenue in 2020will be Rs. 1588 Billionand the estimated revenue in 2021 will be Rs. 2029 Billion. However it has not been indicated how this increase will be achieved.Accordingly it is an increase by 27% in one year and it is grossly unrealistic .The only important thing in this budget is facilitating money laundering and the people are well aware who will get benefited by this measure.  (Experience speaks.  It was alleged that you functioned as the money launderer of the tiger terrorist diaspora using the ministerial impunity while travelling in and out of the country as Minister.  In addition to this your companion Bond Ravi a large amount of money sent to his bank account by the notorious insider dealer Rajaratnam and the court case related this money transfer was allegedlyhushed up protecting Bond Ravi).

The budget has allocated Rs. 1,000 Million for the construction of 4 Universities under the City University concepy.  It amounts to Rs. 250 Million for each University.  Presently even a building cannot be built with Rs. 250 Million, let alone a University.  (Again experience speaks.  This political orphan who came to Matara with a house of his own to reside, is reportedly have built two multi roomed luxury palatial mansion, one in Panadura facing the Bolgoda Lake and the other in Nakulugama facing the sea.  Hence he knows how much it costs to construct buildings.  The people should demand for him to disclose his source of funds for constructing these mansions).

Under the communications to the villages programme only Rs. 15 Million has been allocated.  (It is pathetic to find that this lingerie designer who once was the Minister of Communications attempts to hide the fact that the communication field in this country is under the purview of the private sector privatized by them and these communication companies have more than sufficient funds to carry out their activities without any government assistance  and that is why he too got a Credit Card for his use from Mobitel which people known to him says that he used the Card to watch LGBT blue Films)

Rs. 20,000 Million has been earmarked for the development of 50,000 kilometers of roads and it is strange to accordingly that Rs. 400,000 has been allocated for construction of ome kilometer.  That amount is not even sufficient to carpet one kilometers of roads, and as such figures have been haphazardly presented. And only such comic statements have been included..  (It is funny to find this lingerie designer attempting to find faults with the Prime Minister on road construction who is the Father of Road Constructions in Sri Lanka who introduced the concept of Expressways to Sri Lanka).

Despite the promise made to reintroduce the provisions made by the previos government to allay the anomalies of descrepancies in the payments to pensioners and special allowances for Executive officers, the budget has misled the majority of public servants who cast their postal votes to this government.  (Another bogus elerction promise made by the previous government.  Why they waited until their last budget to make this misleading bogus promise.  These culprits should understand that government servants are not damn fools to get beguiled by this type of bogus promises).

As a whole there is no concession for the public servants from this budget. Out of the public servants who amount to about 1.4 million, permission has been granted for non executive grade public servants to attend to a job after their office hours.  By this measure the government has given the following message : We do not have anything to give for you.  It is also not possible to give. If possible go out to do a job and thereby acquire some economic gain for the family economy.  (The destruction created in the country for the last 4 ½ years severely affected the income level of the public servants while the government Ministers and MPs got super luxury fuel guzzling super luxury vehicles for them and their spouses, enhanced allowances for telephones, for maintaining offices in Colombo and their hometowns, for functioning as observer MPs in various Ministries, opportunities to provide sophisticated jobs for their spouses and children in various Ministries, Corporations and Statutory Boards and the public servants had no way of earning an additional income.  The new measure would facilitate many public servants by getting employed in this manner.  If doctors are allowed to engage in channel practice what is wrong if a public servant got engaged in an additional job legitimately?)

Proposals have been made to introduce GST Tax to to get the lost revenue from removing the VAT ceilings.  Although it has been proposed it only to four segments initially, it is possible to extend it to cover all segments.  The excessive taxes proposed to levy from telecommunication, gambling and excise activities indicate the fiscal deterioration being faced by the government. (When VATwas introduced by Bond Ravi Sirisena acted as he was furious about it and threatened to dismiss everyone who were responsible to introduce the new system.  This threat was also ended up as the series of bogus threats he used to make from time to time such as taking stern action against the person who threw a Brassier to the stage of a musical show, that he has a sharp sword and hewould chop the heads of all miscreants, that he ha a Madu Waligaa to whip all miscreants etc.  As regards increase of the increase of Excise tax thi lingerie designer is very much concerned because it was his plan to make this country a boozers’ paradise by reducing Beer and liquor prices).

This budget which gas been presented with magic figures states that there will be a 5.5% economic development next year.  The economic developmentin the 1^st quarter of 2020 was -1.6% and the government has failed to announce the economic development rate for the 2^nd quarter yet. Meanwhile the World and the IMF have predicted thatour economy will register minus 5 – 6%. Next year. (Absurd predictions!  When the WB and IMF have correctly predicted economic developments of developing countries? Only fellows like this lingerie designer will believe them.  This country had only minus economic development only during the oafish Chandrika’s period in which++h this lingerie designer played a major role).

The government has acknowledged that foreign trade has dwindled by about 27%. Despite that the budget predicts 30 – 40% increase in foreign trade next year in an attempt to fool the people.  (All economic problems of the previous government resulted die to excessive imports.  The new government has completely changed the import/export pattern with maximum import restrictions and to seek emnhanced export opportunities with diversified export products.  The present economic crisis situation isnot something that is unique to Sri Lanka but it is a global trend)

The total loan obtainable for the year 2021  is indicated as Rs. 2,997 Billion.Combined with the year 2020, the total loans for the two years amount to Rs. 5.828 Billion. It is a quandary as to why such a large amount f loans have been taken at a time when there is no development activities taking place? (It is the policy of the new government to get as much as foreign direct investments (FDIs) as possible.  The President has clearly stated this matter to the new Chinese Ambassador when he presented his credentials to the President.  On the other hand the yamapalana government did not carry out any development work from the funds they obtained as foreign loans and they were only used for importing luxury items such as vehicles)..

It must be stated no country in the world which upholds law and order and the values of democracy resort to mechanisms money laundering. And due to the myopic policies of this government the people will have to face many obstacles in the future. (An alleged money launderer of terrorist funds shamelessly laments about money laundering!)

The objective of this government as well as the budget to create capitalist economy that would benefit only a few cronies instead of the international community. Also to create an economy that has no local competition but a robbers’ economy.  (Response to this para is given from comments made by the National Chamber of Commerce, the Ceylon Chambert of Commerce, boi, Bankers, Economists, and the erudite general public detailed in Part II of this article.)

To be continued………….

MALINDA SENEVIRATN​E

Over the last few weeks there has been a concerted campaign in social media attacking President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The ‘Gota Fail Campaign,’ as it was, promoted a strong response questioning the success of the President’s detractors. The campaign was clearly targeting the President’s first anniversary celebrations and the impending reading of the budget. The campaign failed or rather, now that the moment has passed, the campaigners have taken a break.

It was a week made of celebratory days, depending on one’s political preferences of course. We had Mahinda Rajapaksa celebrating his 75th birthday. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa completed his first year in office and addressed the nation to mark the occasion. The first budget of the Government that came to power in early August was presented. Secretary to the then President (Mahinda Rajapaksa) Lalith Weeratunga (also the ex officio Chairman of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission) and Anusha Palpita (former Director General, TRC) were acquitted of all charges of misappropriation by the Court of Appeal.

Quite a week, to say the least.

Ranjan Ramanayake, predictably, ridiculed Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mahinda Rajapaksa ‘for not standing while presenting the budget.’ Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa rapped Ramanayake on the knuckles for doing so, in a gesture of good grace rarely seen in Parliament.

Obviously, Mahinda Rajapaksa is no longer the energetic man he used to be. This of course does not necessarily mean he is infirm in mind. He still remains one of the most effective communicators in our tribe of politicians. He’s had his good days and bad ones, like anyone else. He receives praise and blame, which again indicates strong passion, fierce loyalty and, on the part of his detractors, equally intense sentiments which include envy, fear and disgust.

That said, as ‘The Gadfly,’ a regular contributor to the website www.theleader.lk observed, when the post-independence history of this country is written, there will be a special chapter devoted to the man, whereas the likes of Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sajith Premadasa, Rajitha Senaratne an Wijedasa Rajapaksha would get, at most, a line or two. Again, depending on who is writing the history, someone might say. However, the man’s mark is unmistakable and certainly hard to brush aside.

Some argued that he should have gracefully retired in 2015. Maybe he should have. On the other hand, ‘Mahinda Rajapaksa’ is not just a man but a brand and moreover a name that’s etched in the political consciousness of the nation, and, as the August 5 results indicated remembered with gratitude that obliterates memory of his blemishes. If Gotabaya Rajapaksa was captain-designate and Basil Rajapaksa the man chartering course, Mahinda Rajapaksa was the name of the ship (with a tagline, ‘Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’) and ‘MR’ a signature that was on every element of the vessel.

So, let us wish him, belatedly (on account of circumstances), a very happy 75th birthday, good times ahead, good health, continued guidance of his younger brother the President in matters political and restraint in deference to changed times and more importantly the leadership and power that is constitutionally granted to Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The budget is still being debated. Predictably Harsha De Silva has come down hard on it. He tweeted, ‘the most boring budget speech in years.’ He added, ‘…a weak n inspiring (he probably meant ‘uninspiring’) budget w totally unrealistic revenue figures…a shift towards protectionist n failed ‘Import Substitution Industrialization’ model.’ Having opened the debate for the Opposition, he then tweeted ‘a short edit’: 1. Figures fudged. 2. No stimulus package. 3. About to explode foreign debt issue ignored. 4. Import Substitution Model has failed; need bridges not walls.’

Now De Silva is a fear-mongerer if ever there was one. There was a time when again he was in the Opposition, when he would issue dire predictions of imminent economic collapse almost on a weekly basis. The man had to keep quiet when the UNP regime he was a part of mishandled the economy. He had nothing to say on the Central Bank bond scam.

He might have been thrilled when that regime wagered on the West coming to Sri Lanka’s help, but he didn’t contradict his then leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who, when ‘Brexit’ happened, suddenly said ‘we will look East.’ This after badmouthing China in the run-up to the January 2015 presidential election. We remember De Silva posting selfies with the Port City construction in the background at the time when his party was swearing to put a stop to the project. Finally, his government signed an agreement even less favorable to Sri Lanka. This was to be expected; after all the Yahapalana Government cheered itself while compromising sovereignty by way of Resolution 30/1 in Geneva. Anyway, neither De Silva, Wickremesinghe, Premadasa and pretenders to various political crowns now in the Opposition seem to have cottoned on to the fact that the USA is no longer the big boss in the global economy and that the sun set on the British Empire a long time ago.
Nevertheless, the onus is on the Government to respond to the charge that figures were fudged. As for the revenue plan, we will certainly assess it, realistic or otherwise, as time goes by. The rest is obviously Harsha rattling off received (non) wisdom about things economic.

Stimulus packages are about bailing out the rich. Nothing more, nothing less. Such things hinge on the erroneous premise that the private sector is the one and only engine of growth, where ‘growth’ itself is a concept that is contentious at best in the development discourse and has by and large been rubbished considering what that model has done to the world, the health of the planet and of course the most vulnerable sections in the global population.

Pertinent here, as has been editorially pointed out in www.gammiris.lk is Harsha’s myopia about the Bretton Woods institutions. Here’s a quote:

‘He (Harsha) does not seem to have gone through Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and its Discontents, which talks in succinct detail how these institutions operate, particularly in underdeveloping countries. A pity, because Stiglitz took the trouble of writing on Sri Lanka, and more to the point, of cautioning the then administration against hedging its bets on the IMF-World Bank paradigm of, what else, globalizing and liberalizing.’
Siglitz, interestingly, observed, that if Sri Lanka is to progress, it should start learning to produce, learning to export, and learning to learn.” Harsha of course can’t think beyond the neoliberalism model, which has failed and whose admirers show a marked reluctance to acknowledge the role of the state in the success stories they offer as examples. The state did and still does play a pivotal role in the so-called developed nations that have embraced the capitalist model. Practice is quite a distance from theory in their case.

The budget has sought to empower local production. This is not the same as import-substitution, though. In any event, Covid-19 has forced certain hard choices which even Harsh, had he presented the budget or was the President of the country, could not have ignored.
 It must be pointed out that the strategy laid out doesn’t make sense if the banking institutions are not focused on development. The Bretton Woods institutions have always been against development banks. There has been talk of setting up a cooperative bank, but the details are still to be worked out. This was an opportunity to get it down in black and white.
Meanwhile a delegation of the European Union and the Embassies of France, Germany, Italy Netherlands, and Romania issued a statement slamming the government’s trade policy, ‘with an obligatory non-sequitur to human rights,’ again editorially observed by ‘gammiris.’

‘Thanks to the EU’s special Generalized System of Preferences (GSP+), Sri Lanka enjoys competitive, predominantly duty- and quota-free access to the EU market,” they said. Trade, they pointed out, ‘not a one-way street,’ and observe (gravely) that ‘a prolonged import ban is not in line with World Trade Organization regulations.’  A reference was also made to the Government withdrawing from the (treacherous, what else?) Resolution 30/1, which, they say is ‘a source of concern’.
The hypocrisy of Europe crying foul over human rights is well known. But why talk of WTO rules here? Just last year Indonesia complained to the WTO over EU restrictions on palm oil imports. Both Germany and France blocked their own exports of crucial personal protective equipment (PPE) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypocrisy much, eh?
Well, if the EU’s ‘concerns’ (threats?) do translate into action, it would only push Sri Lanka even further into the Chinese circle of influence. Sri Lanka would have no option but to promote domestic production and rebuild as per the demands of the home market.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa completed one year in office. Not given to pomp and pageantry, his first year has been relatively subdued. He promised ‘work’ and ‘systems.’ Covid-19 was an obvious dampener. And yet, in this one year, we saw a mandate overwhelmingly reiterated. We also saw the passage of the 20th amendment which resolved the confusion of the 19th Amendment with respect to who really rules the country. The 19th, let’s recall, as acknowledged by its authors themselves, full of flaws. The Supreme Court shot it down and the then regime introduced what was almost a fresh document, quite in contravention of established parliamentary procedure (in the UK, the House of Lords can make changes but only minor ones). Here, there were wholesale changes at the committee stage. In contrast, the 20th a) retained certain elements of the 19th such as term limits and b) incorporated the observations of the Supreme Court).

The President’s anniversary speech was essentially a rehashed version of  his ‘throne speech.’ He didn’t detail the modalities of getting the ‘One-Country, One-Law’ going. He probably should have explained the controversial circular on ‘Other State Lands’ over which he has been getting a lot of flak. It was a no-frills anniversary speech quite in keeping with the personality he has projected or even the person he is seen to be. The proof of everything is in the ‘works’.  Work is where he will be judged eventually.

Given the announcement that the Government is planning to introduce a new constitution, the buzz over the 20th seems silly. The Government could have incorporated the 20th into a new constitution and seek passage in one go. 

 
Covid-19 has framed the president’s first year. He has had to balance coping mechanisms with keeping the economy going. The Opposition, as pointed out in a television discussion on Thursday by Deputy Editor, The Island, Shaminda Ferdinando, was bailed out by Covid-19. Now they have something to talk about, he said. There are charges of mishandling. The rise in numbers is certainly worrying. The Government does have a plan and it is as reasonable as any given multiple constraints.

However, it is certainly ridiculous that so many government officials and healthcare professionals are commenting and contradicting each other on Covid-19. The Government should authorize a single person to do this. Others should obtain from what this person says and not act as though they are epidemiologists. That goes for the opposition and political commentators as well, of course.

In Canada, for example, according to a Sri Lankan who is a long time resident there, ‘there’s a chief medical officer  giving daily recaps at the federal level with Prime Minister Trudeau offering a daily non medical brief. At the provincial level,  the chief provincial medical officer gives a daily briefing. All financial assistance information is conveyed by Trudeau since it’s all federal at this stage.  In Sri Lanka, in contrast, everyone except the Minister of Health is an authority on the pandemic!’  

Finally, the court decision on Lalith Weeratunga and Anusha Pelpita. Now they were acquitted not by judges appointed by this government. The charge that they were politically motivated is therefore silly. In this regard it is pertinent to point out that the President has nominated the six most senior judges for promotion to the Supreme Court. Seniority was spurned out of hand by the much-celebrated Constitutional Council of the previous regime. Friendship and loyalty were rewarded. Good move by the President but one which he ought to apply across the board in the matter of appointments/promotions.

The 62-page verdict notes, ‘There is no dishonest intention with which both accused appellants have acted. They were not actuated by men rea or actus reus. There has been a bona fide exercise of their powers and duties. Neither accused was enriched. Whilst the board authorized a transaction which is protected by law and corporate social responsibility, it is a travesty of justice that only two members of the TRC had to endure the traumatic experience of a selective prosecution at a prolonged trial, causing a senior public servant of long years of meritorious public service humiliation and anguish.’
Intention of course is always assessed subjectively. It’s the act that the court has to assess. The court was of the view that the prosecution failed to establish the ingredients of the offenses laid in the indictment. The court also determined that the circumstances in which the presiding judge came to hear the case created a serious doubt on the impartiality and validity of proceedings adopted. In other words, there was selectivity and deliberate maneuvering to obtain a pre-arranged outcome.

Weeratunga is a seasoned public servant. He probably knows the Establishments Code inside out. He probably knows not only what’s possible and what’s not but all the loopholes that can be used and abused. Both Weeratunga and Palpita were responding to a request from the top. They did it legally. He didn’t benefit. Neither did Palpita. One can argue that had Mahinda Rajapaksa won in January 2015, whether or not the sil redi issue was a factor, both would have benefited. At the very least they wouldn’t have been subjected to the obvious harassment meted out by overzealous yahapalana operatives (who essentially turned the FCID into a kangaroo court and commandeered operations from the Prime Minister’s office). That’s however in the territory of speculation. Courts are not in that business. 

The court has ruled. That’s that.

malindasenevi@gmail.com.

A shorter version of this article was published in the SUNDAY ISLAND (November 22, 2020). 

අග්‍රාමාත්‍ය මාධ්‍ය අංශය

ගරු අග්‍රාමාත්‍ය මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාගේ උපදෙස් පරිදි සෞභාග්‍යයේ දැක්ම රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්තිය යටතේ කලාකරුවන් සඳහා හදිසි අනතුරු සහ වෛද්‍ය රක්ෂණාවරණයක් හඳුන්වාදීමේ පළමු අදියර ක්‍රියාත්මක කරමින්, රක්ෂණාවරය ලබාදීම වේදිකා නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රය සඳහා වෙන් කර තිබේ.

සෞභාග්‍යයේ දැක්ම රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්ති ප්‍රකාශනය 2020 වර්ෂයේදීම යථාර්ථයක් බවට පත් කරමින් හඳුන්වා දෙන මෙම රක්ෂණාවරණය, බුද්ධශාසන ආගමික හා සංස්කෘතික කටයුතු අමාත්‍ය හා ටවර් හෝල් රඟහල පදනමේ සභාපති ගරු අග්‍රාමාත්‍යතුමන්ගේ අධීක්ෂණය හා පූර්ණ උපදෙස් මත සිදු කෙරේ.

