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Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa says that although his government suppressed terrorism and the underworld, those activities were reactivated during the subsequent period of good governance.
The Prime Minister stated this while participating in a public meeting held in Dodamgaslanda – Rideegama area
The Presidential Commission appointed to inquire the Easter Attacks today commenced questioning the then Director of the State Intelligence, Nilantha Jayawardena, who was the first to receive prior information and warning on the series of terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday.
At the request of Nilantha Jayawardena and the Attorney General’s Department, which supports the Commission, the hearing was held without being opened to the media.
However, the majority of the Commissioners of the Presidential Commission were of the opinion that at least part of this inquiry should be open to the media.
Here are some of the views expressed by various politicians.
Former parliamentarian Daya Gamage stated that although they presented Sajith thinking that he could win, in the end the UNP was defeated.
Former UNP MP Hesha Vithanage stated that there were thieves in his government as well.
Addressing a public meeting Prasanna Ranaweera stated that Sajith Ranil’s factions are again demanding power without shame.
The candidate of the Jathika Jana Balawegaya, Samantha Vidyaratne stated that the real devil will appear after the election.
Vasudeva Nanayakkara stated that the previous government increased taxes and stole people’s money.
Navin Dissanayake has stated that he hopes to lead the UNP after Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Minister Prasanna Ranatunga stated that candidates cry on the election platform to gain sympathy.
Sri Lanka has almost completed the E-Land Register.Do we need MCC funds with demands that require constitutional changes?This supposed ‘gift’ comes with a set of conditions & pre-conditions that even warrants the MCC Compact to be passed by Parliament & made into domestic law. The MCC demands include ownership of Sri Lanka’s intellectual property rights, immunity from our law for US citizens, exemption & privileges to even former staff of MCC, exemptions of taxes & duties. The MCC even demands to pass all Sri Lankan governmental duties vis a vis MCC Compact to a private company – MCA-Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. Such drastic changes for a $67m land project that demands major constitutional and administrative changes by Sri Lanka is too dangerous to even consider. We do not need to proceed with MCC Land project because we already have the solution.
Sri Lanka has already prepared the e-land registry for 20 land registries feeding all of the deed information to the computers.This ongoing process will soon complete the balance registries.
Thus, the allocation of MCC Funding for only 10 land registries in 7 districts from deed to title registration on an e-land register operated & owned by the MCC is a venture that is pointless and a waste of time, money & effort to covert an existing deed system into an 19thcentury Australian title registration system.
This Australian title registration system will make deeds redundant and will repeal Roman Dutch Law operating in the country as well as co-ownership & repeal inheritance laws where shared are owned by children. The Torrens Title Registration system or Bim Saviya” the local name given to it will also repeal prescription & history of our lands & personal laws that govern different ethnic groups. Most importantly, it also removes the access to court for those affected by land fraud to regain ownership of any fraudulently acquired lands.
We do not need to continue with the $67m MCC Land Project because
We already have an existing deed system which is being modified and modernized by the Ministry of Lands. What is lacking & needs quick remedy is to implement laws that are necessary to protect owners from fraud. MCC Land Project does not address this.
The Trust Ordinancehas been amended to register the owner’s photographs and signatures to identify owners before land sales etc. The extension of this law to all land transactions will give Sri Lanka a fraud free electronic land register continuing the deed system already in place.
Most importantly, in continuing with the deed system, we are complying with the Constitution of Sri Lanka & the Electronic Transaction Act which prohibits fully automation of land transactions vide section 23 of Act No 19 of 2006.
The MCC controversial clauses together with the requirement to transfer deeds to title registration is a headache Sri Lanka does not need to venture into when we already have the solution before us.
In short, we do not need the MCC Land Project and MCC & US Government can utilize this $67million for the covid-19 efforts in US.
Shenali D Waduge
ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ නායක අනුර දිසානයක ස්වර්ණවාහිනී නාලිකාව ඉදිරිපත් කල Sri Lanka Next වැඩසටහනේ පෙනීසිට ඉදිරිපත්කල ඔහුගේ තර්ක ජනතා විමුක්තිපෙරමුනේ තවත් දේශපාලන අසරණ බවක් පෙන්නුම්කරන ලංකාවේ දෙසපාලනයට ඇතුලත් වීමට තාමත් අපහසු නොමේරු ගැටවර බවක් පෙන්නුම්කලා. ඔහු කියනවා ජනතාවට දේශපාලනය තිත්තවෙලාලු .
ඔහු කියන ආකාරයට ලංකාවේ කාටද දේශපාලනය තිත්තවෙලා තියෙන්නේ ?
ලංකාවේ මිනිස්සුන්ට දේශපාලනය නොවේ තිත්තවෙලා තියෙන්නේ, නමුත් දේශපාලකයයි කියාගන්න සමහරක් ඊනියා දේශපාලකයොයි තිත්තවෙලා තියෙන්න. ඒ ගනයට ජනතාවිමුක්තිපෙරමුනේ දේශපාලකයොත් වැටී තියෙනබව ඔවුන්ට නොපෙනෙන එක කනගාටුදායකයි. එකට හේතුව ඕනාවට වැඩිය ඔවුන්ගේ ඔළුගෙඩි ඉදිමුවාගෙන තියෙන එකයි.
