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KAMALIKA PIERIS

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna was created by Rohana Wijeweera, whose real name was Patabandige Don Nandasiri Wijeweera. He was a member of Sri Lanka’s Communist Party   (Moscow wing) led by S.A. Wickremasinghe and in 1962 was awarded a scholarship to Lumumba University in Moscow, to study medicine.

 In Moscow, Wijeweera had apparently changed his loyalties from Moscow to China. When he came on a visit to Sri Lanka in 1964, Russia did not permit him to return. According to Wijeweera, the reason given was his new attachment to Communist China.

Unable to return to Moscow, Wijeweera had joined the Communist Party (Peking wing) in Colombo. Wijeweera was given the task of re-organizing its youth, but instead tried to promote his own ideas. He had apparently tried to oust the Shanmuganathan faction in the party as well.Wijeweera wasexpelled from the Communist Party (Peking wing) in 1966. It is clear that neither Moscow nor Peking wanted him.  He was not valuable to them. Also they did not trust him. Rohana Wijeweera, it is alleged, had been secretly recruited by USA when he was in Moscow.

Starting in 1965, Wijeweera set up a   well organized underground movement, initially labeled simply as’ Viyaparaya’.  The Viyaparaya had become Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna by May 1970. There was a political party called Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna led by KMP Rajaratne In the 1950’s. This party is forgotten today.

Wijeweera visited various parts of the country, to obtain support for his movement. The movement gained support in the rural areas   where there were many alienated youth.  He was able to build a base among the educated Sinhala youth there.

Wijeweera targeted O and A Level students and unemployed graduates. Only 19 per cent of the membership was poorly educated, concluded Gamini Samaranayake. 79% were from Maha Vidyalaya and 6.4% from Madhya Maya Vidyalaya.

The movement received strong support from University students. The Socialist League of the University of Peradeniya, the  Communist Party ( Moscow) breakaway faction  from the University of Vidyodaya led by M. Wijesekara  and the Communist Party ( Moscow) oriented  faction of the Student society of the University of Vidyalankara, headed by D. I. G. Dharmasekera joined the movement. Arasaratnam observed that there were definitely more University students in the JVP than the mere 156 given In Obeysekera’s sample.

Wijeweera was looking for followers, whom he could trust and who were dedicated. Recruitment of new members was therefore done at a personal level. ‘A’ brought in ‘B’ who had been a classmate and so on. Gathering new members into the fold was referred to as “koku gahanava”. The term is revealing.

Those seeking membership were initially exposed to a discussion on the prevailing political situation in Sri Lanka. Those who passed this’ test’ were then treated to a series of   ‘classes’, which were held in secret. “Classes were held in the night, in cemeteries for small groups of five or 10, recalled a member.

 Those who passed this hurdle were then admitted to the fifth lecture which dealt with the JVP strategy. The prospective members were thereafter placed under observation, to see whether they would be loyal to the movement and then admitted into the movement.

These five ‘classes’ were on five different subjects.  The first class dealt with the ‘economic crisis’, the problems facing the peasant farmer and the rural worker. The second was on ‘Independence’ giving a historical background into the ill-effects of colonial rule. The third on ‘Indian expansionism’ focused on how Indian capitalists were trying to spread their tentacles into smaller countries. The fourth was on the failure of the Left movement. The fifth class, which came later, was on ‘the path the Revolution should take’. 

J. V. P.  Members were classified into two lists.List A consisted of full time members, trustworthy, loyal, and identified only by pseudonyms. There were 500 full-time members in 1970, said Samaranayake. We had a sense of adventure and never felt the hardship. We would travel without any money for bus fare and walk into a boutique, eat and walk out without paying. “Polu thibba,” recalled a JVP member.

The B List consisted of part-time members, who were employed or studying, and were prepared to devoted their spare time to the activities of the group. These sympathizers were used mainly for propaganda activities, such as poster campaigns. There was also a C List” of those who could be approached for help. JVP established contacts in Buddhist temples. They   used them as hide outs   after the 1971 insurrection.

The strength of the JVP is not known. Samaranayake said that before 1970 the membership was 2,000, but by 1970 it had increased to about 3,000. 98 % were under 35 years of age.

The JVP   organization consisted of a Central committee and Politbureau at the top, followed by district leaders, district secretaries, village committees, police committees, grass roots units and full time volunteers. Cadres were organized according to police divisions and police districts.   The grass roots unit was a group of five, in each Police area, the ‘pahe’ committee. The police committees were charged with preparing an armed attack on the local police station. 

The Politbureau was not elected at a party congress. But was probably appointed by Wijeweera. There was even a doubt as to how many it contained. The leaders, when questioned could not agree on the number. Each gave a different figure.

The politbureau met every month in Colombo and the district secretaries would take the decisions back to their district and from there to the cadres. Couriers, the “mallis” who knew the hideouts would take the messages to the cadres. Communication was by code.

But decisions were not made by Central committee or Politbureau. All matters were decided by the Secretarial committee composed of Wijeweera, Sanath, Karunaratna and Loku Athula.Sanath” was Wijesena Vitharana, a teacher from Kalattawa, Karunaratna” was W.T. Karunaratne from the Inland Revenue Department, ‘Loku Athula’ was Nimalsiri Jayasinghe.

The high degree of security consciousness introduced into each of the JVP committees, is significant, said Godahewa Indradasa of Sri Lanka Intelligence, who had been assigned to investigate insurgent activities.  JVP conducted their political affairs in secret. The leaders used aliases to prevent identification.

The ordinary members of the JVP did not know the structure of the organization. They were kept in the dark. It was only after I came to prison, that I came to know, that the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna had a politbureau, one JVPer told the police.

The JVP had four working divisions, propaganda, education, organization and arms, with each division headed by one of the four members of the Secretarial committee.JVP started a propaganda section to conduct meetings all over the country, except North and East. JVP impressed the public through its poster campaigns. The same poster appeared island wide overnight. 

Several ‘farms’ were established, not for farming but for conducting secret classes and storing weapons. The first were in Anuradhapura, Tissamaharama and Kirinda. The Kirinda one was a poultry farm. The first educational camp was held in Akmeemana in 1967 followed by one in Tanamalwila.    Education camps were thereafter held secretly in remote parts of the country. Camps were held in Kurunegala, Anuradhapura   Tissamaharama, Elpitiya, Akmeemana, Tanamalwila, Tambuttegama, Kataragama and Middeniya. Each camp taught about   25 to 100 cadres. Food was obtained from chenas.

The trainees had to be up by 4 a.m. for military-style drills and arms training by navy personnel who had been drafted in. The youth were told that armed struggle was necessary, and they must be prepared to fight. Instructions in the use of arms were done through diagrams.  A rudimentary form of military training was given at the camps, with sketches of guns on the blackboard, pictures of rifles being circulated and rifle drills and karate being taught. The inadequacy of the military training was clearly shown in their attack on the Polonnaruwa police station, said Samaranayake, where 39 JVP were killed and many were wounded compared to few government casualties.

The JVP also started making bombs. Bombs were made using condensed milk tins. These were collected in large quantities and sent to remote areas. JVP cadres were   collecting fused bulbs and jam bottles, tins and similar-sized containers to make bombs and Molotov cocktails. The containers were filled with kerosene or petrol and had a fuse.

Bombs were also being made using cheena chatti, cast iron shells, dynamite and had an elementary mechanism to blow them up.  In September 1970, Rohana Wijeweera ordered the distribution of 1000 bombs and 1000 Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs) to each JVP police division unit.

Every member was asked to have a gun and 10 cartridges ready. Due to this, there was a spate of robberies of guns and cartridges in 1970. They were removed from houses, taking nothing else.  There was an unprecedented increase in the theft of guns in the country, said Indradasa. 

By early 1971, recruitment to the JVP was stopped and members were urged to collect as much money as possible, through whatever means to arm the movement. Several heists were carried out, such as the Okkampitiya bank robbery, the Badulla mail bag robbery, the Ambalangoda bank robbery and the York Street robbery to raise funds. There were robberies also at branches of Peoples Bank, Bank of Ceylon, a CTB depot, a Mail train and the Urubokka sub-post office.

Although the movement was supposed to be secretive and undercover, JVP openly conducted political debates, contested University student council elections, and organized University student strikes. Between July and December 1970, Wijeweera addressed some twenty public rallies in places like Kegalle, Wellawaya, Tangalle, Negombo, Moratuwa and Elpitiya. The JVP also published its own paper, the Janatha Vimukthi, which was widely read. JVP held 16 public meetings between August 1970 and February 1971.In March 1971 Wijeweera travelled around the country, visiting Hambantota, Colombo, Kandy, Matale, Dambulla, Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa.

The Movement was now gathering momentum. Each member was instructed to collect his uniform and kit consisting of a gun, box of cartridges, boots, stockings, black trousers, blue shirt with pockets, an army belt, black running shorts, black vest, steel helmet, knife, torch, Lighter, haversack, first aid box, and canvas cloth.

The subversive activities of the JVP had come to the attention of the intelligence services and  a special unit has been formed in the CID to watch them, said Indradasa. The first police report of the existence of the JVP underground movement was presented to the Cabinet in 1968. In 1970 the government set up a special police unit nicknamed the `Guevara Bureau’, through which all intelligence pertaining to the subversive movement was channeled.

 From January 1971, at Kegalle, police intelligence and the spy network floated by SP Seneviratne with the special vote of Rs. 50,000 started receiving significant information. Reports came in from grama sevaka, DROs and school principals in Kegalle district, of young boys going ‘missing’ from home for days. Tailors in the area told us how orders for a large number of uniforms had been placed. 

There were reports in Kegalle of small groups of youth meeting in secret in lonely places,  the ‘desana paha’ being delivered, collection, manufacture and storage of weapons, jungle training of fighting cadres, testing of devices in the jungle, shooting practice, strange explosions. Six-foot lengths of barbed wire were being removed from fences. These were subsequently cut into pieces and used in anti-personnel bombs

At the Government Agent’s residence in Kegalle, one could hear at night, the tell-tale ‘clink-clink’ of the insurgents making their way through the forest behind the Residency. They were carrying ‘Molotov cocktails’ in their haversacks and as they walked over the uneven terrain, stumbling over rocks and roots, the bottles and cans would knock against each other.

Kegalle authorities informed the government .Daily dispatches were sent through special messengers, but no action was taken. Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike discussed the intelligence reports at her Cabinet meetings with MPs from the area. The MPs said repeatedly that our boys” wouldn’t do such things.

Then in February 1971, a clear warning went to the authorities that something was brewing among the university students. The JVP had hidden a large number of detonators in the ceiling of Peradeniya University’s Marrs Hall and due to the heat, they began exploding like firecrackers. The explosions went on for five days.

In March 1971, there was a massive blast at Nelundeniya in Kegalle. Five died. The authorities found a 15′ x 20′ pit with many tunnels leading from it. It was an arms dump. The army was alerted. The police began raiding JVP hideouts  police arrested about 500members and sympathizers of the JVP. Wijeweera was arrested on the 13^th March and sent to the Jaffna jail. On March 16, the government declared a state of Emergency.

The JVP was not deterred by these developments. The JVP inner circle met in secret On April 2 at the Sangaramaya temple of Vidyodaya University, Kelaniya and decided that all police stations in the country would be attacked at 11 p. m.on April 5th.  This decision was communicated to the district cadres and local leaders.

Wijeweera had sent a message that posters and leaflets should be published calling for his release and 500 comrades should be sent to Jaffna to secure his release. The   plan therefore was to launch a simultaneous night-time attack on the police stations. Also to attack concurrently the Jaffna police station, Jaffna naval base and Jaffna prison and rescue Wijeweera.

The police station attacks were to be launched by 15 separate groups, each consisting of 40 to 50 JVPers.The attackers were armed with shotguns, locally-made hand bombs and `Molotov cocktails’. They were in home-sewn dark blue uniforms,  military boots, and carried haversacks. They were ordered to fly the JVP flag, a lion on a red background, on captured police stations. Their  attack approach varied. Some launched frontal attacks arriving in buses and Lorries which had been forcibly commandeered, while others resorted to more surreptitious approaches.

But things did not go according to plan. Wellawaya Police Station was attacked  prematurely   at dawn, 5.20 a.m. on the 5^th April. Two policemen were killed. This  attack alerted the government.  An all-island curfew was declared on the 6th of April.This curfew lasted until mid-July. It continued till the end of November , 1971 in the Western Province.

This curfew prevented JVP attacks in Ampara, Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, Ratnapura and Monaragala,but did not deter the JVP elsewhere. JVP continued to attack police stations, in the rural areas till the  11^th of April. Police stations around the country were placed on alert but they were ill-equipped to face the sudden onslaught. Police stations in remote areas were temporarily closed.

Ninety two police stations across the country were attacked and five, Deniyaya, Uragaha, Rajangane, Kataragama and Warakapola were  taken by the insurgents. Fifty-seven police stations were damaged.  43 police stations in Kegalle, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Galle and Ambalangoda districts were abandoned.  Police stations at Akuressa, Hakmana, Kamburupitiya and Mawarala were closed and the personnel were brought down to Matara. In the Matara District all police stations other than Dondra and Matara were attacked and several policemen were killed.

After the initial attack on the 5th of April 1971,  there came a second phase which was confined to the following districts: Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa in the North Central Province, Kurunegala in the Central Province, Monaragala in the Uva Province,  Kegalle in Sabaragamuwa Province,  Matara, Galle and Hambantota in the Southern Province. Kegalle and Galle were  hotbeds with over a thousand full-timers each.  Badulla had around 500 members.

JVP occupied several major towns in semi-urban and rural areas.In some cases the JVP  by passed  towns to secure the surrounding countryside, thereby isolating the government forces in the town centers.  There was long-term occupation, protracted guerrilla warfare  and open fighting with the military.

JVP assumed command in areas where the police had withdrawn and the civil administration was in disarray. They  took over  whole areas , disrupted the transport system, telecommunications, power supplies.Main roads and rail tracks were damaged. They ran  the post office, distributed food from cooperative stores  and even held their  own courts of law.

The JVP  entrenched itself in Kegalle district. The Kachcheri  area, where  the police station and the Courts of Law are located, was held by the armed forces while the JVP dominated the rest of the district. There were  fierce confrontations along the main road from Kegalle to Colombo. Tholangamuwa Central College, located some five miles from Warakapola on the Kegalle road was the JVP headquarters. A bulldozer was parked across the entrance to the school so that no one could storm them.

All petrol stations in the Kegalle district were sealed ,by the government  to conserve fuel and police guards deployed at water supply stations, electrical sub-stations and the telecom exchange.  But the JVPers were one step ahead, said KHJ Wijedasa , who was GA, Kegalle at the time.  They felled trees across the power lines, plunging whole areas into darkness. Cycle chains were thrown over high tension wires to cause short-circuits. Phone lines were cut and roads blocked with uprooted trees and lamp posts.  

By midnight on April 5, there was a total blackout in the district. There was no transport, no communication, no vehicles on the roads, and no water. Kegalle was deserted,” said Wijedasa.  The police radio was the only link with the outside world. Within the district, all 14 police stations had fallen. There was minimal resistance by the Police. The cops just vanished.

JVP  fought in certain areas in the Anuradhapura District,and in the small towns of Elpitiya and Deniyaya. Elpitiya was under  the JVP for nearly three weeks.  At Batapola, in  Ambalangoda, the JVP had barricaded themselves with trees and lamp-posts. Sentry points had been set up and big bungalows and walauwas commandeered. Some 300 shotguns had been stockpiled like firewood. The cadres got around on bicycles, with couriers going from one stronghold to another. Villagers were only allowed to leave their homes to find food.  The JVP held Batapola till April 23. Then the army with the help of villagers attacked their camp.

At Matara a lorry-load of bombs entered the fort. The moment we found the lorry of bombs we clamped a curfew and everyone chased away from all roads by the army. Later we found evidence of two other lorries coming with bombs. The cadres could not group and the lorries could not reach the cadres and Matara was saved from a bloodbath, said Garvin Karunaratne, then GA Matara.

At Deniyaya the police station was repeatedly attacked and the police retreated all the way to Rakwana and Embilipitiya as the roads to Matara had been taken over by the JVP.  Deniyaya was ruled by the JVP for around three to four weeks. In Deniyaya many well to do people were  killed. This included Dr. Rex de Costa. it was his murder that made Prime Minister dispatch a platoon of soldiers to the Matara District, said Karunaratne.

Akuressa was under the control of the insurgents. The army was ambushed  about ten miles from Matara and the JVP fire power was so strong that the army had to retreat. the Government had lost control of most of the Matara  District for around three weeks during which period the JVP ran their kangaroo courts arresting, charging people and punishing them even with death, said Karunaratne.

The armed forces delayed  launching a counterattack . Initially, the government  did not send army troops to the affected areas when the GAs asked for them. Garvin Karunaratne, then GA Matara and Neville Jayaweera, then GA Vavuniya,  said, independent of each other, that the government ignored their requests for  security forces   when the JVP attacks were at the initial stage. Army units were sent much later.

However, by the end of April the government forces had got their act together.  the JVP ‘s entire plan of attack had been revealed to the security forces by an informant.  JVP ‘s camps were attacked by air and land. Mortars were  used. Military co- ordinators were `appointed to govern the districts previously   held by the JVP.

JVP  retreated to   the jungle or national park nearest the areas they were in.  They went, in the south to Sinharaja , from Anuradhapura, Kegalle and Kurunegala districts to   Wilpattu, Ritigala and  from Dambulla and Polonnaruwa to the surrounding jungles. By the end of August 1971, 69 were hiding in Wilpattu and about 50 in the forest surrounding Dambulla. They did not know how to survive in the jungles.

At Haputale,  the 100 cadres who had gathered to attack the Haputale Police Station, retreated through Attampitiya to Uda Pussellawa and on to the Walapane jungles, heading for Hunnasgiriya. One they way, the seized guns from people who possessed licensed firearms. 

200 from  the Kegalle and Kurunegala districts retreated to Wilpattu National Park in two lots under the cover of darkness and along unpopulated tracks. During the day they camped in isolated areas either on the mountains or in the jungles. A. C. Alles observed that this retreat was marked by murder, arson and looting. only about 30 reached their destination.

A special Department under  former IGP, Aleric  Abeygunawardena  was  set up to  investigate the  insurgency. OICs and ASPs were asked to send their investigation files direct to this office. Under Emergency Regulations, admissions made to ASPs by suspects were made admissible in courts. State Counsels and other lawyers were asked to prepare cases for prosecution and advise the police officers on further investigations. Cases were filed in courts without delay. CID and Intelligence officers   were recruited to help  with arresting the rebel leaders in hiding.

In May and June  1971, with the backbone of the uprising broken, Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike offered an amnesty to those who were willing to surrender. It is reported that 3,978 surrendered in response to this amnesty. Yet another amnesty was offered from the 7th to 9th of June when 236 surrendered. It appears that another ten day amnesty was declared thereafter and ‘thousands surrendered to local DROs and temples.’

There were approximately 18,000 in custody by the end of 1971, said Samaranayake.11,748 arrested and 6,025 surrendered.Not all of them were  JVP. On the contrary, it is obvious that some of them were never involved in the armed struggle, said Samaranayake. He   suggests that only about 20,000 to 25,000, actually participated in the insurrection. According to Indradasa, 8000     JVPers, out of a possible 14,000, were arrested by government. The last JVP fighters were not captured until 1976, observed Samaranayake.

The JVP  in custody, were kept in detention camps in   the Universities, under army volunteer officers. Some 200 state officers were mobilized to question them and record their statements on ‘pink’ forms for those who had been arrested and ‘blue’ forms for those who had surrendered. charges were brought against 3,872 persons who were believed to have been involved in armed attacks on police stations and other acts of political violence.

A Criminal Justice Commission comprising five judges of the Supreme Court, including Justice Alles was hurriedly set up, in May 1972 to try those prisoners,  dispensing with the normal laws of evidence, to deal with the heap of cases.  when the C. J. C. trials concluded in 1975, 92 of the accused had been acquitted, 2,519 had been released on suspended sentences, and 365 had been sentenced to prison terms.