ජාතික උරුමය ප්‍රාසංග කලා හා ග්‍රාමීය කලා ශිල්පී ප්‍රවර්ධන කටයුතු රාජ්‍ය අමාත්‍ය විදුර වික්‍රමනායක මහතාගේ උපදෙස් පරිදි ටවර් හෝල් රඟහල පදනම විසින් ක්‍රියාත්මක කරනු ලබන මෙම ප්‍රේක්ෂා රක්ෂණ” ක්‍රමය ඔස්සේ සුදුසුකම් සපිරූ වෙිදිකා නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ නාට්‍ය රචනය, අධ්‍යක්ෂණය, නාට්‍ය නිෂ්පාදනය, රංගනය, අංග රචනය, පසුතල නිර්මාණය, රංගාලෝකය, රංග වින්‍යාසය, රංග වස්ත්‍ර නිර්මාණය, නාට්‍ය සංගීතය, වේදිකා කළමනාකරණය යන අංශවල නියුතු වයස අවුරුදු 35-75 අතර නාට්‍යවේදීන්ට රක්ෂණාවරණයක් සැපයේ.

මෙම රක්ෂණාවරණය සඳහා රක්ෂණලාභීන්ගෙන් කිසිඳු මුදලක් අය නොකිරීම විශේෂත්වයකි.

නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රය තුළ ලබා ඇති ප්‍රවීනතාවය සහ ජ්‍යේෂ්ඨත්වය අනුව මේ සඳහා ප්‍රමුඛතාව ලබා දේ.

මෙම රක්ෂණාවරණය සඳහා ජාතික මට්ටමේ සම්මාන හිමි කරගනිමින් අයඳුම් කරන දිනට ආසන්න වශයෙන් වසර 05ක් සක්‍රීයව නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ නියුතු අයට සහ අයදුම් කරන දිනට ආසන්න වශයෙන් වසර 10කට නොඅඩු කාලයක් නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ නියුතු අයට මෙම රක්ෂණාවරණය සඳහා දායක විය හැකිය.

ප්‍රේක්ෂා රක්ෂණාවරණය” සඳහා අයදුම්පත් www.towerhall.lk වෙඩ් අඩවියෙන් බාගත කළ හැකි අතර, තම අයදුම්පත් 2020 දෙසැම්බර් 11 වන දිනට පෙර අධ්‍යක්ෂ ජනරාල්, ටවර් හෝල් රඟහල පදනම, අංක 123, සව්සිරිපාය, විජේරාම මාවත, කොළඹ 07 යන ලිපිනයට ලියාපදිංචි තැපෑලෙන් එවිය යුතුය.

උපුටා ගැන්ම ලංකා සී නිව්ස්

සමගි ජන බලවේගය පක්ෂය පවත්වාගෙන යන්නේ නිසා රිෂාඩ් බදියුදීන්ගේ කළු සල්ලිවලින් බව ඇමති මහින්දානන්ද අලුත්ගමගේ මහතා සඳහන් කරයි.

එම පක්‍ෂයේ මැතිවරණ වියදම් ද සියලූ වියදම් සිදු කරන්නේ රිෂාඩ් බදුර්දීන් බවත් පැවැසූ ඇමැතිවරයා තමනට ඒ බව ඔප්පු කිරීමට සියලු සාක්ෂි ඇතැයිද කියා සිටියේය.

පසුගිය මහ මැතිවරණයේ දී සහ ජනාධිපති ජනාධිපතිවරණයේදී ලබාදුන් මුදල් සහ සියළු බැංකු ගිණුම්ද පිළිබඳව සාක්ෂි තමන් සතුව ඇති බවත් ඔහු පැවසදීය.

ඒ මහතා මේ බව කියා සිටියේ අයවැය කාරක අවස්ථාවේ විවාදයට එක් වෙමිනි.

By P.K. Balachandran/Daily Express Courtesy Ceylon Today

When the British ruled Sri Lanka, peasant agriculture, with paddy as the main crop, was systematically weakened to yield place to plantation-based commercial agriculture monopolized by them.

Colombo, November 25: When the British ruled Sri Lanka, peasant agriculture, with paddy as the main crop, was systematically weakened to yield place to plantation-based commercial agriculture monopolized by them. Sri Lankan peasant agriculture is yet to recover from the historical neglect as the island nation continues to be dependent on food imports to fill vital gaps in supply.

In 2018, for example, the import of grains, milk, and a variety of food items of common consumption accounted for 7.2% of the total imports with the foreign exchange outgo being US$ 1.6 billion.

The slant against peasant agriculture directly and quickly led to the impoverishment of the indigenous peasantry even as British planters, civil servants and even governors made fortunes out of investments in the burgeoning plantation sector.

Though by the beginning of the 19th Century, when the British took over the island from the Dutch and laissez-faire was accepted as the ideal in Europe, the British in Ceylon were against the introduction of free trade on the plea that the civilization here had not reached a high level of development,” and what the people needed was good, stout despotism”. This theory was used to brazenly deny welfare and make exploitation of local human and natural resources for the exclusive benefit of the British. Concomitantly, collection of revenue rather than economic development of the indigenous population became the principal aim of the colonial regime.

Decisions taken in Colombo and London on land, taxation, labour and monopolies were, in essence, a throwback to the old and inveterate system of oppression” that characterized Dutch and Portuguese rule in the island, says Prof. P. V. J. Jayasekera in his book: Confrontations with Colonialism, 1796-1920 Vol I.

Right from 1796 to 98, the British authorities in London had set revenue targets for Ceylon. There was hardly any interest in rendering services to the people from whom the surpluses were exacted. Road building was a major activity in the 19th century, but it was not undertaken to benefit the locals, only to serve British commercial interests centred on a burgeoning plantation economy.

Irrigation, which had been provided by the native kings with the help of free Rajakariya labour, was neglected for the sake of road construction to serve British military and economic needs (principally the needs of the plantation sector).

When Governor Henry Ward arrived in 1855, he was bombarded with petitions to provide irrigation. While he realized the need for irrigation, the British planters who did not want peasant agriculture to grow and export, scuttled his bid for reform.

Earlier in 1849, the government had offered to give funds for irrigation development but these had to be paid back with interest in addition to providing free labour for the government’s public enterprises which were mostly infrastructure work for the benefit of British interests.

Prof. Jayasekera points out that in the traditional administrative system, the emphasis was on the maintenance and improvement of agriculture and irrigation and not just surplus extraction. The British justified their control over land saying they were only following a tradition in which the Kings had over-lordship over land as Bhupathis or Pruthivirajas. Under Rajakariya, the king granted land to peasants in exchange for services. The services expected were for public works like irrigation facilities. Special services were elicited on the basis of a person’s caste-related occupation. But the British disallowed any assertion of customary use of, and title over, land. Jayasekera points out that this was totally against the 1815 Kandyan Convention the British had entered into with the Kandyan chiefs. The document had explicitly stated that the people’s customary rights would be protected by the new British rulers.

In 1801, Ceylon’s first British Governor, Fredrick North, reasserted the governments’ right to both categories of Rajakiriya services but he introduced a direct tax on the produce of the land. The peasantry resented this. While under the Kings Rajakariya labour was used for irrigation works, the British used the system for their military needs and commercial agriculture. With the result, rice production declined to 50% of the requirement, and imports increased three-fold, Prof. Jayasekera says.

The precarious of returns in agriculture led to peasants going in for share-cropping, giving half the produce to the landowners. Land was being mortgaged at 25 to 50% interest,” he points out.

The British monopoly of cinnamon production and sale (until it was abolished) had deprived the peasant of a lucrative market in the West. Duties were imposed solely to benefit the British. Duties on imported British goods were slashed by 50%. Rice and cloth imported from India, which were used by the masses were taxed 8 to 12 %. Export duties on tobacco and areca nuts deprived the Ceylonese peasant of the large Indian market. To promote British shipping, goods brought by non-British ships were taxed 50% extra.

Free land was given to Europeans and Burghers for the cultivation of commercial crops like coffee, cotton, indigo and sugarcane. Tax exemption was given for 5 to 10 years for these enterprises. Their work force was also exempted from Rajakariya obligations. With the plantations becoming money spinners, planters and civil servants propagated the notion that paddy cultivation was a waste and did not deserve government encouragement, and the governors agreed.

One of the reasons why the plantation economy boomed was that the British bureaucracy was part of it as investors. Even governors invested in the plantations. When a legislature was set up, planters and British merchants were represented significantly. Planters’ interests were also strongly represented in the British government. According to Prof. Jayasekera the 19th Century colonial State in Ceylon was more powerful than it was in India because of the dominance of the British-controlled plantation economy in the island.

The ‘draconian’ Land Ordinance 5 of 1840 was based on the theory that all land belonged to the Crown unless they had been granted to someone earlier. This opened the floodgates to land grabbers and planters, a motley crowd of Whites including civil servants and governors. Unauthorized local holders of land were sent to jail or fined. This was one of the causes of the 1848 rebellion, which had to be put down with the use of brute force. A parliamentary committee went into the causes of the 1848 uprising but it made no difference.

Although it was acknowledged that peasant-cultivated coffee was of good quality, the British favoured giving coffee cultivation to large British-owned plantations, which could mint money using cheap and servile labour imported from the Madras Presidency in India.

In view of the importance of using a captive labour force in their plantations, the British discouraged peasant agricultural development by denying the latter improved irrigation and the protections they traditionally enjoyed under the rule of the kings. This was also meant to release peasants from their land for employment in the plantations. In addition, there was compulsory service which was used to clear land for the plantations and for road laying.

In 1832, compulsory service was abolished except for road construction. However, a Hut Tax was introduced in early 20th Century by Governor McCullum. Under this, the Sinhalese peasant had to send at least one member of his family for work in a plantation, if he was to be exempted from the Hut tax. Even so, the Sinhalese refused to work for the low wages in the plantation sector.

Prof. Jayasekera says British propaganda that labour had to be imported from India because the Sinhalese were ‘indolent’, was false. The Sinhalese worked in the plantations when wages were adequate. For example in 1890, there were 18, 000 to 23,000 Sinhalese peasants working in the plantations.

However, the use of Sinhalese labour ceased when cheap Tamil labour from the famine-stricken districts of Madras Presidency was available in abundance. The British-governed Madras collaborated by neglecting agriculture and forcing peasants to go to the colonies to work in British plantations.

By Sugeeswara Senadhira/Ceylon Today

Economic pressure is being added to baseless charges of authoritarianism at the behest of the Tamil separatist lobby, writes Sugeeswara Senadhira in Ceylon Today.

Colombo, November 23: As the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government completed its first year, the hostile West commenced its attacks on Sri Lanka with renewed vehemence.

Recent reports reflect the ardent desire of the West to find fault with every step taken by the Sri Lankan Government. The moment, a decision to curtail imports were announced with the intention of saving much-needed foreign exchange and also to increase domestic production and exports, the Ambassadors and High Commissioners of European Union countries came up with a joint statement opposing the move.

The EU said it had bought more than a billion Euros worth of goods (220 billion rupees) creating a trade surplus in favor of Sri Lanka. Trade, however, is not a one-way street. The current import restrictions are having a negative impact on Sri Lankan and European businesses, and on Foreign Direct Investment,” it said.

Banning duty-free luxury vehicle imports

Sri Lanka has every right to restrict imports and the EU statement is blatant interference in the right to regulate trade, which is an internal affair. EU envoys were persuaded to issue the statement by the German Ambassador and a few others, who were in turn influenced by multi-rich agents of luxurious motor cars in Sri Lanka. Luxury car imports were reduced to save valuable foreign exchange. It was a pragmatic move. Furthermore, most of the luxury cars were imported under duty free permits and the country did not get any tax revenue from these imports.

Stabilizing the dollar

The EU’s call came after the government presented the 2021 budget.It maintained that import restrictions must remain in place to stabilize the Rupee. The local currency had depreciated by over 9 per cent by early April against the Dollar. It was 196.75 rupees to the dollar and now remains stabilized around 185. This was mainly due to the banning of vehicle imports. GDP growth had reduced to 1.6 per cent year-on-year in the first-quarter of 2020, following a 2 per cent growth in the last-quarter of 2019, the Central Bank had previously said.

The EU also referred to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, but failed to recognize that WTO member countries have the authority to impose trade restrictions on several grounds. Any country can impose duty even up to 200 per cent for luxury items.

Violators of democratic rights

Another attack came from former Irish President Mary Robinson who picked Sri Lanka from nowhere to list it as one of the violators of democratic rights. In news report published in The Independent in UK under the title: Former Irish President compares Trump’s refusal to concede US Election with ’volatile and undemocratic situations’ in SL”, she made erroneous and misleading comments.

The former Irish President is the latest ‘democratic champion’ who was gullible enough to swallow hook, line and sinker all the fabricated stories spun by the separatist Tamil Diaspora and their paid NGO lobby.

‘Mary Mary quite contrary’

Robinson, representing a group called ‘The Elders’ says US President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede US Election is similar to the volatile and undemocratic situation in Sri Lanka. God only knows why she thought fit to drag Sri Lanka into Trump’s refusal to concede defeat. Either ‘The Elders’ have become senile or those who briefed Robinson deliberately twisted the facts about Sri Lanka’s rich democratic tradition of peaceful transfer of power at every election since independence.

Neither the Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka nor the Presidents of Sri Lanka tried to forcefully stay in power. The moment they faced electoral defeat, they conceded publicly and handed over power peacefully. In fact, when President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to know that he was trailing behind opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena in the 2015 Presidential Election, he conceded defeat even before the final result was declared and not only quit office, but also handed over the official residence and returned to his ancestral home in Medamulana. The principle of respect to the democratic transition of power was displayed by every Prime Minister and every President of Sri Lanka. Mary Robinson’s allegation is an absolute canard.

POAC delists LTTE

If these instances were not enough to understand the agenda of the West and its relentless efforts to discredit the Sri Lankan government at every given opportunity, one should look at the wicked campaign to resurrect the separatist, terrorist outfit, the LTTE. In the United Kingdom, in Octoobe 2020, the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission (POAC) had delisted the LTTE. The POAC stated that it had found the UK Home Office decision to keep the LTTE proscribed as a terrorist organization was flawed and unlawful”.

the appeal was filed by unnamed members of a group that is believed to be a front for the LTTE called the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam’ (TGTE). It was filed against the UK Home Secretary’s refusal on March 8, 2019 to lift the ban on LTTE under the Terrorism Act 2000. TGTE, which is banned by Sri Lanka, is a Government-in-exile for the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora which continues to pursue the aim of establishing a separate country for the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The UK had listed the LTTE as a terror outfit in 2000 and it continues to be banned in 32 countries including India. The final decision of lifting the ban will be taken by the British Home Secretary.

Demanding a separate Tamil homeland in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, the LTTE ran a military campaign for nearly 30 years before its defeat in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its supreme leader Velupillai Prabakaran.

Sri Lanka had appealed against the judgment saying it has sufficient evidence to prove the remnants of the LTTE and groups aligned with its terrorist ideology are active in foreign countries, working to incite violence and destabilize the country”.

India continues LTTE ban

The Indian Government also urged UK not to lift the ban on LTTE. India has reportedly shared information on the LTTE to press for the continuation of the ban on the organization. On 13 May 2019, the Indian Government extended the ban for another five years on the LTTE.

At the 43rd Session of the UNHRC in Geneva, Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena explained to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that Sri Lanka’s decision to withdraw from co-sponsorship of resolution 40/1 and the basis for doing so. He also pointed out a number of aspects of the resolution that were undeliverable as they were not in line with the constitution of Sri Lanka.

Minister Gunawardena, however, assured the government’s continuing commitment to achieving accountability and human rights despite withdrawing from the UN resolutions. Despite such cooperation from Sri Lanka, it is sad that the UNHRC continues its biased policy towards this country. Sri Lanka will have to be extremely vigilant to defeat the designs of the West to undermine its sovereign rights under dubious pretexts.

(The picture at the top shows Mary Robinson, former Irish Prime Minister)

By Dr. C. G. Ilangakoon Courtesy Ceylon Today

It was with absolute pride and delight, the voters of Sri Lanka as a whole watched the address to the Nation, delivered by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on 18 November 2020, certainly to the exclusion of few political hypocrites of opportunism, rejected by the people. He articulated the following contents very much assertively: It is no secret that the majority who voted for me then were Sinhalese. 

They rallied because they had legitimate fears that the Sinhala race, our religion, national resources and the heritage would be threatened with destruction in the face of various local and foreign forces and ideologies that support separatism, (religious) extremism and terrorism. The main appeal made by the people to me was to, Protect the Country”. When assigning subjects to Ministries, special attention was paid to several sectors related to agriculture, plantation, fisheries industry, traditional industries and promoting self-employment opportunities as these sectors affect the majority of the people in the country”  (https://www.president.gov.lk/).

Eight Central Components

The conscious unity of the voters set the end to the head-nodding, neck-bending and the kneeling down cult of the west. The disgraceful era of the original majority community of Sri Lanka, living as refugees in their own motherland has come to an end. The finger pointing of communal terrorists to the political leaders, elected by the voters has been passed in to oblivion. Insulting war heroes by religious” racists, on the stage of official ceremonies, graced by Ambassadors of Foreign Missions, are already stories of the past.  

Stability and peace has been established by the Rajapaksa regime. Yet, along with the world, the land is being mercilessly tortured by the COVID-19 crisis. Now the prosperity vision of the SLPP, in the face of the endemic, is in a terrific imbroglio. In an atmosphere, wherein, one person is compelled to hygienically doubt the one in front of him, no development vision is possible to be commissioned. The macro and mega projects, at present, seem impractical and the best country-suited modus operandi, to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, appears to espouse simple strategies, our ancient ancestors of Heladiva Sinhala-Buddhist Civilisation compassionately taught. In such a context, there is couple of central components, in the void of which, any macro and mega development dynamism is diminished to the nullity of zero.

 They are: (1) food (2) clean water (3) clothes (4) shelter (5) uncontaminated atmosphere (6) medicine (7) electricity and (8) the forest. This country was rich enough in the said eight constituents,   with no scientific instruction of so-called international community. Our medicine had been based on the fauna and flora-enriched Ayurvedic science.

Therefore, the attention of the President in respect of the agricultural sector, must be grounded, for the most part, on the strategy and its simplicity, as elucidated by the tradition of our Sinhala Buddhist ancestors, certainly, blending with cybernetics and where appropriate, with partial high-tech manufacturing. What is the point of constructing the loftiest tower in South Asia, if the frustrated starving small children of the land are stirring up the dustbins, kept outside, to find leftover food, with tears dripping down from their innocent eyes?   

This precisely is where, the Garden Agro-Engineering Vision of the SLPP founder, Basil Rajapaksa, flexes its muscle, to serve, as the best means to bloom stronger above and beyond the COVID-19 crisis. The depth of the strategy is deposited in its inseparable connection with the above stipulated eight pivotal components. Particularly with the Ayurvedic science, written by the greatest King Ravana 5000 years back. The Ayurvedic science has no pharmaceutical mafia, to administer medicines to be taken, till the end of once own life. It has no commercial destination to make monetary profits. Its profit is not money, but the health of the patient. It is very sad the Media is not giving the due coverage and publicity to the Garden Agro-engineering dynamism. It is the duty of the Media to make people conscious: 

(1) of the project (2) its dimensions (3) possible diversifications (4) its fruitfulness (5) of the independence of self-sufficiency it can produce (6) the vast space for the improvement of health and many more. The Garden Agro-engineering Vision is the foundation for a healthy nation and happy family.