2004 එක්සත් ජනතා නිදහස් සන්ධානයේ සමජිකයන්වශයෙන් පාර්ලිමේන්තු චන්ද සටනින් ආසන 39 දිනාගත් ඔවුන්ට හොඳට ඒත්තු ගන්න තිබුනා ඔවුන්ට දේශපාලන අනාගතයක් තියෙන්නේ ලංකාවේ සමාජවාදී වාමාංශික දේශපාලනයත් සමග එක්ව සිටීමෙන් බව.
නමුත් එයින් ඔවුන්ට ඇතිවුයේ තනියම ආණ්ඩුවක් පිහිටුවන්නට හැකිවේයයි අසීමිත දේශපාලන බල ලෝභයක්. ඒ බල ලෝභය නිසාම ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ නිර්මාතෘවරයා වූ රෝහණ විජේවීර අමු අමුවේ පුළුස්ස මරා දැමු හා රෝහණ විජේවීරගේ කොමියුනිස්ට් පක්ෂයේ සමජිකයෙක්වසිට එක්සත්ජාතික පක්ෂයේ මැරවරයන් විසින් තලා පෙලා ජීවිතකාලයටම අංගවිකලයකු කල, එක්සත් ජාතිකපක්ෂය සමගම 2010 සමගි ගිවිසුම් අත්සන්කලා මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපති තුමා පරාජය කිරීම සඳහා සරත් ෆොන්සේකා ජනාධිපතිකිරීමට.
ඒ එක්වීමත් සමග ජනතාවිමුක්ති පෙරමුණ ජනතාවගේ අප්රන්සන්නතාවයට භාජනය වුවා. එපමනක් නොව ඒ ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුනේ දේශපාලන අවසානයද වීය..
දැන් ඉඳ හිට තරුණයන් හා දේශපාලන අනාගතයක් නැති වෘතිකයන් හා කථිකාචාර්යවරුන් දේශපාලනයට ඇතුලත්වීමේ හීනමවමින් ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙර්මුනේ ජාතික ජනබල වේගයට එක උනාට ඒ ජනතා විමුක්තිපෙරමුන වටා රොක්වන ජනතා රැල්ලක් නම් නොවේ.
ඊටත් පෙර 2008 විමල් වීරවංස ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණින් ඉවත් වී වෙනම දේශපාලන පක්ෂයක් පිහිටුවීමෙන් පසුව ජනතා විමුක්තිපෙරමුන ජනතාවගෙන් සම්පුර්ණයෙන්ම වෙන්විය
ඒ වෙන්වීමේ ප්රතිපලයක් නිසාදෝ දැන් ජනතාවිමුක්තිපෙරමුන ජනතාවගෙන් තවතවත් ඈත්වෙමින් වුර්තිකයන්, විශවවිද්යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්, හා නීතීන්ඥයන්ගේ පක්ෂයක් වී ජාතික ජනබල වේගයක් බවට පරිවර්තනය වී තිබෙන්නේ.
අනුර දිසානායක ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුන ශ්රී ලංකා දේශපාලන වේදිකාවෙන් අතුගා යැවීමේ පොරෝගාමියා ලෙස සැලකිය හැක. පසුගිය අවුරුදු හතරක්ම ඔවුන් පාරලිමේන්තුවේ පුහුණුව ලැබුවේ විවෙචන, හොරුඅල්ලීමට වාරතා සැපයීම, අල්ලස් කොමිසමට වාර්තා සැපයීම, සමාජවාදී වාමාංශික පක්ෂවලට විරුද්ධව ධනේෂ්වර අධිරාජ්යවාදී එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය හා ජාතිවාදී දෙමල එක්සත් සන්ධානය සමග එක්ව කටයුතු කිරීම .
ගොටාබය රාජපක්ස ජනාධිපතිතිමා, මහින්ද, බැසිල් ආදී රාජපක්සවරුන්ට විරෝධීව කටුයුතු රාශියක් ඔවුන් ගෙන යන්නේ දෙකඩ වූ එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය ඔවුන්ට දේශපාලන බලයට පැමිණීමේ කාර්යට ප්රතිවිරෝධී පක්ෂයක් නොවිය හැකිබැවින් රාජපක්ෂ වරුන් දේශපාලන බල හීනයන් කලොත් ඔවුන්ට ජාතික ජනබල වේගයේ රජයක් පිහිටවිය හැකියයි මතයක සිටගෙන බව පෙනේ.