According to Sri Lankan Government statistics, about 12,000 suspects were placed in rehabilitation camps   Those not involved in the insurgency were released’. This process was slow.  Nevertheless, compared to release rates in other Third World countries, the rate of release in Sri Lanka was quite fair and timely, said Samaranayake.When the U. N. P. Government  came to power in 1977, the remaining detainees, including Wijeweera, were released.

The human cost of the JVP insurrection was high. Fifty-three Security Forces personnel had died and 323 were injured.  37 police officers were killed and 195 wounded. Though the government gave the figure  for JVP as 1,200 dead, it could be safely claimed that the actual number of deaths ranged between a minimum of 6,000 to a maximum of 8,000 said Samaranayake.it was estimated that some 8,000 -10,000 JVPers were killed said another source. According to Wijeweera, 15,000 of his cadres had died and twice that number of civilians had lost their lives. JVPers who escaped  death and custody went underground with the objective of re-organizing the JVP. ( continued)

Press Release 2020.07.25

Milinda Moragoda, former Cabinet Minister and Founder of the Pathfinder Foundation spoke about the need for Sri Lanka to be fast and agile in order to face the economic, social and international challenges of the Post-Covid environment. He stated that:  ‘there is no disputing the fact that the country benefited from having strong executive decision-making during the early stages of the pandemic. And as a result, many lives were saved. Disappointingly, no major political party has yet put forward a coherent governance and governing structure for the nation in their policy platforms. Each has been predictably very chameleon-like when addressing issues related to constitutional and governance-structure related matters in their manifestos. This is especially unfortunate in light of the dysfunctional relationship that now exists between the Executive and the Legislature and the proven potential for gridlock, both a result of the enactment of the 19th Amendment.’

Against this backdrop, without any coherent or credible proposals thus far having been presented by any major political  party, Milinda Moragoda proposes that all thoughtful Sri Lankans take up the following points for their consideration, discussion and if appropriate advocacy :

A.   The establishment of a strong Executive Presidency that can act decisively and yet be ultimately accountable to Parliament. After all, the presidency is the only office elected by all Sri Lankan voters. Thus, the individual occupying this post will be implicitly accountable to all Sri Lankan citizens, be they from Kankesanthurai or Dewinuwara.

B.  An independent legislature that will promulgate legislation and act as a
      responsible check and balance to Executive excess. This legislature
      should be elected on a first-past-the-post basis with a small percentage
      of members being chosen through a proportional representation system.
      This change should lead to a stable parliament where most members are
      directly accountable to their constituencies and citizens. The preference
      vote system which has only created chaos and in-fighting should be
      dispensed with.

C. The Provincial Councils should be abolished and empowered local
     councils set up to address the day-to-day issues of the citizenry.

D. An empowered Senate should be created to represent minority and 
    regional interests. 

Moragoda further pointed out that ‘Forty-two years have passed since the establishment of Sri Lanka’s Executive Presidency and that all those who criticise this form of government have still not been able to convince Sri Lankans of any better option. Notably, when the opportunity for abolishing the presidential system presented itself in 2015, the then government was unable or unwilling to conduct a referendum to abolish the presidency. And, as we are now on the verge of facing the most challenging period in our post-Independence history, the need of the hour is a strong executive.’ 

To lend further context to his point he noted that: ‘The first conception of a Presidential system was forged in the late 18th century after the American war of Independence against the British. Extensive debates surrounding the extent of the powers of an Executive Presidency took place during the drafting of the American Constitution. One of the founding fathers and authors of the US Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, argued for a strong Executive leader making the point that:

‘A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution, and a government ill-executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.’”

‘In the final analysis Sri Lanka cannot afford to have a crippled government especially at this critical juncture where a large number of lives and livelihoods are at stake.

By Lucien Rajakarunanayake Courtesy The Daily News

While the spread of the Covid 19 virus continues globally, and the United States remains having the highest infections close to reaching 4 million, a significant political change has taken place in Europe arising from the Covid crisis, President Donald Trump has shifted his position on the pandemic, and the search for a vaccine against Covid 19 gets closer.  

The European Union agreed on a historic 750-billion-euro ($858-billion) deal in the early hours of Tuesday after intense negotiations through four days that saw threats of walkouts, vetoes and fierce opposition from the Netherlands and Austria. It is a rescue plan for economies left shattered by the coronavirus epidemic, hailed by French President Emmanuel Macron as the most important moment in the life of our Europe since the creation of the euro” in 2002.  

Germany and France strongly backed the package, which enables joint borrowing by the 27 members of the bloc to help virus-hit countries, particularly Spain and Italy.  

While German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe had shown itself equal to the greatest crisis” in EU history, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hailed a Marshall Plan for Europe” that would boost his country’s economy by 140 billion euros over the next six years.  

There was strong criticism of the plan by four European countries – Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Sweden – referred to as the Frugal Four”, who had concerns on how the related debt would be repaid. The move was broadly welcomed by the majority of 27 members of the EU, who saw a significant shift in the principles of European unity, which analysts saw as a major strengthening of the EU.  

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had warned against the EU becoming a transfer union” with a permanent north-south movement of wealth. He later said: This is a one off, there is a clear necessity for this given the excessive situation.”  

Many political analysts see this move as a step towards bringing the EU to a situation as close to the United States, and strengthening the unity among the member states, which will have a major impact on global activity in the future.  

ECB chief Christine Lagarde welcomed the accord, saying it shows that when most needed, the EU steps up and comes together to help the people of Europe”.  

Overall, the deal will dole out €390 billion in the form of grants to pandemic-hit countries. That was lower than an original €500 billion proposal made by France and Germany. Another €360 billion will be disbursed in loans. Spending must be devoted to policies seen as compatible with European priorities, including politically difficult economic reforms as well as the environment.  

 Covid 19 spread

The spread of Covid 19 was 15,226,993 worldwide midweek, with 623,374 deaths. The US remained having the highest number infected with over 3 million, fast approaching 4 million with 143,187 deaths: Brazil had the second highest infections – 2,227, 850 and 143,187 deaths, India remained at third place with 1,238,798 infected and 29,881 deaths, and Russia was fourth with 787 infections and 12,726 deaths.  

The number of people who have had the coronavirus in the U.S. is likely ten times higher than reported, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Six to 24 times more infections were found per site than with the data that has been reported to date, according to the study.  

Eighteen U.S. states have become hotspots for virus transmission. These states have been placed in a red zone,” meaning they logged more than 100 new cases per 100,000 individuals last week. The 18 states (in alphabetical order) are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.  

It is recommended that these states implement stricter protective measures, such as limiting social gatherings to no more than 10 people, closing bars and gyms and urging residents to wear masks, the Center for Public Integrity reported.  

 Trump relents 

President Donald Trump who has been strongly against the medical experts’ warnings about the spread of the Covid 19, and was moving too quickly rebuild the US Economy, has given in to the realities of the pandemic as it spreads in many states of the US with more than 140,000 US lives lost; keeping it as the ‘world leader’ in the current global crisis.  

At a White House press briefing on the pandemic, which did not take place for three months, President Trump pulled a mask from his pocket but didn’t put it on, but supported the masks as a way to fight the pandemic. He admonished young people against crowding in bars and spreading the disease.  

It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better,” Trump said, and encouraged Americans to wear masks when social distancing is not possible. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact,” he said. I’m getting used to the mask,” he added, pulling one out after months of suggesting that mask-wearing was a political statement against him.  

Much of the US is now battling rising infections and growing deaths, and some states are once again having to close businesses and rethink school openings in the fall. Many retailers themselves are insisting their customers wear masks.  

For months, the nation’s top health experts have pleaded with Americans to wear masks in public and steer clear of crowds – calling those simple steps life-saving – even as the president’s stance fueled a partisan social divide.  

Little more than three months from Election Day, Trump and his political team hoped that the new move would give him an edge against Democratic rival Joe Biden. Meanwhile, Biden is in the lead by 15% in opinion polls, raising much concern among Trump activists in the presidential poll campaign, as the poll month of November approaches.  

 Vaccine search

A coronavirus vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is ‘safe and activates an immune response in people’, according to preliminary results from trials involving 1,077 volunteers.  

People injected with the vaccine, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, made antibodies and immune cells against the coronavirus. The trial results were published today in The Lancet. No serious side effects were found, although 70 per cent of people developed a fever or headache which could be managed with painkillers. It is not yet clear whether this vaccine candidate offers protection against infection with the coronavirus, and we won’t know whether it can stop people from becoming ill with covid-19 until we see the results of larger trials. Those trials will involve 10,000 people in the UK, 30,000 people in the US, 2,000 in South Africa and 5,000 in Brazil.  

The UK government has secured access to 100 million doses of the vaccine candidate, in addition to 90 million doses of other coronavirus vaccine candidates from US and European companies. Globally, more than 140 coronavirus vaccines are currently in development, with 23 candidates being tested in people.  

The Trump administration in US announced a $1.95 billion contract with Pfizer and the German biotech BioNTech to produce and deliver up to 600 million doses of its candidate coronavirus vaccine (with 100 million doses by December), depending on if the vaccine is successful in clinical trials, the Department of Health and Human Services announced.  

Researchers in China also reported similar results in The Lancet for another experimental vaccine, also based on a weakened adenovirus. This group used an adenovirus that typically infects humans, rather than chimpanzees. The new study also didn’t find serious adverse events. More than 90% of the participants in their phase 2 trial developed T-cell responses and about 85% developed neutralizing antibodies.  

In other coronavirus situations, France has made face coverings mandatory in all enclosed public spaces, with those who fail to adhere to the rules facing fines of €135 (£123). Coronavirus cases are on the rise in the north-west and eastern parts of the country, with the health minister warning that France has between 400 and 500 active coronavirus clusters.  

Anti-mask activists gathered in London’s Hyde Park on Sunday to protest the introduction of new legislation on face coverings. It will be mandatory to wear them in shops and supermarkets in England from July 24. A survey by the Office for National Statistics conducted between July 8 and 12 found that 61 per cent of people said they used face coverings outside their homes in the previous week.  

 Threats to UK from Russia

The UK government has been strongly criticized by a special committee of the UK Parliament on the poor handling of threats from Russia and lack of investigation into Russian interference in UK polls, such as the referendum on EU membership.  

The UK government badly underestimated” the Russian threat and the response it required, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee’s (ISC) long-awaited report into Russian activity in the UK. It said the government was playing catch-up” and needed to take immediate action”, and claimed the government made no effort to investigate Russian interference in the EU referendum.  

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the report Russophobia”.  

The UK Prime Minister’s office said the government was fully aware of the significant and enduring threat” Russia posed.  

The ISC’s inquiry covers a number of topics, including disinformation campaigns, cyber tactics and Russian expatriates in the UK. Much of the highly sensitive” detail was not published due to fears Russia could use the evidence to threaten the UK.  

The committee said Russian influence in the UK was now the new normal”, and the UK was a top Western intelligence target” for the state, only behind NATO and the US.  

ISC member, Stewart Hosie, told reporters the government took its eye off the ball, because of its focus on counterterrorism”, adding: The government had badly underestimated the response required to the Russian threat, and is still playing catch up.”  

In its report, the group said UK was clearly a target” for disinformation campaigns around its elections, but that the issue was described as a hot potato”, with no one organisation taking a lead to tackle it. Intelligence agencies were criticized for not taking action during the EU referendum, despite there being credible open source commentary” suggesting influence campaigns” from the Russians during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014.  

The committee said: Had the relevant parts of the intelligence community conducted a similar threat assessment prior to the [EU] referendum, it is inconceivable that they would not have reached the same conclusion as to Russian intent, which might then have led them to take action to protect the process.”  

Hosie also said no-one in Government wanted to touch the issue of Russian interference when it came to elections with a 10-foot pole”… The report reveals that no one in government knew if Russia interfered in or sought to influence the referendum, because they did not want to know”.  

The Report has raised serious questions about the failure of the UK to confront the spread of Russian money and influence over a long period. And there is an urgent call for new legislation to deal with an ongoing challenge, accusing successive governments of welcoming Russian oligarchs with open arms” due to the investments they brought with them.  

The committee said A lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, are accepted because of their wealth.”  

The report said it had concerns about links between these wealthy Russians and the House of Lords.  

 US – China: Houston 

As the tension in the relations between the US and China mounts, the US has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, Texas, by Friday – a move described as political provocation” by Beijing.  

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the decision was taken because China was stealing” intellectual property.  

China’s foreign ministry condemned the move on Twitter, saying its embassy in Washington had received death threats.  

Earlier, unidentified individuals were filmed burning paper in bins in the Houston building’s courtyard.  

Tensions have been rising between the US and China for some time. President Donald Trump’s administration has clashed repeatedly with Beijing over trade and the coronavirus pandemic, as well as China’s imposition of a controversial new security law on Hong Kong.  

This week, the US Department of Justice accused China of sponsoring hackers who had been targeting labs developing Covid-19 vaccines. Two Chinese nationals, who allegedly spied on US research companies and got help from state agents for other thefts, have been charged.  

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Trump said it was always possible” he would order the closure of more Chinese consulates.  

Pompeo said the Chinese Communist Party was stealing not just American intellectual property… but European intellectual property too… costing hundreds of thousands of jobs”.  

We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave,” he continued. And when they don’t, we’re going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security, and also protect our economy and jobs.”  

The consulate is one of five in the US, not counting the embassy in Washington DC.  

In a series of tweets, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying described the reasons given by the US for closing the consulate as unbelievably ridiculous”. She urged the US to reverse its erroneous decision”, or China would react with firm countermeasures”.  

While Chinese diplomats are promoting mutual understanding and friendship, the US embassy in China publicly attacks China’s political system,” she said.  

The foreign ministry has posted a warning to Chinese students in the US, asking them to be on guard” as US law enforcement agencies have stepped up arbitrary interrogations, harassment, confiscation of personal belongings and detention targeting Chinese international students in the US”.  

 UK – China

UK has suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and imposed an arms embargo on the territory over China’s national security law. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the measures were a reasonable and proportionate” response to the legislation imposed by Beijing. He told MPs the extradition treaty was being suspended immediately and indefinitely” because of concerns new rules could allow cases to be transferred to mainland China. Earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson stressed there was a balance” to be struck in the UK’s relationship with China.   

KAMALIKA PIERIS

1. OBSERVATIONS OF SENATOR S. NADESAN

Senator S. Nadesan (1904-1986) made a speech in the Ceylon Senate on 14 and 15 of May 1971 regarding the JVP insurrection of April 1971. This speech was published as a booklet in 1988, by the Nadesan Centre for Human Rights.

Suriya Wickremasinghe in her introducitn to the Nadesan Centre booklet said Nadesan’s speech on the 1971 insurrection in the Ceylon Senate, was the first forthright objective assessment made in public on the matter. There was a curfew and people could not easily meet and discuss. But Senator Nadesan had a curfew pass and ‘used it to the full’   to go about and make inquiries.  He used this information in his speech, she said.

In his speech, Nadesan attributes the rise of the JVP to population growth, higher education and unemployment. The insurgents were mainly poor undergraduates, staying in hovels, seven or eight in a room, for their undergraduate studies and exploited by the landlord in Peradeniya and Colombo.

These students saw no future for themselves, said Nadesan. There were no jobs awaiting them.  They were studying because there was nothing else to do. They did not go to the campus gymnasium or playground, instead they were seated discussing jobs, their futures, and socialist politics. Politics was the principal diet of the students. The     voting age had been reduced to 18 years, so they were very much a part of the electorate too.

Nadesan says JVP  campaigned for the United Front government of 1970. The JVP youth stopped their work and organized house to house campaigns in support of the United Front.  The UF  victory was the victory of the youth vote.  A study of the voting patterns will show that it was the youth who defeated the UNP, said Nadesan.

But once this new government came into power there was an unprecedented outburst of lawlessness throughout the  country. JVP had infiltrated  government industrial concerns and had intimidated the workers.  There were work stoppages.  ‘ I do not know why that happened,‘ said Nadesan.

Nadesan  agreed that the   armed uprising  had attacked a duly established, democratically elected, popular government. But  he  listed several weaknesses in the government , such as nepotism, favoritism when it came to jobs. Also said Nadesan, there was unemployment. People were thrown out of jobs.

MPs gave themselves pensions, enhanced allowances and  wanted to import Peugeot cars for official travel. The JVP has also complained that the MPs took the Rs 50 allowance per day and vanished without staying for the Constituent Assembly meetings. The Senators listening to Nadesan, helpfully  added at this point, ‘there  were also objections to MPs foreign  travel  and safaris’. Nadesan said he   did not know of those and was speaking only of what he did know.

One of the first items referred to at the JVP rally held at Hyde Park in Feb 1971,   continued  Nadesan,  and was the fact that the government had introduced compulsory retirement of those over 55.  Very  violent speeches were made by the sons of these dependants, observed Nadesan. JVP had also objected to the fact that  the government had gone to the agents of American imperialism such as World Bank, IDB  for loans like the previous government.

The government had failed to nationalize  banks as promised,  and put a ceiling on land ownership. So their only hope lay ,  JVPers said, in establishing by themselves a socialist society in this country. They proposed to give the government a little time and then take matters into their hands. These were the type of speeches made, said Nadesan.

The JVP leaders, instead of advising these youth that the government should be given a reasonable time and chance of redeeming its promise,  instead started propaganda against the government  and organized discontented youth to attack. The youth were impatient for radical measures, they had been prepared for warfare. They wanted results.

 The youth were either misled  or were foolish enough to think that immediate solutions were possible. The Youth may have thought that if they deferred their actions and make preparations quietly over the years, they would miss the bus,  because by that time the security forces would have hunted them down . That is my analysis. I am looking at this objectively, said Nadesan.

Government declared a state of emergency to wipe put this movement and the security forces ‘went  round to a number of places and sometimes through  good fortune and luck were able to find bombs, ammunitions and arms collected at various places and they started hot on the trail of this movement, continued Nadesan.

The significant part of Nadesan’s speech comes after this. Nadesan  draws attention to the weaknesses of the  Emergency Regulations enacted at the time, particularly Regulations 19 and 20  which deal with arrest, detention, cremation and burial. These Regulations say that any police officer may arrest without a warrant a person suspected of an offence under the Emergency Regulations.  The earlier safeguards that such a person must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours and also that police must report to magistrate if they arrest a person without a warrant were removed.

Further, nothing need be done in any part of the country in respect  not only of person shot dead while in combat between security forces and insurgents but also of person who dies while in detention after they have been taken into custody, said Nadesan. Any ASP of officer in charge of a police station can bury or cremate any dead body without inquest, or death certificate.  And the burials needed not be recorded anywhere.

In  the case of those who die in combat, it is well known all over the world that a count is taken of the people who die and their identities established if they can be   ascertained.  A list is given of the wounded and the dead, so that people from the other countries can know whether somebody is a prisoner, dead or wounded. These are dispensed with here in Sri Lanka, Nadesan said.

Nadesan observed that the police have many honorable capable people but ‘ there are also a  number of persons who oppress the public’. In certain police stations people are frightened that they will be assaulted,  even in normal times. When police are attacked some of them, not particularly educated,  may think of revenge. Some members of the police have been guilty of  cowardly attacks.  One can just imagine what they will do at a time of  civil strife when they can without giving  account to anybody, be a law unto themselves.

 The bulk of the police will not take advantage of ht regulations to abuse their powers,  but in any society, particularly in a country like ours  there are bound to be certain people who will utilize the safeguards provided by these regulations to carry out some private  vendetta or misuse the power granted to them, said Nadesan.

Nadesan then listed a series of allegations regarding criminal behavior on the part of the  armed forces  dealing with the insurgency. Allegations have reached my ears from  reputable sources  whose names I will not disclose here, that insurgents who surrendered or were captured were shot in a large number on the ground that there was no way of keeping them in prison and there were no faculties for transporting them or for accommodating them. Whether this allegation is true or not is a different matter.