Rajapaksa Popularity 

The project proliferation and the state of independence and self-sufficiency it will bestow, would strengthen the power base of the SLPP

 The UNP became unpopular by reason of introducing the unbridled free market economy to Sri Lanka, though, at the initial stage, it was welcomed by many, by virtue of the ignorance of political economy. The culture of importing everything began and the cult of obsession to admire imported commodities could set its roots in the soil of the domain of consumption. The importing agencies began to mushroom and they produced profits, while destroying the traditionally well established strategy of agriculture and the conception of prosperity, based on independence and self-sufficiency. 

The voters of this country now are well aware of this free market deception and the destruction it produced and continuing to produce. Hence, the Garden Agro-engineering, finally is the dream of the people, which, the Presidential Prosperity Production Task Force Chairman, Basil Rajapaksa has burdened himself to fulfil, as a farsighted mission for the culmination of the aspirations of voters. His timing is also intelligent. The COVID-19 has made the Basil Rajapaksa vision an inevitable imperative. Only fools or those, who take pleasure in betraying the Motherland, can oppose the project. Hence, it is the pressing duty of the present government not to concede in to the fake and deceptive homilies of UNP-supporting bureaucracy and to not allow them to take the upper hand and structure a strong network of conscious observation and also a second network to supervise and oversee the first network of observation, setting them against each other.

Besides, in order to emerge stronger, it is also vital to rightly comprehend the geopolitical rivalry-based global endemic circumstances and put them in to right use to produce prosperity profits for Sri Lanka as a whole.

Investment Opportunism

There are signs that some super powers are using the economic chaos of the pandemic, to go on a global shopping spree, for new businesses and investments.  This strategy of investment opportunism comprises a terrific relevance in relation to third world countries, enriched with geo-domains, conducive to super-power zonal military hegemony agendas.   They come with various proposals of bilateral and multilateral agreements, which virtually structure international instruments, creating territorial spaces in the land of the treaty partners, whose domestic jurisdiction is not valid and inoperative in the orbit of the territorial unit, which is subjected to the regulation of the normative contents of the covenant to be concluded. 

At times, they also stagger to the extent of bribing the developing countries, by means of extending colossal financial grants, conditioned by investor-friendly bias clauses, formulated to profit only the investor. Now, the post-pandemic development plan of the present government must well digest this pandemic-abused investment opportunism, which would inflict infraction against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sri Lanka. This will politically be very much dangerous, since, the absolute majority of the voters are against such agreements, which may produce a constitutional crisis in the land and involve the Motherland in totally unnecessary super power geo-political games. 

The pandemic is a multi-faceted phenomenon. The first priority, subsequent to the pandemic crushing, is to build up domestic enterprise and then to acquire the totally beaten-down firms to be revitalised with the help of the government. On the flip-side, the commercial realm is desperate for credit, since, to revive the collapsed business, the entrepreneurs have to undergo a difficult post-COVID-19 period, with diminished purchasing capacity of the consumers. 

Exploiting Super Power Contradictions

On the global level what can be predicted is the supply-chain vulnerabilities, being spotlighted by the crisis. This will accelerate the decoupling process already under way, particularly, between the U.S. and China. As the White House Administration has piled sanctions on China, U.S. companies are attempting to shift their supply chains for goods and services to other Asian countries, to avoid exposure to tariffs. The shock of COVID-19 may bring Sri Lanka closer to the moment, when Washington and Beijing represent separate, opposing poles of economic influence – especially as the Washington Administration casts China in hostile terms. 

The United States has described the COVID-19 pandemic as the worst attack” ever on the U.S., eclipsing even Pearl Harbour and 9/11 Islam terrorist attack, and has pushed the so-far unsubstantiated theory that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan laboratory. In recent weeks, the White House and Labour Department have directed the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which controls federal retirement funds, to stop investing in Chinese companies. According to Consumer News and Business channel” (CNBC), the British officials have accused Chinese hackers of trying to steal research into COVID-19 vaccines. Several Republican Senators introduced a bill that would allow Washington to sanction China for refusing to cooperate with investigations into the virus’s origins. Thus, the super power geopolitical rivalry seems to have created a favourable space for Sri Lanka to make the best use of these contradictions to profit the country, particularly, where lop-sided international instruments are proposed to be concluded.

About the writer:

Dr. Gamini Ilangakoon is a Lawyer, specialising in International Treaty Laws

By Rathindra Kuruwita Courtesy The Island

Former Director of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena had contacted the Personal Security Officer (PSO) of former President Maithripala Sirisena three times on the day of the Easter Sunday attacks, it was revealed, on Thursday night, at the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks.

A Warrant Officer of the Sri Lanka Air Force, Anura Nishantha, who had manned the phone exchange at Sirisena’s official residence at Paget Road on April 21, 2019 revealed this at the PCoI.

Responding to the question raised by the Commissioners, Nishantha said that Sirisena and Jayawardena had regular telephone conversations. The witness added that the former President had never used an official personal mobile phone and if someone wanted to contact him they had to contact Sirisena’s PSO.

Sirisena had two PSOs and when he traveled overseas one of the PSOs would always accompanied him, Nishantha said. The witness said that PSOs had roaming facility on their mobile phones and those at the exchange unit at the Paget Road residence would contact the PSO with Sirisena.

Earlier it was revealed that a 159 second telephone conversation took place between Jayawardena and Sirisena or Sirisena’s PSO at 7.59 a.m. It was also revealed that around 20 telephone conversations took place between Sirisena and Jayawardena from April 4 to 21, 2019. April 04, 2019 was when Jayawardena had received a warning, from a foreign counterpart, of a possible terror attack. It was also revealed that a total of 221 telephone calls had taken place between Sirisena and Jayawardena from January to April 2019. Sirisena told the PCoI that he probably had not received all those phone calls.

The details of the calls were revealed when the former President was cross examined by President’s Counsel Shamil Perera, appearing for the Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith.

Perera asked Sirisena whether Jayewardena had given him a call at around 6.16 p.m. on 20 April. Sirisena said he was receiving treatment in a Singaporean hospital at that time and not even his personal security officers were able to approach him that day.

Perera then said that the telephone records clearly state that Sirisena had called the former SIS Director at around 7.59 am on April 21, 2019. This was before the Easter Sunday attacks. Sirisena said that he had first contacted Jayewardena only after the bombings.

The President’s Counsel told the Commission that despite Sirisena’s statement the phone records showed that Sirisena had made a large number of telephone calls on April 21 morning.

I don’t know what is mentioned in this report but I was in the hospital on April 21morning. It was not possible for me to make phone calls while undergoing treatment. I came back to the hotel and then heard about the attacks,” Sirisena said.

Perera also said about seven telephone calls were exchanged between Sirisena and the SIS Director after the bombings. The attorney said that a 133 second telephone call had taken place between the former President and Jayawardena on 21 April at 8.58 am, a 184- second telephone call at 9.13 am, and a 688 second telephone call at 1.10 pm.

Perera also asked Sirisena how he made these calls if he was feeling extremely sick.

I was still weak but this was a serious development. I made a series of calls and advised all, including the Prime Minister, the Inspector General of Police and the Tri- forces Commanders to take necessary action,” Sirisena said.

Perera also questioned how Sirisena returned to Sri Lanka on the same night if his medical condition was so grave. In response, the former President said that the relevant medical reports could be submitted to the Commission in secret.

Courtesy Adaderana

A significant number of COVID-19 deaths reported from the Minuwangoda and Peliyagoda COVID-19 clusters have occurred at home, says Chief Epidemiologist Specialist Dr. Sudath Samaraweera.

He points out that the elderly and individuals with chronic diseases in high-risk areas should be more alert about new illnesses.

Elderly people in high-risk areas and people with chronic illnesses need to seek medical attention immediately if they develop any new symptoms. It can be a fever, cough, cold, sore throat, or difficulty in breathing.

It could also be symptoms such as weakness, loss of appetite, or inability to taste or smell. If such a condition persists, seek medical attention immediately. Alternatively, you can call 1999 for advice.

Do not wait until such a condition worsens. Since the identification of the COVID-19 clusters in Minuwangoda and Peliyagoda on October 4, a significant number of the 81 COVID-19 related deaths have occurred at home.”

Courtesy Adaderana

Department of Government Information says that another 208 individuals have tested positive for novel coronavirus in the country.

All new cases are close contacts of previously identified positive patients from the Peliyagoda cluster. 

A total of 502 new cases of Covid-19 have been identified so far today (25).

This brings the total number of cases reported from the Minuwangoda-Peliyagoda Covid-19 cluster to 17,938.

Courtesy Adaderana

Sri Lanka’s death toll from the coronavirus has risen to 96 as two infected persons have succumbed to the disease, the Department of Government Information confirmed.

The deceased are a 45-year-old woman from Colombo 12, and an 80-year-old man from the Pannipitya area.

The woman had passed away at the Colombo National Hospital on November 23 from a cardiac arrest caused by COVID-19.

The male had been transferred from the Sri Jayawardenepura Hospital to the Pimbura Base Hospital upon being diagnosed as a COVID-19 patient. He had passed away today (November 25). The cause of death has been determined as the liver disease worsened by COVID-19 infection.

Courtesy theconversation.com

The biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has released data on what is now the third promising vaccine candidate against COVID-19 – and it has several advantages over those of its competitors, Pfizer and Moderna.

On Monday, AstraZeneca released interim analysis of its phase 3 trial data of 23,000 volunteers from the U.K. and Brazil. These results show that the test vaccine is between 70% and 90% effective in stopping COVID-19, depending on the vaccine doses administered. Although less effective than the reported results from the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine candidates, this vaccine is still more effective than annual influenza vaccines that reduce the risk of flu by between 40% and 60%. Notably none of the vaccinated participants needed hospitalizations or reported severe disease.

Like most vaccine experts, I am intrigued by large differences in effectiveness between two tested dosages of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. Until March, I was developing vaccine candidates against Zika and dengue. Now I am coordinating a large crowd-sourced international effort to better understand the scope and severity of COVID-19 in cancer patients. The COVID-19 vaccine trials generally exclude most people with a history of cancer, so I am eagerly awaiting vaccine efficacy data for this risk group when these vaccines become widely available.

Intriguing dose response

AstraZeneca’s vaccine was originally planned to be given in two full doses, four weeks apart, as injections in the upper arm. A third of the volunteers were injected with a dummy saline placebo.

One of the few details that AstraZeneca released is that of 131 cases of COVID-19, only 30 cases were detected among 11,636 who were given the vaccine; 101 cases occurred among the volunteers who got the placebo. That suggests that the vaccine is 70% effective overall.

However, an error in the early stages of the trial meant that some participants received only a half-dose in the first round. In the group of 2,741 volunteers who received a lower dose of the vaccine candidate followed a month later by a full booster dose, the efficacy was 90%, according to AstraZeneca. The efficacy was only 62% among the 8,895 volunteers who received both full doses.

It is not clear why the half-dose plus the full dose sequence of the vaccine performs better than two full doses. One explanation could be that since the vaccine is based on a common, although nonhuman, cold virus, the immune system probably attacks and destroys it when the first dose is too large.

It is also possible that progressively increasing the dose more closely mimics a natural coronavirus infection. Beginning with a lower first dose might be a better way of kicking the immune system into action; then a stronger, more effective immune response occurs after the second full booster dose. Despite enormous progress in human immunology, scientists still don’t understand the best strategies for inducing protective immunity.

These results are based on the evaluation of about one-third of volunteers who are expected to participate in this trial, which is ongoing in other parts of the world and will enroll up to 60,000 people.

AstraZeneca will now seek approval from the FDA to also evaluate the half-dose protocol in the ongoing U.S. trial. The current trial involves 30,000 participants and is evaluating only the two full-dose regimen. AstraZeneca’s trials in the U.S. were halted temporarily in early September after a study participant in the U.K. fell ill, but resumed in the U.K., Brazil, South Africa and Japan.

A modified chimpanzee cold virus

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is another example of a new strategy being used to rapidly develop vaccines against the coronavirus that has already infected over 58 million people worldwide.

A vaccine works as a primer to train the immune system against a pathogen.

Conventional vaccines are made by weakened viruses or by purifying their disease-causing protein, such as the spike protein, which decorates the surface of a coronavirus. But these methods can take decades to develop new vaccines. Coinvented by the University of Oxford and its spinout company, Vaccitech, this vaccine uses different molecular tools to provide a preview of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the human body.

Instead of making weaker viruses, or delivering mRNA that encodes the spike protein, as Moderna and Pfizer did, the Oxford vaccine packs the DNA that codes for the spike protein in the shell of a genetically altered chimpanzee virus.

The original adenovirus causes common cold in chimpanzees and it rarely, if ever, infects humans. The virus is further modified to ensure that this chimp virus cannot grow in people. The AstraZeneca vaccine uses the modified virus as a vehicle to deliver the COVID-19-causing spike or S-protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Under the agreement with the University of Oxford, AstraZeneca is responsible for development, worldwide manufacturing and distribution of the vaccine.

This isn’t the first time that University of Oxford scientists have tried a vaccine using this harmless virus. Previously, it tested the concept against a closely related coronavirus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in animal studies. So this time, soon after the sequence of the novel SARS-CoV-2 became available, the Oxford scientists retooled the chimp virus for a vaccine that induced robust immune response against SARS-CoV-2 in mice and rhesus macaques.

Not-so-frigid storage requirement

Despite a somewhat later arrival, with less than the effectiveness claimed by its competitors, AstraZeneca’s vaccine might be favored because it can be stored, transported and handled at standard refrigerated conditions of between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit for at least six months.

The competing mRNA vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech require ultracold temperatures for stability. So the AstraZeneca vaccine will be easier to use in normal clinics, especially in rural America and the developing world.

Another important advantage of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is being tested in collaboration with a larger number of global sites, is that it should cost less because of AstraZeneca’s commitment to COVAX, a global initiative that aims to distribute low-cost vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. Pfizer and Moderna have not joined the COVAX initiative, but AstraZeneca has agreed to make the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis for the duration of the pandemic.

Wait and watch

However, like all other candidate vaccines for COVID-19, AstraZeneca’s vaccine is also lacking in key details such as the breakdown in infections, the durability, or the efficacy in the different age groups of trial participants.

For all the vaccine candidates, we have only preliminary data from a small number of infections, and none of the groups developing the COVID-19 vaccine candidates has so far published complete data. So it is difficult to fully assess the differences between them.

We will have to wait for more follow-up and longer-term data to evaluate the effectiveness of all the COVID-19 vaccines in finally getting the COVID-19 pandemic under control.

Courtesy RT

More than 500 million people will be able to take the pioneering Russian Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus next year. Its developers say the two-shot jab will be sold cheaper than those of its foreign competitors.

The drug will be produced not only in Russia but also by leading foreign pharmaceutical companies” who agreed to cooperation deals with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). Talks with additional international partners are underway to further increase production capacity. 

Sputnik V will be two or more times cheaper than mRNA vaccines with similar efficacy levels,” RDIF said in a statement.

A single dose of the Russian vaccine is going to cost $10, according to the producer, meaning it will set each person back $20 for two shots – which is still way below the price tags of US biotech firms Pfizer and Moderna, who are eyeing $39 and $50-74 for their vaccines, respectively.

Notably, it’s only foreign buyers who would need to pay up, as the Russians will be getting Sputnik V for free. International customers are scheduled to receive first shipments of the vaccine in January. 

The new data announced by Moscow’s Gamaleya Center, which developed the Sputnik V formula, suggests that its vaccine is 95 percent effective. The result was based on Phase Three clinical trials that involved almost 20,000 
volunteers who were administered two shots of the drug.ALSO ON RT.COMRussian Sputnik V vaccine at least 95% effective say its creators, but vaccination won’t be mandatory, and Putin hasn’t had it yet

The competition is tough on the vaccine market, with Sputnik V facing a lot of criticism in the West since it became the world’s first registered vaccine against the virus in August. But with Covid-19 already infecting some 59.4 million and killing over 1.4 million people around the globe, Russia is eager to become a part of a global effort to stop the pandemic.

Pfizer and Moderna also reported that the effectiveness of their vaccines was at around 95 percent. Those are very good” figures and we have no reason to doubt” them, Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF’s CEO, told RT.

It’s important for the world to have various vaccines. Sputnik V could be part of the countries’ vaccine package,” he pointed out.ALSO ON RT.COMWhy the MSM silence on Sputnik V? It may be the best Covid-19 vaccine, but anti-Russian agendas could stop millions getting it

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Two Bank of Ceylon (BoC) accounts operated by former Eastern Province Governor M.L.A.M. Hizbullah had received over Rs. 4 billion in terms of foreign funds within a period of three years before the Easter Sunday terror attacks, according to what transpired during deliberations of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry probing Easter Sunday attacks.  

Testifying before the Commission, former BoC Bank Manager of Colpetty Branch I.C.K. Kannangara said that Hizbullah had operated five accounts at Colpetty branch.   

However, evidence had been led before the Commission pertaining to two accounts named Sri Lanka Hira Foundation and Batticaloa Campus Private Ltd, out of five accounts operated by Hizbullah.  

The two accounts were current accounts. Sri Lanka Hira Foundation account had received foreign funds on fifteen occasions and Batticaloa Campus Private Ltd. account had received foreign funds on seven occasions during the period between 2016 and 2019,” the witness said.   

According to the Financial Transaction Regulation Act (FTRA) in Central Bank, transactions on an account receiving more than one million, have to be reported to Central Bank.  

However, during the testimony it was informed to the Commission that BoC had never reported details pertaining to transactions involving such large sums operated by Hizbullah, to the Central Bank.  

Customer service managers at the BoC Colpetty Branch had informed that these funds were suspicious and it had been reported to the Compliance Division of BoC Head Office. However, the head office had reported that they didn’t find these transactions were suspicious,” the witness said.   

However, after the Easter Sunday terror attack, the bank had reported to Central Bank that these transactions were suspicious and accordingly the Central Bank had made a complaint before the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU).  
The witness said that the first account, Sri Lanka Hira Foundation,  had been opened on August 18, 1993, as a social service organisation operated account.   

The witness also said that the Bank had received the registration certificate from the Department of  Social Services in September, 1993, one month after opening the account. 

 Earlier, it was revealed to the Commission that the particular registration certificate from the Social Services Department produced by Hizbullah, was a forge document.  

According to the details mentioned in the documents, Hizbullah’s Sri Lanka Hira Foundation account had received Rs. 313 million within the period between 2016-2019 through fifteen transactions.   All the transactions happened through Inheritance Ali Abdullah Al Juffali by US City Bank, Siddique Diana Osamn by HSBC and Credential Ltd by Lloyds bank, Britain,” the witness said.   

Moving to the second account, Batticaloa Campus Private Ltd. the witness informed the Commission that the account had been opened on September 09, 2016 and it had received Rs. 3.6 billion foreign funds within the period of 2016 -2019.   

It was also informed to the Commission that the foreign funds pertaining to the second account were received through Inheritance Ali Abdullah Al Juffali, a Charity, that wired some USD 24.5 million to the Batticaloa Campus between 2016 and 2017. (Yoshitha Perera)

 lanka C news

සිංහලේ සංවිධානයේ මහ ලේකම් පූජ්‍ය මැඩිල්ලේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක හිමියන්ගේ විහාරස්ථානයට රහස් පොලිසිය යවන ලද්දේ තමන් විසින් නොවන බව ඇමති ජොන්ස්ටන් ප‍්‍රනාන්දු මහතා පවසයි.