ඒ බව Sri Lanka Next වැඩසටහනේ අනුර දිසානායක ඉදිරිපත්කල සමහරක් තර්කයන්ගෙන් පෙනීගියා.ඔවුන් දැන් ගෙනියන අල්පේච්ච ජීවිතය ජනතාවට දෙන්න අදහස් කරන්නේ නැතිලු, බලය ලබාගත්තොත් වෙනත් විධියේ දැන් ජනාතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණට අනන්ය ජීවිත ගෙවන්නේ නැතිලු. ඔවුන් රුවන්වැලිසෑය ගඩොල්මොඩයන්ගේ සන්කෙතකයක්යයි නොසිතන බවත් සිංහල බෞද්ධ අද්යාත්මිකත්වය මංකොල්ල නොකන බවත් කියයි.
මොවුන් කෙසේකීවත් මොවුන්ගේ ඉතිහාසය ඔවුන් අමතක කරන්න උත්සාහ කලත් ජනතාව ඔවුන් 1971 කල 30000ක් පමණ ජීවිත විනාශයත් 1987 දකුණේ දහස්ගණන තරුණ ජීවිත විනාශකිරීමවත් අමතක කර නෑ.
ලංකාවේ සිංහල බෞද්ධයෙකුට තමන්ගේ සිංහල බෞද්ධකම නොබියව කිය නොහැකි යුගයක් පැවතියා. ජනතාවිමුක්තිපෙරමුන ඊනියා ජාතික එකමුතුවේ සංහිඳියාව නිසා තමන්ගේ බෞද්ධකම කොන්දෙසිවිරහිතව ප්රකාෂනොකරයි. රුවන්වැලි සමිදුන්නගැන කතා කරදදී ගඩොල් මෝඩ කතාවක් කීවත් දේශපාලන වාසි බලාගෙන කුරුණෑගල භුවනෙක ස්මාරකය බුල්ඩෝසර කිරීම ගැන කතාකරද්දී මහත් සන්වේදීව වේදනාවකින් යුතුව කතාකලා.
ජනතා විමුකිති පෙරමුණ නමවෙනස්කරගෙන ආවත් ඔවුන්ගේ මාක්ස්වාදීත්වය හොදාහරින්න බැරි නිසා කවදාවත් තනිව පාලන තන්ත්රයක් පිහිටුවීමට ජනතාව චන්දයනම් දෙන්නෙම නෑ.
ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ මුහුකුරාගිය ජනතා හිතවාදීන් නොසිටියේය , අද ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ පරිවර්තනය වී තිබෙන ජාතික ජනබල වේගයේ දකින්න ලැබෙන මුහුණු සාමාන්ය ජනතාව පිළිගන්න තරම් මිනිසත්කම සුන්දරකම විදහාපාන ජනතා සිත් දිනාගත හැකි මුහුණු නොවේ. සිංහල බෞද්ධජනතාව මාර්කස් වාදය ගෑවුණු කෙනෙකුටවත් චන්දයදීමෙන් වැලකී සිටියේය. එදා ලංකා සමසමාජ කොමියුනිස්ට් පක්ෂද මේ බෞද්ධ සිංහල මාක්ස්වාදී අකමැත්තට බිලිවුයේය.
මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා වයස්ගත දේශපාලකයෙක් විය හැකියි. නමුත් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා නිහතමානි ජාති හිතෛෂී තාමත් පිරිසිඳුව සිතිය හැකි අභිමානවත් සිංහල බෞද්ධ නායකයෙකි. එබැවින් එතුමා ජනාදරය හිමි කරගත් ජනතාවගේ ගෞරවාදර නායකයෙකි.
අපේ බෞද්ධ සංස්කෘතියේ අනන්ය තාවය වැඩිහිටියන් කෙරෙහි විෂවාශය තැබීමයි. එබැවින් වයසක් ගැන නොතකා අපේ සිංහල බෞද්ධ ජනතාව මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා කෙරෙහි තබා ඇති විශ්වාශය කඩ නොකරයි.
අනුරකුමාර දිසානයක කීවා ඔහු මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපති තුමා 2014 හමුවී එතුමාට ජනාධිපති තේරීමේ චන්දයට නොපැමිනේන්නයි කී බව. එකයි අනුර කුමාර දිසානායක කල වරද.
ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණට හෝ ජාතික ජනබල වේගයට ඔවුන්ගේම රජයක් කවරදාකවත් පිහිටුවාගත නොහැකියි. ගොටාබය,මහින්ද රාජපක්ස ආදී නම් සිංහල බෞද්ධ ජනතා හදවත් වල කෙටී තිබෙන නම්ය. ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුනේ නායකයින් මිනිස් කම ගැන තවත් බොහෝ දේ ඉගෙන ගත යුතුව ඇත.
Most of us have seen news of another fatal accident in which a Sri Lankan army soldier has died on the Nugegoda fly-over recently when the army vehicle he was driving was hit by one private bus which tried to take over another.
I strongly believe that the issue is with the way that bus service was privatised by the late JRJ government which came to power in 1977. All private buses need to compete with buses of other private owners as well as those of government (SLTB) in order to secure an income which would be sufficient to cover all their costs including finance. In a civilised country, transport, health and education sectors need to mainly belong to the government and if privatised, they should be under strict control of the government and should not be allowed to operate for the sole ambition of making profits. In developed countries like Australia, though transport is privatised, all income generated from ticket sales go to a central fund and respective companies providing the services are paid their shares while the government monitors that the buses, trains and trams provide satisfactory services.
