H. L. D. Mahindapala

Managing a democracy in normal times is bad enough. Managing it in times of crises can be a horripilating nightmare. Choices have to be made between confronting imperatives demanding urgent and unpalatable decisions and the popular will that will invariably opt for the comfortable and the least painful way out. The choices available for the drivers steering the wheel of state are risky either way. To begin with, no one likes the changing of gears which disturbs the settled position in the seat at a time when you are cruising smoothly on the surface of a flat road. Besides, it tends to build a kind of resentment against the driver who is doing his best to navigate his way forward through the bends and over the bumps. The driver who is at the wheel of the state is always trapped in this predicament. In reality he doesn’t have much of a choice. The choice available in trying to lie down at the end of the day is between a bed of thorns and porcupines.

President Gotabaya Rajapakse is the current driver in the seat. He has been driving the state since November 19, 2019. To arrive at his destination, he has decided to go down Dharmapala Mawatha. That is the meaning of November 19, 2019 – a date which is going to be as meaningful as 1956”. At no time in the post-independent period has the Sinhala-Buddhists decided to act collectively as a united political force as on November 19, 2019. There is, of course, 1956”. That was different. It was the year in which the colonial dam burst. The natural flow of history was dammed for nearly five hundred years and the accumulated forces were rearing to break loose in 1956. It could not be contained any longer behind any wall. The increasing pressures of the critical mass of historical forces waiting to breakthrough was too overbearing for any obsolete colonial dam to hold back.

Besides, by 1956” the tsunamic waves of anti-colonialism had swept across Afro-Asian nations overthrowing Western institutions and values. On the surface there was the change of guard. On the surface the Brown sahib replaced the White sahib. But beneath that political façade were the grassroot forces sweeping away the cultural remnants of colonialism.

The waves were just not political. Overthrowing the alien cultural dominance that came with Western imperialism proved to be more difficult than just sending home the Western masters.  At independence Sri Lanka was ruled by 6% of the English-speaking elite. Of this, the English-speaking Vellalas held a disproportionate share of jobs and power in the British bureaucracy.   More than the class division it was the cultural division – the English-speaking kultur elite versus the Sinhala-speaking yakkos – that separated and alienated the people from the state.

So, by 1956” the trends had developed and strengthened at all levels for the people to reclaim the nation they lost to the West. It was a historical inevitability.  It was the momentous year in which the historical imbalances caused by alien rule were readjusted and restored to their legitimate place. It was the first flowering of the grassroot forces that were suppressed for nearly five hundred years of colonialism. It was the dawning of a new era for the people who understood it their way and expressed it in the very simple slogan: Api-ta tha-na dun-na!” (We were given our due place!) They were referring to the place their ancestors lost five hundred years ago.

I was there when the over-joyed masses swarmed into Parliament and occupied the well of the House. The feeling in the air of having regained the precious heritage that was lost for centuries was infectious. Overwhelmed, some even shed tears of joy. It was a moment to remember for the rest of the living days.

S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike who came from Oxford had the foresight to identify and go along with the irresistible and overwhelming forces of history and win. He was chosen by history to lead 1956”. Stephen Spender’s splendid lines in ”I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great” describe his stature most aptly:

Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun,

And left the vivid air signed with their honour.”

He didn’t die when he was assassinated. Like all great historical figures, he was reborn in the memory of the people whom he served. To this day he lives as a determining force in the memory of the people who define and pursue their own destiny. 

Gotabaya Rajapakse’s victory on November 19, 2019 is a return to 1956” but with new characteristics. If 1956” was a clear rejection of colonialism – a movement that was defined, refined and led by self-sacrificing activists like Anagarika Dharmapala — , 2019” was an unequivocal rejection of fascist minoritarian politics threatening the majoritarian way of life inherited from the first steps taken by the nation-building pioneers who put their roots down firmly, unlike the other itinerant migrants, and opened up the virgin land to make this island a fit dwelling-place for men” (Mahavamsa) – one of the finest political ideals of all mankind.