චමල් රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතාට එල්ල වූ අසත්‍ය චෝදනාවක් ගැන තොරතුරු ලබා ගැනීමට ඔහු විසින් කරන ලද දැනුම් දීමක් මත එය සිදු වූ බවද ඒ මහතා පැවසීය.

පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අයවැය දෙවැනිවර කාරක සභා අවස්ථා විවාදයට එක්වෙමින් ඒ මහතා මෙම අදහස් පල කරන ලදී.

මම පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අද දහවල් හිටිය නැති වෙලාවෙදි හේෂා විතාන මන්ත්‍රීතුමා සහ ඉඳුනිල් අපේ දිස්ත්‍රික්කයේ මන්ත්‍රීතුමාන්ලා මගේ නම ප්‍රකාශ කරලා මැඩිල්ලේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක හාමුදුරුවන්ට විරුද්ධව මම සීඅයිඩී එකේ පැමිණිල්ලක් දැම්මා කියලා තියෙනවා

මැඩිල්ලේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක හාමුදුරුවන්ට විරුද්ධව CID එකට ගිහින් පැමිණිල්ලක් දාලා උන් වහන්සේට විරුද්ධ ව කටයුතු කළා කියලා මම ඒක සම්පූර්ණයෙන් ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කරනවා මම අද වන තුරු කිසි සේත්ම මහා සංඝරත්නයට විරුද්ධව කටයුතු කරලා නැහැ මහා සංඝරත්නයට විරුද්ධව පැමිණිලි දාලා නැහැ සීඅයිඩී එකට අඩු තරමින් දුරකථන ඇමතුමක් දීලා උන් වහන්සේට විරුද්ධ ව කටයුතු කරන්න කියලා කියලා නැහැ ගෞරවනීය මහා සංඝරත්නය සමග ඉතා කිට්ටුවෙන් ඉතාමත්ම ගෞරවයෙන් වැඩ කරන කෙනෙක් මම ඒ පිළිබඳව කුරුණෑගල දිස්ත්රික්කයේ මහා සංඝරත්නය ඉතා හොඳින් දන්නවා ඒකෙදි චමල් රාජපක්ෂ ඇමතිතුමාගේ නම සඳහන් කරමින ෆේස්බුක් එකේ කැස්බෑවේ ප්‍රශ්නයක් කිව්වා ඒ සම්බන්ධයෙන් චමල් ඇමතිතුමා ඉතාමත්ම දුකින් හිටියේ එතුමා නොකරපු එකක් ගැන නිසා ඒ නිසා චමල් ඇමතිතුමා ඒ ගැන පරීක්ෂණයක් කරන්න දීලා තියෙනවා කවුද මේ මුසාව අපේ හාමුදුරුවන්ට ලබා දුන්නේ කියලා හොයන්න එහෙම නැතුව මහා සංඝරත්නයට නොවේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක හාමුදුරුවෝ අපේ හාමුදුරුවෝ අපිට විශාල වශයෙන් උදව් කරපු ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපති තුමාව දිනවන්න කැපවුණු යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුව ගෙදර යවන්න කටයුතු කරපු ගෞරවනීය ස්වාමීන් වහන්සේ නමක් උන්වහන්සේ කරපු මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡාවක දී මගේ නම කියලා උන්වහන්සේ ප්‍රකාශ කළා මම මුකුත් කියන්න ගියේ නැහැ මට ගහපුවා කියපුවා කරපුවා පසුගිය අවුරුදු පහේ දන්නවා

මයිල් ගහකට වත් අත තියන්න දෙන්නේ නැහැ කියලා පහුගිය කාලේ මට ගැහුවා මම එතෙන්දි කිව්වේ ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාගේ කාලයේදී දේශපාලනඥයන්ට නීතිය අතට ගන්න දෙන්නෙ නැහැ කියන එක සමහර දේශපාලනඥයෝ නීතිය අතට අරගෙන නගරාධිපතිතුමාට විරුද්ධව කටයුතු කරන්න හැදුවා මම ඒ වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටියා ඒක මගේ වගකීම හෙම නැතිව නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න දෙන්නේ නැති ප්‍රකාශය නෙවෙයි මම කිව්වේ

එදා තමුන්නාන්සේලා එදා බුවනෙක හෝටලයේ ට ඇවිල්ලා ඒ මැතිවරණ කාලයේදී මෙහෙ ඉඳන් ඇවිල්ලා චම්පික රණවක ගෙන් පටන් ගත්තහම තමුන්නාන්සේලා මේක මැතිවරණය කාලයේදී පාවිච්චි කෙරුවා මම කිව්වේ බුවනෙක කියන්නේ චන්ද්‍රසේන මහත්තයාගේ පුතාගේ නම ඒ වගේ පහර දුන්නා කිරිඇල්ල මහත්තයා කිව්වා පෞද්ගලිකව පහර දෙන්න එපා කියලා අපිට කියනවා වගේම තමුන්නාන්සේගේ පැත්තෙ මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ට ඒ ගැන කිව්වොත් වඩාත් හොඳයි ඒ හින්ද අපි ඒ තත්ත්වයට වැටෙන්නේ නැහැ මහා සංඝරත්නයට අපි ඉතාමත්ම හොඳින් ගරු කරනවා සභාව පාලනය කිරීමට කිරිඇල්ල මැතිතුමාට වත් විපක්ෂ නායකට වත් බැහැ ඒක අපි දන්නවා ඒක තමයි ඇත්ත තත්වේ ගෞරවනීය මහා සංඝරත්නය ට කවුද අපහාස කළේ 60 නමක් හිරේ දැම්මා ස්වාමීන් වහන්සේලාගේ ඔලු පැලුවා මේකේ හිටපු මුදල් ඇමැතිවරයා කිව්වා මේක බෞද්ධ රටක් නෙමෙයි කියලා

එහෙම තමයි බෞද්ධ ආගමට අගෞරව කෙරුවෙ එදා තමුන්නාන්සේලා එක්ක හිටපු එක නායකයෙකුට වත් පණ තිබුණේ නැහැ ඒක වැරදියි කියලා කියන්න ප්‍රේමදාස මහත්තයා ගෙනාවේ ලෝකෙට දක්ෂම කෙනා කියලා එහෙත් ඔහුට වත් කොන්දක් තිබුණේ නැහැ ඒක වැරදියි කියලා කියන්න බෞද්ධ ආගමට අගෞරව කරන්න එපා කියලා කියන්න බෞද්ධාගමට බෞද්ධ රටට අපහාස කරපු ආණ්ඩුවක් තිබුණේ පහුගිය අවුරුදු පහේ ඒක තමයි ඇත්ත ඉස්සෙල්ලාම පටන් ගත්තෙ ශ්‍රී මුඛය කියලා මේවා මේ රටේ ජනතාවට අමතක නෑ තමුන්නාන්සේලා එදා මහා සංඝරත්නයට විවිධ කරදර කෙරුවා අගෞරවය කෙරුවා අපහාස කෙරුවත් ධම්මාලෝක හාමුදුරුවෝ අලි පැටියෙක් තියා හිටියා කියලා කුදලා ගෙන ගිහින් හිරේ දැම්මා එදා හවසම මමත් පස්වන විධායක ජනාධිපතිතුමා උන්වහන්සේ බලන්න ගියා ඒ නිසා අපේ රජය මහා සංඝරත්නයට අපහාස කරන්නේ නැහැ මතක තියාගන්න තමුන්නාන්සේලා තුට්ටු දෙකේ දේශපාලනයට වැටෙන්න එපා. ඒක අපි කියනවා සමහර මන්ත්‍රීවරු බොහොම ආදරෙන් මේක ශෙයා කරලා තිබුණා සමහර ආයතන වල නියෝජිතයින් ලෙස කටයුතු කරපු අය තමයි මෙහෙම ඇවිත් අපිට පහර දෙන්නේ මම වගකීමෙන් කියනවා අපි වැරදි කරල නැහැ මාව ගිහින් හිරේ දැම්මා නඩු එකොළහක් දැම්මා ඉස්සෙල්ලාම දැම්මා මගේ වැඩිමහල් පුතා ට ජොහාන් ප්‍රනාන්දු ව හිරේට අරන් යන්න ගියා පළවෙනි සතියෙම ඒ නඩුව විසිකෙරුවා නඩුකාරතුමා එහෙම තමයි අපිට කෙරුවේ මාව ගෙනිච්චා පළවෙනි නඩුවේදී අඩුම තරමේ මගේ රෙදි ටික වත් ගෙනියන්න දුන්නේ නැහැ යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුවෙන රෙදි ටික ගෙනියන්න ෂොපින් බෑග් එක දෙන්න විදිහක් නෑ කිව්වා පනස් තුන් දෙනෙක් ඉන්න කාමරේක තමයි ඉන්න දුන්නෙ වැසිකිලි වලක තමයි ඔලුව කියන්න දුන්නෙ

එහෙම තමයි තමුන්නාන්සේලාගේ ආණ්ඩුව එහෙම තමයි තමුන්නාන්සේලා යහ පාලනය ක්‍රියාත්මක කෙරුවෙ එහෙම තමයි ඒ කාලේ විනිශ්චකාරවරුන් ට කතා කරලා සී අයි ඩී අධ්‍යක්ෂක ට කතා කරලා අල්ලස් කොමිසමට කතා කළේ ඒ කරපු අපරාධ මේ රටේ ජනතාව කවදාවත් අමතක කරන්නේ නැහැ දැන් ඉන්නේ සුදු ඇඳුමින් සැරසිලා තුට්ටු දෙකේ මමන්ත්‍රීවරු එවලා ඒ ඇවිල්ල තමයි ගරු කථානායක තුමාට ලොක්ක සොක්ක කියලා අගෞරව කරන්නේ අද ඒක තමයි ප්‍රේමදාස මහත්තයට ඉතුරු වෙලා තියෙන්නේ බොහොම අය තමයි අද ප්‍රේමදාස මහත්තයා ළඟ ඉන්නේ මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් කණ්ඩායම විනිසුරුවරු ට කතා කරපු බය කරපු නීතිය අතර ගත්ත අය තමයි

මොනවද කිව්වෙ ජොන්ස්ටන්වයි නාමල් වයි ඇතුලට දාන්න කට වෙඩි කිව්වා කොහොමහරි දාන්න කිව්වා අදම මේ අය නීතිය ගැන කතා කරන්න හදනවා ඒ කාලේ නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කෙරුවේ ලංකා ඉතිහාසයේ එහෙම නීතියක් කවදාවත්ම ක්‍රියාත්මක වුණේ නැහැ රාජ්‍ය නිලධාරීන් හිරේට ගෙනිච්චා රටක් දිනවපු මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහත්තයව කොමිසම් වලට ගෙනිච්චා ආර්යාව හිරේට දාන්න හැදුවා දරුවෝ දෙන්නා හිරේ දැම්මා බැසිල් රාජපක්ෂ මහත්තයා හිරේ දැම්මා රට යන්න ඉඩ දුන්නේ නැහැ පිල්ලෙයාන්ව අවුරුදු පහක් හිර කරගෙන හිටියා එදා මොකද වුණේ කුරුණෑගල හිටපු දොස්තරට දවස් විස්සෙන් ඇප දුන්නා පිල්ලෙයාන්ව අවුරුදු පහක් රිමාන්ඩ් භාරයට පත් කෙරුවා මොකද්ද වරද මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහත්තය වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී හිටියා කියන එක

ඔහොම තමයි තමුන්නාන්සේලා පහර දුන්නේ අපි එහෙම පලි ගන්නේ නැහැ අපි එහෙම පළිගන්න ගියානම් කරපු හොරකම් වලට ඕකෙන් බාගයක්ම අද ඉන්න ඕන හිරේ ඒක තමයි ඇත්ත ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාගේ තියෙන මනුස්සකමට ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය තමුන්නාන්සේලා ද අතකොළුවක් කරගෙන පාවිච්චි කරන්න හදනවා ෆේස්බුක් එකේ දාලා පහර දෙනවා සින්දු හදනවා පහර දෙනවා ඉතින් මේ අය අත්අඩංගුවට ගත්තහම අත්අඩංගුවට ගන්නවා කියලා පහර දෙනවා මට දුන්න වද මම විතරයි දන්නේ දවස් හැත්ත තුනක් හිරේ දැම්මා තමුන්නාන්සේලා අපි රජයක් හැටියට අපි දන්නවා තමුන්නාන්සේලා කරපු දේවල් අපි කරන්නේ නැහැ තමුන්නාන්සේලා හිතනවානම් මඩ ගහලා රජයක් ගන්න පුළුවන් කියලා ඒක හීනයක් විතරයි

– Repoter

PV Magazine

The project will be developed under a credit line facility from the Exim Bank of India.

The Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority has issued a tender to seek consultants for the pre-feasibility study of a large scale PV power plant.

The project will be developed under a $100 million credit line facility from the Exim Bank of India. Of this sum, $85 million will be devoted to the deployment of rooftop PV arrays in government buildings under the country’s net metering scheme, $5 million will be used for floating installations, and $10 million will be allocated for installing solar-plus-storage systems for low-income households.

Interested consultants will have time until December 9 to submit their bids.

According to a recent joint study by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Asian Development Bank (ADB), Sri Lanka has the potential to deploy 16 GW of solar power. It aims to cover its entire power demand with renewables by 2050.

At the end of 2019, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, the country had 215 MW of installed solar power. Through its solar energy program, dubbed the Soorya Bala Sangramaya (battle for solar energy), Sri Lanka hopes to add 1 GW by the end of 2025.

Courtesy Adaderana

Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) leader and parliamentarian Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan” has been granted bail by the Batticaloa High Court.

The Batticaloa District MP was ordered released on bail by Batticaloa High Court Judge T. Wigneshwaran, when the case filed over the murder of former TNA MP Joseph Pararajasingham was taken up today.

Four other defendants in the case who were in remand custody were also granted bail by the court, Ada Derana reporter said.

They were ordered released on two personal bonds of Rs 100,000 each while the case was postponed until December 08. 

Pillayan had been in remand custody since his arrest on October 11, 2015 when he arrived at the CID to give a statement in connection with the assassination of the late Tamil politician Joseph Pararajasingham, who was shot dead on Christmas Eve in 2005.

A gunman opened fire on TNA MP Pararajasingham after he received communion at St Mary’s church in Batticaloa, killing him and injuring eight others including his wife.

Contesting at the General Election 2020, Pillayan had obtained the highest number of votes from the district of Batticaloa and entered Parliament.

Courtesy Adaderana

Four new Covid-19 related deaths have been reported in Sri Lanka, the Director-General of Health Services confirmed a short while ago.

One of the victims is a 74-year-old male from Ginigathhena area. Reports revealed that he passed away on November 22 while receiving treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Ragama Teaching Hospital. The cause of death was cited as multi-organ dysfunction due to complications of diarrhea induced by Covid-19 infection.

The second victim, a 54-year-old male from Siyambalape South who was under treatment at the Colombo National Hospital has died on November 22. The death was ruled as a result of coronavirus infection and chronic kidney disease.

A resident of Colombo 05 area, a woman aged 73 also died of Covid-19 infection earlier today. She was admitted to the Colombo National Hospital after testing positive for the virus and was later transferred to the Homagama Base Hospital. Covid-19 pneumonia was determined as the cause of death.

The fourth victim was identified as a 42-year-old male from Atulugama area in Bandaragama. According to reports, he was transferred to the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) from Panadura Base Hospital. He has died of complications of Covid-19 infection, chronic liver disease and encephalitis.

Following the new developments, Sri Lanka’s Covid-19 death toll now stands at 94.

Health

Fresh COVID-19 positive cases were identified in Sri Lanka as the total number of cases reported from the Minuwangoda and Peliyagoda clusters reached 17,436.

The Department of Government Information said 171 more persons were tested positive for the virus.  A total of 287 more new Covid-19 cases were reported earlier evening bringing the total cases so far to 20,795, the Health Ministry said. All contacts are close contacts of earlier patients.

All the new cases are close contacts of the Peliyagoda Fish Market cluster, reports confirmed.

With the new development, Sri Lanka has confirmed 20,966 novel coronavirus infections to date.

According to the Health Ministry’s data, 14,462 of the confirmed patients have made complete recoveries from the virus.

Chandre Dharnawardana

The 26^th of November is the Birthday of the dreaded leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

(LTTE) who was shot dead in 2009. Prabhakaran assassinated the elected leaders of the Tamil community in the 1980s [1], massacred other rival groups, suppressed dissent, and  hijacked the control of Tamil politics, to  launch a brutal war against the Sri Lankan government that lasted some three decades, ending in May 2009.  The whole of Sri Lanka, including the  majority of Tamils who live in the South with the Sinhalese celebrated the event. It was recorded as such in film by Poongkothi Chandrahasan [2] the grand daughter of SJV Chelvanayagam, the acknowledged leaders of the Tamil Nationalist movement. Luckily for him, SJV”  passed away before the rise of Prabhakaran. Mr. Amirthalingam, SJV’s  lieutenant,  was shot dead by Prabhakaran’s agents to pass mantel of Tamil leadership to Prabhakaran un-equivocally. SJV founded the separatist Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi, or Lanka Tamil Kingdom Party” that envisioned a separate Tamil kingdom known as Eelam in 1949 [3]. SJV may have settled for a federal solution with strong autonomy” for the 12% population of Tamils. But the forces that he unleashed demanded Arasu itself, roused Sinhala extremism, and proposed to create a Tamil kingdom by force in in the Vaddukkoddai resolution” [4].  Nevertheless, Sri Lanka, India and the West sought a futile peaceful solution” that led to near four-decades of Eelam wars, State Brutality and Tiger Terror extending even to Tamil diaspora who faced extortion and Tiger violence.

The first suicide offensive of the Tigers is usually ascribed to Vallipuram  Vasanthan alias  Captain Miller” of the LTTE in 1987. He drove a truck of explosives into an army camp in Nelliyaddi (නෙල්ලියැද්ද).  However, he diabolical distinction of being the first dispoasable Tiger should go to Sivakumaran who tried to rob a bank in Kopay (Bopé, බෝපේ )  in June 1974, and committed suicide to prevent arrest. This gave Prabhakaran the idea of a cadre of suicide killers who make the ultimate commitment” to him personally, and to the Tiger movement. The day after Prabhakaran’s birthday was selected  for the annual commemoration and glorification of these human explosives as great heroes” or Maaveer”. These events were held in a grand ritualist format during Prabhakaran’s lifetime. 

When the North became accessible during the peace breaks, it revealed itself steeped in the notion of self-sacrifice. Tamilselvan, the late head of the political wing of the Tigers stated that it is not killing oneself” or thatkolai”,  but thatkodai”, which means to give yourself” to cause maximum damage to the enemy with just one lost to the Tigers. Thamilini was  the 30-year-old head of the female suicide cadre. Some 30 to 40 percent of  suicide fighters, including the assassin of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 have been young women. Many of them   had been   

trained by Adel Balasingham, an Australian now living herself, after approaching to garland Gandhi living with impunity in the United Kingdom [5].

Pictures of suicide attackers like Captain Miller” were every where in Tiger territory. The Tigers  filmed their suicide attacks and sold CD’s with  songs glorifying the Black Tigers, and videos of attacks on the airport, the central bank and other targets. The Tamil Disapora approved the violence  or remained silent out of fear, and donated money” anyway. These  amounted to millions of dollars annually [6].