Since privatising the bus service after 1977, thousands of innocent lives have been lost due to incidents like the recent fatal accident but none of the successive government have taken any action to prevent them. There is no doubt that more will die in future unless necessary remedial action is taken without delay. Appreciate if the new president Hon Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s attention is drawn towards a radical change in the bus service system in Sri Lanka to eradicate this menace.
Nimal
Rajakaruna
Melbourne
Australia
කඩා බිඳ දමා ඇති මේ රට ලෝකයේ ධනවත් හා බලවත් රාජ්යක් බවට නැගී සිටීමට අවශ්ය වන්නේ බලයයි. මේ රටේ සියලුම ජන කොටස් වලට අවශ්ය තරම් බලය ලබාදෙන්නේ කෙසේද? ඒ සඳහා සැලසුම් කල යුත්තේ කුමන ආකාරයටද යන්න අපි සාකච්චා කරමු.
මේ රටේ මිනිසුන්ට විදුලි බලය නොමිලේ ලැබෙන්නේ නම් කුමක් වේවිද? එය එසේ කල හැකිද?
රට සංවර්ධනයට අනිවාර්යෙන්ම විදුලිබලය තව තවත් නිෂ්පාදනය කල යුතුය. විදුලිබල ව්යාපෘතියකට රජයට දරන්න යන පිරිවැය ඇති විශාල බැවින් ඒ කටයුත්ත ජනතාවම සිදු කරගන්නවා නම් එය රජයට ඉතා පහසු කටයුත්තකි.
දැන් අපි කතා කරන්නේ, මිනිසුන්ට නොමිලයේ විදුලිය ලැබෙන, රජයට සතයක්වත් වියදම් නොවෙන විදුලි බල උත්පාදන ව්යාපෘතියක් ගොඩනගන්නේ කෙසේද යන්නයි.
1.පළමුව කොලොඹට ආසන්න, ග්රාම සේවා වසමක් තෝරාගෙන, ඒ අයට ඉතාමත් අඩු පොලියට 4%ක වගේ පොලියකට සෑම නිවසකටම සුර්ය කෝෂ සවිකර ගැනීමට නය පහසුකම් ලබාදීම විශේෂිත ක්රමයකට ආරම්භ කල යුතුය.
2.තමන් පාවිච්චි කරන විදුලියට වඩා නිපදවන විදුලිය රජය මිලදී ගැනීමට සුදානම් බවද ජනතාවට දැන්විය යුතුය.
ග්රාමසේවා වසමක සාමාන්ය වශයෙන්, නිවාස 500කට ආසන්න සංඛ්යාවක් තිබේ. නිවසකට අවශ්ය විදුලි බලය ලබා ගැනීම සඳහා විදුලි බල පාරිභෝජනය අනුව, රුපියල් ලක්ෂ 4 සිට ලක්ෂ 8 දක්වා මුදලකින් එක නිවසකට සුර්ය කෝෂ ස්විකිර්මේ කටයුතු කල හැක. මේ අනුව නිවාස 500ක් සඳහා උපරිම වශයෙන්,ලක්ෂ 4000ක් මුදලකින් එක ග්රාමසේවා වසමක විදුලි අවශ්යතාවය සම්පුර කල හැක. ඒ සඳහා සාදාරන පොලියක් මත බැංකු ණයක් මුදා හරිය විට අපිට එක මාසයකින් සුර්ය කෝෂ වලින් පණ ලබන ග්රාමසේවා වසමක් නිර්මාණය කල හැක.
මේ ජනතාවට තමන් විදුලි බලය සඳහා යන වියදම හා අමතරව විදුලිය විකිණීමෙන් ලැබෙන මුදල් බැංකු ණය ගෙවීම සඳහා යෙදවූ විට වසර 5කින් බැංකු නය පියවිය හැකිය.ඇත්ත වශයෙන්ම තමන් බැංකු නායක ගෙව්වද තමන් විදුලි බිලක් නොගෙවන බැවින් මෙය අමතර බරක් ලෙස බලපාන්නේ නැත. වසර 5කින් පසු තමන් ට ගෙවීමට බැංකු නායක නැති බැවින්, එයින් නිදහස් වන පාරිභෝගිකයාට තමන් අමතරව විදුලි බට මණ්ඩලයට විකිණීමෙන් ලැබෙන මුදල නිසා. විදුලි බල උත්පාදනයෙන් මුදල් උපයන්නෙක්ද බවට පත්වේ.සුර්ය කෝෂ සඳහා අවුරුදු 20ක වගකීමක් පාරිභෝගිකයාට ලැබෙන තවත් වාසියකි.