 Allegations have been made that in areas far away from the place of actual confrontation between security forces and insurgents, a number of youth were arrested on suspicion, some were shot summarily, others assaulted, tortured, taken away and shot. Suspects were asked to run away from the police station and then shot when running.

Allegations have been made that  in some police stations torture and sadisms have been indulged in by some police officers, they were deprived of their wrist watches and then sent off. Nadesan had been able to verify one such case.

Allegations have been made that the houses of parents of a large number of young persons who were suspected of being insurgents have had their houses burnt down. Allegations have been made that some members of the police force and army have in broad daylight gone to shops, markets and other places and helped themselves to goods and in some cases they have indulged in looting of shops and boutiques, taking away jewellery.

Allegations have been made that after curfew house in places close to Colombo like Nugegoda and in faraway places like Badulla  members of security forces have gone into boutiques and shops and carried away jewellery and cash to the extent of Rs 5,000, 6000 and 7000. Allegations have been made that people’s residences, shops and boutiques with all valuables have been burnt down.

I do not  say the armed force and the police are lawless. What I say is that there are certain allegations of lawlessness made against them which it is not possible in the present climate to investigate.  Government should take up the position that it will investigate these when the time is suitable and every respondent who has a genuine complaint to make will be  given the opportunity.

Senator Nadesan then moved on to the main thrust of his speech, the need to tell the ‘truth ‘ about of  what the security forces had done  during the insurgency and after. The first casualty in civil  war is  truth” he said,  In a civil war, to ensure the security of the state, propagandists  prefer to  utter an untruth or  give a garbled version to the people, than to state the truth and run the risk of  more trouble.

‘I do not expect the government at a time like this, to come out with the truth, and to state the whole truth in respect of all that has happened. The time is not yet ripe for that. But eventually, it is necessary to report excesses committed by some members of the police and security forces.

  I implore the government  in respect of these allegations not to say whether they are true or false. I ask them not commit themselves one way or the other when they do not have the facilities’ for the purpose of investigating and arriving at the truth.  Better take the position.  Well there are these allegations, we cannot say anything one way or other, at  present but later we will inquire into them.

In the process of combating the insurgents and putting down the movement with a firm hand we should not give the impression that we are at any  time  prepared to tolerate indiscipline or lawlessness on the part of the  armed forces or the police. Once  matters have settled,  the government must promise to investigate.    Nadesan then called for economic reform and the speech ended  with a statement on  banning the import of  potatoes and chillies.

There were interruptions to Senator Nadesan’s speech. There were interruptions while Nadesan was narrating this list of ‘allegations’. Senator Kumarasuriar had interrupted Nadesan to say these allegations are false. Senator Somaratne asked to whom these allegations have been made. Nadesan’ reply was  people dare not complain, so they don’t. In any case the police will deny.” Nadesan  speech seems to have  led to laughter as well. Nadesan said, at one point,  ‘this is not an occasion for laughter,’  and again, ‘this is not a time for levity.

• OBSERVATIONS OF NEVILLE JAYAWEERA

Neville Jayaweera was in Vavuniya   as Government Agent when the 1971 JVP insurgency took place. He wrote about it in  The Vavuniya Diaries”.

In Jan and Feb of 1971 headmen of Madukanda, Mamaduwa and Pavatkulam had  reported unusual activities among the youth of the area. They were holding secret meetings in the jungles, were seen wearing strange blue uniforms, guns were vanishing from homes and there was a sharp increase of burglaries from Coop stores. Similar reports were made from most Sinhala districts  in Vavuniya, said Jayaweera.

Jayaweera was  informed in April, 1971 that a  bus load of JVP had set off for Vavuniya from Jaffna.  200 JVPers  attacked Vavuniya Police station on April 4^th 1971.  The attack was resisted by Jayaweera and his team. Village headmen of adjacent villages  then  informed Jayaweera on April 5^th that 100- 150 rebels were mustering on eastern shore of Vavuniya tank. They were planning to raid the town that night.   The monks at Madukanda temple and Iratperiyakulama temple also kept Jayaweera  informed  of the movement of the JVP. They reported that JVP were planning to take Vavuniya on 12^th April.

JVP did succeed in taking Vavuniya. They did so   in a planned manner. JVP  controlled the road at Iratperiyakulama and Omanthai, cutting Vavuniya off from Anuradhapura and Jaffna. JVP also  controlled roads at Medawachchiya, Rajangana, and Polgahawela, which meant they had control of  all key road and rail junctions.    JVP controlled Madukanda, a village   in Vavuniya which  provided a link to  Trincomalee.

 Vavuniya was one of the pockets where the JVP  was able to hold out for a long time, observed Jayaweera.  They were eventually defeated, but   a hard core of about 25 stayed on in the  thickly forested ridge off Mamaduwa village, north east of Vavuniya from where till mid August they made regular incursions into town and torched school buildings and buses and sniped at army camps and patrols. Air strikes failed to flush them out,  said Jayaweera.

Finally, they were taken  and brought to the police stations where the public flocked to see the arrested JVPers.  The JVP  were much loved by the public whom they protected from the sadistic army captain ,sent to Vavuniya with the army unit, who every night had   engaged in the murder of innocent village youth. The JVP had said that it was their anger towards the sadistic army  Captain that made them destroy public property in retaliation and   hold out for so long without surrendering, stated Jayaweera.

Jayaweera   was impressed by the JVP. My encounters with them in 1971 in Vavuniya had been wholesome ones, he said. Jayaweera had sent some money to his wife through a trusted bus driver.  JVP had stopped the driver, detained him, used the bus, and then sent him on  to Colombo with the money intact. JVP leader attacking Vavuniya police station was shot and killed. He took over three hours to die, it was heart rending Said Jayaweera.

Jayaweera said the  JVP were  not mean criminal types. They were decent and most respectful. Very young and idealistic.They were fighting for a new society. They were a couple of thousand starry eyed youth armed with shot guns and homemade bombs, with a charismatic leader. They had no idea what they were to do after capturing Vavuniya police station and Kachcheri, added Jayaweera.

Neville Jayaweera felt sorry for the dead JVP.  They were misguided  but they had caught a vision . The loss of their lives was no less tragic, their deeds no less heroic. For their dead no bugles, no volley in salute, only the indignity of tyres.  I was left with a pang of conscience at the wanton killings of their cadres carried out by the security forces, said Jayaweera. 

Jayaweera found that several young men had disappeared under burning tractor tyres and he was not allowed to inquire into the matter. However he prepared a list of names of the disappeared. But Jayaweera’s dossier of missing youths was not taken up by the government. Jayaweera said that the government number of 1100 missing  was far too little. ( Continued)

Dr. Rajkumar Singh Courtesy The Daily News

Signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord in Colombo

The new Government formed on April 1, 1989 under the premiership of Vishwanath Pratap Singh inherited a tense Indo-Sri Lankan relations paradigm. The interventionist approach adopted by the previous Government of Rajiv Gandhi resulted in the Indo-Lanka Agreement of July 1987 that paved the way for interference of the Indian Peace-keeping Force (IPKF) in the country and had created a very complicated situation, bristling with dangerous possibilities and unpredictable consequences.

With the change of Government Sri Lankan Foreign Affairs and Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne hoped that the change in India would have no impact on either the Indo-Lanka Accord or the agreed time framework for IPKF withdrawal from the island country. The new dispensation that took over in India was serious over the loss of confidence and mutual trust between Colombo and New Delhi. As such, it made initial attempts to redefine the parameters of Indian policy towards Sri Lanka. India had learned a lesson that while dealing with an independent sovereign country and that too during a destabilization situation there was a point beyond which India could not go.

The National Front Government has viewed that the very presence of IPKF would pose a grave danger for mutual trust and confidence building from a small nation. In the circumstances there were three aspects which the National Front applied to the situation in Sri Lanka. (i) That South Asia was a troubled region emphasizing that in the context India’s interests must be protected. (ii) A Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Sri Lanka to bring the island back to India’s sphere of influence and to put an end to the penetration of the international forces of subversion became an imperative need for India, (iii) A good neighbourly relationship would make National Front comfortable at home and enable it to concentrate more on containing domestic subversive activities and justify its action in quelling it.

Initially, the National Front Government was charged with continuing the policy of the previous Government but soon it was realised that it had different view of the problem. With all its concern for the security of the Tamils in Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern Provinces, the new Government acknowledged the stern reality that the Indian Peace Keeping Force cannot do for the Sri Lankan Sinhalese but Tamils alone can do for themselves and therefore, must live in peace and social stability.

But the webs of confusion prevailed on the issue as Inder Kumar Gujral, the Minister for External Affairs, under new dispensation going by the reply to a Parliament question stated that his Government is committed to another deadline—March 31, 1990 for the withdrawal of the IPKF. New Delhi had assured President Premadasa that the Indian Forces would leave Trincomalee and Jaffna districts much before the March deadline and possibly by January end.

Negotiations on deadline

The declaration of the new deadline (March 31) for withdrawal of the IPKF had surprised Colombo and in the background the second visit of Ranjan Wijeratne took place in the first week of January 1990. The frequency and speed of the visits suggested serious efforts for sorting out bilateral problems—the de-induction of the IPKF and related matters. During his stay at New Delhi, Wijeratne discussed with his Indian counterpart the schedule for the de-induction of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force and related matters in the context of Sri Lanka’s plea for speeding up the process.

Gujral, while giving an assurance that he would personally look into the possibility of accelerating the withdrawal also expressed the desire that Sri Lanka should take care of logistical and other practical problems. However, his main concern was to impress upon the visiting minister about the new Government’s sincerity in sorting out its problems with Sri Lanka. In his opinion, this, and not the change in deadline by a few weeks here and there was material for a relationship of trust and confidence. In the joint statement issued at the end of the visit, India and Sri Lanka agreed to make joint efforts to use their influence with the rival militant Tamil groups in the North Eastern Province and work towards a ceasefire.

New Delhi had reaffirmed the commitment made in Parliament to complete the withdrawal of the IPKF by March 31, 1990. Sri Lanka had pledged to ensure the safety and security of all communities in the North-Eastern Province.

The two sides agreed to finalise a friendship treaty proposed by Sri Lanka that incorporated most of the elements of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and elements from the letters exchanged between New Delhi and Colombo.

The main outcome of the exercise, the one most highlighted, is an agreement on finalising the friendship treaty, proposed by Colombo in an updating or upgradation of the Accord of July 1987. Wijeratne, while addressing a press conference after his visit to New Delhi, sketched an optimistic scenario of the future of Indo-Sri Lanka relations stating that We have to have a change of heart and bearing in mind the compulsions of both sides there must be a growing understanding of each other’s problems”. He appeared to feel that with a new Government coming to power in New Delhi, a fresh chapter in Indo-Sri Lanka relations devoid of the irritants of the past few years could begin.

A week ahead of the deadline (March 31), the last of Indian Peace-Keeping Force personnel left Sri Lanka ending a historic two and-a-half year long chapter in relations between the two countries. Soon after coming to power V. P. Singh on his part, fielded Karunanidhi to hold talks with the squabbling Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups. The Chief Minister, according to informed sources, assured” the PM that he would try to bring all these groups together so that the IPKF could be withdrawn without the fear of a refugee backlash for India.

No doubt, the present Government can claim to have improved relations with Sri Lanka after they had suffered under the Rajiv Gandhi Government. The irony of that Government’s policy was that India got deeply involved in the complex international contradictions of Sri Lankan politics. The fiasco of the policy of active intervention was writ large as Indian Armed Forces were virtually engaged in pulling President J.R. Jayewardene’s chestnuts out of the fire.

Hardly ten hours after the IPKF had left Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa, the President of Sri Lanka, thanked India profoundly for withdrawing its troops completely and said, We were able to send home a mighty army not by war but by consultation”. He did not hesitate in praising New Delhi publicly and while addressing the Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) referred to the Indian Prime Minister and said the Premier has won our love and I am pleased to announce that his Government has withdrawn its troops from the country without attaching any condition.”

I thank the Government and people of India for respecting our sovereignty.” The Indian action was also hailed by the USA and State Department Spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler, commenting on the withdrawal said the US welcomed the departure of the Indian Forces from Sri Lanka and that it makes a step on that troubled country’s road to normalcy”.

Dr. Rajkumar Singh is a University Professor for the last 20 years and presently Head of the P.G. Department of Political Science, B.N. Mandal University, West Campus, P.G. Centre, Saharsa (Bihar), India. He is an authority on Indian Politics and its relations with foreign countries. (Eurasia Review) 

වෛද්‍ය රුවන් එම් ජයතුංග විසින් ලියන ලද විශ්ව සාහිත්‍යයේ පැතිකඩක් කෘතිය ඇසුරෙනි

ගුස්ටාව් ෆ්ලෝබර්ට්  විසින්  1856 දී ප්‍රකාශයට පත් කරන ලද මදාම් බෝවරි  නවකතාව දහනව වන ශතවර්ෂයේ වඩාත්ම බලගතු ප්‍රංශ නවකතාව විය. මදාම් බෝවරි ලිවීමට ඔහුට වසර හයක් ගත විය. නවකතාව පිටවූ පසු එහි  කාමමිථ්‍යාචාරය නිරූපණය කිරීම මගින් ආගමික සංවේදීතාවන්ට හානියක් සිදු වූ බව පවසමින්  ෆ්ලෝබර්ට්ට නඩු පවරන ලදි.  ෆ්ලෝබර්ට්  නඩුව ජයගත් අතර  අද දිනයේ  මදාම් බෝවරි විශිෂ්ඨ ගනයේ යථාර්ථවාදී නවකතාවක් ලෙස පිලිගැනේ. 

මදාම් බෝවරි යනු ෆ්ලෝබර්ට්ගේ මිනිස් බැඳීම් පිළිබඳ කතාවයි.  නවකතාව 19 වන සියවසේ මැද භාගයේ ප්‍රංශයේ ධනේශ්වර ජීවිතය පිළිබඳ වේදනාකාරී විස්තරයකි. ෆ්ලෝබර්ට් සිය නවකතාවේ සංකේතවාදය පුළුල් ලෙස භාවිතා කළේය.   නවකතාව  ඔස්සේ ෆ්ලෝබර්ට් ග්‍රාමීය ප්‍රංශ ජනතාවගේ සිරිත් විරිත් විස්තරාත්මකව පවසයි.  එමා බෝවරි  උසස්, අධ්‍යාත්මික ජීවිතයක් සඳහා ආශා කරන අතර, මෙම ගවේෂණයේදී ඇය සොයා ගන්නේ ස්වයං විනාශයක් පමණි. එමාගේ නාට්‍යය වන්නේ මායාව සහ යථාර්ථය අතර පරතරය වෙයි.  එමාගේ රොමැන්ටික ෆැන්ටසි ඇය වටා ඇති පොදු ජීවිතයේ අප්‍රායෝගිකත්වය මගින් සිඳී යයි.  එම නිසා ඇය තුල දැඩි ශෝකයක් හට ගනියි.

චාල්ස් බෝවරි යනු එතරම් බුද්ධියක් නොමැති නමුත් වෙහෙසී වෛද්‍ය විභාගය සමත් වූ දොස්තර කෙනෙකි. වෛද්‍ය චාල්ස් බෝවරි ගේ පළමු බිරිඳ වූයේ පොහොසත් වැන්දඹුවක් වන හෙලෝයිස් ඩුබක්ය. ඔහු ඇය සමග විවහා වන්නේ තමන් ගේ මවගේ ඉල්ලීම නිසාය.  එහෙත් ඔහුගේ විවහාය නීරස එකක් විය. හෙලෝයිස් ඔහුට වඩා වයසින් වැඩි විරූපී කාන්තාවකි. එසේම හෙලෝයිස් පැවසූ පරිදි ඇය ධනවත් තැනැත්තියක් නොවූවාය. හෙලෝයිස් ගේ මරණයෙන් පසු චාල්ස් කන්‍යාරාමයක අධ්‍යාපනයක්  ලබා ඇති රූමත් එමා රුවෝල්ට් සමග විවහා වෙයි. එම විවහාය චාල්ස්ව තෘප්තිමත් කරයි. ඔහු පොදු ක්‍රියාකාරකම් වලින් සෑහීමකට පත්වන අතර එමාගේ අතෘප්තිය  ඔහුට නොදැනේ. චාල්ස් යනු අමිහිරි සහ සිතාගත නොහැකි මිනිසාගේ සාමාන්‍ය නියෝජිතයා වන අඳුරු පොදු මිනිසා ය. 

වෛද්‍ය චාල්ස් බෝවරි ගේ බිරිඳ වන එමා තම විවහා ජීවිතයේ පවතින හිස් බව සහ ඒකාකාරීත්වය නිසා විශාදයට පත් වෙයි.  අලංකාර හා උද්‍යෝගිමත් ජීවිතයක් පිළිබඳ ඇගේ සිහින බිඳ වැටී තිබේ. එමා, තම ජීවිතයේ ඒකාකාරිත්වයට එරෙහිව කැරලි ගසන්නේ, ප්‍රීතිය හා ආදරය පිළිබඳ සිහින දකිමින් ය. ඇය නවකතාවල කියවා ඇති “සැප, තෘෂ්ණාව සහ ප්‍රීතිය”   නොලැබීම නිසා ඇය කලකිරීමට පත්ව සිටින්නීය. ඇයගේ සැමියා වන චාල්ස් ගේ කතාව අඳුරු විය, ඔහු ඇය තුළ කිසිදු හැඟීමක් ඇති කළේ නැත, ඔහුට කිසිවක් කිරීමට හෝ දැකීමට ආශාවක් නොතිබුණි. ඔහුගේ මන්දගාමී විලාශය, ඔහුගේ චිත්තවේගීය උත්තේජනය නොමැතිකම එමාට දරා ගත නොහැක.  වංශාධිපති ලෝකය සමඟ මුසු වීමට අවශ්‍ය ගුණාංග එමා සතුව තිබුනද චාල්ස් සමග ගෙවන  ජීවිතය ඒ සඳහා අවකාශ ලබා දුන්නේ නැත. එමාගේ අස්ථිර ස්වභාවය, ජීවිතයේ ඕනෑම අංශයක් කෙරෙහි උනන්දුවක් පවත්වා ගැනීමට ඇයට ඇති නොහැකියාව ඇයගේ තත්වය තවත් බැරෑරුම් කර දමන ලදි.  

අභ්‍යන්තර සාමයක් ලබා ගත හැකි යැයි බලාපොරොත්තුවෙන් එමා පල්ලියට ගියාය. එමා පූජකයාට අධ්‍යාත්මික උපකාර අවශ්‍ය බව පැහැදිලි කිරීමට උත්සාහ කළ නමුත් පූජකවරයාගේ අවධානය ඊට යොමු නොවීය. ඇයගේ බලාපොරොත්තු සුන් වූවාය. එමා සහ පූජකවරයා අතර ඇති වූ මෙම කෙටි හමුවීමේදී   ෆ්ලෝබර්ට් ඉතා සියුම් ආකාරයකින් පල්ලිය හෙළා දැක තිබේ. පූජකයා තමාගේම නොවැදගත් රැකියාවෙහි යෙදී සිටින අතර එමාගේ දුක්ඛිත තත්වය වටහා ගැනීමට ඔහුට කාලය නොමැත. ඇත්ත වශයෙන්ම, ඔහු සිතන්නේ ඇයට අධ්‍යාත්මික මග පෙන්වීමට වඩා තේ කෝප්පයක් අවශ්‍ය බවයි. මේ නිසා එමාට අධ්‍යාත්මික සුවය කරා එලැඹීමට ඇති බලාපොරොත්තු බිඳ වැටුණි.