Today, even though the LTTE was decapitated in Sri Lanka, it is alive and well in Canada, UK, and other Western countries where such tributes and memorials are held every year on 27^th November. The sale of videos, memorabilia and the collection of donations” help to fatten the coffers of  pro-LTTE organizations even today.

The glorification of Black Tigers as role models for the young is accompanied by a justification ofhttps://policy-research.ca/publications/ violence claiming that there was a Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka who fought for liberating their traditional homeland”.

Pro-Tiger politicians have attempted to create an Education Week” in Ontario to teach a re-packaged false history of the conflict and hide the nature of these diabolical human bombs and present them as Martyrs of human rights.  The real facts of the alleged Tamil genocide”, an allegation already rejected by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2015 (Al Z. Husein, U-Tube,  Rejecting the Genocide claim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7bhAkM8PaM),  may be followed in more detail at the website https://dh-web.org/Canada/Background104.html .     The  present article deals with the history of the Black Tigers, or Suicide killers whose techniques were closely copied by the Al Queda.  

Sivakumaran’s radicalization shows that attempts to appease” fanatically brain-washed individuals is of little use. Thus, in July 1970 the Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs Somaweera Chandrasiri, a Sinhalese politician, claimed that Sinhalese and Tamil cultures were linked, angering Sivakumaran who tried to assassinate Chandrasri in September 1970.

Sivakumaran’s cases show that if any moderate”   Tamil or Sinhalese were to look for peace and middle ground between the two communities, they were targeted for elimination. This followed the doctrine of the irreconcilability” of the Sinhalese and the Tamils announced by the ITAK theoretician V. Navaratnam in 1957. Although SJV presented a façade of peacefulness, he had no hesitation in nurturing  boys” like Sivakumaran[7]  who had attempted to blow up the Minister Somaweera Chandrasiri in 1970, and the Tamil Mayor Durreiappah in 1971[8].                      

Once Prabhakaran became the unquestioned leader of the Tigers, it was not necessary for him to carry out or lead assassinations in person. He created the dreaded Black Tigers made up of men and women whose job was to become human bombs who can get to a target and blow themselves, killing the intended victim as well as all innocent by-standers who become mere expendables. For this purpose, the LTTE fashioned a suicide vest that could be worn unobtrusively, and could be activated by the Tiger at an opportune moment. The Tigers shared  their  suicide technology with Arab terrorists that they had links with at the time.  The concept of sacrifice and belonging to the community and caste rather than to oneself, and the belief in rebirth  made the gift of the supremesacrifice” for the cause  socially acceptable to these young men and women.   

The induction process or brain-washing” was slow, and even depended on dedicated orphanages like the Tiger Orphanage in Sencholai and Arivuchcholai, where a  handler became the parent and confidante who guided the children to become  suicide killers who have accepted the higher destiny” of blowing themselves.  The songs” of the orphanage will send a chill down the spine of  most people but not to many members  of the Toronto Tamil diaspora!

The Sencholai Padalkal” goes  as follows [9]:

The tomb shall wait for me 
Flowers as offerings shall there blossom
A memorial for me who turn into a myriad atoms 
The burning embers shall watch over me.   

The macabre poet” who autoured this then describes a variety of possible deaths  awaiting her – such as shells and bullets.  The  satanic  poem”  runs:                                                                                     

The poison (cyanide) I bore
 since I became a Tigress
 Shall also await me.  
The hawk and the hound
 to taste my flesh Shall
stalk the field where I do battle.
 …All these will I endure for my land
 To me a grateful nation shall arise.

When this training-camp cum orphanage of Tiger Suicide Cadre was bombed in 2006, the Western-funded NGOs in Colombo and the Tiger Diaspora in Canada raised an international campaign against Sri Lanka claiming that it bombs orphanages”. While pro-Tiger spokesmen addressing Western audiences take care to claim that the suicide cadre only targeted soldiers, quite the opposite is true. Civilian political leaders have been blown up with heavy civilian casualties. The suicide attack on the Central bank in 1996 killed close to 100 people, while even funerals have come under attack.

The Tigers built many war memorials and grave yards for the black tigers who blew themselves up, killings dozens of people. Theses grave yards (see figure on the right)          

 are like Christian graveyards, with much propaganda value. This is indeed contrary to Hindu cultural practices where dead bodies are burnt (cremated), and graveyards are shunned except by the very “lowest castes”. However, many of the suicide cadres were Catholics, and the Tamil population had been Christianized to a larger extent than the Sinhalese in the south. Furthermore, the Tigers cleverly exploited the Natu-kal” tradition of South India to justify the practice and bring it to the areas controlled by the tigers [10].

The Maaveer Thuyilim Illam  or “Martyrs” sleeping house was in Kopay’s Northeastern city limits. Around 2000 epitaphs had been placed, but it has been alleged that many of the graves were empty.

 The Sri Lankan army removed the stonework leaving behind only a commemorative plaque, following the practice of the Allied army in WW-II in dealing with Nazi cemeteries[11]. Tiger supporters simply  retaliated by destroying the commemorative plaques.

Today, the right to remember the dead” has been abused and used  as an excuse to hold politicized memorials for the suicide killers. The Northern Provincial Council which gave powers to rule the majoritarian-Tamil Northern Province, led by the controversial Mr. Wigneswaran,  did very little to ameliorate the economic well being of the Tamils. It devoted most of it efforts to Eelamist propaganda, trying to build memorials to the Maaveer and obstructing more moderate Tamil politicians like Mr. Sumanthiran.  The  extreme fringes of Tamil politics in Sri Lanka  have used the 27^th of November, the Maaveer day” as  a day for mounting confrontations with the Sri Lankan police and the army, by trying to hold memorials with glorification of suicide killers and poltical speeches. This would be equivalent representatives  of the extreme Right in Germany trying to commemorate fallen leaders of the SS or other killer squads of the Nazis today.

Politicized sections of the Western diaspora continue to support Prabhakaran’s violent version of Tamil Nationalism vigorously and continue to seek means of reviving the ashes of the LTTE is Sri Lanka itself.  This enables them to support bogus refugee claims by asserting that Tamils are Not safe” in Sri Lanka. They claim that thousands of tamils have disappeared and that 146,679 Tamils were killed in the last days of trhe Eelam war, using falsified statistics that should now be laid to rest in view of the investigations by the British House of Lords led by Lord Naseby where the number dead is estimated to be less than 7000 [12,13].  These matters, and the numbers unaccounted for, have been examined by several commissions including the   Paranagama commission [14]. The General Secretary of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) pointed out how the LTTE eliminated  its very  own cadre and wounded civilians during its retreat to Mulliavaikkal  as the  LTTE regarded its wounded as a liability, adding to the disappeared”.

In 2018, (during the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe govenment), an Eelamist motor bicycle drive-in  by youths (mostly politicized Jaffna University Undergraduates) wearing black outfits, black and white flags etc. brought them to Mullivaikkal (Mul-vakkadé, මුල් වක්කඩෙ) [15]. A rally was held here as a “Remembrance Day” event where the more moderate leading Tamil politicians were excluded, in a manner reminiscent of the exclusion of the TULF by the early LTTE, and by  other early youth movements of the late 1970s. It was declared a day of “Genocide Remembrance” by C.  Wigneswaran, the first Chief Minister of the Northern provincial council who was the only politician allowed in.

Wigneswaran, an upper class Colombo Tamil  and Ex-Judge who worked closely  with the Sri Lankan government before he came to politics, has embraced political extremism, even rejecting inter-marriage between races to safeguard “Tamil” racial purity, even though his own children have rejected such racist views.  He also holds a romanticized view of the history of the Island where the Tamil people are believed to have a long and  glorified role extending to millennia contrary to the accepted historical narrative. The Eelamists hold that the North and East of Sri Lanka are the “Traditional Homelands of the Tamils”, a doctrine enunciated in 1949 by the Tamil political party. However, the mere fact that a majority of older place names in the North and East are based on Sinhala Place Names testifies to the fact that these areas had been under Sinhala Rulers, as also testified by stone inscriptions, and the Pali chronicles.  

Tt is well known that most Tamil expatriates  belong to Ur-Societies”  linked to villages (Ur)  back in Sri Lanka [15]. They visit their villages happily, safely and regularly, belying claims that Sri Lanka is unsafe to Tamils. Over 50% of the Tamils live in the south and are leaders of business, industry, export-import and banking, occupying a more influential place than even the majority community.

Unfortunately, the open and liberal society in Canada is exploited by the pro-LTTE Diaspora groups, and  political organizations like the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) to paint a false picture. They have sought to hold Maaveer celebrations, glorify suicide killers  and teach violence and ethnic hate to a younger generation that these political organizations hope to exploit in the future years to come. Wittingly or unwittingly, Canadian politicians who nurse electorates with sizable Tamil populations have even attended these  suicide-killer memorial events that are held in the guise of mourning of  lost kith and kin!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandre_Dharma-wardana

References:

[1] http://www.island.lk/2009/08/23/news15.html Chelva’s grand-daughter on the end of the Eealm war; Poongkothai Chandrahasan

[2] http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/32136  The Assassination of Amirthalingam and other elected TULF leaders by the Tigers.

[3] https://dh-web.org/hrsits/cansl0.html The separatist conflict in Sri Lanka and the souring of Canada against Sri Lanka.

[4] https://dh-web.org/hrsits/cansl0.html#notes3 The 1976 Vaddukkoddai resolution calls for a separate Tamil `Eelam’, even by force

[5] https://dh-web.org/cansl1-HRW.html#AdelB  Adel Balasingham and the LTTE

[6] Ms. Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch  (see, The Globe and Mail, March 16, 2005 report by Timothy Appleby) stated that “In Canada, families were typically pressed for between $2,500 and $5,000,” Ms. Becker wrote, “while some businesses were asked for up to $100,000”. These assertions have also been supported by the RCMP and other Canadian law enforcement organizations, and finally led to the banning of the WTM in 2008. The Sri Lankan government alleges that the victims of LTTE-bombings and suicide attacks at the Colombo Central Bank, at the Bandaranaike Airport, and places of worship, schools, railways, public buses etc., were funded from Canada.

[7] http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2008/08/future-of-tamils-of-sri-lanka.html Sebastien Rasalingam, The Future of Tamils in Sri Lanka,  Sri lanka Guardian,26-08-2008

[8] Wikipedia entry under Sivakumaran.

[9] See under Sencholai [Hengolla]  in https://dh-wev.org/place.names/index.html

[10] https://thuppahis.com/2018/12/02/tamil-tigers-dead-body-politics-and-sacrificial-devotion/ Michale Roberts, Tamil Tiger dead-body politics and sacrificial devotion. 2018

[11] https://dh-web.org/place.names/index.html  See entry under Kopay [Bopé]

[12] https://srilankancanadian.ca/index.php/ontariobill104/  Sri Lanka Action Coalition on Bill 104;

[13] https://m.facebook.com/SriAction/photos/a.344289429561138/638723900117688/?type=3 Factcheck on Bill 104

[14] https://parliament.lk/uploads/documents/paperspresented/report-of-paranagama.pdf  Report on the Paranagama Commission; complaints of Abductions and Disappearances, 2014

[15] https://www.asiantribune.com/node/91870 The commemoration ceremony on 17-May-2018 in remembrance of Tamil civilians who died in Vella-mulliwaikkal during the last days of the ethnic conflict- Asian Tribune,  Rajasinghan, 19-May-2018

[16] Thanges  Paramsothy, Caste within the Sri Lankan Diaspora, Anthropology Matters Journal, 18, No.1 (2018)

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA.

President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s Anniversary speech and the brilliant 2021 futuristic Budget presented by the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa have raised the trust of the people who suffered immensely under the destructive yamapalana government for the last 4 ½ years. The Anniversary speech clearly outlined the performances achieved during President’s first year under various obstacles made by the Sirisena/Ranil government and restrictions that had been placed upon him by the obnoxious 19^th Amendment.  The President also outlined details of the work to be carried out and steps to be taken in the next four years of his term.  Hat these measures will definitely be carried out regardless of opposition from any quarters.  

In this atmosphere the foreign servile discarded and despicable Dayan Jayatilleke(the 3 D Jayatilleke) in his utter frustration of success being made by thus government has made silly and stupid attempts to admonish the President on what and what he should do and what and what he should not do and what coarse correction he should undertake. This stupid writer says that the President must seek the Middle Path, occupy the moderate political centre, not the extreme, and return to the mainstream democratic political culture and tradition of his family, the Rajapaksas

Thinking that he is the Messiah reborn he states that the President has made strategic blunders and his term of office will end up in a one-term wonder, like the Trump Presidency (2016-2020), Yahapalana (2015-2019), and the Samagi Peramuna (1970-1977). 

Showing his dislike with one of Sri Lanka’s much-admired political columnists Chandraprema, he says that back in  June, GR insider, author of the Gota’s War (2012) and Sri Lanka’s new ambassador/PR to the UN-Geneva, commented that Trump will win and argued assuredly that polarisation around the ‘law and order’ vs. ‘anarchy’ issue guaranteed a white majoritarian tsunami for Trump and this 3D stupid adds that in a fascinating coincidence, this was the core of the successful GR game-plan of 2019.

Referring to Sirisena presidency he states that when that Sirisena Government was heading rapidly in the wrong direction, which will prove unsustainable, result in unfavourable polarisation, and crash and burn unless there’s a drastic course-correction back to the moderate centre, Sirisena heeding to the advice given by him and some other prominent people instituted a coarse correction.  Ignoramus Sirisena may have needed such advice but it does not apply in the case of much talented and highly erudite President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

This 3D fool says that the Gotabaya Presidency, as per his diagnosis won’t end well, but it will end sooner rather than later. 

He blames the President for adopting a zero merit policy and asserts that the Gotabaya administration hasn’t yet had a bond scam type scandal on its watch, but the factor underlying that scandal is something that the GR Presidency has been greatly susceptible to not appointing officials on the basis of the highest merit of excellences similar to Ranil Wickremesinghe’s choices. In President Gotabaya’s first year, the abandonment of meritocracy has become a rule rather than an exception. Despite internationally admired steps that have been taken to arrest Covid-19, this fool asks whether anyone believes, or can anyone believe, that the finest available Sri Lankan talent, the best available brains, the human resources of the highest quality and achievement in the fields relevant to the COVID-19 virus, have been mobilised and are actually driving the national/State effort to rescue us from the pandemic? 

The President’s appointments to/within the military have been fine, but the appointment of the serving and retired military to posts in which they have registered no expertise or experience, still less excellence, will prove at least as systemically damaging, he says.  He may have said the same thing when Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence took steps to place suitable security personnel to fight the terrorist aggression.

He points out that the retreat from the principle of merit in post-Independence Sri Lanka began with the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Government’s twin measures (in the early 1970s) of the abolition of the independent public service and the introduction of district-wise and media-wise standardisation at university entrance. 

The government of Madam Bandaranaike was forced to introduce the standardization system for University Entrance to rectify and overcome a long felt anomaly for Sinhala and Muslim students under which majority of students selected for the Medical and Engineering faculties had been Tamil students.  Investigation carried out in this respect revealed that prior to the University Entrance examinations Tamil Professors held clandestine classes for Tamil students and passed out the question papers and also they were told to write the word OM” in their answer scripts to facilitate their identification.  Only after the standardization system and the Z score system the anomaly was rectified and students from remote areas like Monreagala and Anuradhapra districts got a fair treatment for entering Universities and the artificial merit system of Tamil students getting concocted higher marks were stopped.

Today, he says that it is presupposed that ex-military appointments across the state system, and the annexation of civilian functions under the Defence Ministry headed by a retired General, accord with the criterion of merit, because the military/ex-military has the collective institutional ‘karmic merit’ for having performed the ultimate meritorious deed of saving the country from terrorism. 

This 3D fool further states that on many occasions since January, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has gone on public record, including two international audiences – the SAARC leaders virtual summit and the UN 75th anniversary world leaders summit – respectively downplaying the danger and claiming success in containing Corona (in self-congratulatory detail). If the anti-coronavirus campaign had been fought by an elite Task Force of the finest trained and credentialed professionals in the field, the President would not have made such statements because he would have been far better briefed and advised. Instead he has set up an echo chamber. Sadly, he is imitating the practices not of the victorious last war – the nation’s and his elder brother Mahinda’s finest hour, and his own finest contribution.

He predicts that the next major crisis we shall face is the economic crisis. This time too, it won’t matter to the suffering citizenry that there was a global pandemic, any more than it mattered to the voters who threw the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Government overboard in 1977 despite the OPEC oil shock of 1973 affected a great many countries.

As in the case of combatting Covid-19, this is not what the Gotabaya administration has done. Pushing Dr. Dushni Weerakoon, Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), out of the Monetary Board is hardly a sign which inspires confidence. Having obtained her PhD at age 27, she has risen to be perhaps our top professional economist, with a reputation for non-partisan, independent policy diagnosis and lucid prescription. 

He asserts that the Sirisena/Ranil government was doomed to a one-term existence by its adherence to an ideological model rather than to Realism. That Government felt it more important to drive through a set of reforms which stemmed from its obsolescent ideological model of the neoliberal glory days of the 1980s and 1990s. 

Referring to the previous government which he admired in all its aspects, the 3D bluffer now says that the UNP Leader, Ministers and civil society ideologues were blissfully unaware that in the 21st century a social backlash had overthrown the model in favour of statist-nationalism in Russia and populist religio-nationalism in Eastern Europe. Even when the rebellion reached the West with Brexit, followed by the Trump victory of 2016, the UNP didn’t change course. These global trends apart, the reality of Sri Lankan society – made transparently clear at the Feb 2018 Local Authorities Election – made the Ranilist UNP model utterly untenable.

The UNP, he adds, sought to turn us into a neoliberal neo-colony of the West. The GR model was designed to turn us into a military-occupied territory ‘liberated’ from liberal-democracy and inhabited by a regimented, controlled, drone-monitored citizenry. The Yahapalana and Gotabaya administrations share the assumption that their electoral victories were some kind of ‘revolution’ and a mandate for a total transformation in accordance with their respective ideologies. 

The first anniversary of the Gotabaya Presidency coincides with the victory of Joe Biden. He admonishes that President GR must learn the correct lessons of the defeat of President Trump, whose proudest boast of not being a ‘politician’ but a success in other fields, was the source of his biggest blunders, since as a political amateur he had no respect for the values, norms and ethos of democratic politics and governance.

GR and his fellow (Sinhala) long-time supporters of the California Republican Right must absorb the lessons of the two-thirds vote that the Democratic ticket obtained in California (possibly due to Kamala Harris). With or without Democrat control of the Senate, President Rajapaksa can surely figure out the implications of a Democratic administration. Space could open for generalised, permanent ‘lawfare’ under ‘universal jurisdiction’, which could go global. 

For the moment the biggest political advantage that President Gotabaya enjoys is the fog of intellectual and psychological confusion in the democratic resistance space. In a threatening note to President GR this American worshipping 3D fool says that in the USA, the democratic intelligentsia (most indelibly Noam Chomsky), the media and the politicians (most notably Barack Obama) sounded the clarion call that the main existential danger was a second term for President Trump – Chomsky called it a threat to humanity – and that the indubitably overriding objective must be to prevent it. In the midst of the primaries, the Democratic field suddenly cleared for the candidate who had the best chance of winning back the blue-collar white voters and breaking through to the American heartland. The left, progressives, women, and the Black community rallied around him, submerged differences to attain the objective of stopping a second Trump term, perceived as the portal to Fascism of some variety and form. 