මෙම ක්රමය ප්රචලිත කිරීමෙන් රජයට විදුලි බලය උත්පාදනය කිරීම සඳහා නොරොච්චෝලේ වැනි විදුලි බලාගාර ඉදිකිරීමට මුදල් වය කිරීමට සිදු නොවේ,
එකම ගැටලුව වන්නේ මේ ක්රමයට එරෙහි බලවේග විදුලි බල මණ්ඩලය තුල ක්රියාත්මකව, මේ ව්යාපෘති කඩාකප්පල් කිරීමට බලපෑම කිරීමට ඇති ඉඩ කඩයි.
විදුලි බලය නොමිලයේ ලබන යුගයකට පා තබමු!
සාමකාමී මැතිවරණයක් උදෙසා ඉදිරි මහ මැතිවරණයේදී විශේෂ අවධානය යොමු විය යුතු ප්රදේශ රැසක් පිළිබද කැෆේ සංවිධානය පොලිසියට දන්වයි. පූර්ව මැතිවරණ සමය තුල සහ පශ්චාත් මැතිවරන සමය තුල ගැටුම්කාරී තත්වය වර්ධනය විය හැකි ප්රදේශ හඳුනා ගනිමින්ඒවායෙහි සාමකාමී මැතිවරනයක් පැවැත්වීමට අවශ්ය කටයුතු සම්පාදනය කිරීම සඳහා මෙම ඉල්ලීම කළබව කැෆේ සංවිධානයේ විධායක අධ්යක්ෂ මනාස් මකීන් මහතා පවසයි.
මෙම ප්රදේශ “හොට්ස්පොට්ස්” ලෙස කැෆේ සංවිධානය විසින් හදුන්වා ඇති බවත් පැවැති පූර්ව මැතිවරණ සමය තුළ එම ප්රදේශ වල මැතිවරණ හැසිරීම් නිරීක්ෂණය කිරීමෙන් පසු මෙම අනුමාන කිරීම සිදුකල බවත් ඒ මහතා වැඩිදුරටත් පැවසීය. ඒ අනුව ඉදරි මැතිවරණ සමය තුළ පොතුවිල්, සයින්දමරුදු, අක්කරෙයිපත්තු, කාත්තන්කුඩි, ඒරාවුර්,කින්නියා, පොලොන්නරුව, අනුරාධපුර, කුරුණෑගල, කඩුවෙල, තංගල්ල, හැටන්, නාවලපිටිය, ගම්පහ, පුත්තලම සහ යාපනය යන ප්රදේශවල යම් උණුසුම්කාරී තත්වයන් සිදුවීමේ අවධානමක් පවතින බවට කැෆේ සංවිධානය විසින් හඳුනාගෙන තිබේ.
මෙම තත්වය සලකා බලා එම ප්රදේශ වල නීතිය හා සාමය ආරක්ෂා කර ගැනීම සඳහා සුදුසු ක්රියාමාර්ග ගන්නා මෙන් ඉල්ලමින් කැෆේ සංවිධානය වැඩබලන පොලිස්පති වරයා වෙත ඊයේ දිනයේ ලිපියක් යොමු කර තිබේ.
(කැෆේ විධායක අධ්යක්ෂ මනාස් මකීන් මහතා ගේ හඩපටය සහ ඡායාරූපමේ සමඟ යොමු කර ඇත. )
මාධ්ය ඒකකය
කැෆේ සංවිධානය
The Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka states that the sovereignty rests in the people of the country and the legislative power of the People shall be exercised by Parliament through their elected representatives and directly by the people at a referendum. On 5 August, we vote to elect representatives to the country’s primary legislature, the Parliament.
As one newspaper has recently reported the Parliamentary Election would cost Rs100 billion. Nearly Rs 50 million to elect one representative. As the newspaper aptly asked: Is it worth? Spending that much of tax money, what kind of Parliament should we vote for on 5 August? There are many answers to this question. These answers come from many different perspectives.
Some would argue that we must elect wise” women and men at least with a college degree. A recently formed group thinks a Parliament with more women representatives would be good for the country’s political health. Why not vote for new faces getting rid of 225 people in the last Parliament. All these and many other suggestions of course entail some sense, so should not be thrown away. In casting my vote in every Election, national, provincial or local, the saying that invariably reverberates in my inner self is what Arhat Mahinda advised King Devanampiya Tissa about 2500 years ago. O Great King! The birds of the air and the beasts on earth have equal right to live and move about in any part of this land as thou. The lands belong to the people and all other beings and thou art only the guardian of it.”
Angel Guardians for Five Years
Even though the representatives we are going to elect on 5 August are wise youth with college degrees, they are elected only for five years. They are not the owners of the land but just guardians. Hence, their legislative power has to be conditioned, controlled and restricted not only by the relevant clauses of the constitution but also by the needs of the birds of the air and the beasts on the earth”. Nonetheless, the experience of the last 42 years has amply shown that they surpass the constitutional limitations, and totally disregard the latter, i.e. the needs of the birds of the air and the beasts on the earth”. The Leopard killings in the last three months has proved that these representatives have failed to protect the rare animals in the country.