එමාගේ දුක්ඛිත තත්වය සංකේතාත්මකව නිරූපණය කරන්නේ ඇගේ  තමාගේ මංගල  මල් කළඹ  පුළුස්සා දැමීම මගිනි. ඇයගේ තක්සේරුව අනුව ඇයගේ සැමියා වන චාල්ස් කාන්සිය ගෙන දෙන ශෘංගාර රසයෙන් තොර මිනිසෙකි. එමා පිරිමින් දෙස උනන්දුවෙන් බලා සිටි අතර චාල්ස්ගේ පොදු පෙනුම හා පෞරුෂය නිසා ඇය පිළිකුලට පත් වූවාය. මේ නිසා ඇය ධනවත් ඉඩම් හිමියෙකු වන රොඩොල්ෆ් බූලන්ගර් සමඟ අනියම් සබඳතාවක් අරඹයි. එමාගේ අපේක්‍ෂාව රොඩොල්ෆ් බූලන්ගර් සමග පැන යාමටය. ඇය වංශවතුන් අතර  පැරීසියේ ජීවත් වීමට සිහින මැව්වා ය. එහෙත් රොඩොල්ෆ් , එමාව භාවිතා කරන්නේ ඔහුගේ ශාරීරික අවශ්‍යතා සඳහා පමණි. රොඩොල්ෆ් ඇයව ප්‍රතික්ශේප කිරීමත් සමග එමා දිගු කාලීන විශාදයකට ගොදුරු වෙයි. ඇය එයින් මිදෙන්නේ පවුලේ  පැරණි හිතවතෙකු වූ ලියොන් ඩුපුවිස් සමග මිත්‍ර වීමෙනි. එමා ලියොන් සමඟ පළමු වරට හමුවීම ඇයට සිත්ගන්නාසුලු සිදුවීමකි. ඇගේ ජීවිතයේ පළමු වතාවට සාහිත්‍යය, සංගීතය සහ ආශ්‍රිත විෂයයන් පිළිබඳව එකම උනන්දුවක් දක්වන පුද්ගලයෙකු ඇයට හමු වී තිබේ. ඇය කරුණාවන්ත ආත්මයන් බව ඇයට වහාම දැනෙන අතර ඔවුන් අතර ක්ෂණික සම්බන්ධතාවයක් ඇති විය. මුලදී ලියොන් දරුණු ලැජ්ජාශීලී සහ තමා ගැනම සැක සහිත ය. ඔහු කාන්තාවන්ගේ හා ආදරය පිළිබඳ ලෝකයේ අද්දැකීම් අඩු අයෙකි. 

වසර තුනක වෙන්වීමෙන් පසු ඔහුට නැවත එමා මුණගැසෙන විට, ඔහු නවීනත්වයේ තුනී ආවරණයක් ලබා ගෙන ඇත, නමුත් ඔහු තවමත් නොගැඹුරු හා දුර්වල තරුණයෙකි. ඔහු එමා සමඟ ප්‍රේම සම්බන්ධයක් ආරම්භ කළත්, ඔහුට ආක්‍රමණශීලී හෝ තීරණාත්මක ආකාරයකින් ක්‍රියා කිරීමට නොහැකිය. එමා ඔහුව හමුවීමට සෑම සතියකම නගරයට යන අතර චාල්ස් විශ්වාස කරන්නේ ඇය පියානෝ පාඩම් ඉගෙන ගන්නා බවයි. මේ අතර, එමා අධික ලෙස මුදල් වියදම් කරයි. එමාගේ ණය ගොඩ ගැසීමට පටන් ගනියි. එහෙත් එමාට අවශ්‍ය කායිකව තෘප්තිමත් වීමෙන් තම මනසේ තිබෙන හිස් බව වසා ගැනීමටය. ඇය සදාචාරාත්මකව දූෂිත වන අතර ඇගේ ජීවිතයේ යථාර්ථයන් පිළිගැනීමට හා අගය කිරීමට ඇයට නොහැකිය. එමාට ඇගේ තත්වය පිළිගැනීමට ඇති නොහැකියාව සහ කාමමිථ්‍යාචාරය හා රැවටීම තුළින් එයින් ගැලවීමට ගත් උත්සාහය ඇයව විනාශය කරා ඇදගෙන යයි.

එමාගේ ජීවිතයේ පුරුෂයින් කෙරෙහි ඇති එකම බලය ලිංගිකත්වයයි. ඇගේ ජීවිතයේ අවසානයට ආසන්නව, ඇය මුදල් සඳහා මංමුලා සහගතව සොයන විට, ඇය ඒ සඳහා ඔවුන්ව පොළඹවා ගැනීමට ඇයට භාවිතා කළ හැකි එකම දෙය ලිංගිකත්වයයි. චාල්ස් වඩාත්ම සදාචාරාත්මක හා අවංක චරිත වේ. ඔහු එමාට සැබවින්ම ආදරය කරන්නේ ඔහු ඇගේ අවිශ්වාසය හඳුනාගත් විට පවා ඇයට සමාව දෙන බැවිනි. ඇය අසනීප වූ විට ඇයව බේරා ගැනීම සඳහා ඔහු හැකි සෑම දෙයක්ම කරයි. ඇයගේ බොරු ඇයට අසමත් වන බවක් පෙනෙන සෑම අවස්ථාවකදීම ඔහු සැකයේ වාසිය ලබා දෙයි.  නමුත් එමා චාල්ස්ට අවිඥාණිකව වෛර කරන්නීය. තමාගේ ජීවිතය විනාශ කරගෙන චාල්ස්ව හිඟමනට ඇද දැමීම ගැන ඇය කුරිරු ලෙස සතුටුවන්නීය.

ඇය ලියුරෙක්ස් වෙතින් මුදල් ණයට ගැනීමට තෝරා ගැනීම අවසන් වන්නේ විනාශයකිනි. ඔහු සට කපට පුද්ගලයෙකි ,අවස්ථාවාදියෙකි. ලියුරෙක්ස්ගේ කෑදර උපායන් සමඟ ඒකාබද්ධව එමාට විනාශකාරී උගුලක් නිර්මාණය වේ. අධික ණය නිසා ඔවුන් ගේ දේපළ විනාශ වෙයි. චාල්ස් වස්තු භංගත්වයත් පත් වෙයි. ගැලවීමේ එකම මාර්ගය ලෙස ඇය සිය දිවි නසා ගැනීම තෝරා ගනී. ඇය ආසනික් ගිල දමා වේදනාකාරී ලෙස හා සෙමින් මිය ගියාය. ශෝකයට පත් චාල්ස්, එමාගේ කටයුතු අන්ධ ලෙස නොදැන සිටි අතර, මියගිය බිරිඳගේ ණය ගෙවීමට වෙහෙසෙද්දී පවා ඔහු  ඇය වෙනුවෙන් කැපවී සිටී. රොඩොල්ෆ් සහ ලියොන්ගෙන් ආදර ලිපි සොයා ගැනීමෙන් පසු, චාල්ස්, වඩ වඩාත් කලකිරීමට පත්ව  මිය යන අතර යයි. ඔවුන් ගේ දියණිය අනාත වෙයි. 

මදාම් බෝවරි යනු ධනේශ්වර විවාහයක ලෞකිකත්වය පිළිබඳ නවකතාවකි  එය ආදර ආදර කතාවක් නොව, කම්මැලිකම, මධ්‍යස්ථභාවය සහ කලකිරීම පිළිබඳ කතාවකි. සමාජය විසින් විකෘති කරන ලද නූතන කාන්තාව පිළිබඳ ෆ්ලෝබර්ට්ගේ දෘෂ්ටිය ලෙස මදාම් බෝවරි කියවිය හැකිය. එමා බෝවරි යනු මධ්‍යම පන්තික ජීවිතයට නැගී සිටීමට නොහැකි වූ මධ්‍යම පාන්තික කාන්තාවකි. ඇය සිය මුළු ජීවිතයම ගත කළේ සිහින, ප්‍රේම සම්බන්ධතා සහ බොරු මවාපෑමෙන් මෙම මධ්‍යම පංතියේ පැවැත්මෙන් මිදීමටය. එමා බෝවරි සිහින මැව්වේ පරිපූර්ණත්වයට එහා ගිය ජීවිතයක් ගැන ය. එහෙත් ඇයට ලැබුනේ වේදනාකාරී මරණයකි. එමාගේ ඇදවැටීමට දායක වන   සාධක  වන්නේ ඇය වටා සිටින පිරිමින් ය. එමාගේ පසුබෑමට චාල්ස් දායක වන්නේ ඇයව තෘප්තිමත් කිරීමට ඇති නොහැකියාව නිසාය. අනියම් සබඳතා නිසා විනාශ වූයේ රොඩොල්ෆ් හෝ ලියොන් වත් නොව එමාය. එමා ගේ කතාව පුරුෂ ආධිපත්‍ය සහ එහි බලවත්කම මෙන්ම ලිංගික සූරාකෑම පිලිබඳ තෙස්තමේන්තුවකි.   

ෆ්ලෝබර්ට්,   එමා බෝවරි ගේ   සබඳතා සහ ආශක්තවීම් මනෝ විද්‍යාව යථාර්ථවාදීව ඉදිරිපත් කළේය. පිරිමි ආධිපත්‍යය සහිත සමාජයක කාන්තා චරිතයක් පරිණාමය වීම  ෆ්ලෝබර්ට්  විචක්ෂණශීලී ලෙස විස්තර කරයි. කාමමිථ්‍යාචාරය, ණය සහ අවසානයේදී මරණයට පත්වීම, එමා බෝවරිගේ ඇදවැටීම පිළිබඳ කතුවරයාගේ යථාර්ථවාදී සහ පැහැදිලි විස්තරය, නූතන නවකතාවල වර්ධනයේ විශිෂ්ට සන්ධිස්ථානයක් ලෙස විචාරකයෝ සලකති.  මදාම් බෝවරි සාහිත්‍යයේ යථාර්ථවාදයේ නව යුගයකි. ආඛ්‍යානමය දෘෂ්ටි කෝණයෙන් බලන විට වඩාත්ම පරිපූර්ණ පොත ෆ්ලෝබර්ට් විසින් රචිත  මදාම් බෝවරි බව ජෝර්ජියෝ ඩි චිරිකෝ පැවසීය. ජූලියන් බාන්ස් එය මෙතෙක් ලියා ඇති හොඳම නවකතාව ලෙස හැඳින්වීය. හෙන්රි ජේම්ස්, මාසෙල් ප්‍රෞස්ට් සහ ව්ලැඩිමීර් නබෝකොව් වැනි ලේඛකයින් හා විචාරකයින් එය අසමසම ශෛලියක් සහිත පරිපූර්ණ නවකතාවක් ලෙස සැලකූහ.  මදාම් බෝවරි  කියවීමෙන්  පසු  ෆ්ලෝබර්ට් පරිපූර්ණවාදියෙකු බව දැකීම පහසු බව විචාරකයෝ පවසති.

(වෛද්‍ය රුවන් එම් ජයතුංග විසින් ලියන ලද විශ්ව සාහිත්‍යයේ පැතිකඩක් කෘතිය ඇසුරෙනි ) 

 lanka C news

ආන්දෝලනයකට ලක්ව ඇති කුරුණෑගල නගරය මධ්‍යයේදී ගොඩනැගිල්ල බුවනෙකබා රාජ සභාවක් නොවන බව වයඹ පලාත් ප්‍රධාන අධිකරණ සංඝ නායක පූජ්‍ය රැකව ජිනරතන හිමියෝ සඳහන් කරති.

උන්වහන්සේ පෙන්වා දෙන්නේ මෙම සිදුවීම පාදක කරගෙන දේශපාලන ව්‍යාපාරයක් ක්‍රියාත්මක වන බවයි.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=737466746987371&t=4

කුරුණෑගල ඇති සියළුම ගොඩනැගිලි පාහේ ඉංග්‍රීසි ආණ්ඩු කළේ නිර්මාණය වූ ඒවා බවත් මෙම ගොඩනැගිල්ලද එවන් එකක් බවත් උන්වහන්සේ පැවසූහ.

අදාළ ගොඩනැගිල්ල පසු කාලීන බදු දීමෙන් පසු යම් යම් ව්‍යාපාර කටයුතු සඳහා යොදා ගත් බව ද උන්වහන්සේ සඳහන් කළහ.

එහිමියන් මෙම අදහස් පළ කළේ ජනාධිපති ගෝටාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා සමග පැවති සාකච්ඡාවකදීය.

By Shashi Tharoor New Delhi, July 25 (The Indian Express)Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

The disgraceful political shenanigans the nation has witnessed, most recently in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and the horse-trading of MLAs to switch allegiances for power and pelf, are not merely an occasion for breast-beating about morality in politics or the opportunism of the cash-rich ruling party. We never seem to look beyond the headlines to the basic problem: The system that makes this shameful conduct possible. The parliamentary system we borrowed from the British has not worked in Indian conditions. It is time to demand a change.

The facts are clear: Our parliamentary system has created a unique breed of legislator, largely unqualified to legislate, who has sought election only in order to wield executive power. It has produced governments dependent on a fickle legislative majority, who are therefore obliged to focus more on politics than on policy or performance. It has distorted the voting preferences of an electorate that knows which individuals it wants to vote for but not necessarily which parties. It has spawned parties that are shifting alliances of selfish individual interests, not vehicles of coherent sets of ideas. It has forced governments to concentrate less on governing than on staying in office, and obliged them to cater to the lowest common denominator of their coalitions. The parliamentary system has failed us.

Pluralist democracy is India’s greatest strength, but its current manner of operation is the source of our major weaknesses. To suggest this is political sacrilege in India. Barely any of the many politicians I have discussed this with are even willing to contemplate a change. The main reason for this is that they know how to work the present system and do not wish to alter the ways they are used to.

Yet the parliamentary system devised in Britain — a small island nation with electorates of less than a lakh voters per constituency — is based on traditions which simply do not exist in India. These involve clearly defined political parties, each with a coherent set of policies and preferences that distinguish it from the next, whereas in India a party is all-too-often a label of convenience which a politician adopts and discards as frequently as a Bollywood film star changes costume. Hopping from one to the next — which would send shock waves through the political system in other parliamentary democracies — is commonplace, even banal, in our country.

In the absence of a real party system, the voter chooses not between parties but between individuals, usually on the basis of their caste, their public image or other personal qualities. But since the individual is elected in order to be part of a majority that will form the government, party affiliations matter. So voters are told that if they want a Narendra Modi as prime minister, or a Mamata Banerjee or Jagan Reddy as their chief minister, they must vote for someone else as MP or MLA in order to indirectly accomplish that result. It is a perversity only the British could have devised — to vote for a legislature not to legislate but in order to form the executive.

The fact that the principal reason for entering Parliament is to attain governmental office creates four specific problems. First, it limits executive posts to those who are electable rather than to those who are able. The prime minister cannot appoint a cabinet of his choice; he has to cater to the wishes of the political leaders of several parties. (Yes, he can bring some members in through the Rajya Sabha, but our upper house too has been largely the preserve of full-time politicians, so the talent pool has not been significantly widened.)

Second, it puts a premium on defections and horse-trading. The anti-defection Act of 1985 has failed to cure the problem, since the bargaining has shifted to getting enough MLAs to resign to topple a government, while promising them offices when they win the subsequent by-elections.

Third, legislation suffers. Most laws are drafted by the executive — in practice by the bureaucracy — and parliamentary input into their formulation and passage is minimal, with very many bills being passed after barely a few minutes of debate. The ruling party inevitably issues a whip to its members in order to ensure unimpeded passage of a bill, and since defiance of a whip itself attracts disqualification, MPs blindly vote as their party directs. The parliamentary system does not permit the existence of a legislature distinct from the executive, applying its collective mind freely to the nation’s laws. Accountability of the government to the people, through their elected representatives, is weakened.

Fourth, for those parties who do not get into government and who realise that the outcome of most votes is a foregone conclusion, Parliament or Assembly serves not as a solemn deliberative body, but as a theatre for the demonstration of their power to disrupt. The well of the house — supposed to be sacrosanct — becomes a stage for the members of the opposition to crowd and jostle, waving placards and chanting slogans until the Speaker, after several futile attempts to restore order, adjourns in despair. In India’s Parliament, many opposition members feel that the best way to show the strength of their feelings is to disrupt law-making rather than debate the law.

Apologists for the present system say in its defence that it has served to keep the country together and given every Indian a stake in the nation’s political destiny. But that is what democracy has done, not the parliamentary system. What our present system has not done as well as other democratic systems might, is to ensure effective performance. India’s many challenges require political arrangements that permit decisive action, whereas ours increasingly promotes drift and indecision. We must have a system of democracy whose leaders can focus on governance rather than on staying in power.

The disrepute into which the political process has fallen in India, and the widespread cynicism about the motives of our politicians, can be traced directly to the workings of the parliamentary system. Holding the executive hostage to the agendas of a motley bunch of legislators is nothing but a recipe for governmental instability. And instability is precisely what India, with its critical economic and social challenges, cannot afford.

The case for a presidential system has, in my view, never been clearer. A directly elected chief executive in New Delhi and in each state, instead of being vulnerable to the shifting sands of coalition support politics, would have stability of tenure free from legislative whim, be able to appoint a cabinet of talents, and above all, be able to devote his or her energies to governance, and not just to government. The Indian voter will be able to vote directly for the individual he or she wants to be ruled by, and the president will truly be able to claim to speak for a majority of Indians rather than a majority of MPs. At the end of a fixed period of time, the public would be able to judge the individual on performance in improving the lives of Indians, rather than on political skill at keeping a government in office.

The same logic would apply to the directly elected heads of our towns and cities — as I have proposed in a Private Member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha — and village panchayats, who today are little more than glorified committee chairmen, with little power and minimal resources. To give effect to meaningful local self-government, we need directly elected local officials, each with real authority and financial resources to deliver results in their own areas.

The only serious objection advanced by liberal democrats is that the presidential system carries with it the risk of dictatorship. They conjure up the image of an imperious president, immune to parliamentary defeat and impervious to public opinion, ruling the country by fiat. In particular they argue that it will pave the way for a Modi dictatorship in India. But a President Modi could scarcely be more autocratic than the prime minister we have seen in office — one who has, thanks to the parliamentary system, a rubber-stamp majority in the Lok Sabha rather than the independent legislature a presidential system would ensure. In addition, the powers of a President Modi would be amply balanced by those of the directly elected chief executives in the states, who would be immune to dismissal by their party leader, or to toppling by defecting MLAs.

Democracy is an end in itself, and we are right to be proud of it. But few Indians are proud of the kind of politics our democracy has inflicted upon us. With the needs and challenges of one-sixth of humanity before our leaders, we must have a democracy that delivers progress to our people. Changing to a presidential system is the best way of ensuring a democracy that works.

(The writer is a Congress MP representing Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala)

by C.A. Chandraprema Courtesy The Island

The chapter on constitutional reform in Sajith Premadasa’s presidential election manifesto should have got even more attention than it did, but at the time it was released about two weeks before the presidential poll, rival candidate Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s citizenship issue and Ven. Ududumbara Kashyapa Thera’s fast unto death over the MCC affair had pushed everything else into the background and it was unlikely that an esoteric subject like constitutional reform would come to the people’s attention in a major way. This time, Sajith’s parliamentary election manifesto has ducked the issue of constitutional reform altogether. That denotes a certain kind of politics.  

Constitutional reform is one of the main platforms on which this election is being fought because the SLPP has been openly asking for a two thirds majority in order to effect constitutional reform. Sajith Premadasa’s presidential election manifesto was a complete and total capitulation to the TNA constitutional agenda. The absence of any constitutional proposals in the parliamentary election manifesto is obviously because the TNA is contesting separately and the SJB will not get any TNA votes at the parliamentary election. It’s frightening to see a main political party or at least the main faction of a mainline political party having a constitutional reform agenda predicated on winning votes. When votes are on offer, constitutional reform appears. When no votes are on offer constitutional reform disappears from the agenda.