He laments that by contrast, the Lankan democratic intelligentsia remains ‘The Gang That Couldn’t Think Straight’. Recently, an emeritus political science academic urged the democratic Opposition to model itself on that led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike – who it must be noted, never proceeded to lead her country after she lost the General Election in 1977 and was beaten to the presidency by populist Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1988. 

This pro-Indian betrayer states that he associated Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa for more than 20 years and hence he knows more than Viyath Maga-Eliya hawks may assume and adds that being only a student of politics, he remained a passive participant at the meetings his father had with Lakshman and George Rajapaksa, gathering valuable points”

When an extremist ideological network-cum-pressure group (self-professedly pro-China) – the Janavegaya – arose within the ruling family and Coalition Government and spread through the State apparatus, George and Mahinda Rajapaksa stood against it. The Rajapaksa political culture was light years away from a ‘Military First’ or ‘Make the Army Great Again’ (the local MAGA) perspective in peacetime. It was civilian, parliamentary, democratic, centre-left progressive, moderate nationalist, undogmatic, pragmatic, flexible, open, reasonable and consensual.

In a ridiculous attempt to create a rift between the President and the Prime Minister similar to the failed attempt he made to creep into Viyath Maga and create dissensions in that organisation this 3D foreign stooge says that Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s decade was not reshaping the country according to some ideology or model and he was determined to achieve a decisive end, operating within the democratic Constitution, to the existential danger that confronted the nation: Prabhakaran and his LTTE. By doing so MR achieved the most historic transformation of all. Like his elders, he was very comfortable with the country’s democratic character and civic way of being, in which he swam like a big fish in the sea. 

Stanley Gunaratne 

1. Abolition of Indo Lanka Accord. Adoption of a Foreign Policy of Balance to counter regional players. Adoption of a “Total Defence” policy based on Psychological, Social, Economic, Civil, Digital and Military Defence.

The following two sections should be included in a future constitution and national policy:

A lesson in history:

2. It was a catastrophic, incompetent, foolish and UNMITIGATED DISASTER to have abrogated the Anglo Ceylon Defence Agreement (of 1947) in 1957. This led to a loss of a guaranteed ally and assistance in the event of foreign attack. Had we kept it in force, then India would have been kept at bay. It was a mutually beneficial agreement and provided an indirect export to Ceylon also. During that period we had an independent foreign policy as proven by the simultaneous existence of this Defence Agreement with Britain and the Rubber Rice Pact with China.

It is absolute FOOLISHNESS and revisionist history of leftists to claim that this was somehow a flaw, or “not independence” or a bad situation to be in. Ceylon was FULLY independent and its status akin to what Singapore enjoys today in terms of defence. It is furthermore, INSANE for many of these same “critics” to remain silent on the Indo Lanka Accord which BLATANTLY strips us of our independence and ability to engage with whomever we damn well please. This so called “non alignment” and “neutrality” that we have suffered (not enjoyed) has sadly been nothing more than Indian subservience and the restrictions of a vassal state status, to third rate India to add insult to injury!

Under the original Defence Agreement we enjoyed from 1947:

1. It was not constitutionally objectionable (unlike the Indo Lanka Accord)

2. It was for an indefinite period and allowed for any modification by agreement

3. A commitment by the United Kingdom to provide defence against external aggression and for the protection of essential communications

4. Military assistance included naval and air assistance.

5. Bases for forces required for the purpose of defending Ceylon would be provided as may be MUTUALLY AGREED and only if required for said defence.

6. The Government of Ceylon would receive military assistance in the training and development and equipping the Ceylonese Armed Forces.

7. Unlike other nations at the time like Australia, Ceylon would not have to pay Britain for the upkeep, maintenance and equipment for any forces provided (that were mutually agreed) to defend us. This provided us with an indirect export.

8. Ceylon would have no obligation to pursue the foreign policy of its partner, nor was it a commitment to any alliance. Indeed, Ceylon was protected from the more noisy antics of the Americans and Soviets as well as the hegemonic ambitions of its third rate neighbour India.

It is sad that when one views historical footage of our Independence Day celebrations of the past in the 1940s-60s, that we had more planes/jets then than we do now! How is this acceptable?

The removal of this Defence, the failure to make up for this by arming the country to the teeth, the complete incompetence at developing the country left us open to India to force itself on us leaving us in this dismal state today.

This must be reversed and a competent Defence and Foreign policy pursued!

චන්ද්‍රසිරි විජයවික්‍රම, LL.B., Ph.D.

මෙහි ප්‍රථම කොටසින් ව්‍යවස්ථා කෙටුම්පත් සම්පාදක විද්‌වත් කමිටුවට පෙන්‌වා දීමට උත්සාහ කලේ පහත සඳහන් කරුණුය:

(1) රටේ පහලම සිවිල් පරිපාලන ඒකකය වන ග්‍රාම සේවා නිලධාරී කොට්ඨාශ, ස්වාභාවික (නැචුරල්) මායිම් සහිත වනසේ, ජලය ප්‍රධාන නිර්‌ණායකය ලෙස සළකා (දැනට නිව්සීලන්තයේ කරනවා මෙන්) නැවත ප්‍රතිසංවිධානය කිරීම;
(2) මෙය රටේ අනාදිමත් කාලයක සිට පැවති, ගම-වැව-දාගැබ යන (ත්‍රිත්‌වය) සමාජ-ආර්‌ථික-දේශපාලන මොඩලයට අනුකූලය;
(3) මේ මඟින් රටවල් කැබලිකරණ, නව යටත් විජිතවාදයේ ආයුධයක් වන, <නන්මැජෝරිටේරියන්> විසඳුම් (13 සංශොධනය වැනි) නමැති මර උඟුල් වලින් ගැලවීමට අවස්ථාවක් ලැබේ;
(4) මෙවැනි මහජාතියෙන් සුළුජාතිය බේරාගන්නටය කියන විසඳුම් ගේන්නේ, මහජාතියේ පක්‍ෂ දේශපාලක කළුසුද්දන්ට, ඔවුන් සුළු ජන වර්‌ග වල මානව හිමිකම් කඩකරණවා, අශීලාචාර ලෙස හැසිරෙණවා යන, අළුත් හීනමානයක් රිංගවිම හරහාය;
(5) මේ මානව හිමිකම් කතාව, සියළු සත්‌වයන් (සතා සිව්පාවා, ගස් ගල් පවා) සුවපත්වේවායයි කුඩාකාලයේ සිට දරුවන්ට උගන්වන, බෞද්‌ධ සමාජයකට, යුරෝපීය නව අධිරාජ්‍යවාදීන් කරණ අවමානයකි.

(ඉ) දෙවන යෝජනාව – දේශ(ය)පාලනය

*11. දෙවන යෝජනාව නම්, අළුතින් සීමා මායිම් කල ග්‍රාම සේවා වසම්, ජනතාව බලවත් කිරීම (එම්පවර්‌මන්ට් ඔෆ් පීපල් ඇට් ග්‍රාස් රූට් ලෙවල්) සඳහා ජන සභා වශයෙන් උපයෝගී කරගැනීම ව්‍යවස්ථාගත කිරීමය. මේ අනුව වසමක්, (හෝ ඒවා එකක් ප්‍රමාණයෙන් කුඩා නම් දෙකක්), ජන සභා (ජන මූල සභා) ඒකකයක් ලෙස හඳුනා ගැනීමය. මෙම ජන සභා පක්‍ෂ දේශපාලනයෙන් තොර (ඉතා සාර්‌ථකවූ එහෙත් මෑතකදී හදිසියේ නතර‌වූ ගැමි දිරිය වැඩසටහන හෝ සුද්දන් හා කළුසුද්දන් විසින් කඩාකප්පල්කල, 1930ස් 40 ස් ගණන් වල කළු කොඳයාවේ ප්‍රඥාශෙඛර නාහිමියන් විසින් සාර්‌ථක ලෙස ගෙනගිය ග්‍රාම ප්‍රතිසංස්කරණ හා අපරාද මර්‌දන දීපව්‍යාප්ත ව්‍යාපාරය මෙන්), ඉන්දියාවේ (73 සංශොධනය, 1992), පංචයාත් රාජ්‍ය ආයතන වලදී මෙන් ව්‍යවස්ථාවෙන් බලය දෙනලද, මැස්ලෝගේ මිනිස් අවශ්‍යතා හා උවමනා ලැයිස්තුවට අනුව දිය හැකි උපරිම බලතල සහිත ආයතන විය යුතුය.

*12. මෙම ජනසභා භූමි ඒකක, 1977 ට පෙර රටේ පැවති පාර්ලිමේන්තු ආසන සීමා නිර්‌ණය කිරීමේදී හා චන්ද දමන මධ්‍යස්ථාන ප්‍රදේශ (පොලින් ස්ටේෂන් ඒරියා) මායිම් කිරීමේදී, භාවිතා කල හැකිය. ඉදිරියේදී රටේ තිබිය යුතු මධ්‍යම රජය, පාර්ලිමේන්තුව, ජන සභා ජාතික උපදේශක සභාව හා බිම් මට්ටමේ ජන සභා පමණය. මේ අනුව පලාත් සභා හා ප්‍රාදේශීය සභා අනවශ්‍ය මුදල් නාස්තියකි. එහෙත් යම් හෙයකින් විකෘති ප්‍රාදේශීය සභා ක්‍රමය අතහැර දැමීමට පක්‍ෂ දේශපාලකයින්ට ශක්තියක් නැත්නම් තාවකාලිකව හෝ තවදුරටත් ඒවා පවත්‌වාගෙන යාමේදී ඒවායේ බල ප්‍රදේශය හා කොට්‌ඨාශවල මායිම්, ජන සභා ඒකක එකතුකර සදාගත යුතුය. දැනට වැළලී ඇති පලාත් සභා නමැති සුදු අලියා ගොඩට ගෙන පණ දෙන්නට, කමිටුවේ සාමාජිකයින් කෙසේ වෙතත් රටේ මහජනයා එකඟ නැති බව නම් පැහැදිලිය. ඒ වෙනුවෙන් කෑ ගහන්නේ කවුද කියා සිතා බලන්න. ඒ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදයක් බේරා ගැනීම උදෙසාද? (අභයවර්‌ධන පලාත් පාලන ප්‍රතිසංස්කරණ කොමිෂන් වාර්‌තාව, 1999).

(ඊ) දෙවන යෝජනාවේ පසුබිම

*13. ඉහත (ඇ) යටතේදී මෙන්, ජන සභා (ජන මූල සභා) සංකල්පයේ වටිනාකම (වාසි) පෙන්‌වා දිය යුතු වන්නේ, මා වැනි භූගෝල විද්‍යාව හැදෑරූ අය යම් සංසිද්‌ධියක් දෙස <සමස්තයක් ලෙස> බලන නිසාය (හොලිස්ටික්/සිස්ටමැටික් ඇප්‍රෝච්; ගසුත්, කැලයත් යන දෙකම දැකීම). ලෝකයේ ප්‍රශ්ණ වලට විසඳුම් බුදුදහම අනුසාරයෙන් ලබාගත හැකි යයි, ඉන්දියා ජනාධිපතිලා (අබ්දුල් කලාම්, ප්‍රතිභා පටිල්), අගමැති මෝඩිලා කියන්නේත්, ලෝකයාට බෞද්‌ධ රාජ්‍ය පාලන ප්‍රතිපත්ති බෙදා හැරීම උදෙසා, ජනාධිපති සිරිසේන, ප්‍රංශයේ වැඩහිටිනා හාමුදුරුනමකට පොතක් ලිවීමට දිරි ගැන්‌වූයේත් කුමක් නිසාද යන්න ඔබලාගේ කමිටුව විසින් මෙවර නම් ඕනෑකමින් සළකා බැලිය යුතුමය.

බුදු දහම, නීති විද්‍යාව, හා භූගෝල විද්‍යාව යන දැණුම් සම්භාර තුන අතර පවතින අන්නෝන්‍ය සම්බන්‌ධතාවය (එකිනෙක හා බැඳීම) වටහා ගැනීම ඉහත සඳහන් කල අයගේ වචන ක්‍රියාවට නැඟීමේදී වැදගත් වන්නේය. ඉතා සරලව කියතොත්, බුදු දහමේ පදනම මධ්‍යම ප්‍රතිපදාවය. නීති විද්‍යාවේ ප්‍රාණ නාලිය වන්නේ රීසනබල් ඩොක්ට්‍රින් එකය. මේ දෙකම, පොලෝ තලය මත මිනිස් ක්‍රියාවලීන් ලෙස සිදු වන්නේ/හටගන්නේ, යම් භූමි ප්‍රදේශයක/රටක/සමාජයක භූගෝල විද්‍යා සාධකවල බලපෑමට යටත්‌වය. භෞතික පරිසරය හා මිනිසා අතර ඇතිවන සහජීවනය, ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදයේ කියන <කොම්ප්‍රොමයිස්> එකය. මෙය රීජනල් ජෝග්‍රෆි යයි හැඳින්‌වේ. ලොවටම පොදු භූගෝල විද්‍යා සාධක (සිස්ටමැටික් ජෝග්‍රෆි), ප්‍රදේශ වශයෙන් සුවිශේෂ ලක්‍ෂණ විදහා පාන්නේය. ඉතිහාසය කියන්නේ අතීත භූගෝල විද්‍යාවට බව මෙහිදී අමතක නොකල යුතුය. ලන්දේසි කාලයේ කුරුඳු ගහක් කපා දැමීමට මරණ දඬුවම දුන්නේත්, සිංගප්පූරුවේ ගුවන් තොටුපලේදී මත්ද්‍රව්‍ය සමඟ අසුවන අයට මරණ දඬුවම දෙන්නේත්, කොරියාවේ බලු මස් කෑම, ලංකාවේ මෙන් සත්‌ව හිංසාවක් නොවන්නේත් කුමක් නිසාද යන්න තේරුම් ගැනීමට, ඉතිහාස-භූගෝලවිද්‍යා, ප්‍රොසෙසස්-පැටර්න්ස් ප්‍රවේශය උපකාරවේ.

භූගෝල විද්‍යාවේ රීජනල් සංකල්පය හා ජන සභා

කොළඹ වෙනුවට මන්නාරමේ කොරෝනා මිණී වළලන්නට දෙන්නයි ඉල්ලන්නේ රීජන් භූගෝලවිද්‍යාවට අනුවය. මාලදිවයිනේ වළලනවා කියන්නේද ඒ අනුවය. මාලදිවයින් වතුර බොණ ලිං නැත. නෙදර්ලන්තයේද වතුර ලිං නැත. කැනඩාව, ඕස්ට්‍රේලියාව, ඉන්දියාව, ඇමෙරිකාව විශාල භූමි ප්‍රමාණ සහිත මහාද්‌වීපය. ලංකාව නමැති කුඩා දූපතේ භූගෝල විද්‍යාව මේ අනිත් රටවලට වඩා වෙනස්‌ය. ලෝක රීජනල් භූගෝල විද්‍යාව ගත් විට, ලංකාව එහි එක රීජන් එකක් වුවත්, ලංකාවේ භූගෝල විද්‍යාවේදී මන්නාරම් ප්‍රදේශය වෙනම රීජන් එකක් ලෙසත්, මඩකලපු ප්‍රදේශය තවත් රීජන් එකක් ලෙසත් සැළකීමට හැකිය. මීට හේතුව සාම්මාන්‍ය්ස් භූගෝල විද්‍යාවේ සාමාන්‍ය සාධක, මෙවැනි කුඩා ප්‍රදේශවලදී වෙනස් ආකාරයට බද්‌ධව වෙනස් පැටර්න්ස් (මතුපිට රටා) ඇතිකිරීමය. ජන සභා යනු මෙවැනි භූගෝලවිද්‍යාවේ රීජනල් ඒකක ලෙස සැලකිය හැකිය

ඉතිහාසය කියන්නේ කුමක්ද කියා හැම දෙනාම දැන සිටියත්, භූගෝල විද්‍යාව කියන්නේ කුමක්ද යන්න (වට් ඊස් ජෝග්‍රෆි) බොහෝ දෙනා හරිහැටි නොදන්නා කරුණකි. පසුගිය දිනක ට්‍ර‌ැත් විත් චමුදිත යන යූටිටුබ් වැඩසටහනේදී, චමුදිත මේ ප්‍රශ්ණය විශ්‍රාමලත් භූගෝල විද්‍යා මහාචාර්ය ජිනදාස කටුපොත මහතා ගෙන් විමසා සිටියේ, භූගෝල විද්‍යාඥයෙක් වශයෙන් කොරෝනා දේහ වැළලිය යුතු නැතැයි ඔහු කල ප්‍රකාශය නිසාය. දැනට තිබෙන හා නොතිබෙන, කරන හා නොකරන (ඇක්‍ෂන්ස් ඇන්ඩ් ඔමිෂන්ස්) සියළුම දේ විමසා බලන විට, ඒ සඳහා අනවශ්‍ය අවදානමක් ගත යුතු නැති බව ඔහු පෙන්‌වා දුන්නේය. අනිත් විශේෂඥයින් මෙවැනි අදහසක් තර්‌කාණුකූලව ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට සමස්ථ දැණුමක් ඇති, <ජැක් ඔෆ් ඕල් ට්‍රේඩ්ස්> ලා නොවේ! ඔවුන් ලූලා නැති වලට කනයා පණ්ඩිතයා වනවා මෙන්, <මාස්ටර් ඔෆ් නන්> ලා ද නොවේ.

*14. උදාහරණයක් වශයෙන්, ලංකාවේ වෙනම දමිළ රටක් යන ව්‍යාපාරය ආරම්භ‌වූයේ 1949, 1956, 1976 හෝ 1983 දී සිට නොව, 1921/24 දී අරුණාචලම් පොන්නම්බලම් මහතාගෙන් බවත්, ඔහුත් රාමනාදන් මහතාත්, 1917 දී මැඩ්‍රාස් ප්‍රාන්තයේ ඇරඹුණ ද්‍රවිඩස්ථාන් ව්‍යාපරයට සම්බන්‌ධව සිටි බවත් දැන ගැනීම, නීති විද්‍යාවෙන් හෝ යම් උසාවියකින් හෝ නොව ඓතිහාසික භූගෝල විද්‍යාව (හිස්ටොරිකල් ජෝග්‍රෆි) මඟින් ලැබෙන දැණුමකි. මෙම විෂය තුනේ මිත්‍රත්‌වය පිළිඹඳ දීර්‌ග විග්‍රහයක් සඳහා මේ සමඟ අමුණා ඇති ලිපිය බලන්න (LLRC recommendations and path of devolution, Sri Lanaka Guardian, Feb. 2, 2012).. ජන සභා සංකල්පය සිංහල බෞද්‌ධ ශිෂ්ටාචාරය හා කෙතරම් තදින් බද්‌ධවී තිබෙනවාද යන්න අවභොධ වන්නේ නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යය හා නූතන ප්‍රජාතන්‌ත්‍රවාදී සංකල්ප, ඉන්දීය බෞද්‌ධ සමාජ කාලයේ සිට මුල්බැසගෙන තිබුණු බව දැනගත් විටය (The Legacy of India, 1937, Foreword by Lord Zetland, 1937). කොසොල් රජතුමා දුටු සිහින දෑසයට (මහා සුපින ජාතකය) බුදුරදුන් දුන් විවරණය, ලෝක ඉතිහාසයේ සුවිශේෂ හා සමහර විට එකම දේශපාලන විද්‍යා අනාවැකියය. අද ලංකා සමාජය වැටී ඉන්නා දුක්‌ඛිත තත්‌වය කොසොල් රජතුමාගේ සීන සැබෑවීමකි. කොරෝනා වසංගතය, මිනිසා පරිසරයේ අංගයක්, භාරකාරයෙක් මිස එහි අධිපතියා නොවේය යන මතය තහවුරු කරන්නේය. ලොව සෑම දෙයක්ම තාවකාලිකය, චක්‍රාකාරීය, සියළු සත්‌වයෝ (මිනිසා පමණක් නොව) නිදුක්, නිරෝගි, සුවපත් වෙත්‌වා යන්න සිංහල බෞද්‌ධ සමාජය විසින් ගම් සභා මට්ටමින්, ගොයම් කුඹුරේ සිටම (කුරුළු පංගුව) ක්‍රියාවට නැංවූයේය. කළුකොඳයාවේ හාමුදුරුවන් ගේ ව්‍යාපාරය සාර්‌ථකවූයේ ඒ නිසාය.