Post COVID-19 Context
According to epidemiologists the country is now in a post COVID-19 situation identified by two principal characteristics:
(1) A serious economic crisis marked by mass unemployment and underemployment, sluggish even negative growth and growing poverty.
(2) An increase in conflicting forces in the Indian Ocean region (IOR) that have a direct spill-over effect on Sri Lanka.
When people pass their power for five years to their representatives, it is imperative to think about how these representatives interrogate with this situation dominated by these two features. However, we have to bear in mind they are paradoxically related.
It’s evident the economic crisis requires a greater degree of inward orientation. It is clear that the outward orientation that Ranil Wickremesinghe has repeatedly campaigned for is not going to work under the given international situation. There would be a reduction in export earnings because the global economy would experience 5 per cent of negative growth that would reduce world consumption significantly. Similarly, the earning from tourism will also decrease substantially. In such a scenario, continuous faith on export-oriented growth strategy is a chimera. Hence, import substitution sectors with reasonable cluster effects have to be encouraged. While in the sphere of economics, the idea of delinking is making headway, it is interesting to see that in the arena of international politics, more and more integration appears to be reinforced. This may be attributed to the increasing tension between China and the United States in the Pacific and IOR. Although it is not the largest ocean, the significance of the IOR has greatly increased in the last ten years or so. China’s recent presence in the IOR has led India to move towards the US while Pakistan, its traditional ally, moved away from it. The US is planning to form a big alliance in the Indo-Pacific region linking India, Japan and Australia.
In this backdrop, protection of the sovereignty that rests on the people of the country will be problematic if the representatives of the people succumbed to the pressure of the international and regional powers haunting in the region.
Vacillating President and the Cabinet
The Prime Minister has appointed a commission headed by Professor Lalithasiri Gunaruvan to examine the pros and cons of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact as far as its expressed objectives and operational modalities are concerned. The Committee has recently submitted its report and indicated the signing of the MCC as it exists would be a serious threat to the island’s sovereignty. From the report it’s clear the preparation process of the MCC had been done without giving any importance to Sri Lanka.
Although the committee report has revealed the danger of the MCC to the country’s sovereignty, its foreign policy, its economy and finally its people, it appears the President and the Cabinet appears to be vacillating to take a firm decision on the MCC seemingly for two reasons. Although it is not within the MCC, the President has already asked to expedite land registry digitalisation contracted to the US firm.
(1) First, they seem to think US$ 480 million is a big support to the COVID-19 affected country. In support of this view, they emphasise the fact that it is a grant. Because it is a grant it would be much worse that a high premium loan.
(2) The second argument which is equally feeble is it’s not fair to change foreign policy decisions and agreements with other countries after a Government change. Of course, such decisions should be taken with proper analysis, not just short-term gains. In this sense, we have seen the brilliance of non-aligned foreign policy that was taken in the 1960s. However, in the last forty two years (1978- 2012), Sri Lanka’s decisions in the foreign policy arena have been shaky and based on short term considerations. Former Foreign Secretary Dr Palitha Kohona warned sometime back that once the MCC process was begun there was no turning back.
It is quite clear, both arguments to sign the MCC and associated two agreements ACSA and SOFA should be vehemently opposed by the electorate in Sri Lanka at the 5 August Parliamentary Election. The people who have an iota of concern on their sovereignty and its future generation should not vote for candidates who appear to be in support of the MCC.
The writer is a retired teacher of political economy at the University of Peradeniya.
E-mail: sumane_l@yahoo.com
The Yahapalana Government flunked in their management of international affairs. Mangala Samaraweera simply made Sri Lanka a co-signatory instead of challenging the UNHRC Resolution 30/1. By doing this, the Yahapalana Government overcame the confrontation that was brewing between the U.S. and Sri Lanka. However, Sri Lanka becoming a co-signatory did not make the Resolution any less hostile!
Negotiations gone awry
Likewise, they blotched the free trade agreement signed with Singapore. Initially they kicked the Chinese out of the Port City Project; afterwards they begged them to return and were forced to pay a penalty. How about leasing the Hambantota Port for 99 years to the less favourable bid? These were all terrible negotiations. Signing a military agreement with the US that does not serve Sri Lanka was bad enough. The fact the agreement did not consist of an exit clause or that only five out of 88 pages were shown to the then President Maithripala Sirisena adds to the contention.
Yet, Sajith Premadasa, the Yahapalana Government’s Presidential Candidate at a recent Election rally speculated the reason their people lost confidence in them might be inconsistencies in decision making. He said that Cabinet decisions taken on Monday were changed by Wednesday.
MCC Compact – Inauspicious announcement
The reason for him not to attribute their failure to the Yahapalana Government’s foreign policies maybe due to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact awarded to Sri Lanka. This is the largest grant ever offered to
Sri Lanka.
It was the Yahapalana Government’s initiative that made the MCC, which lost interest in Sri Lanka during the Mahinda Rajapaksa Administration, agree to reconsider Sri Lanka for a grant and thereafter offer this Compact. Therefore, it’s natural for that Government to pat their back on attracting MCC to offer USD 480 million for a two-pronged project to better manage Sri Lanka’s traffic and State land.