Bartering constitutional reform for votes

President R.Premadasa made the same mistake of bartering constitutional reform for votes when he reduced the district cut off point in the proportional representation system from 12.5% to five percent in order to obtain the support of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress at the presidential election of 1988. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was signed into law just 48 hours before the Presidential poll on 19 December 1988. The damage this has done to the UNP itself and the country is incalculable. This made narrow minded ethnic politics possible in this country and has eroded the UNP’s minority vote base. Today the SJB is making the same mistake once again and this time, the repercussions will be even more serious because what is being bartered for votes is the very structure of the Sri Lankan state.

The need for constitutional reform is not an academic exercise. It’s a necessity. No political party other than the SLPP will be able to rule this country effectively without constitutional reform. The 19th Amendment has created a permanent state of war between the President and the Prime Minister. Today, things seem quite normal because the President is the brother of the Prime Minister in an extraordinarily close knit family which also has well established working arrangements among family members in politics. If Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had been defeated at the presidential election and Sajith Premadasa had won, Sajith would by now be at war with Ranil Wickremesinghe.

After the 19th Amendment, the president cannot hold any ministry. Yet under Article 30(1) the president is the Head of the State, the Head of the Executive and of the Government, and under Article 42(3) he is also the Head of the Cabinet. Though he is the head of the Cabinet, he cannot hold any portfolio. The Constitution after the 19th Amendment does not expressly say that the President cannot hold any portfolio. What happened is that the 19th Amendment repealed the old Article 44(2) which said that the President may assign to himself any subject or function and shall remain in charge of any subject or function not assigned to any Minister. Under the 19th Amendment, the President and PM have to share authority over the appointment of the cabinet.

According to Article 43(1) the President can in consultation with the Prime Minister, where he considers such consultation to be necessary, determine the number of Ministers in the Cabinet and the assignment of subjects and functions to such Ministers. But when appointing MPs as Ministers, Article 43(2) requires the President to act only on the advice of the Prime Minister. Article 43(3) states that the President may at any time change the assignment of subjects and functions and the composition of the Cabinet of Ministers. However due to Article 43(2), even when acting under Article 43(3), it appears that the President has to seek the PM’s views if he is going to change the assignment of subjects to any individual Minister. The 19th Amendment created a situation where the President, Prime Minister and even the Speaker of Parliament were left holding parts of executive power. The Speaker presides over the Constitutional Council which has a role to play in making appointments to important state positions.

The 19th Amendment has also given the Prime Minister a kind of security of tenure. Under article 42(4) the President appoints as Prime Minister the Member of Parliament who is most likely to command the confidence of Parliament. Once appointed, the President according to the provisions of article 46(2) cannot remove the Prime Minister from office. The only way in which the PM can be removed is if he resigns or ceases to be a Member of Parliament. Because things look normal now, most people would be lulled into underestimating the disruptive effect of such provisions. What has saved the day are the working arrangements that has always existed within the Rajapaksa family. That will not be easily replicated anywhere else and constitutional reform should be a priority for all political parties not just the SLPP. In fact it could be argued that in an immediate sense, the SLPP is the political party that needs constitutional reform least.

The single most dangerous provision in the 19th Amendment is the complete prohibition on dissolving Parliament before the lapse of four and a half years unless a resolution is passed by parliament with a two thirds majority calling for an early dissolution. Now the President cannot dissolve Parliament at his own discretion until the lapse of four and a half years, and neither can parliament be dissolved in the event of repeated defeats of the budget, repeated defeats of the statement of government policy or the repeated passage of no confidence motions against the government. This in a situation where the system of elections more often than not produces a winner without a clear majority in parliament. Except on two occasions in the past three decades, governments have had to be cobbled together after a parliamentary election.

In 2001, when the parliamentary government cobbled together in that fashion by President Chandrika Kumaratunga began to fall apart, the President dissolved parliament and after the ensuring election, the UNP obtained the most number of seats and cobbled together a new government. This process ensured that the country did not descend into anarchy as the parliamentary government lost the ability to govern. Today that safety mechanism has been removed. If at some point into a government, its parliamentary majority falls apart, the President is required to somehow cobble together a majority and continue till the completion of four and a half years – an impossible task.

Housekeeping issues

There are many housekeeping issues in the 19th Amendment that need to be sorted out as well. If anyone asks a member of the Elections Commission whether they are responsible to Parliament in the discharge of their duties, they wouldn’t know. Article 41B(6) states that the Election Commission is not responsible and answerable to Parliament while Article 104B(3) says it is responsible and answerable to Parliament. If this goes before the Supreme Court, the only way that the SC will be able to decide between Article 41B(6) and Article 104B(3) is perhaps by tossing a coin! Everyone has heard of the situation where the membership of the Elections Commission is three and the quorum is also three but if the Chairman is absent, the remaining members can elect a Chairman and hold a meeting.

There are means of removing members of the independent commissions in the event of misconduct. Even in the case of the members of the Judicial Services Commission, which is made up of the Chief Justice and the two most senior Judges of the Supreme Court, Article 111E(6) states that the President may, with the approval of the Constitutional Council, and for cause assigned, remove from office any member of the Commission. A similar provision exists for the removal of the members of the Police Commission. The way that members of the Elections Commission can be removed is through an order of the President made after an address of Parliament supported by a majority of the total number of Members of Parliament including those not present.

Ideally it should be possible to remove a member of the Constitutional Council with a fixed term of three years by an address of Parliament similar to the above. But the only way that a member of the Constitutional Council with a fixed term can be removed according to Article 41A(8) is if both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition form the opinion that such member is physically or mentally incapacitated and is unable to function further in office. Instead of giving the decision making power to remove an errant member of the Constitutional Council to a wider body, it has been given to just two individuals who also sit in the Constitutional Council.

Even if the two do agree, the Constitution specifies that a member of the Constitutional Council can be removed only for one reason – that such member is physically or mentally incapacitated and is unable to function further in office – he cannot be removed for any other reason. If for example a member of the CC openly engages in politics and undermines the status of the CC, he cannot be removed even if the PM and Opposition Leader both agree that such conduct is unbecoming of a member of the CC and that he should not be serving on that body.

Tales of the independent

commissions

The two main political parties have fallen victim to the independent commissions created initially by the 17th Amendment and reestablished by the 19th Amendment. Many years ago, former UNP Minister Karunasena Kodituwakku recounted to this writer how he had fallen victim to the 17th Amendment when he was the Minister of Education in the UNP government of 2001-2004. When the UNP was re-elected to power in 2001 after seven years, teachers who had been politically victimized by the previous government had appealed to Minister Kodituwakku for relief. So a committee was set up in the Ministry of Education for this purpose and 12,000 applications were received. In the case of about 6,000 of these applicants the Ministry held interviews to ascertain whether these claims were genuine and to decide on what recommendations should be made.

 While this process was going on, the Public Service Commission had sent a directive to the Secretary to the Ministry of Education saying that the ministry did not have the power to do this and that any disciplinary, dismissal or transfer of any public servant in the central government is a matter for the Public Service Commission and therefore all files had to be sent to the PSC. The education ministry had no option but to send the files to the PSC. The Commission went through the files and began notifying the petitioners of their conclusions in Sinhala saying “On the face of it, it does not appear that you have been subject to political victimization”  

Ultimately, because of the 17th Amendment and the Public Service Commission set up under it, none of the politically victimized teachers had got any redress from the UNP government. Naturally everybody assumed that this was due to the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe’s ‘insensitivity’ to the travails and tribulations of the party rank and file. The independent Public Services Commission which had been set up under the 17th Amendment was a new body at that time and people were not aware that it was functioning and the UNP government of the time also did not do anything to make people aware that such decisions were no longer in the hands of the ruling party but in the hands of some unelected individuals completely unknown to the public. The independent commissions have thus made a contribution to the present split that we see in the UNP.

On the other side of the political divide, when Prof. Tissa Vitarana was the minister of science and technology in the UPFA government that succeeded the above mentioned UNP government, he wanted to set up a support service for small and medium enterprises in the rural sector in the form of the Vidatha programme manned by a science graduate with a computer operator supported by a field officer with the express purpose of helping existing small and medium enterprises and also those wishing to become entrepreneurs. When he put up this proposal, it went to the Public Service Commission and it was stuck there. Prof.Vitarana had met the PSC chairman three times and explained the importance of this programme to no avail. Officials haggled over matters like salaries and the whole project was delayed for over one and a half years. What the UPFA learned from that experience was that those who don’t understand that governments have to deliver development and progress to the people can get into these independent commissions and even buckle the work of the government.

A lot of things in the present Constitution needs to be rethought. The two or even three centers of executive power, the irrational and dangerous restrictions on the dissolution of Parliament, the Constitutional Council with members not answerable to anyone, the independent commissions which are a drag on the functioning of the government, and the practice of holding  politicians  responsible while at the same time denying them the power to fulfill those responsibilities, all have to be thought over afresh.

By Lahiru Pothmulla Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said yesterday a future Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) government would make Colombo free of shanties.

At a forum held at the Foundation Institute in Colombo, he said the yahapalana government showed no interest in going ahead with the project to resettle low-income dwellers at proper housing schemes.

The programme to remove shanties and resettle these families at housing complexes was begun when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the then Secretary of Defence and Urban Development. A future government of ours will resume this programme and provide proper housing to low income families,” the Prime Minister said.

He said the Colombo Port City was another project suspended by the yahapalana government. “Had the construction of the port city continued without disruption, most of the project could have been completed by now, providing employment opportunities to future generations,” he said. 

Yoshitha Perera Courtesy The Daily Mirror

A senior officer attached to the State Intelligence Service (SIS), after his retirement, had connections with an Islamic organisation that wanted to establish an Islamic state, a senior SIS official investigating Islamic extremism on Thursday night informed the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks.

The witness made the above statement in response to a question raised by the Commissioners whether current or retired government officials had joined organisations or movements which promote ISIS ideology.

The SIS officer also said that there were cases where family members of senior Muslim government officials had joined organisations which follow the ISIS ideology and promote the Islamic State concept.

During the investigation we received information about a son and a son-in-law of a retired judge, who had joined a Salafi movement (often referred to as the Wahhabis) in the country. The son-in-law had taught at an Arabic college named Al Kimma and some Muslim youth from Kerala had studied under him. Most of these youth later went to Afghanistan to join ISIS and most were killed,” witness informed the Commission.

The witness also informed the Commission that the former senior officer of SIS had a connection with Jamaat-e-Islami organisation but SIS did not find him as an active member of that organisation.

When the public were against the concept of Islamic State, Jamaat-e-Islami removed that objective. However, we also found information on Sadiq Abdul-Haq, who was involved in vandalising Buddha statues in Mawanella in 2018, had travelled to Syria in 2014 and studied about the Islamic State concept. He was a strong member of the Jamaat-e-Islami students’ wing,” witness informed the Commission.

The SIS officer also informed the Commission that members of the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) and another group Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim (JMI) had joined together to conduct the Easter attacks.

Earlier, another SIS officer informed the Commission that 12 NTJ members had stayed in the East to conduct a second wave of attacks on August 2019. Their plan was to attack the Kandy Esela Perahera. However, their disastrous plan had failed after all forces and police carried out a combined operation in Saindamarudu on April 26, 2019,” witness informed the Commission.

The SIS officer also said that it had received information about NTJ training camps in Nuwaraeliya by March 2019, after questioning those arrested during the Wanathawilluwa explosives raid.

Testifying further, the SIS officer investigating Islamic extremism informed the Commission that the SIS had submitted a report of 94 extremist persons on October 31, 2017 to former IGP Pujith Jayasundara.

The witness said that in the report, the SIS had included names of Lathief Jameel Mohammed, the suicide bomber who blew himself up in Tropical Inn, Dehiwala, Zahran Hashim, leader of NTJ, Rilwan and Zainee, brother of Zahran Hashim and strong NTJ members, Mohammed Ibrahim Mohammed Nawfer, Zahran’s mentor and the person that influenced Zahran to support ISIS.

Over 80% of those included in the list are now in jail for plotting the Easter Sunday attacks. In 2018, we requested the government to take necessary action against these 94 persons mentioned in the list and we also warned senior government officials that if these people were not arrested, there will be a terrorist attack,” the SIS officer informed the Commission.

The witness also said that the SIS had provided the list of 94 Islamic extremists to all the police stations and as a result of that the police had arrested Mohammed Ibrahim Mohammed Nawfer, Zahran’s mentor, in Dambulla area on the day of the Easter Sunday attacks.

“The role of the SIS is to gather information and report, but after Easter Sunday attacks we decided to go beyond our normal procedure. We had assisted the Police and STF to find vital information pertaining to the second wave of attacks and by that we stopped a disastrous situation,” witness informed the Commission.

Courtesy Adaderana

Foreign Relations Minister Dinesh Gunawardena and the Minister for International Trade of the UK Ranil Jayawardena have discussed stepping up bilateral trade and investment and expanding the areas of cooperation during a recent teleconference.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said this was the first official interaction between the two Ministers.

Both Ministers welcomed further consolidating the longstanding bilateral engagement through increased trade, security, research and training, in science and technology, including people-to-people contacts. In particular, Ministers Gunawardena and Jayawardena agreed on the need for close cooperation to address the challenges facing bilateral trade and investment because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both identified the importance of moving the supply chains, opening travel and tourism sectors and pressing economic issues. Opportunities for new export products to the UK market from Sri Lanka were also discussed, the Foreign Ministry said in its media release.

Recalling the shared values and interests between the UK and Sri Lanka as members of the Commonwealth, Minister Gunawardena reaffirmed Sri Lanka’s commitment to continue its active participation in the organization.

Foreign Relations Minister Dinesh Gunawardena extended an invitation for Ranil Jayawardena to visit Sri Lanka at the earliest opportunity after the General elections.

Courtesy Ada Derana

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka reached 2,769 as another person tested positive for the virus today (25).

The Department of Government Information said the latest positive case is an arrival from Belarus.

Thereby, a total of 05 fresh cases have been confirmed so far within the day. The other 04 cases are arrivals from Chennai, India.

As per the Epidemiology Unit’s statistics, a total of 655 patients infected with the virus are currently under medical care at hospitals.

In the meantime, the number of recoveries from the disease in Sri Lanka moved up to 2,103 earlier today after 09 patients were discharged from hospitals upon returning to health.

Sri Lanka has thus far witnessed 11 deaths due to the virus outbreak.

Courtesy Hiru News

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa says pre-schools will be brought under a government ministry to resolve their problems.

He remarked so in response to the representations that were made to him during recent public meetings with regard to issues of pre-school teachers, says the President’s Media Division.

At one meeting at the beach park in Matara, the president said a monthly allowance would be paid to these teachers.

Courtesy Hiru News

The Attorney General has informed the Health Ministry Secretary that the draft circular instructions for Public Health Inspectors to control the Covid-19 during elections are contrary to the law, says the AG’s coordinating officer.

According to the AG, powers of the PHIs to enter premises of meetings, polling stations, to detain and to prosecute have been removed and made subject to the directions of Medical Officers of Health.

On 29 July 1987 India forced Sri Lanka to sign what became known as the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord that led to the deployment of Indian Peace Keepers. Part of that Accord also required Sri Lanka to tweak its constitution and create an artificial demarcation of land dividing Sri Lanka into 9 provinces under the 13^thamendment. IPKF went on to kill Sri Lankans while the 13a has become a burden on the taxpayer and a stepping stone to demanding separatism. That it was enforced by the powerful neighbor ensures political pressure prevails not to repeal it inspite of public protests to do so. A far more dangerous agreement aligned to two other agreements are the MCC-SOFA & ACSA. The dangers of these 3 taken together spells doom for Sri Lanka’s sovereignty & ironically the eventual doom & balkanization of India too. MCC also requires passing by Parliament to turn into domestic law just as 13a was done.Once an international agreement turns into domestic law, the elected government is bound to enforce its contents. We know the adverse impact of 13a – surely we don’t want to nose dive into a bigger catastrophe by not only signing MCC but passing MCC in Sri Lanka’s Parliament.

The root of Tamil militancy & the political ideology behind separatism using asymmetrical federalism as a stepping stone to a separate state are certainly connected not only by a segment in the minority promoting it but by numerous countries & international agencies that supported it for different reasons at different time periods. These links remain despite the demise of LTTE ground terror.

That India provided its land to train Tamil militants is nothing India can deny. That India even supplied arms & training as well as funding for these Tamil militant groups is also nothing India can deny. It was only a decade later that India chose to directly barge in as ‘saviors’ claiming to defeat LTTE and disarm LTTE via the 1987 Accord. India never honored any of the clauses in that agreement signed in July 1987 but India went on to force Sri Lanka to make constitutional changes that divided Sri Lanka into 9 provinces via 13^thAmendment & Provincial Councils Act No. 42 of 1987 certified on 14 November 1987.

https://www.lawnet.gov.lk/1947/12/31/thirteenth-amendment-to-the-constitution-2/

http://www.psc.gov.lk/web/images/pdf/english/1._Legal_Provisions/2._Related_Acts/1.2.2%20provincial%20councils%20act_english.pdf

Both the Sri Lankan Supreme Court & Parliament stands guilty for 13a. When 13a was put to the Supreme Court – 5 out of 9 judges declared that approval by the People at a Referendum was needed (Article 120a) The 5 judges of the Supreme Court that determined 154G(2)(b) and (3)(b) of the Constitution required 2/3majority & a referendum, remains valid (if one or more PCs do not agree a 2/3 majority & referendum is required) Ignoring this Parliament simply deleted requirement for a referendum from the original Bill and passed the Bill without resubmitting to the Supreme Court.

These same dangers prevail if MCC is put to Supreme Court where Parliament can abuse its powers as a Bill becomes law upon certificate of the President or the Speaker and thereafter no court or tribunal can question the validity.

13a thus illegally passed was prevented from being judicially challenged by the People. The same outcome can happen with the MCC which is why the Public are vehemently putting its valid arguments for everyone to understand the dangers and prevent the Government & Parliament making the same mistake done with the 13^thamendment.

The Indo-Lanka Accord merged north & east falsely creating a new history. It was nothing but an Indian ploy to secure Trincomalee harbor. IPKF was brought in to disarm LTTE but went on to train other militants and groom another Tamil (V Perumal) to be India’s defacto leader after elections which ended up in him declaring unilateral declaration of independence resulting in the then President annulling the merged Provincial Council & Perumal running off to India for refuge.

A similar scenario is unfolding with the ACSA-SOFA & MCC – US military vessels and aircrafts can use Sri Lanka’s ports and airports for any logistical need, US troops can travel anywhere across Sri Lanka even carrying arms and are exempted from check or legal action for any crime committed, while in the name of development an unlimited number of US personnel, contractors have to be given work visas with tax exemptions and the freedom to bring anything into Sri Lanka & take anything out of Sri Lanka without checking as well as take full ownership of Sri Lanka’s intellectual property rights.

To understand the dangerous impact of the 3 agreements, one has to read all of its clauses. While ACSA and SOFA are bilateral agreements MCC requires Sri Lanka to pass in Parliament & turn into domestic law. Thereafter, it will become no different to 13amendment. Sri Lanka will take on responsibility to implement all of the drastic measures in the MCC on behalf of the US corporates & US government completely ignoring the wishes of the Sri Lankan citizens.

The Indo-Lanka Accord was dumped on Sri Lanka claiming to solve Sri Lanka’s ‘ethnic problem’ – 33 years on Indo-Lanka Accord solved nothing but has created more problems with the PC system & 13a.

The groundwork to force the Accord was subtly orchestrated with a series of attacks, riots and advice that was really meant to defame the armed forces and the state apparatus to build the international justification for foreign intervention. The LTTE onslaughts weakened a military that could not match the military hardware LTTE was using together with the intel provided to them by foreign sources.

MCC is also been dumped on Sri Lanka together with SOFA/ACSA claiming to ‘develop’ Sri Lanka & ‘eliminate poverty’ but only by privatizing state land and turning land into a commodity. We know where this is heading before its even launched – a massive transnational land grab and displacement of Sri Lanka’s populace is the writing on the wall that Sri Lanka’s Parliament (Opposition & Government) cannot pretend to ignore.