මේ නිසා රටට අවශ්‍යවන්නේ ජන සභා සංකල්පය මගින් මෙම මානසික විභවය ප්‍රතිශක්තීකරණය කර නැවත ඉස්මතු කර ගැනීමය. පීපල් පාටිසිපේෂන්, ස්මෝල් ඊස් බියුටිෆුල් (ෂුමාකර්, 1973), හියුමන් ස්කේල් (සේල්, 1980), පීපල්/සිටිෂන් පාටිසිපේෂන්, කොමියුනිටි නොලේජ් යන ප්‍රවාහ, හොරෝවිට්ස්ලාගේ හා ජෝසප් නයිලාගේ (සොෆ්ට් පවර්), රටවල් කැබලිකරණ නන්මැජෝරිටේරියන් ප්‍රවාහ පරදවා ඉදිරියට යායුතු බව කොරෝනාව ඉගැන්‌වූ අළුත්ම පාඩමය.

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(උ) තුන්වන යෝජනාව

*15. ජන සභාව-යුද හමුදාව-පන්සල (පල්ලිය/කෝවිල) යන ත්‍රි‌ත්‌වය රටේ ජනතා සම්මුතිවාදී, පක්‍ෂ දේශපාලන පිළිකාවෙන් ගැලවුණ, සිවිල් පරිපාලන ඒකකය ලෙස ව්‍යවස්ථාගත කිරීමේ අවශ්‍යතාවයද කොරෝනාව ලංකාවට ඉගැන්‌වූ පාඩමකි. නාගානන්ද කොඩිතුවක්කු මහතාගේ අළුත් ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා ප්ලෑනට/අභියෝගයට, ප්‍රතික්‍රියාව වන්නේද මෙම අළුත් ත්‍රිත්‌වයය. අවුරුදු තිහකටත් වඩා සිට රටේ පවතින මත්ස්‍ය න්‍යාය (ලොකු මාළුවා පොඩි මාළුවා ගිලගැනීම), ප්‍රභාකරන්ගේ බෝම්බ නිසා යටි හිතේ කිඳාබැසගත් මරණ භය, ලැජ්ජා බය නැති සමාජය හා රට කාර්යක්‍ෂම ලෙස ගොඩ නැඟීම සඳහා ජන සභාව නම් සම්මුතිවාදී දේශපාලන ආයතනය, පන්සල හා යුද හමුදාව මඟින් ශක්තිමත් කල යුතුය. ලංකාවේ හාමුදුරුවරුන්ට ජාතියේ මුරදේවතාවුන් යයි කියන්නේ මෙවැනි මැදිහත්‌වීම් රටේ ඉතිහාසයේ වැදගත් සාධකයක්‌වූ නිසාය. පන්සලෙන් ලැජ්ජාවත්, යුද හමුදාවෙන් භයත් යන දෙකම සමාජයට අවශ්‍යය. ජනාධිපති ප්‍රේමදාසගේ <ගම් උදාවේ> සිට, මේ තාක් නොයෙක් නම් වලින් ගම ගොඩ ගන්නට යයි පක්‍ෂ දේශපාලකයින් කලදේ වල ප්‍රතිඵල දෙස බලන විට, ඉන්දියාවේ පංචයාත් රාජ්‍ය ආයතන මෙන් නොව, ලංකාවේ ජන සභා සාර්‌ථක වීමට නම්, ඒවාට පන්සලේ මැදිහත්‌වීම හා යුද හමුදාවේ ශක්තිය හා බලය අවශ්‍යය. මීට හොඳම උදාහරණය නම්, කර්‌නල් රත්නප්‍රිය බන්‌ධු, වව්නියාවේ දෙමළ ජනයාට කල සේවයය.

බුදු දහම-නීති විද්‍යාව-භූගෝල විද්‍යාව අතර ඇති අන්තර් සම්බන්‌ධතාවය, ගම- වැව-දාගැබ යන ත්‍රිත්‌වය සමඟ බිම් මට්ටමේදී, ප්‍රායෝගික තලයේදී එක්වන අන්දම, මෙහි අමුණා ඇති සර්වෝදය රූප සටහනින් (බල පිරමිඩය හා ධර්‌ම චක්‍රය, ඒ. ටී. ආරියරත්න, 1988, 134 පිටුව) පිළිඹිඹු වේ.

ජන සභාවලට පවරණ (විමධ්‍යගත කරණ, ඩිසෙන්ට්‍රලයිස්ඩ්) බලතල මොනවාද, මධ්‍යම රජය විසින් ඉටුකරණා කටයුතු මොනවාද යන්න, සුමන්තිරන් හා දැනට රටින් පලාගොස් සිටින ජයම්පති වික්‍රමරත්න විසින් කියන ආකාරයේ <යළි මධ්‍යම රජයට ආපසු ගන්න බැරි> අන්දමේ බලය පැවරීමක් (ඩිවොලූෂන්), වශයෙන් රට බෙදීමේ අර්බුදයක් කරගැනීමට අවශ්‍ය නොනවන බව මෙම සටහනින් පන්‌වා දෙන්නේය. කුඩා රවුම් තුනෙන් යුත් කුඩා ත්‍රිකෝණයේ සිට, රට-දැය-සමය- යන විශාල ත්‍රිකෝණය දක්වා විහිදෙන, ජන සම්මුති පාලන ක්‍රමයකදී, දෙන්නේ මොනවාද, ආපසු ගන්නවාද යනාදිය විවාදයට කරුණු නොවේ. එක් ජන සභාවක් කරණ දේ, තවත් ජන සභාවක් කරණ දේම විය යුතු නොවේ.

(ඌ) ස්පේෂියල් ඉනික්‌විටි

‭There is no racial inequity in Sri Lanka, but there are spatial (georaphical) inequities, and lack of equal access to oppurtunites affecting all its citizens.”

*16. ලංකාවේ තිබෙන්නේ එක්තරා ජන වර්‌ගයකට සිතා මතාම ඇතිකර ඇති විෂමතාවයක් (ඩිස්ක්‍රිමිනේෂන්, සිංහලයිසේෂන් ප්‍රොජෙක්ට්?) නොව, භූමීය වශයෙන් පවතින අසමානත්‌වයකි (ස්පේෂියල් ඉනික්‌විටි). යාපනේ හුණුගල්, දකුණේ තෙත් කලාපය, මන්නාරම-හම්බන්තොට ශුෂ්ක කලාප, ධීවර කලාපය, ගංවතුර, නියං, අලි-මිනිස් ගැටුම් ප්‍රදේශ, ලඟින්ම පාවෙන අශූචි බල බලා කැළණි ගඟේ ජලය නාන ස්ථාන, යන මේ සංසිද්‌ධීන්ට භාෂාවක් හෝ ආගමක් නැත. කොළඹට කිරි, අපිට කැකිරි කියන්නේ මේ විෂමතාවය අවම කිරීමට ලංකාවේ පක්‍ෂ දේශපාලකයින් අසමත්‌වීමටය. යූත් (තරුණ) කොමිෂමෙන් 1999 දී යෝජනා ගෙනාවේද ඒ සඳහාය. අපිට පොලිස් බලතල එපා, වෙනම රටක් එපා, කොළඹට දෙන දේම අපිටත් දෙන්න කියා කරුණා අම්මාන් මෙන්ම, අරුන් තම්බිමුත්තුද කියන්නේ ඒ නිසාය. ආවා කල්ලියේ යයි හංවඩු ගැසූ අරුලන්දන් සිද්‌ධාර්‌ථන්ද මේ දේම කියන්නේ තමන් රා මදින කුලයේ කියා වෙල්ලාලයින් කරණ වෙනස්කමද මීට එකතුකරමින්‌ය. මෙවැන්නට, කොළබ ඉන්නා මනෝගනේෂන් පවා, <ටැමිල් ට්‍රේටර්ස්ලා> (දෙමළාට ද්‍රෝහී වන දෙමළුන්) කියන්නේ ඇයි?

මේ අනුව ප්‍රඥාවන්තව බලන විට දේශපාලකයින් විසින් කල යුත්තේ භෞතික වශයෙන් රටේ පවතින සම්පත් බෙදීයාමේ අසමානකම, තවත් ත්‍රීව්‍ර වන ලෙස හැන්‌දෙන් තම චන්ද කොට්ඨාශ වලට බෙදා ගැනීම නොවේ. ප්‍රේමදාස ගම් උදාවේ සිට යහපාලන දෙමළ මන්ත්‍රීන්ට මිලියන 30ක් බැගින් බෙදාදීම දක්‌වා ගමට සෙතක් වූනේ නැත. භෞතික පරිසර මෙන්ම, අතේ ඇඟිලි සළකුණු මෙන්, මිනිසුන් දෙදෙනෙක් එක සමාන වන්නේ නැත. බුදුදහමේ කියන්නේද එයමය. කුස ගින්නේ ඉන්නා මිනිහාට බණ කියනවා මෙන් නොව, රාජ්‍යය මඟින් කල යුත්තේ, සෑම දෙනාටම සමාන අවස්ථා සළසා දීමය (ඇක්සස් ටු ඊක්වල් ඔපර්චුනිටීස්). වඩුවෙක් වෙන්න හිතන කෙනාට ඒ සඳහාත්, දොස්තරෙක් වෙන්න හිතන කෙනාට ඒ සඳහාත් උත්සාහ කිරීමට ඇති භාධක ඉවත් කර දීමය. ඔහු හෝ ඇය එය ලබා ගනීවිද යන්න වෙනම කාරණයකි. ලෝක බැංකුව දැන් දශකයක සිටම කතා කරන්නේද මේ භූගෝලීය අසමානකම් හා ඒවාට විසඳුම් ගැනය (රිෂේපින් ඉකොනොමික් ජෝග්‍රෆි, වර්ල්ඩ් ඩිවෙලොප්මන්ට් රිපෝට්, 2009, ලෝක බැංකුව).

(එ) අභිලාශ කතාව හා මානව හිමිකම්

*17. ලංකාවේ මේ අභිලාශ කතාවේ ආරම්භය, මාදුළුවාවේ සෝභිත හිමියන්, කුමාර් පොන්නම්බලගෙන් ඇසූ ප්‍රශ්ණයක් හා බැඳේ. අනිකුත් ජන වර්‌ග වලට නැති, දමිළ ජනයාට පමණක් ඇති වෙනස්කම්/ප්‍රශ්ණ මොනවාදැයි හාමුදුරුවන් විමසූ විට, මඳක් තත්පර‌වූ කුමාර්, < වී ටැමිල්ස් හෑව් ඇස්පිරේෂන්ස්> යයි කියා සිටියේය. මිනිසාට හා සතුන්ට පොදු සිද්‌ධීන් හතර නම්, ආහාර, නින්ද, භය හා කාමය (ප්‍රජනනය) ය. මැස්ලෝ විසින් සමහර විට කොපිකලේ මේ සංස්කෘත ශ්ලෝකය විය හැකිය. තමන්ටම නිවසට අල්ලා වැසිකිලියක් හා ටවුමේ පොදු වැසිකිලියක් යන කාරණා දෙකේ වෙනස කුමක්ද? එසේ නැත්නම් තම මිදුලේ ඇති කුඩා වන්ඳනා කුටියක් හා ගමේ පන්සලක් අතර වෙනස කුමක්ද? කාන්තන්කුඩියේ මුස්ලිම් පල්ලි 67 ක් ම තිබෙන්නේ ඇයි? එය පුදගලික අවශ්‍යතා හා පොදු අභිලාශ යන කාරණා දෙක පටලවා ගැනීමකි. ක්‍රමයෙන් පුද්ගලික කායික හා මානසික අවශ්‍යතා සම්පූර්‍ණ වන විට මිනිසෙකුගේ සිතට එන ඉහල ආශා, අභිලාශ ලෙස හැඳින්‌විය හැකිය.

උදාහරණයක් වශයෙන්, යම් දමිළයෙකුට, යූ. එන්. කොඩියක් සහිත ලෝකයේ වෙනම දෙමළ රටක් ගැන ආශාවක්, සිහිනයක් පහල වීමට හොඳටම ඉඩ ඇත. එහිදී ඒ සඳහා සුදුසුම භූමිය කුමක්දැයි ඔහු/ඇය සිතිය යුත්තේ භූගෝල විද්‍යාවට අනුවය. 1917 සිටම එන ටැමිල්නාඩ්/ද්‍රවිඩස්ථාන් බීජය එහි මාතෘ භූමිය වන දකුණු ඉන්දියාවෙන් ගලවා, සිංහලයාගේ ලංකා භූමියේ සිටුවන්නට සිතීම භූගෝල විද්‍යාවට පටහැනිය. ලොව වෙන කිසිම භූමියක් නැති සිංහලයාට ඒ ගැන සිතීම පවා අධික මානසික ආතතියක් ගෙන දෙන්නේය. මෙසේ යෙමෙකුගේ පුද්ගලික අවශ්‍යතා හා උවමනා එපා කම් මෙන් නොව, සුළු ජනවර්‌ගවල දේශපාලකයින්ගේ අභිලාශ වෙනත් ජාතියක අභිලාශ සමඟ ගැටීමක් සිදුවේ. ප්‍රභාකරන් තුවක්කුවෙන් කලා මෙන් හෝ නීතිය මඟින් චන්ද්‍රිකා-ජී. එල්. පීරිස් සමග එකතුව නීලන් තිරුචෙල්වම් විසින් උතුරු-නැගෙනහිර තනිකර දෙමළ ප්‍රදේශයක් සදා ගන්නට සැදුවා මෙන් (ඉන්දියන් පොන්ඩිචෙරි මොඩලය වෙනුවට), ලංකාව දෙකට, තුනට කැඩී යාමට නොදීම මිස දෙමළ මිනිසාට හානිකිරීම සිංහලයාගේ අභිලාශය නොවේ (චන්දිර්‍කාගේ රටකැදීමේ ප්ලෑන)

මෙසේ, යම් පංචස්කන්‌ධයකට, ඔහුගේ පවුලට ඇති පුද්ගලික අවශ්‍යතා (නිවසක්, ලිඳක්, පරිගණකයක්, බයිසිකලයක්, පාසැලක්, ඉස්පිරිතාලයක්, උපාධියක්, රක්‍ෂාවක්, හොඳ කසාදයක්) අතරත්, මේ ඇස්පිරේෂන්ස් කතාවත් අතර විශාල වෙනසක් ඇත. එය යම් ජන වාර්‌ගික දේශපාලකයින් පිරිසක් විසින් බලයේ සිටීම සඳහා මිනිසුන් බැටළු පැටවුන් කර දක්කා ගෙන යාමය. උදාහරණයක් වශයෙන්, තමන්ට එතෙක් තිබූ ලංකාවේ දේශපලන නායකත්‌වය, චන්ද බලය පැතිරීමත් සමඟ අහිමිවී යන බව දැනගත් පොන්නම්බලම් අරුණාචලම් 1923 දී ටැමිලක්කම් ව්‍යාපාරය ආරම්භ කලේය. තමන්ට සිංහල ලේලිලා දෙන්නෙක්ම ඉන්නා, විග්නේෂ්වරන්, දමිළ ජන වර්‌ගය, සිංහලීකරණයෙන් බේරාගෙන පිරිසිදුව තබා ගැනීම නමැති අභිලාශය උදෙසා සිංහලයින් කසාද නොබඳින ලෙස දමිළ ජනයා උසිගන්‌වයි.

මීට වඩා බරපතල වන්නේ මේ බොරුකාරයින්ගේ බොරු ඇස්පිරේෂන්ස් වල ගැටීමය. තුර්කිය, යුරෝපා සංගමයේ පාස්පෝට් සහිත රටක් කර ගැනීමට එහි නායකයින්ට ඇති අභිලාශය, එය ක්‍රිස්ත්‍රියානි සංගමයක් ලෙස තබා ගැනීමට ප්‍රංශයට ඇති අභිලාශය හා ගැටේ. ලංකාවේදී ඇති ප්‍රශ්ණය නම් උතුරු-නැඟෙනහිර ස්‌වයංපාලනයක් යන අභිලාශය ටැමිල්නාඩ් දමිළයින්ට ලංකාවට ගලා ඒමට පාලමක් දමා දීමෙන් කෙළවර වනවා යන්නය. මීට හේතුව ස්‌වයංපාලනය අතර මැදි අම්බලමක් මිස, ඊළම් පාරේ අවසානය නොවීමය. දමිළ ජනයාගෙන් සියේට 40 ක්ම සෙසු පලාත් හතේ විසීමත්, මලයනාඩු දමිළයින් කුලප්පු කිරීමට ස්‌වයංපාලන නායකයින්ට ඉඩ ලැබීමත් නිසා සෙසු පලාත් හත අන්දමන්දවී යනු නිසැකය.

මේ නිසා 13-ඒ ප්ලස් කියමින් නන්මැජෝරිටේරියන්/ සොෆ්ට් පවර් ලෝකල් නියෝජිතයින් වන දයාන් ජයතිලකලා දෙමළ ඇස්පිරේෂන්ස් ගැන කතා කරන්නේ රටේ සිංහල බෞද්‌ධ පදනම බිඳ දැමිය යුතුය යන අධිෂ්ඨානයෙන් මිස දමිළ ජනතාවට ඇති ආදරයකින් නොවේ. නොෙසේ නම් ඊළම්වාදී නායකයින් අතලොස්සකට නොව දමිළ ජනයා (වෙල්ලාල මෙන්ම කුලහීන යයි කියන) බලවත් කරණ ක්‍රමයක් වන ජන සභා ගැන නිහඬ ඇයි. මිය ගිය සී. ජී. වීරමන්ත්‍රි ලෝක විනිසුරුතුමා ජන සභා සංකල්පය අනුමත කල බව හොරෝවිට්ස් අනුගාමිකයින් නොදන්නවාද?