The announcement of MCC’s decision to award the Compact could not have been worse timed. It was made four days after the Easter Sunday massacres, the simultaneous attack on churches and hotels took Sri Lankans by complete surprise.
Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith urged communities to remain calm and shared his deep suspicions that this attack could be the work of geopolitical forces.
Ignored notifications
It soon came to light the Yahapalana Government had received nearly hundred repeated intelligence notifications of impending attacks with almost pinpoint accuracy. This information collaborated with certain incidents in Sri Lanka. The destruction of the Gautama Buddha statues in Mawanella and the discovery of explosives indicated strongly that extremists were once again active in the Island. However, top ranking officials did not give the received information its due importance.
The ongoing Presidential Commission to investigate the Easter Sunday massacres found out Military Intelligence had passed the intelligence to the relevant Police authorities. Yet, at the very highest level, the police had refused to act on it. DIG Ajith Rohana explained that it is easier to criticise the Police for inaction on hindsight. However, had the police acted and disrupted an important religious ceremony as the Easter Sunday and it turned out to be a false alarm, it would have been misconstrued as an act against reconciliation. The collective opinion of the security establishment was that the then Government’s focus was on reconciliation than national security.
Who was responsible?
While the country reeled with shock, the Yahapalana Government acted in a state of excitable frivolity. They were neither shocked nor repentant and no one was willing to accept responsibility. Then both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe were estranged. Wickremesinghe claims he was not aware about the intelligence notifications as he was not invited to the Security Council meetings. He however fails to explain his reasons for not being able to address this serious lapse in Parliament. Sirisena on the other hand retorts how was he responsible for something he did not know? Four days after the attack, then Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera blithely announced the likely collapse of the tourism industry.
However, after pronouncing the tourism industry’s doom after the Easter Sunday massacres, neither Ranil Wickremesinghe nor Sajith Premadasa offered solutions or what measures their Government would take to cushion the fall. Instead Samaraweera announced that he had some good news on the economic front. That’s how Sri Lankans got to know about the Compact.
Now as the incumbent Opposition, it’s entertaining to watch both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa tripping over each other with solutions to manage the economic crisis had they been in power.
MCC a hangman’s noose
As information about the MCC and the Compact began to trickle through patriots got alarmed and pointed out that though these were a grant, the strings attached were akin to a hangman’s noose. MCC insists that the recipient country must always adhere to ‘Good Governance’ if to commence and continue with the Compact. Professor Lalithasiri Gunaruwan, who headed the review committee on the Compact, when presenting their findings observed the MCC had paused their grants halfway in other countries.
Sri Lankans’ own experience after nearly five years of Yahapalana ‘good governance’ is that ‘good governance’ is an extremely subjective term. Democracy, accountability, reconciliation and corrupt free governance were the promised components. Instead, the Yahapalana Government compulsively obsessed over the opinion of the West, whose expectations of Sri Lanka seemed to be strongly influenced by an extremist group, the Tamil Diaspora who holds the entire Tamil expatriate community in an iron grip.
Thus, the Yahapalana Government ignored the UPFA – the largest opposition political alliance with representation in eight provinces and 56 seats in Parliament. The UPFA continued to suffer step-motherly treatment at the Parliament. They were even denied adequate time to address the Parliament.
Instead the TNA, the one time political proxy of the LTTE and an alliance composed of exclusive Tamil politicians representing two provinces with only 16 seats in Parliament, was appointed as the Opposition. It is most unfortunate that they did not use their powerful status to bring forth any development or economic relief to at least their constituents.
Mangala co-sponsored Resolution 30/1 without Cabinet approval
Mangala Samaraweera as the Minister for Foreign Relations in 2015 co-sponsored the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 without either Cabinet approval, or a debate in Parliament or a mandate from the people. The conditions set forth in this Resolution decidedly treated the Sri Lankan Military as war criminals and the LTTE terrorists as victims. The free trade agreement with Singapore was another international contract signed with equal secrecy and equally detrimental to the country’s economic security.
In the name of good governance, some of the acts and bills the Yahapalana Government tried to implement included reparations for terrorists and their families, persecution and incarceration of security forces, dismantling intelligence networks and attempts to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act with one that conceded more rights to the suspected terrorists than given to even common criminals and laws against enforced disappearances that are only effective to security forces. Some Western countries even tied up economic relations such as GSP+ with these conditions.
Where the 19th Amendment went wrong
The 19th Amendment was structured to make the President listen to the recommendations of his premier in making crucial appointments. However, the Amendment did not support a provision to use when these appointments needed to be reversed. This is how the IGP continued to remain as the IGP despite failing in his duty. Yet, the Yahapalana Government was hailed for strengthening democracy in the country.
Obviously, none of these were agreeable to the people. Yet, the proponents of good governance continued to applaud the Yahapalana Government and claimed democracy was established. To add insult to injury, the Yahapalana Government failed miserably on the economic front as well. The failures seemed almost deliberate. Nearly, half a million people lost their livelihoods.