The manner MCC surfaced thus has to be looked in the same manner as the Indo-Lanka Accord. It is no secret that wherever US pivots to, jihadi Islamic militants with their ‘Islam’ chants travel with them to cause mayhem. This is how entire Middle East & Africa was destabilized and now it is Asia’s turn.

Unfortunately, India is now a partner of US’s pivot to Asia and the disclosures at the presidential commission on Easter Sunday mass murders certainly raises our doubts as to India’s role together with America jumping to offer MCC as a gift, days after the Easter Sunday attack. The Islamic murderers frequented India often – what exactly were the nature of these visits?

When UNP & JR Jayawardena peddled a pro-West approach in 1978 as did UNP & Ranil since becoming PM in 2001 both erroneously sold the concept of ‘friendship’ with West as sealing developmental assistance. The golden truth however is –every country is only concerned about their national interests not ours while our leaders are trying to help national interests of other countries at the cost of ours!

This cannot continue any longer.

India follows the Panikkar Doctrine (Naval doctrine and Kautilya’s Arthashastra & Mandal theory ‘your neighbor is your natural enemy’) Kautilya craftily created a civil war in Patiliputra & Indira Gandhi went on to do the same. The Islamic terror and Islamic fundamentalism is the winning ploy US will use to become an uninvited guest in Sri Lanka under their brand ‘war against terror’ (killing Muslims & non-Muslims using Muslims) – this is going to be elevated to ‘war against corona’ using the humanitarian card to claim US troop presence is required to protect US national interests & assets. Keep an eye on these developments.

The clauses of the 13a clearly show the advantages India sought to accrue itself. The clauses in the MCC, SOFA & ACSA do the same for US.

Tamil militancy & Tamil politicians were being used to carve out a separate area that India could eventually take over. US has been more strategic, the MCC SOFA & ACSA taken together will not only with time acquire parts of the island, the economic corridor from Colombo to Trincomalee but the entire island with time. This will be made possible if MCC is not only signed but also passed by Parliament which is a pre-condition and key component of the implementation pre-requisite of the MCC.

No Government elected to power by the People can betray the People & the Nation by signing MCC and ratifying MCC detrimental clauses via Parliament as was done with 13a.

Shenali D Waduge

H. L. D. Mahindapala

Social scientists and the commentariat have either failed, or deliberately ignored, to take note of the changes in the surface and subterranean foundations of the political landscape in the post-Nandikadal period. Our pundits are still cackling as if we are in the post-1956 period in which the mono-causal theme of blaming the Sinhala-Buddhists was touted cockily as a sign of being intellectually superior in public, media and academic discourses. To be anti-Sinhala-Buddhist was – and still is — the fashion of the day. Digging up every adverse comment from the dustbin of history was a common technique to demonise the Sinhala-Buddhists as enemies of the minorities. Every shred of historical, political, social or economic evidence was corralled and distorted to argue that the minorities were discriminated by the majority, though the inhuman role of the Tamil Vellala elite of marginalising their own people as pariahs was either brushed aside or hidden under the label of Tamil nationalism.

Down grading the Sinhala-Buddhist culture, language and religion at the highest academic levels became a powerful propaganda tool in the privatised research centres run by pro-Tamil agents (example: International Centre for Ethnic Studies, headed by Neelan Tiruchelvam and Radhika Coomarasawamy) whose bank accounts were stacked with foreign funds to hire the academics/intellectuals to manufacture the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist ideology. Only like-minded ideologues were invited to participate in their seminars, publications, research etc., to produce anti-Sinhala-Buddhist consensus. The focus was essentially on the South. They craftily avoided turning the searchlight deeply into the North because they knew that exposing the horrendous history of the North, where the ruling caste of Vellalas who oppressed, suppressed, persecuted their own people, and even ostracised them as pariahs, would undermine their claim to be victims of the South. History was a volatile force which had to be managed carefully to serve their politics. They were determined to sanitize their narrative by diverting the focus away from the North to make the South look like the evillest force that bedevilled inter-ethnic relations

The latest to raise the racist ghost of the past is Dayan Jayatilleka, who is raving and ranting against the armed Dharmapalas” (i.e., the Rajapakases) accusing them of dismantling the existing order to establish a militarised authoritarian regime. He is not saying anything new. He is parroting what the Saravanamuttus, Savitris and Ismails have been voicing in the post-Nandikadal period and even before. As a self-professed political scientist, he is expected to rise above cheap propaganda and analyse of the current situation either as a Marxist diagnostician, taking into consideration the de-Tigerised politics of the North in the post-Nandikadal period, or as a public intellectual digging deep into the new political contours of the nation shifting away from a defunct Left and self-destructive Right descending into a hell of divisive politics. A comprehensive analysis would consist of a mix of both. But he is wallowing in the filth of his own hate politics. Hell hath no fury as Dayan scorned and denied a lucrative post in the ruling regime!

Today the political pendulum stands steadily and comfortably at the traditional Centre which neither the Left nor the Right can challenge successfully. In fact, there is no Left nor Right to take on the dominant Centre. The Centre has emerged as the decisive force that would steer the way in the absence of a constructive and powerful Left, Right and, of course, the mono-ethnic extremists of the North and the East. All of them are struggling to recover from the massive blow dealt by the Centre in the last Presidential election. The rise of the Centre marks the end of the political adventurism and violence of the Left, Right and the North and the East.

The rise of the Centre was totally unexpected. It was also so overwhelming that it has thrown all the other forces into absolute confusion. In the main, the awakened Centrist force have thrown the Right, Left and the anti-Sinhala Buddhist North off balance and their main struggle right now is to rise from the vacuum into which they have fallen and redefine their place in the new political landscape. The rise of the Centre, packed the with the commanding grassroot forces of our time, has not only isolated the rest from the mainstream but also left them derelict, some without leaders, some without a vision / alternative, and some without a future in sight. Sri Lanka has stepped in emphatically, decisively and loudly into that global trend that, for instance, went to make Hindutva Modi in India, and America Great Again” – minus menacing Covid-19.

Managing the success in the face of the daunting Coronovid-19 and its economic consequences is the task ahead. But, politically speaking, the victory has ushered in a new phase in which the reinvigorated grassroot forces had risen determinedly to reject the attempts of the misguided neo-liberals to reverse the natural flow of history. Rewriting the Constitution was an attempt to rewrite history.   The entire Parliamentary process was manipulated, doctored and debased by the Right to legalise the robbing of the rights of the people in the name of the rights of a few who had done their worst to destroy the nation. Yahapalanaya politics was a foul exercise launched and pursued by the neo-liberals to go against the will of the people.  And when the time came the people gave the neo-liberals the reply they deserved. The Right went to destroy the people and the people turned on them and destroyed the irrelevant neo-liberals.

The will of the people expressed in the last Presidential election stunned the pundits whose political calculations never predicted the massive swing to the Centre. This swing was the definitive reaction to the extremist Right-wing forces hijacking history to serve their disruptive and unsustainable political ends. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the most manipulative and active representative of the Right, made the cardinal mistake of trying to swim upstream and, in the process, he has killed not only his prospects but the future of the Right as well. Never in the history of post-Independent history has the Right fallen to the depths of near extinction as it is today.

The collapse of the Right is a phenomenon that had never occurred even when its Parliamentary popularity was reduced to eight seats in 1956. Despite that the UNP held together at the grassroot and organizational levels, with respected and formidable leaders in command of the Party. Even in the big crisis when the two giant elephants (Dudley and JR”) fought, the Party did not go to pieces. The cleavage today is so wide that there is no political bra big enough to hold both segments together.

Today the UNP has neither the leaders nor the hard-core base which is split right down the middle. The going down of Ranil will be welcome by most, including his Party loyalists. And when the new Parliament meets after August 5th Ranil will limp his way to his seat with a depleted following who are most likely to decamp to either Sajith or Mahinda Rajapakse, unless, of course, both parties decide to unite. The end of Ranil’s grip on the UNP marks the death of his misguided pro-West, anti-national Right-wing politics. If the Rajapaksa brothers are to be compared to Bandaranaike of 1956” then it is fair to compare Ranil as the alienated, out-of-touch, vilified Sir. John of our time. The Right will be a write-off as long as Ranil Wickremesinghe hangs on to Sri Kotha – the last resort of the vanishing breed of ageing elephants who had lost their tusks.

The next option in national politics is to turn to the Left but it is rather difficult find a political animal by that name. It has been a force that has been splitting like the amoeba into sub-atomic particles from its birth. The irony is that that the last of the Marxist revolutionaries are abandoning the Left and rushing to join the decadent Right committing hara-kiri aided and abetted by Left-wing theoreticians like Victor Ivan and Dayan Jayatilleka. On the one hand, the Vikrama Bahu” revolutionary has joined the Ranil-wing of the Right and, on the other, Dayan Jayatilleka, the leading Marxist theoretician, has joined the Sajith-wing of the Right. Post-Nandikadal politics has certainly taken a bizarre turn with no-hopers of the Left embracing the coffined corpses of the Right.

Where do we go from here? Whether we like it or not, even a cursory glance at the national scene indicates that the last remaining point of sanity and stability is in the Centre. It has risen unequivocally as the will of the people and there is no alternative to it now. The clarity of the will of the people has to be factored in for the nation to calculate its next moves. It is into this political framework that the North comes in as the orphaned victim of the de-Tigerised politics of the post-Nandikadal peninsula.

The militarised, fascist de facto regime of the Tigers had gripped the North so comprehensively and obsessively that the unexpected fall of the invincible” Tiger regime has left the North in a political vacuum. No one in the North had to make decisions under Tiger regime. All decisions were made for them at the top and there was space only for the Tamils to follow the Thalaivar” obediently if they had any ambitions of seeing the sun rising the next day. That was the easy part. Now the heavy burden of making decisions has fallen on the tired, old leadership which is clueless and wandering in the new and dizzying complexities without a compass.

They are drifting between two worlds, one dead and the other struggling to be born. They are in transition. They are torn between the past which began with the Vadkoddai Declaration of War in 1976 and a future of peaceful co-existence in a de-Tigerised democracy, however infirm it may be. Despite their braggadocio and bravado, it is dawning on them that they had come to end of their tether. They have run through all options from the time S. J. V. Chelvanayakam launched his Federal Party in December 1949 at the Government Clerical Service Union in Maradana and not in Jaffna, which is supposed to be the heartland of the Tamils. Since then they had tried (1) confrontational politics with satyagrahas, (2) parliamentary manoeuvres and negotiations, (3) partnership with what they called the Sinhala-governments”, (4) waging war after the Declaration of War at Vadukoddai in 1976, (5) regional pressure through India, (6) international pressure through the Tamil diaspora, and (7) establishing even a de facto state exhausting practically all options to achieve their elusive Eelam. All of which ended eventually in Nandikadal.

So isn’t it time for the North to sit down and take a hard look at the journey they had taken, following the footsteps of Chelvanayakam, and consider seriously what other options/opportunities they have in their next mission of figuring out what is achievable and where they are likely to be in the next five, ten, fifteen years, or, for that matter, all the time available in history? The most obvious question facing them is to consider whether their future is in going back to Vadukoddai and take the same road to Nandikadal without a Prabhakaran to lead the way?

In working out answers to these and other questions the Tamil leadership should keep in mind (1) whether Vadukoddai violence will work for them internationally in this age anti-terrorism; (2) whether they can match the military might of the Sri Lankan forces that won at Nandikadal; 3) whether the peninsular dynamics that motivated the Vadukoddai Resolution are operative now to mobilise the Tamils into another round of mindless violence?; (4) in the new global order where China is a stakeholder in the Indian Ocean whether India can step in arbitrarily and arrogantly to play the role it played under Indira and Rajiv Gandhi?; (5) whether the Tamil leadership is willing to pay the bloody price required to gamble with violence without any guarantees of victory?; and (6) whether they would like to live in another Kashmir or Palestine with everyone tut-tutting at the never-ending tragedies while the privileged Tamils migrate to greener pastures exploiting the suffering of their fellow-Tamils left behind?

In reviewing all these issues, the Tamil leadership should remember that that their ageing predecessors were the first victims of the violence they unleashed at Vadukoddai. They armed and encouraged the youth to take the gun and when they began to run amok with the new toy in their hands it is the Founding Fathers of the Vadukoddai Declaration that were decimated first.

The violence of all three communities that shook the nation from time to time had the following common characteristics: a) they were motivated by ideologies that led to fascist and brutal violence b) the guns and bombs were used by immature youth who fancied that they had the solution to the problems facing them and the nation at large; (c) none of their violent experiments succeeded. All of which leads to the ineluctable conclusion that there is no future in intransigence, dogmatic blindness, political extremism, experiments of the failed past and, above all, violence.

We are right now left with only a dead Left, moribund Right, a distraught and derelict North and a wobbly East. The only viable and the positive option is the promising Centre. It is inevitable that the North+East+Right+Left (NERL) forces will have to negotiate with the Centre if they and the nation are to go anywhere. August 5^th will confirm that there is no alternative to the Centre. The future of depends on how NERL will negotiate their way to their separate or collective comfort zones with the Centre.

The Presidential election have been fought, and the Parliamentary elections are being fought, to test the limits of the power of the NERL competing with the Centre and vice versa. The unprecedented power that will be vested in the hands of the Centre (after the Parliamentary elections) will define the parameters within which both the Centre and the NERL can operate in seeking their separate goals.

The impending competition of the Centre vs. the NERL — of course, after the Parliamentary elections — need not be hostile or an intransigent power struggle for one power bloc to dominate the other. In the behind-the-scene bargaining there will be ample room for compromises. In between, there will be a lot of grandstanding by the NERL to claim that they can do better than the Centre. That is the name of the game. The reality is that no one – I repeat, no one — can do better than the other in a world conquered by Covid-19. Admitting and accepting this inevitability imposed by Covid-19 is the first step to economic recovery – the prime necessity that must be prioritised in the national agenda. There is a time for politics but this is not it. Economics must be given the same priority at Coronivd-19. NERL cannot win either on Covid-19 or on Article19. Both must be treated as equal partners.

In the post-Nandikadal phase the Centre has come to stay. NERL , if it fails to recognise the new realities, can either pray or bray. 

චන්ද්‍රසිරි විජයවික්‍රම

https://youtu.be/ZXhm1LNdKOA

දොස්තර රුවන් ජයතුංග විසින් ලංකාවෙබ් අඩවියට සිංහලෙන් ලියන ලිපි මා අගය කරන්නේ, සමහර විට, එම අඩවියට මුලින්ම සිංහලෙන් ලිපි ලිවීම ආරම්භකලේ මාද කියා මට සිතෙන නිසාය. ඔහු විසින් ජේවීපී කාරයින් සම්බන්‌ධව වරින් වර ලියන ලිපි මා කියවන්නේ, 1971 දෙසැම්බර් කාලයේදී, ඒවන විට අත්‌අඩංගුවට ගෙන සිටි ජේවීපී කැරළිකරුවන්ගේ ප්‍රකාශණ සටහන් කර ගැනීම පිණිස රජයෙන් පත්කල සිවිල් නිලධාරීන් 200 දෙනාගෙන් කෙනෙක් වශයෙන්, සමහර විට, දැනට ජීව‌ත්‌‌ව සිටින එකම පුද්ගලයා මාද කියා මට සිතෙන නිසාය. එහෙත් ඔහු විසින් ගිනිගත් නගරය යනුවෙන් ජූලි 23 දා ලංකා වෙබ් ‌අඩවියේ පලවූ ලිපියේ සඳහන්‌වූ පහතින් දක්‌වන කියමණ මා අන්ද-මන්ද කලේය. මීට හේතුව එය අසත්‍ය ලිවීමක් නිසාය. එසේ නැත්නම් එක්කෝ ඔහු විසින්, එසේ නැත්නම්, රට ප්‍රභාකරන්ගෙන් බේරාගැනීම සඳහා තුවක්කුවක් අතට නොගැනීම හැර යුද පිටියේදී කල හැකි හැමදේම කල බව කී හාමුදුරුනමක් විසින් බොරුවක් කියන නිසාය. මා විශ්වාස කරන්නේ හාමුදුරුවන්වය.

අනිත් කාරණය නම් ඔහු රංජන් රාමනායක-මංගල සමරවීර පාරේ යමින් හාමුදුරුනමකට <චීවරධාරියෙක්> යයි කීමය. පාස්කු ප්‍රහාරය ගැන දැන් එලිවන තොරතුරු අනුව සිවුරු පොරවාගෙන පන්සල් වලට බෝම්බ ගැසීමට ඒමට සූදානමක් තිබූ නිසා මිණීමරුවෙකුට වුවත් සිවුරක් පොරවා ගත හැකිය. ලංකාවේ අටපිරිකර ආපසු විකිණීමේ බිස්නස් එක කරන්නේ මුස්ලිම් අය නිසා ඔවුන්ගේ ගෙවල් වල ඇඳ ඇතිරිලි වලට දමාගන්නේද සිවුරු බව අප දැක ඇත. මේ නිසා දුශ්ශීල භික්‍ෂුවක් යන වචනය වෙනුවට චීවරධාරියා යන වචනය යෙදීම, අබෞද්‌ධ ක්‍රියාවකි. සෝමාරාම, බුද්‌ධරක්ඛිත, සිවුරු දරාගත් දුශ්ශීල මිනිසුන් විය. රුවන් මොන ආගමේද යනු මම නොදනිමි. ඉරිදා දහම් පාසැලක් පැත්තකින් වත් ගිය අයෙකුට නම් චීවරධාරියා යන වචනය හිතට ආවත් ප්‍රසිද්‌ධියේ ලියන්නට නම් හිතෙන්නේ නැත.

රුවන්ගේ වාක්‍යය

<පර්‌වතයක් මෙන් උසැති, බඩ මහත, පොලිස් නිලධාරියෙකු සෙනඟ සන්සුන් කිරීමට උත්සාහකලේ තම තර්‍ජනාත්මක ස්වරය හා නිල ඇඳුමේ අධිකාරී බලය පෙන්‌වමිනි. අඩෝ අපි මූව වලට දාමු, පිරිසක් පසු පස සිට කෑ ගැසූහ. ඒ සමඟම ගල්මුල් ප්‍රහාරයක් ඇරඹූහ.

පිස්තෝලයක් අතින් ගත චීවරධාරියෙක් ඉදිරියට පැමිණියේය. ඔහු සෙනඟට විධානයක් දෙන්නාක් මෙන් කතාවක් කලේය.>

සිංහල බෞද්‌ධයින්ට තම අදහස් ප්‍රකාශ කල හැකි, ලෝක මට්ටමෙන් ඇති එකම වෙබ් අඩවිය ලංකා වෙබ් අඩවියය. මෙය ඉතාමත් භාරධූර කාර්යයක් බව මට වැටහුනේ, හරිමග යනුවෙන් බ්ලොග් පිටුවක් ආරම්භකර ක්‍රියා කිරීමේදීය. මට මගේ වෙනත් කිසි වැඩක් කරගන්නට නොහැකි තරම් වගකීමක් පැටවුණේ එය කියවන පිරිස වැඩිවීමත් සමඟ කුමණ හෝ වැදගත් දෙයක්, සත්‍ය කරුණු අනුව අළුතෙන් ලිවිය යුතු වීම නිසාය. මේ නිසා මට එය නතර කිරීමට සිදුවිය. තවමත් එය මගේ නමින් අන්තර්‌ජාලයේ පවතී.

මේ නිසා ලංකා වෙබ් නමැති සම්පත භාවිතා කිරීමේදී ඊට ලියන අප විසින් ඉතාමත් සුපරික්‍ෂාකාරී විය යුතුය. අපගේ මත, අදහස් කෙරෙහි බලපාන්නේ අප දන්නා කරුණු ප්‍රමාණය කෙතරම්ද යන්නා හා ඒවායේ ගුණාත්‌මකභාවය උඩය (බොරු තොරතුරු ටොන් ගණන් තිබුණත් ඒවා අපව නොමඟ යවන්නේය). මේ නිසා ඒ කාලයේ <හතේ කල්ලියේ> ප්‍රධානියාවූ, ආර්. ප්‍රේමදාස විසින් කියූ උගත් මෝඩයින්ගේ ගනයට අප පත් නොවිය යුතුය (හතේ කල්ලිය කිව්වේ හත පාස් පිරිසක් රට කණවා යන තරහෙන් රටේ සිටි උගත් පිරිසක් විසිනි). ලංකා වෙබ් අඩවියට ලියන කිසි කෙනෙක් අසත්‍ය හෝ අර්‌ධ සත්‍ය හෝ නොදන්නාදේ නොලිය යුතුය. දන්නා දේ නොසැඟවිය යුතුය.