ජන සභා මඟින් මෙම දමිළ අහිලාශ කතාවටද රීසනබල් විසඳුමක් ලැබේ. රට කැඩීමේ ව්‍යාපාරයට වක්‍රව හෝ රුකුල් නොදෙනතාක් දුරට (ප්‍රභාකරන් සැමරීම වැනි) තම සංස්කෘතික හා වෙනත් සමාජ-දේශපාලනික අභිලාශ ඉටුකර ගැනීමට දීම, සිංහලයාගේ සිංහලේට තර්‍ජනයක් නොවන්නේ නම් ඒ සඳහා සිංහලයින් විරුද්‌ධ වන්නේ නැත. උදාහරණයක් වශයෙන්, උතුරේ යම් ජන සභාවක් වෙසක් හෝ නත්තල් හෝ මුස්ලිම් නබිනායක දින නිවාඩු දින නොවිය යුතුයයි තීරණය කලොත්, ඉන් සිංහල මහජාතියට වන හානියක් නැත. නමුත් ප්‍රශ්ණය වන්නේ එවිට දකුණේ ජන සභාවක් තයිපොංගල් අහෝසි කිරීමට ක්‍රියාකිරීමෙන් දැක්‌විය හැකි ප්‍රතික්‍රියාවය. මෙහිදී සිදුවන්නේ දකුණේ ව්සිරී ඇති දමිළ ජනයා උතුරේ දමිළ ජනයාට අඥාන වැඩ නොකරණ ලෙස හින්දු සංවිධාන මඟින් දැනුම් දීමය. මෙහිදී මධ්‍යම ආණ්ඩුවේ මැදිහත් වීමක් අවශ්‍ය නොවේ.

(ඒ) ජන සභාවල සංයුතිය, කාර්ය භාරය

*18. මෙවරවත්, ජන සභා සංකල්පය ක්‍රියාවට නැංවීමට තීරණයක් ගත්තොත්, එය කෙසේ විය යුතුද යන්න සාකච්චා කල හැකිය. යම් ආකාරයකට ජන සභා නියෝජිතයින් අතුරෙන් තෝරා පත්‌වන 100 දෙනෙකුගේ ජාතික ජන සභා උපදේශක මණ්ඩලයක්, පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අණපණත් සළකා බලන හා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට යෝජනා ඉදිරිපත් කරණ සෙනේට් සභාවක් ලෙස පිහිටුවිය හැකිය.

මෙහි පහතින් දැක්‌වෙන්නේ ජන සභා මඟින් රට ගොඩ ගැනීම සඳහා යොදාගත හැකි එක් ක්‍රමවේදයක පියවරවල්‌ය: මෙය ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභයගේ රටේ පරිපාලන කටයුතු ඩිජිටල්කරණය කිරීම සමඟද ගැලපේ.

ජන සභාව සඳහා දැනට ග්‍රාම සේවා වසමේ සිටින පූර්‌ණකාලීන නිලධාරීන් පස් දෙනාත්, ප්‍රාදේශීය ලේකම්තුමාත්, පොලිස් ස්ථාන නිලධාරියාත්, යුදහමුදා නිලධාරියෙකුත්, චන්ද බලය රහිත සාමාජිකයින් වේ. සභා ප්‍රදේශයේ පන්සල් වල නායක හමුදුරුවරු, පල්ලි හා කෝවිල් වල පූජකවරු එකතුව ජන සභාව සඳහා සුදුසු පුද්ගලයින් 10 දෙනෙකු නම් කරණු ලැබේ. මෙසේ නම් කල අය සම්බන්‌ධයෙන් විරෝධතා ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට අවස්ථාවක් ජන සභා ප්‍රදේශයේ චන්දබලය හිමි පුරවැසියන්ට ලබාදිය යුතුය.

පියවර 1- ජන සභා ප්‍රදේශය තුල ඇති සම්පත් (රිසෝසස්) හා භූමි පරිභොගය (ලෑන්ඩ් යූස්) සිතියම් ගත කිරීම

(1931 දී බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය භූගෝල විද්‍යාඥ ඩඩ්ලි ස්ටෑම්ප් විසින් මෙම සංකල්පය ඒ රටේ ආරම්භ කලේය. මේ වනවිට එය ඩිජිටල් කරණයට ල‌ක්‌වී ඇත. පසුකලෙක ආරක්‍ෂක ඇමතිව සිටි මියගිය රන්ජන් විජේරත්න මහතා කෘෂි පර්යේෂණ ආයතනය භාරව සිටියදී මෙවැනි සමීක්‍ෂණ ව්‍යපෘතියක් දියත් කලේය. ප්‍රභාකරන් සිය බලප්‍රදේශය තුල ග්‍රාම සේවා වසම් මට්ටමින් මෙවැනි සිතියම් සදවා පරිගණකගත කෙරෙව්වේය).

අද ලංකාවේ මේ සඳහා අවශ්‍ය, එහෙත් විසිරී ඇති, තොරතුරු එමටය. මිණුම් දෙපාර්‌තමේන්තුවේ නූතන සිතියම් පදනම් කරගෙන, ඒවා ක්‍ෂේත්‍ර සමීක්‍ෂණ මඟින් යාවත්කාලීන කිරීම රටේ ඇති භූගෝල විද්‍යා දෙපාර්‌තමේන්තු හරහා ග්‍රාම සේවා වසම් මට්ටමෙන් කරගත හැකිය. ඒ සඳහා සංවිධානාත්මක පරිපාලන යාන්ත්‍රණයක් අවශ්‍යය. එක් එක් ග්‍රාම සේවක වසම් (ජන සභාව/ජනමූල සභාව) සඳහා පිළියෙල වන මෙම සිතියම් එම වසමේ ඇති පාසැල්, පුස්තකාල, පන්සල්/කෝවිල්/පල්ලි වල ප්‍රසිද්‌ධ කල යුතුය, ඒවායේ වැරදි, අඩුපාඩු පෙන්‌වා දීමට මහජනයාට ඉඩ ප්‍රස්ථා ලබාදිය යුතුය.

පියවර 2- සිතියම්වල ඇති තොරතුරු සංඛ්‍යා සටහන් (ඩේටා ටේබල්) වශයෙන් පරිගණකගත කිරීම ඊලඟ පියවරය. මේ අනුව යම් ග්‍රාම සේවක වසමක ඇති සිතියම්ගත තොරතුරු සටහනක (ටේබල්) තිරස් කොලම් හා හරස් පේලි වශයෙන් වර්‌ගක රණු ලැබේ. ජන සභාවේ කටයුතු සඳහා පදනම වන්නේ සිතියම් හා මෙම සටහන් (ටේබල්) ‌ය.

සමහර විට, ධනවාදී නියෝජිත ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය පවතින කිසිම රටක දැනට සිදු නොවන දෙයක් නම් හා, ඉන්දියාවේ පංචයාත් රාජ්‍ය ආයතන වල අකාර්යක්‍ෂමතාවයට හේතුවක් නම්, ජන සභාවලට තනියෙන් සිට ගැනීමට නොහැකි බව වටහාගෙන ඒවාට ඔක්‍ෂිජන් සපයන මධ්‍යම ආයතනයක් නොමැතිවීමය. මෙම මධ්‍යම ආයතනය සේවා සපයන ස්වාධීන පක්‍ෂ. දේශපාලනයෙන් නිදහස් ඒකකයක් විය යුතුය.

මෙහිදී රටේ සෑම ග්‍රාම සේවක (ජන සභා) වසමක්ම විශාල සංඛ්‍යා සටහනක (ටේබල්) එක පේලියකි. එම වසමට අදාල, ඉහත තුන්වන පියවරේ ඇති තොරතුරු, සටහනේ සිරස් කොලම්‌ය. මෙවැනි වේරියබල්ස් වලට සීමාවක් නැත. උදාහරණයක් වශයෙන් කෘෂිකර්‌මාන්තය යටතේ, එක් එක් භොග සඳහා වේරියබල්ස් තිබේ. භෞතික සම්පත් යටතේ, වනාන්තර, ඛණික, ජලය, පස යනාදියද, මානව විද්‍යා අංශයෙන්, මිනිසුන්ගේ අපරාධ, ආගම, භාෂාව, ජාතිය, වෘත්තිය, අධ්‍යාපන මට්ටම යනාදියද, ස්වාභාවික ආපදාවල්, අලි-මිනිස් ගැටුම්, වටු කුරුල්ලන්ගේ බිත්තර, කුකුල් ෆාම්, පාරවල් වර්‌ග, ලෙඩ රෝග ව්‍යප්තිය, බෝ නොවන ලෙඩ රෝග සංඛ්‍යා යනාදිය දැක් විය හැකිය.

පරිශීලනයේ පහසුව සඳහා එක් මෙග ටේබල් එකක් වෙනුවට, භූමිය වශයෙන් හෝ විෂය වශයෙන් හෝ දිස්ත්‍රික් ලේකම් කාර්‌යාල වශයෙන් ටේබල් වෙන් කල හැකිය. මෙහිදී වැදගත් කාරණය වන්නේ ග්‍රාම සේවා වසමේ සිටම මෙම වේරියබල්ස් එකම ප්‍රමිතියක් (ස්ටෑන්ඩර්‌ඩ්) අනුගමණය කිරීමය.

මෙම ටේබල් පරිශීලනය කරන්නාට ඒවායේ ඇති සංඛ්‍යා වෙනස් කිරීමට ඉඩක් නොතිබිය යුතුය. ලංකාවේ ඕනෑම කෙනෙකුට ඕනෑම ජන සභාවක ටේබල් හා සිතියම් බැලීමට හැකිවිය යුතුය.

<යූසින් සයන්ස් ටු ක්‍රියේට් අ බෙටර් ප්ලේස්> යන තේමාව යටතේ සළකණ විට ජන සභාවල ප්‍රතිපත්ති තීරණ සඳහා පදනම වන්නේ මෙම සිතියම් හා ටේබල්‌ය. තීරණ අනුව ගන්නා ක්‍රියාමා‌ර්‌ග අනුව ටේබල් යාවත්කාලීන කිරීමට ජන සභාවේ ඉන්නා ස්වාධීන පර්යේෂණ නිලධාරියා එය මධ්‍යම පර්යේෂණ ඒකකයට වාර්‌තා කරන්නේය. ක්‍රියාවලියේ ප්‍රගතිය මොනිටර් කිරීම එම නිලධාරියාගේ වගකීමය.

මෙම බිම් මට්ටමේ ප්‍රගතිය, පක්‍ෂ දේශපාලනයෙන් තොරව තෝරාගත් ජන සභාවට හා මාසික ජන සභා මහජන රැස්වීමට ඉදිරිපත් කරන්නේද එම නිලධාරියා විසින්මය. අඩු පාඩු, ගැටළු, විසඳුම් හා නව සංශොධිත ඉලක්ක, ඒවායේදී මෙසේ අවස්ථා දෙකකදී සාකච්චා කෙරේ.

පියවර 3- ජනසභා තොරතුරු ලංකා සිතියමේ පෙන්‌වීම
රටේ ජනාධිපතිට, අගමැතිට, ඇමතිවරයෙකුට අමතරව, රටේ ඕනෑම මන්ත්‍රී ප්‍රාණයකට විනාඩි කීපයක් තුල තම චන්ද ප්‍රදේශයේ පමණක් රටේ ඕනෑම ජන සභාවක කටයුතු පිළිඹද දැණුමක්, පරිගණකයක් හරහා දැන ගැනීමට මෙම ක්‍රමය මඟින් අවස්ථාවක් ලැබේ.

නිදසුනක් වශයෙන් ජනාධිපතිට රටේ අලි-මිනිස් ගැටුම් වල අළුත්ම තොරතුරු දෙනගැනීමට අවශ්‍යනම් ඔහු කල යුතුවන්නේ තම පරිගණකයේ ඇති ඊට අදාල වේරියබල් එකේ නම ටයිප් කිරීමය. ඊට අදාල ලංකා සිතියමක් පරිගණකයේ දිස්වෙන්නේ එක් ජන සභාවක් සිතියමේ තිතක් වශයෙන් ග්‍රිඩ්ගතකර ඇති නිසාය.

(ක) වෙනත් යෝජනා

*19.
(1) 1960 ගණන් වල අගමැතිනි සිරිමාවෝ හා අධ්‍යාපන ඇමති බදිුද්දීන් විසින් ඉතිහාසය හා භූගෝල විද්‍යා විෂය පාසැල් වලින් ඉවත් කරණ ලදී. මේ නිසා තමන් උපන් රට ගැන නොදන්නා නරුම සමාජයක් බිහිවී ඇත. මෙය නිවැරදි කල යුතුය.

(2) 1972 දී අගමැතිණිය, ක්‍රිස්තියානි ෆිලික් ඩයස් හා මාක්ස්වාදී කොල්වින් කල බරපතල වරදක් නම්, සිංහලේ යන්නෙන් බිඳුණ සිලෝන් යන නම නැවත සිංහලේ නොකර, ඇගේ පක්‍ෂයේ නම රටේ නම කිරීමය. මෙය 1815 දී උඩරට රදලයින් රට පාවාදීමටම සමානය. මෙය නිවැරදි කල යුතුය.

(3) පාසැල් ළමුන්ට 10 ශ්‍රේණි විභාගය තෙක්ම සිංහල හා දෙමළ අනිවාර්ය භාෂා කලයුතුය (ජාත්‍යන්තර පාසැල්ද ඇතුළුව)

(4) හාෂාව හා ආගම අනුව පාසැල් පවත්‌වා ගෙන යාම නතර කල යුතුය.

(5) භික්‍ෂූන්ගේ සිවිල් කටයුතු විසඳීම සඳහා සංඝාධිකරණයක් පිහිටුවිය යුතුය.

(6)කල්තියා ප්ලෑන් කර කරණ ලද මරණ වලට, ජූරි සභාව අනිවා‌ර්ය කර, මරණ දඩුවම අනිවාර්ය කිරීම

(7) හිරකරුවන්, හිරගෙවල් වලින් පිට කඳවුරු වලට ගෙන ගොස්, යුද හමුදා අධීක්‍ෂණය යටතේ, රටේ සංවර්‌ධන වැඩට (වැව් වාරි මාර්‌ග පිළිසකර කිරීම, පාරවල් නඩත්තුව, ගොවිපළවල් වැනි) යොදා ගත යුතුය. ඒ සඳහා සාධාරණ දීමනාවක් ලබාදී එය පවුල් වලට යැවීමට ඉඩ දිය යුතුය.

(8) මහජන නියෝජිතයින් හා රාජ්‍ය නිලධාරීන්ගේ වත්කම් යම් මුදලක් ගෙවා ලබා ගැනීමට මහජනයාට ඉඩ ලබාදිය යුතුය.

(9) පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීන් හා වෙනත් මහජන නියෝජිතයින් ආපසු කැඳවීමේ බලය චන්දදායකයින්ට තිබිය යුතුය.

(කා) ආශ්‍රිත ලිපි, රූප සටහන්, සිතියම්, ලිපි හා වාර්‌තා
*20.

(1) ධර්‌ම ද්‌වීප-ධාන්‍යාගාර චින්තනය රූප සටහන, සර්වෝදය, 1988
(2) දේශගුණික කලාප හා පලාත් මායිම් සිතියම, නානායක්කාර, 2017
(3) ජන සභා සංකල්පය තුලින්
(4) නීති පොතේ ඇති, එහෙත් රටේ නැති, ආධිපත්‍ය දෙකකට නැසෙන සුප්‍රිම් උසාවිය, ලංකාවෙබ් (ලවෙ), 2020 මැයි 10
(5) සිංහලයා ශ්‍රී ලාංකික කිරීමේ ව්‍යාපාරය, හා ගර්‌භාශ යුද්‌ධය, (ලවෙ), 2020 ජූලි 12
(6) ලංකාවේ මුස්ලිම් වෙළෙන්දන් අරාබි ශාරියා මිණීමරුවන් කිරීම, ලවෙ, 2020 ජූනි 5
(7) ප්‍රජා-තන්ත්‍ර-වාදය නමැති නාස්ලණුවෙන් ගැලවෙමු! (පලවෙනි කොටස), ලවෙ, 2020 මාර්තු 29.
(8) දෙමළ බෙදුම්වාදය මතවාදයෙන් පැරදවීම: ලිපි මාලා අංක 1, ලවෙ, 2020 ජනවාරි 28.
(9) ඊළම හා වතුර යුද්‌ධ, ලවෙ, 2017 මැයි 15
(10) රට ගොඩගන්නට වෙහෙසුණු කළුකොඳයාවේ මහනාහිමි, 2017 පෙබරවාරි 2
(11) සම්බන්‌ධන් මහතා ඉල්ලන <ඔක්කොම එකඟ වෙන්න පුළුවන් හොඳ තීන්දුව> ලවෙ, 2015 සැප්තැම්බර් 9
(12) සුමන්තිරන් ඉල්ලන ආපසු ගන්න බැරි එක, ලවෙ, 2015 සැප්තැම්බර් 4
(13) ජන සභා සංකල්පය තුලින් සාමකාමී තිරසර ලංකාවක් බිහිකර ගැනීම (බෞද්‌ධ දේශපාලනය), ලවෙ, 2014 සැප්තැම්බර් 25
(14) කළු සුද්දන්ගේ සම්භවය හා ආධිපත්‍යය (1), ලවෙ, 2014 ඔක්තෝබර් 5
(15) 13 වන සංශොධනයේ පොලිස් බලතල: ඉන්‌දියාවෙන් අපූරු පාඩමක්, ලවෙ, 2020 නොවැම්බර් 7
(16) සජිත්-රනිල්-චන්ද්‍රිකාගේ රටකැඩීමේ ප්ලෑන, ලවෙ, 2019 නොවැම්බර් 5
(17) සංඝ දමනය, ලවෙ, 2017 ජූලි 13
(18) ඊලම හා බුද්‌ධාගම, ලවෙ, 2017 ජනවාරි 16
(19) ලන්ඩන් මහ කොමසාරිස් සංගක්කාර: ලංකාවේ දුෂ්ඨ ත්‍රිකෝණය-වැසිකිළි දුර්‌ගන්‌ධය නොහොත් ලොවින් එකෙක් එක් දෙයකට සමත්‌වීම, ලවෙ, 2015 අගෝස්තු 29
(21) ආසයි-බයයි: බුදු දහමට අනුව රට පාලනය කිරීම (1 කොටස), ලවෙ, 2016 අගෝස්තු 11
(22) අස්ගිරි විප්ලවය, ලවෙ, 2017 ජූලි 30

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

‭APRC and the bio-regional vision, The Island, 25/2/2009.
‭Language-blind regional development units, The Island, 25/10/2006
‭Prevention of black-whites’ plan to balkanaize Sri Lanka, Lankaweba (LW) , 22/10/2017
‭Reconciliation & balkanization in Sri Lanka, LW, 11/3/2018
‭Michael Robert meets Anaagaarika Dharmapala, LW, 14/8/2016
‭President Sirisena (2016) confronts Commissioner Colebrooke (1832), LW, 3/11/2016
‭End of Humiliation, LW, 9/9/2009
‭LLRC and the future of Sri Lanka, LW, 16/8/2011
‭Who is afraid of the Buddhist flag? (educating Navaneetham Pillay) LW, 4/10/2013
‭Ambassador Sison and Asath Sali, LW, 5/5/2013
‭Sri Lanka: black-white rule and the temple, LW, 24/10/2017
‭19-A and balkanization plan, LW, 7/12/2018
‭Wigneswaran Damanaya (taming the shrew!)- part 1, LW, 15/2/2015
‭Report of the Local Government Reforms Commission (The Abhayawardena Reoport) (Sessional Paper 1-1999)