Removing one’s foot without detonating it
Today, both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa are jeering the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Administration for not tearing up the Compact immediately. Instead, the reviewing of the Compact was passed from expert committee to Cabinet.
However, one must understand the Compact is only a carrot. Discrediting the political leadership to lead to regime change and passing the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 to persecute the Military whilst creating divisions between Sinhalese and Tamils were all foundations of the Compact. To tear the Compact without understanding the objective expected from it would be foolish – because after the carrot comes the stick.
As far as the U.S. or any other international body is concerned, it is Sri Lanka that requested a grant from the MCC. It certainly is not their problem that it was ‘that’ Government and not ‘this’ Government. By inviting the MCC we had metaphorically stepped on a landmine. The trick is now to remove the foot without detonating it.
ranasingheshivanthi@gmail.com
The fickle consciousness of the public is legendary and we realize that politicians depend greatly on yet another fact – namely, the very poor memory of voters. The sheer effrontery of leaders of the LAST Government who make criticisms on the economic policies of the PRESENT Government makes our adrenalin levels rise dangerously. The last Government BEGAN with the economic disaster of the Bond Scam. No one took the blame. No one was punished. Yet past Ministers and leaders have the NERVE to still talk, talk, talk ad nauseum of the mistakes that others are making or are going to make.
The leaders of the last government seem to be conducting contented postmortems of their own which I am sure some of them are too intelligent to actually believe. Do reporters themselves not report these silly opinions (for they are really mighty silly) with a high degree of disbelief? It is well said that a Govt. which can forget its past history has no future history.
All this talk of DEMOCRACY being at stake is also laughable. The self proclaimed leader of the democratic world sent thousands to their deaths by his cavalier attitude towards the Corona virus. Our own President protected us. We accept this with deep gratitude.
And let us look at Democracies anyway. The Greek model worked because it was a direct system. Not the all the populations of the Greek City States were citizens. The vast number of them were slaves who had no vote. Injustice, corruption, elitism and economic disasters are all a part of a Democracy. One of Churchill’s better known comments was that the best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with a voter. Indeed most of us wear a permanent patina of discontent with the way ‘Democracy’ is handled in Sri Lanka.
Elections will bring us a new Government. We hope desperately it will prove worthy of the trust voters place in it. We hope it will follow Gotabaya Rajapakse’s example and govern with dignity, panache and efficiency. Action, with less talk is his hallmark. All Ministers and MPs would do well to do likewise.
We hope the new Government will not display the insane hubris of many of our past Ministers and will tone down their public pronouncements and public appearances. We hope OUR money will not be wasted on uneducated MPs……. on their cars, their security, their absurd salaries, their hanger-on relatives to mention a few things we voters really regard as ‘Un-Democratic’. Our dwindling resources can do with a drastic cutting down of Ministerial mismanagement (the fiasco of Education being a case in point.)
Sri Lanka could be such an easy country to govern. We have everything right here. A small population, a pleasant climate, a rich soil ( which is not adequately made use of) an extremely intelligent people and a geographical placement that makes us highly important to the rest of the world. Surely we can elect a Government that will make Sri Lanka a contented and successful country and one which can again be regarded as the best run in South East Asia?
Goolbai Gunasekara
Army Commander Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva says that the repatriation of Sri Lankans abroad will be resumed within the next week.
He stated this speaking to the media following a religious program held in Kaduwela.
Responding to a question raised by a journalist regarding the escape of a COVID-19 patient from the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), the Army Chief said that the police have taken necessary action regarding the security situation at the hospital.
The Army Commander further stated that the drug addicts who are infected with COVID-19 are held at the Kandakadu Hospital and there is no room for them to escape as there is military security have been given to the hospital.
Two associates of notorious crime figures in the country have been arrested today (26), according to Police Media Division.
The arrests have been made in Colombo this evening.
One suspect has been identified to be a close associate of underworld gang leader and drug dealer ‘Kanjipani Imran’.
The other is reported to be a close associate of gangster and drug kingpin ‘Makandure Madush’.
Both ‘Kanjipani Imran’ and ‘Makandure Madush’ are currently under the custody of authorities.
Police Media Spokesman SSP Jaliya Senaratne stated that a survey has been launched on information books in police stations island wide.<br /><br />He stated at a media briefing held in Colombo today that the survey is being conducted on the instructions of the Acting IGP.
Recently it was revealed that some officials of the Narcotics Bureau were involved in drug trafficking with drug traffickers.
It is with this in mind that the Acting IGP has decided to conduct a survey to find out whether documents of such corruption or misrepresentations are missing from police stations islandwide.
Five more inmates at the Senapura Rehabilitation Centre tested positive for COVID- 19, increasing total in Sri Lanka to 2,782.
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 13th 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 5th 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 11th 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)
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.
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.
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.
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 4th 1971. The attack was resisted by Jayaweera and his team. Village headmen of adjacent villages then informed Jayaweera on April 5th 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 12th 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)
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)
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 )
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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