රුවන්, උස, මහත පොලිස් නිලධාරියා සිය නිල ඇඳුමේ අධිකාරී බලය පෙන්‌වු බව කියයි. ගෆූර් නම් මොහු, මිණී වලවල් ලඟ සිට, ඇල්ලේ ගුණවංශ හාමුදුරුවන්ට වෙඩි තබන්නට ආ බව රුවන් දැන සිටියේ නැද්ද? එසේ නම් ඔහු හාමුදුරුවන් ලඟ පිස්තෝලයක් තිබුණු බව දැන් ගත්තේ කෙසේද? 1983 සොල්දාදුවන් 13 දෙනාගේ ඝාතනය පිළිඹඳව නොසිතූ පරිදි උණුසුම් තත්‌වයක් හටගත්තේ මිණී වලවල් 13 ට අමතරව තව වලවල් කීපයක්ද හාරා සූදානම් කර තිබූ නිසාය. ඒ වලවල් කුමකට දැයි ඇසූ විට ගෆූර් නමැති ඩී. අයි. ජී හෝ සුපිරින්ටැන්ඩන්ට් ඉස්සරහට පැණ සිය පිතෝලය හෝ තුවක්කුව හාමුදුරුවන්ට එල්ල කර මං උඹව මරණවා යයි ඉංග්‍රීසියෙන් තර්‍ජනය කලේය. එවිට හාමුදුරුවන් පිටිපස සිටි පිරිස හාමුදුරුවන්ගේ ඉදිරියට පැන්නේය. ඔවුන් ගෆූර්‌ ට ගල් ගසා ඔහුව මිණී වලකට දාන්න ඇදගෙන ගියත් ඔහුගේ යෝධ ශරීරය නිසා එය කල නොහැකි විය. හාමුදුරුවන් මැදිහත්‌වී ඔහුව මරණයෙන් ගලවා ගන්නා ලදී.

පුදුමයකට මෙන් රුවන්ගේ ලිපිය කියවා කළකිරීමෙන් සිටි මට, පැය දෙක තුනකින්, යූටියුබ් බලද්දී චාපා බණ්ඩාරගේ නිදහස් සංවාද වැඩබීමේ, 11/28/2019 දා ඇල්ලේ ගුණවංශ හිමිඳුන් සමඟ කල සාකච්චාවක් (එපිසෝඩ් 104), නැවත පලකර තිබී දක්නට ලැබුණේය. එහි ලින්ක් එක මේ සමඟ ඇත. පැයකටත් වඩා දිග මේ විඩියෝවේ 40 මිනිත්තුවේ සිට කනත්තේදී වූ සිදුවීම හාමුදුරුවන් විස්තර කරයි. මෙම වීඩියෝව ඓතිහාසික වටිනාකමකින් යුක්ත වන්නේ හාමුදුරුවන් හා ජේ ආර් අතර ඇතිවු විවාදය නිසාය. ජේ ආර් බයෙන් වෙවුලමින් සිටි හැටිත්, ඔහු හාමුදුරුවන් ඉදිරියේ අසරණව බෑගෑපත් වූ හැටිත් ලෝකයා දැනගත යුතුය.

ලංකාව ඒකීය රාජ්‍යයක් යන 6 වෙනි සංශොධනය ජේ ආර් ගෙනාවේ හාමුදුරුවන්ගේ බල කිරීම නිසාය. පවුල් සංවිධාන සංගමය විසින් සිංහල ජාතිය වඳ කිරීමට ගෙවන රුපියල් 1,500, 750 ට අඩු කරවා ගත්තේද ඒ අවස්ථාවේදීමය. විශාල මුදලක් ලැබෙන නිසා දුප්පත් ස්ත්‍රීන් ඊට යෑම මේ නිසා තරමක් දුරට හෝ අඩු විය.

මෙම වීඩියෝව ලංකාවෙබ් වෙබ් අඩවියේ සුරක්‍ෂිතව තැබෙනවා නිසැකය. නැවතත් මෙහිදී සඳහන් කරන්නේ 1983 හමුදා සොල්දාදුවන් 13 මැරීමේ සිද්‌ධිය හා ජේ ආර් ලා ජාතියට කල විනාශය ගැන බොහෝ තොරතුරු මෙම වීඩීයෝවේ ඇති බවය. රුවන් විසින් මෙම වීඩියෝව බලා ලංකා වෙබ් අඩවියට, එහි පාඨකයින්ට සාධාරණය ඉටු කරාවි යයි බලාපොරොත්තු වෙමි. මේ සම්බන්‌ධයෙන් මා මෙසේ ලියන්නේ මීට අදාල සත්‍ය තොරතුරු පාඨකයින්ගේ දැන ගැනීම සඳහා ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමේ වගකීමක් අප හැමටම ඇතැයි මා සිතන නිසාත්, ලංකාවෙබ් වෙබ් අඩවියේ කීර්‌ති නාමයට, දැන හෝ නොදැන එයට ලිපි ලියන අප වැනි අයගෙන් සිදුවිය හැකි හානිය අවම කරගැනීමට සිතට ගැනීමටත්‌‌ය.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXhm1LNdKOA

By M D P DISSANAYAKE

The election to be held on 5 August 2020 on all counts appear to be a lack lustre event.  The Sri Lankans are generally used to massive media campaigns, bill boards, cut-outs and public rallies accommodating hundreds of thousands of supporters. 

These campaigns have energised the political parties and its leaders whilst providing much needed euphoria as a solid return on investment on cost of media blitz.  These propaganda activities also provided stiff competition, encouraging larger voter turnout on the election day.

The covid 19 has virtually killed the Sri Lankan style of electioneering.  To make matters worse, the oldest political party, the United National Party is split, making traditional UNPers to look for Elephant symbol after a long time wanting to vote for the UNP, but likely to cross UNP as the preferred party, but painfully looking for Sajith Premadasa’s  candidates with the Telephone and vice versa.

With a low turnout expected as a result of above factors, this election most likely to record a high percentage of rejected votes, as a consequence of Elephant and Telephone.

The following popular political personalities are unlikely to win a seat at the election: Rev Athureliya Rathana,  Sujeewa Senasinghe, Ravi Karunanayke, Patali Champaka Ranawaka. Hirunika Premachandra, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Duminda Dissanayake, Weerakumara Dissanayake, Ranjan Ramanayake, Arjuna Ranatunga, Vijitha Herath,  Chandima Weerakkody,  Palitha Ranga Bandara, Kumara Welgama, Sarath Fonseka, Rajitha Senaratne, Chathura Senaratne, Ajith P Perera, Palitha Thewarapperuma, Dayasiri Jayasekera, P Harrison,

The following forecast was prepared taking into account above limiting factors, with a margin of error of +/- 3%.   The  newly formed SLPP is likely to secure a tight 2/3 majority.

	SLPP	UNP/SJB	TNA
CENTRAL PROVINCE:
KANDY	8	4
MATALE	3	2
NUWARAELIYA	5	3
EASTERN PROV.
BATTICALOA	1		4
DIGAMADULLA	4	2
TRINCOMALEE	2	1	1
NORTHERN PROV.
JAFFNA	1	1	5
WANNI	2		4
SOUTHERN PROV
GALLE	9	1
MATARA	7	1
HAMBANTHOTA	6	1
WESTERN PROV.
COLOMBO	13	6
GAMPAHA	15	3
KALUTARA	8	2
NTH WEST. PROV
KURUNEGALA	13	2
PUTTALAM	5	3
NTH CENTRAL PROV
ANURADHAPURA	8	1
POLONNARUWA	4	1
UVA PROV.
BADULLA	6	3
MONERAGALA	4	1
SABARAGAMUWA
RATNAPURA	10	1
KEGALLE	8	1
TOTAL TO BE ELECTED	142	40       14	196
NATIONAL LIST	21	6           2	29
GRAND TOTAL	163	46       16	225

  PERCENTAGE SEATS %                   72%     20%        8%

The Sajith Premadasa camp may secure 28 seats as against Ranil to settle down for 18 seats.

Sarath Bulathsinghala

The 2020 General Election is upon us. It is time the success at the Presidential Election in Nov 2019 is carried to its logical conclusion. We thank the patriotic forces of Sri Lanka for electing Gotabhaya Rajapakse the 7^th President of Sri Lanka with a handsome majority. This victory has cast into disarray the dark forces that conspired to make Sri Lanka our Motherland a Failed State at the behest of Western Christian Powers. Today the very fires of hatred that were directed to destroy our Motherland are destroying the unpatriotic political entity the UNP from within! It stands divided, quartered and consumed by the very fires it lit to destroy Sri Lanka and make it a failed state vulnerable to Big Power intervention. The UNP, together with the SLFP rump that aided and abetted the traitorous UNP are slowly marching towards political oblivion

However, it is now left for the patriotic forces to give a resounding blow at the 2020 parliamentary election and destroy the UNP and possibly the SLFP for good.  These two geriatric political parties though brought into existence on lofty but impractical ideals, have over the years, failed live up to their promises – to bring peace and prosperity to the citizens of Sri Lanka. THE ONLY THING THAT THEY DID FAMOUSLY IS TO DIVIDE THE SINHALA POLITY IN THE MIDDLE into two ‘dog eat dog’ political parties that failed the majority Sinhala Buddhists miserably.  Together they have impoverished Sri Lanka, made politics in Sri Lanka the most corrupt in the region and the corrupt politicians rich and powerful. They also brought in the minority racists and religionists to the fray and made them kingmakers of Sri Lanka. The end result is for all to see – our past political history- the machinations and the deleterious effects of the doings of Chevanayakam, Amirthalingam, Sambandan, Thondaman, Ashrofs and now Hakeem, Mano Geneshan and Baithuddeen and add to this the Senanayake, Bandaranaikes, Jayawardeen, Premadasa  and Wickramasinghe.  

Rajapakses became the architects of winning the Tamil Tiger Terrorist War but failed to consolidate the war gains.  Winning a war is not winning just the battles – it includes maintaining the peace. This is the reason the victorious Allies are still stationed around the world in strategic locations. Mahinda Rajapakse failed in this score because he misread history. Withdrawal of Armed Forces from strategic locations in the North and East was a sign of weakness and the slippery road back to ‘giving little now and more later’ failed policy of yesteryear. No one within Sri Lanka or outside should dictate where Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces should be present or not. Then Army Commander – Sarath Fonseka’s assertion to increase the army was in fact correct strategically as it takes more to maintain peace than fight wars. It took 30 years to finish off the war because we did not have enough soldiers to keep and defend the peace in the liberated areas! Finally, the war was won, because the President Mahinda Rajapakse took a firm stand, the then Defence Secretary and now the President Gotabhaya provided the necessary manpower and war logistics to hold onto and defend liberated areas while prosecuting the war elsewhere.

While basking in the glory of winning the war he neglected the immediate aspirations of the people and ran roughshod over the economy making large scale investments – some absolute necessities for a middle income nation and others that could have been done at a more leisurely pace without entrenching the country in a debt burden. Moreover, he failed to market these projects among people giving clear cost benefit projections and getting those projects to bear fruit or to give a realistic plan and time scale to make them work. In the process and quite inadvertently Sri Lanka has now become the playground for the Big Powers trying to divide Sri Lanka between themselves. Then he lost his Presidency in 2015 with disastrous results for Sri Lanka and five years of unending political darkness!

AFTER 70 YEARS WHAT THE NATION NEEDS IS TIME AND SPACE TO MOVE FORWARD AS ONE NATION LEAVING BEHIND THE ENMITY AND DIVISIVENESS. FOR THIS TO HAPPEN THE UNITY OF THE SINHALESE IS PARAMOUNT. MINORITY POLITICS AND THEIR ASPIRATIONS WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY WITH ONLY HALF OF THE SINHALESE AGREEING. THIS IS WHY THE UNITY OF THE SINHALESE BE THEY UNP OR SLFP IS OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CONCERNED, MINORITIES INCLUDED.

What ailed Sri Lanka during the last 70 years is the constant demands of minority Shylocks asking for their pound of flesh and more. In their own words, it was and is – Little now and More later! Even as we speak, these forces are at play 24/7 finding ways to keep Sri Lanka destabilized and poor. Their ultimate goal is to make Sri Lanka a Failed State a country to be preyed on. Sri Lanka lost hundreds or even thousands of valuable opportunities to forge ahead because of the minority destabilization of the country. Many a potential investor went elsewhere because of the ground situation in Sri Lanka. 

Their incessant efforts in cahoots with Western Christian Powers bore fruit in Jan 2015. Yahapalanaya – which was a misnomer from its inception, just like Dhramishta Samajayak of traitor chief J R Jayawardene. Yahapalanaya  came into power on a platform of eliminating corruption. From what transpired later it is now obvious what they had in mind all along. Within seven weeks of their coming into power the first bond scam took was unleashed on the people of Sri Lanka.

FROM HIND SIGHT, IT IS CLEAR THAT RANIL AND HIS COHORTS PLANNED THIS BANK HEIST LONG BEFORE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS OF JAN 2015. ALL THIS WAS CLEAR FROM THE WAY HE SET IN MOTION THE INTERMEDIATE STEPS NECESSARY FOR THE CENTRAL BANK BOND SCAM. GETTING HIMSELF APPOINTED PRIME MINISTER, TAKING OVER PART OF THE FINANCE MINISTRY THAT INCLUDED THE CENTRAL BANK, GETTING ARJUN MAHENDRAN APPOINTED AS THE GOVERNOR OF THE CENTRAL BANK WHILST HIS SON IN LAW WAS A PRIMARY DEALER HIMSELF. MANY THINK THE ‘HEIST’ TOOK PLACE BY CHANCE ON 26 FEB 2105 AND THAT IS THE IMBECILIC FOLLY OF THE ORDINARY SRI LANKAN! THIS WAS FOLLOWED BY THE SECOND CENTRAL BANK HEIST AT AN EVEN LARGER SCALE AN YEAR LATER IN MARCH 2016! WITH YAHAPALANAYA TAKING OVER REINS OF POWER, ITS MAIN TASK WAS TO COMPLETE THE TASK OF MAKING SRI LANKA A FAILED STATE. COMPROMISING FOOD SECURITY, NATIONAL SECURITY, ECONOMIC SECURITY INVOLVING BOND SCAMS, HIGH TAXATION, HIGH INTEREST RATES, DESTRUCTION OF THE PLANTATION SECTOR ECONOMIES AND FINALLY THE IMPORT DEPENDENT FAILED STATE THAT WOULD BE VULNERABLE FOR ECONOMIC SANCTIONS. THE ATTEMPT TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION WAS THE FINAL MASTERSTROKE TO MAKE SRI LANKA A VASSAL STATE OF THE USA. THESE ARE TO BE FOLLOWED BY ACSA, SOFA AND MCC AGREEMENTS TO MAKE SRI LANKA THE PRESENT DAY OKINAWA OR PANAMA –  A VASSAL STATE OF THE SUPPOSED TO BE ‘THE ONLY EXCEPTIONAL NATION’ IN THE WORLD TODAY – THE USA.

Patriotic UNPers and SLFPers should see this reality and leaving aside their petty differences unite to save Sri Lanka. The horrors of Easter Sunday attacks would not have come about if not for the criminal negligence and neglect of the Security Apparatus in Sri Lanka by the government led by Sirisena and Ranil. If they had any self-respect they should have resigned their posts in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

This why they all must join forces under Pohottuwa, not because it is the best, but because it is the ‘nearest to best we can conceive of’, the ground reality and the only existing common place where all from different political hues can gather and unite to end once and for all the tyranny of Minority Politics. We must be in a position to muster a 2/3^rd majority to bring about the necessary constitutional changes as well as provide for reasonable minority demands that do not infringe on the security, wellbeing and continued existence of Sri Lanka as a separate, unitary and independent political and geographical entity south of the Palk Straits!

It is time, all those well-meaning Tamils and Muslims leave the divisive politics and join the mainstream to achieve their realistic aspirations. Division of the country into Islamic fiefdoms or giving land and police powers to Eelamists is no way to achieve lasting peace in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka simply does not have space nor the security measures necessary to entertain such wishful thinking that only bring luxuries to a selected few and keep the majority mired in perpetual misery! Any resulting borders drawn will result in unending enmity and conflict. I am sure this is not any peace-loving citizen of this country aspire to – be they Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim!

It is time, Sinhalese of all hues, be they UNP, SLFP, Buddhist or Christian unite behind Pohottuwa to take the country away from the ‘dog eat dog’ politics of yesterday and today, for together we can prosper as a nation. It is time the Sinhalese demanded from Pohottuwa that it cannot be ‘Politics as Usual’ as it used to be. It is time they got rid of the useless riff-raff, the traitorous, self-serving and the bribe-taker lot among them and move forward with only those who can be trusted to make way for progress. Pohottuwas must leave space only for the best in the SLFP, the UNP and those among minorities who aspire to prosper together with a common consensus. Pohottuwa also must take heed of the agendas put forward by the Vikalpa groups for they too have a message that is relevant to the immediate needs of the nation. PRESIDENT GOTABHAYA MUST BE ALLOWED UNHAMPERED FREEDOM TO FORM THE BEST TEAM OF MINISTERS AND CABINET MEMBERS FROM AMONG THOSE ELECTED DISREGARDING PETTY POLITICS.

Other nations such as Malaysia and Singapore sorted similar problems right at the beginning of their independence from Colonial Powers. This is why these countries prosper and Sri Lanka not! Big and powerful nations respect their strengths and politics!

UNLESS THE SINHALESE UNITE AS ONE, BECOME SELF SUFFICIENT IN THEIR BASIC NEEDS AND SECURITY. THERE IS NO SOLUTION TO THE MINORITIES. THIS IS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH BEHIND POLITICS IN SRI LANKA. This is what ailed Sri Lanka for the last 70 years. This is what led to 1971, 1989 and the 30-year Racist Eelam War and just recently the Easter Sunday Attacks by Islamists! It is only the United Sinhalese who can accommodate those peaceful intentions of the minorities and take the nation towards progress! No solution or agreement, call it what may, provided by 50% Sinhalese will stand the test of time!

The so-called International Community!

The so-called International Community are at the door calling for ‘democracy and human rights’.  This bogus cry is now seen to be fake. This has been the Big Power strategy to castigate less powerful nations in to submission. Over the years these empty ideals not practiced by themselves have led to – Black Lives Matter, We Can’t Breathe – slogans in their own countries. It is this system of governance that made the 1% own the 99% of world’s wealth. It is these very strategies that are now failing before the Corvid-19 onslaught. The so called Big Powers who sent their ‘knights in shining armour’ to the ends of the world to fight for democracy and human rights are now looking askance, having failed to provide the minimum standards of health, safety and hope to their own citizens! Shame on them for the Trillions they spent on developing arms to destroy the world and their Military Industrial Complexes.

They would rather make Sri Lanka unstable, divided, a failed state and divide the spoils rather than try to negotiate with a weak state. On the other hand, they would support a country that is strong politically and militarily. They say Nature abhors a vacuum and so does politics. They are onto Sri Lanka because they find Sri Lanka divided, unstable and vacuous. Western Christian Nations led by the USA need Sri Lanka as a staging post for their INDO-PACIFIC military strategy. Ranil has been tasked to make Sri Lanka a Failed State and he nearly accomplished that during the last 5 years. MCC COMPACT WAS TO BE THE FINAL COUP DE GRACE TO END ONCE AND FOR ALL THE INDEPENDENCE OF SRI LANKA!

We must provide India the security she needs south of the Palk Straits! It is only a strong Sri Lankan military which can provide this assurance and not a weak Sri Lanka! Senior Indian politician Subramaniam Swamy put it succinctly – We can trust the words of Rajapakses. They are a strong team and we can depend on what they promise”.

Time is of the essence, let us learn from Jan 2015 and not bungle it this time! All patriots, be they UNP or SLFP, or from minority communities, all who wish well for Mother Lanka, unite behind Pohottuwa! President Gotabhaya Rajapakse led Pohottuwa is the only practical alternative to all others who are in the fray contesting Parliamentary General Elections on 5 August 2020. They are the better team who has a chance to make Sri Lanka great again!  Ranil Wickramasinghe and Sajith Premadasa are spent forces. They are not worth spending time on!

THIS IS WHY POHOTTUWA SHOULD BE GIVEN AN OVER 2/3 MAJORITY IN PARLIAMENT TO ENACT A NEW CONSTITUTION THAT WILL ENSURE THE FUTURE OF SRI LANKA AS A UNITARY, UNDIVIDABLE AND SOVEREIGN, POLITICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL ENTITY IN THE EYES OF HER CITIZENS AS WELL AS IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD!

Courtesy DNA

The development comes as a relief to Sri Lanka amidst COVID-19 and will help in its post-pandemic economic recovery. A currency swap is a transaction in which two parties exchange principal and interest in different currencies.

India and Sri Lanka on Friday agreed for US $400 million currency swap agreement. The agreement signed by Reserve Bank of India extends the swap facility for Sri Lanka till November 2022. 

The development comes as a relief to Sri Lanka amidst COVID-19 and will help in its post-pandemic economic recovery.

A currency swap is a transaction in which two parties exchange principal and interest in different currencies. Companies doing business abroad often use currency swaps to get more favourable loan rates in the local currency than if they borrowed money from a local bank.

For example, if Sri Lanka borrows Rs 100 from India and promises to repay Rs 100 in Indian currency but interest in dollars or vice versa, both parties benefit by hedging against interest rates.

Both countries are currently engaged in debt repayment rescheduling talks. On July 22, the last round of technical discussion was held on the rescheduling of bilateral debt repayment by Sri Lanka. The Indian delegation comprising of senior officials from the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and the EXIM Bank interacted with representatives from the Department of External Resources of Sri Lanka through a video conference.

A release from the Indian mission in Sri Lanka said, “The next round of technical discussions between the two sides on the rescheduling of debt repayment is expected to be held soon.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 23 in which the former requested Indian government to provide USD 1.1 billion special swap facility to top up USD 400 million under SAARC facility amidst the COVID pandemic. 

By Larissa Romensky and Jo Printz Courtesy ABC News

Dilhani Dissanayake wants everyone to know a cinnamon peeler is actually a person and not a tool.

Key points:

• Cinnamon comes from the inner bark of a tree and is a spice native to Sri Lanka
• The spice was discovered by the Portuguese in the 16th century and later commercialised by the Dutch
• Cinnamon peelers have performed the labour-intensive task of skilfully peeling the spice, historically under brutal slave-like conditions

She has been so passionate about her own cultural history she completed her PhD thesis on the history of the cinnamon peelers in Sri Lanka.

Dr Dissanayake says the popular spice is native to Sri Lanka and is part of the country’s cultural identity.

“It’s come to represent Sri Lankan culture and its people’s identity,” she said.

A person and not a tool

Dr Dissanayake said cinnamon began being used in Sri Lanka as a traditional Ayurvedic medicine before it was used as a spice.

It has been harvested for centuries by peeling the inner bark of several trees of the same species and then processed as quills or powder.

Dr Dissanayake’s thesis explores this history with a particular emphasis on the often neglected figure of the cinnamon peeler.

“No-one talks about the hardships and the sacrifices the peelers made to get that product to market,” she said.

“Cinnamon peelers were among the agents who expanded Sri Lankan culture beyond the island’s shores.”

The peelers have been an intrinsic part of the labour-intensive processes for centuries with the skills often passed on between generations.

Dr Dissanayake said on average it took about five to seven years to perfect the skill of peeling cinnamon.

“The peeling process is really intensive and relies on local knowledge, expert skills, dexterity and patience,” she said.

During Sri Lanka’s pre and colonial era, peelers were from the lowest Sinhalese Salagama caste.

When the country came under Dutch rule in the mid-1600s, after seizing control from the Portuguese, the Dutch took control of the prized spice by commercialising the industry through the creation of plantations and often brutalised workers.

“They had their ears cut off and were confined in chains and also whipped and branded,” Dr Dissanayake said.

Popular spice has lesser known history

Dr Dissanayake said she was at a Bendigo-based event where local Indian people were speaking about their culinary culture when an Australian friend asked her whether cinnamon was a seed, fruit or flower.

“I was shocked to hear my friend knew nothing about it, although it is tasted in many foods, like donuts, cereals and curries,” Dr Dissanayake said.

The experience inspired Dr Dissanayake to pursue her PhD at La Trobe University in the history of the cinnamon peelers.

Dr Dissanayake and her husband first came to Bendigo so she could study a Master of community planning and development seven years ago.

“I really didn’t know anything about Bendigo, we didn’t have any friends here, no relative, and here we were in this strange climate,” she said.

“Now I know lots of people and I’m really glad we are here.

“To be somewhere where the same people greet us every day, that makes it feel homely.”

World’s largest exporter

Whereas Sri Lanka once monopolised the trade of cinnamon, it has become only the fourth largest producer globally, but has remained the world’s largest exporter of the popular spice.

Cinnamon is now grown in many parts of Asia and other tropical climates, with Indonesia now the world’s largest cinnamon producer.

Dr Dissanayake said there were two types of commercial cinnamon; Ceylon cinnamon, which was native to Sri Lanka, and the cheaper cassia cinnamon, primarily produced in Indonesia.

“Sri Lanka has the true cinnamon,” she said.

Dr Dissanayake said today workers continue to manually peel cinnamon, despite attempts by government to mechanise the process with machines.

By Anuradha Herath Courtesy Ceylon Today

Are you still the National Organiser of the SLPP?

A: I have never held the position of National Organiser.

But, you are referred to as such? 

A: No, I have only conducted the creative work of the party. Mahinda Rajapaksa has functioned as the leader of our party.

Haven’t issues pertaining to election laws and regulations come to the fore? 

A: I am not the main representative. In the past, I was entrusted with the job of looking into the needs of the public.

But, didn’t any issue emerge in this connection at that time? 

A: There was no necessity for the emergence of such issues. If we could have formed a Government, taking a post was not a problem. We care not afraid of those internal issues among some.

The Chairman of the Election Commission  said at the time that you, after resigning from your post as the party National Organiser, had proceeded to perform your duty in the COVID-19 Committee?

A: Yes, I left that post. But, I did not do any political work at the time. From the moment nominations for the August Poll had been submitted I had left that post and did my work. As a person who upholds the respectful style of work I resigned from my post and did my duty devoid of party politics.

What is your current role? 

A: Now my main task is to work towards the victory of the SLPP-led alliance at the coming Polls. Now while being engaged in party politics I have taken a break from State duties. That is not because of the law but due to my personal policies.

The SLPP is demanding a two-thirds majority at the August Poll, to introduce new amendments to the Constitution. What are these new amendments that you propose to introduce?

A: The Constitution that was formed in 1972 did not last that long. The 1976 Constitution that was changed by JR also became a radical one. That Constitution was created based on the Executive Presidency. That constantly underwent changes during various Governments. The biggest such change was the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. That was not established by even the politicians. That was given to us by a foreign power by force. Then, till up to the 19th Amendment to the Constitution several plasters had been pasted on this Constitution. Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, who was in that Committee which proposed that Amendment, is now claiming at public rallies, that the 19th Amendment that had been finally adopted is not what they had formulated initially.  We are of the concerted view that the entire Constitution has to be overhauled.

Isn’t it your task to enlighten the masses before the Poll on what these new Amendments, that you intend to introduce to the Constitution, are?

A: We have already alluded to it, but we cannot explain everything at public rallies. Especially a new Constitution that guarantees a unitary State has to be enacted with the necessary changes to the current electioneering system. And this has to incorporate all ethnicities living here. First and foremost the franchise of the people has to be guaranteed through the formulation of a new Constitution.

The Opposition has alleged that the Government is demanding a two-thirds majority at the coming Poll to sign controversial Pacts such as MCC. Actually, what is the stance of the Government regarding the controversial Pact?

A: To sign the MCC Pact there is no need for a two-thirds majority. They had signed the MCC Pact. Our national resources have also been sold. To do those things under the then UNF-led regime they never sought a two-thirds majority.

We will never sell our national assets. And, we will never allow those who sell national assets any room. It has always been a UNP Government that sold national assets. It is recorded in history that the Rajapaksa Government always safeguarded the country’s sovereignty, independence and national security.

At the previous Presidential Poll you promised that totally new representatives will be fielded at the General Election. But, majority of the contestants are those who have been implicated in criminal, corruption, fraud, wastage and similar cases like illegal sand mining, those importing ethanol etc. How can the public anticipate a radical change from the SLPP?

A: If not for sand mining how can houses be built in the country? If not for soil how can the roads be constructed. The people still consume ethanol. The majority of ethanol in this country is produced at the Pelawatta and Sevanagala factories and sugarcane farmers are noted for earning high revenues through it.

I am going to ask again, should those against whom the aforesaid charges are levelled be sent to the Parliament?

A: It is up to the people to select the most suitable out of the lot at the end of the day. There is some form of opposition to get rid of the preference vote system introduced by J.R. Jayewardene. If any political party has fielded unsuitable politicians at an election then it is up to the voters to reject such people. 

Then what is your view regarding charges directed at some over misusing public property?

A: Most such allegations are only canards spread by their rivals. Even I had been charged with distribution of GI pipes and I have never even seen those pipes. I was charged with misappropriation of State property. I am still going to the Court and I also go to the Police Station to sign documents. The charges directed at me have not even been levelled against a criminal. These charges are wholly unjust and I know for a fact that I have been politically victimised. However, I have the implicit trust in the Judiciary.

One of the contestants from your party recently claimed that the SLPP has fielded even horses and donkeys at the Poll. What is your comment regarding that statement?

A: I do not know whether we have given nominations to any horses or donkeys. But, some in the nomination board may have been.  I request not to use the names of animals to describe such persons as it would be highly disrespectful for the animals concerned.

Several members from the Rajapaksa family are contesting the election this time. What is your comment on that? 

A: It is that same franchise exercised by the voters that catapulted another Rajapaksa to the Presidency last year, and another one to the Premiership. I also do not think that there is any new Rajapaksa in this election. Nobody is saying that he withdrew. It was only Gotabaya Rajapaksa who came to the post of Defence Secretary. But, now he happens to be the President with the majority consent of the people of this land. 

There was renewed hope that once Gotabaya became the President that he will create a country where all will be treated equally before the law. But, some claim that this has not happened?

A: Tell me where the law has treated citizens here differently. I am yet to come across such incidents. It may be the case for those who look at everything from an racist point of view. But, today the law is treating all equally in this country. The President has shown this through his exemplary conduct. He has taken off his security. If he had not taken it then it is wrong. He does not travel abroad willy-nilly and his office has not been overstaffed. As he said there is no poster campaign in his electioneering work. Therefore, show me examples of where the law has treated people differently under the President’s watch.

As an example, after the 13th century historic building in the Kurunegala District was bulldozed, where the Buwaneka Hotel was situated, a Minister claimed that he would never allow anyone to lay a finger on the Kurunegala Mayor. Isn’t this clearly an instance of politicians taking the law into their hands?

A: differently If I were to express my views on it then I cannot be biased or I cannot even be unbiased. Just like the earlier issue regarding horses and donkeys I intend not to take sides on this incident. Let the people decided on it at the election. The President, PM, the party and I myself, have taken a firm decision not to air any comments that could be either advantageous or disadvantageous to our contestants.  But, my belief is that it would be better if we could eschew such statements. It is more than sufficient for the people to think in which direction this Government is heading looking at the work performed by the caretaker regime in the past eight months. Some of the pressing issues tackled effectively by this Government have been the curbing the COVID-19 pandemic spread which has been exemplary in the world, and the operations to bust illegal drugs and acts of crimes along with the silencing of the underworld. Also the measures that have been taken on behalf of the farming community have to be highlighted. The best yardstick of this Government’s efficiency is how we sent essential services to people’s doorstep during the lockdown period. The Government for the first time intervened to purchase harvests. The difference between this regime and the previous UNF-led regime is there to be seen for all. The previous Government struggled to look into the plight of people affected by the Salawa ammunitions blast, Mawanella earth slips, the collapse of the Meethotamulla garbage mound etc. A sum of Rs. 5000 was given to over 7 million families affected by the crisis situation brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Try to see the difference.

What was the delay in the issuance of the Gazette Notification containing the health guidelines to be adopted at the 5 August General Election? Was it finally issued for the sake doing so?

A: Usually the Gazette was not delayed and it was issued at the right time. 

Though a Gazette Notification was issued there is no official to implement its recommendations. Hence is there any use in its publication. Why are the PHIs, not granted the necessary powers to carry out the recommendations?

A: No, it should not been granted to the PHIs. The PHIs have been clearly informed to carry out the duties mentioned in their appointment letters. If they do that then it would suffice. They do not need to venture beyond that.

How do you respond to the Opposition’s allegation that a second wave of COVID-19 emerged due to the negligence and over dependence on the Poll by the Government?

A: Is there any so-called second wave of the pandemic. I am not aware of it.

The head of the Election Commission had previously issued independent statements. But, he recently said that the conduct of the next month’s Poll will only be halted if the world were to come to a standstill in its rotation. Some are charging that the Government has begun to intimidate the EC?

A: We have various views and criticisms regarding the head of the EC and its members. But, those criticisms we have not made public at anytime. We have always made them at the right time. We believe that the EC is an independent body. But, there is an issue here on the interpretation of the word independent. We have to sort out whether this word means the independence of the members of the EC or whether it entails the work performed by the EC. The Election Commission is sizeable machinery. In the history of elections here the voters had braved many instances of violence to cast their votes. On all such instances the EC had stood like a beacon to conduct polls in the past. Hence we have the utmost confidence in the EC. The decision taken by them to postpone the GE on 24 April was the right decision in my book. The decision taken to stage the Poll next month, come what may, is also the correct one. We have our criticism. But, when those who know that they cannot win an election they tend to take the EC to task.

Though some say there is no tussle for preference votes there are more than enough examples for it. To some of those in the SLFP, those in the SLPP are casting serious aspersions. In Moneragala Jagath Pushpakumara was jeered publicly. On the other hand Minister Prasanna Ranatunga is continuing to virulently attack former President Maithripala Sirisena. What are your views?

A: How can we overcome the fight for preference votes? At the time of the handover of nominations two to three got ignored. Tell me whether anyone likes to lose. This should be further clarified as not being a tussle for preference votes but only as a contest.

You mentioned that a majority of MPs should be elected on the SLPP ticket. At the Presidential Poll several parties linked up with your alliance. Do you have any intention of discarding them at the GE?

A: I told you that three will definitely lose. 

What do you mean by it? 

A: Our party leader is Mahinda Rajapaksa. It is only to him, that in the contest for preference votes, voters will cast their official votes as a party. To all others it will only be one. Then if taken as an alliance all are in it together. All are contesting under the SLPP ticket. In that, various parties and organizations had submitted their nominations. These various parties and organizations are conducting their campaigns towards the victory of their candidates. Some might say the horse should be supported. There are still some who contest under the symbol of the horse as well. 

There are also those who had ridden the horse and carried out propaganda work? 

A: The symbol of those who had ridden it is the horse.

Is that right? 

A: What is wrong in it? 

In this situation would the propaganda work be impeded?

A: Without carrying out publicity work how are you going to display your symbol? 

Then what would become of the election laws and regulations? Are you of the view that those regulations should be ignored?

A: Then tell me whether those contesting under the hand symbol cannot they take it. Do you mean their hands should be chopped off?

Do you reckon that the flower bud too should be carried out? 

A: Yes. For a considerable period of time we contested under the hand symbol. It was displayed by us without any hitch. What I am saying here is not that we are going to ignore the instructions of the EC. What we are raising here is whether the stance of the EC is justified or fair. I am not criticizing the EC. The shortcomings prevalent in the provisions contained in Sections of the Parliamentary Election Act No. 1 of 1981 has to be addressed urgently and not just those in the Constitution.

Lastly, we would like to seek your views regarding what you would want to appeal to the people as the person in charge of the management of the SLPP?

A: The only appeal that I would like to make to the people is to allow the SLPP to form a strong Government in Parliament in order to carry out the proposals stipulated in the manifesto of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the last Presidential Poll. I can vouch for the fact that the President, during his term, will wipe out the underworld and illegal drugs from this country. He will also usher in a revitalised economy to this nation and to accomplish these aims we seek a two-thirds majority.

Courtesy Adaderana

Another person has tested positive for COVID-19 this evening (24), taking the confirmed positive cases tally to 2,764, the Ministry of Health said.

According to the Department of Government Information, this latest coronavirus case is an arrival from the United Kingdom.

As per the Epidemiology Unit’s statistics, a total of 659 patients infected with the virus are currently under medical care at hospitals.

In the meantime, the number of recoveries reported from the disease in the country moved up to 2,094 earlier today.

Sri Lanka has thus far witnessed 11 deaths due to the virus outbreak.

Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has paid his attention to amend the Antiquities Ordinance in order to strengthen the preservation of antiquities and historical national heritage.

President accordinglyl decided to appoint a committee comprising Maha Sangha and experts in the field to study how the amendments should take place.

The proposed amendment seeks to stop the destructions caused to antiquities that has been going on for a long time and to pass on the country’s heritage to the future generation while resolving practical issues, the President’s Media Division (PMD) said.

This decision was taken by the President during the fourth meeting with the Buddhist Advisory Council held at the Presidential Secretariat today (24).

Courtesy Adaderana

UPDATE (11:23AM): The COVID-19 patient, who was apprehended after making his escape this morning, has been brought back to the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH).

In the meantime, the driver of the three-wheeler in which the escapee travelled in, has been directed to the quarantine centre in Kandakadu.

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The COVID-19 patient, who escaped from the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH), has been apprehended by the Sri Lanka Army a short while ago.

Army Chief Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva said the escapee was located near the National Hospital of Sri Lanka in Colombo.

Several teams of the Army were deployed earlier to discover the suspect who had fled this morning (24).

According to Western Province Senior DIG Deshabandu Tennakoon, the escapee had initially gone to the Main Street in Pettah after breaking out of the hospital at around 2.00 am today.

Investigations are currently underway to determine how the escapee reached the Main Street, the Senior DIG added.

He has then arrived at the Colombo National Hospital in a three-wheeler.

The 41-year-old was being treated at the Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre in Kandakadu for his severe drug addiction.

He was admitted to the Welikanda Base Hospital on the 9th of July after testing positive for COVID-19 while at the rehabilitation centre. He was subsequently transferred to the IDH on the 15th of July.

The escapee, named Mohammed Kasim Mohammed Nasim, is a resident of Marble Beach Road, China Bay in Trincomalee.

Courtesy Hiru News

Retired Defense Secretary Major General Kamal Gunaratne says that the reason for the creation of underworld activities is the lack of proper implementation of the law.

Commenting to the media after a ceremony held at Rajarata University today, he noted that if the country continued as it has in the past few years,  a woman would not even be able to move freely on a road.

He said that despite the threats to his life, he would not give up the fight against the underworld.

Courtesy Hiru News

One (01) more person confirmed for Covid -19: SL Country total increases to 2,764

Friday, 24 July 2020 – 18:33

Courtesy Hiru News

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa says that Colombo will be converted into a city without shanty dwellings. 

The Prime Minister said this while he was addressing a function at the Colombo Foundation Institute today.