In 2019 the minoritarianists were all out to rewrite the pages of history by devaluing and denigrating the very forces that opened the doors of the land and welcomed them when they too landed as migrants and had nowhere to go. But by 2019 they had grown to a point where they could take to aggressive politics challenging the very foundations on which they thrived. After they found their feet — with the help of the majority, of course — they decided to dislodge the majority and take over as king-makers, hiding behind various imported theories and rights.

Minoritarian power, which included anti-Sinhala-Buddhist NGOs, had reached its peak. By 2019 they were ensconced in a position to dictate terms to the Yahapalanaya regime. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s 19^th Amendment was the noose that was tightening round the neck of the majority. As if that is not enough, he sent his emissaries to UNHRC to promise his buddies in the West that he is prepared to do their bidding, even if it means sacrificing the heroic soldiers who saved the nation. Together with the arrogant minorities and his NGO partners he was lustily ringing the death knell of the Sinhala-Buddhists.

The desperate Sinhala-Buddhist majority had no one to stand up for them. No saviour, no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel. The helpless majority knew that Ranil Wickremesinghe and his anti-Sinhala-Buddhist gang had to be stopped. But who was going to do it? It was in these frightening circumstances that Gotabaya Rajapakse emerged as the tried and tested man. He has proved his worth by leading the longest and the biggest military campaign from a commanding height. He was the power behind the forces that crushed the deadliest enemy – the invincible enemy — of the nation with the bullet.

On November 19, 2019 he went to battle with the ballot in hand to fight the new enemy at home. His victory shocked the pundits by winning the unwinnable electoral battle. Conventional wisdom had concluded that no one can win without the minority votes. Gota proved that he can win unwinnable battles both with the bullet and ballot. Besides, earlier Field Marshall Fonseka failed to win with the ballot despite collecting the votes of the minority and the majority. Gotabaya won only with the votes of the majority. Gota has rewritten the political textbooks by proving that it is possible to win without the minority votes – a force that was considered indispensable for any electoral victory

This should convey a new message to the minority which is in total disarray, particularly with their UNP patron with two heads not knowing which head to follow. The Tamil minority played their last card at Vadukoddai by declaring war against the majority and they failed. Failed miserably! They tried international pressure but that didn’t take them to the goals they aspired. They tried regional pressure but that boomeranged on them. Or to change the metaphor, they killed the goose that was expected to lay the golden egg for them. With the killing of Rajiv Gandhi Tamils have proved to be better experts than the Japanese in committing harakiri. Their last hope was in the ballot. After the failure of the Vadukoddai bullet it was considered to be their most indispensable weapon. They relied on their myth that the Sinhalese cannot win any electoral battle without their vote. But Gotabaya won this unwinnable battle too with the votes of only the Sinhala-Buddhists. This victory is as stunning as the victory at Nandikadal. 

His victory has pushed the minorities to a dead-end. It means that the  minority can push the majority only sometimes and that too only up to a point at all times, unless they get another Ranil Wickremesinghe to do their bidding. As usual he was self-sabotaging himself with his incalculable missteps. But why should the nation pay for his stupidity? He had to be stopped.

On November 19, 2019, Gotabaya Rajapakse did just that. The majority that backed him to the hilt signalled that enough is enough. On November 19, 2019 the majority declared in bold headlines that there are limits to minoritarianism. They went quietly to the polls and without throwing hand grenades told the minorities that the future is in peaceful coexistence, as they had done for centuries before, and not in identitarian violence that destroys them more than the majority. It was not a move by the majority to put the knee to the neck of the minorities and choke them. It was a predictable reaction to the minorities stepping over the limit with an unwarranted arrogance.

Another proven fact in the last election is that the majority is willing to place their trust in the Rajapakses leadership. It is partly because there is none in the horizon to give an alternative leadership. But more importantly, it is the trust placed in the quality of the leadership to take the nation forward. Our politically bankrupt pundits, as usual, are blaming the Sinhala-Buddhists

The total bankruptcy of the thinking of this gang is in the inane statement of Prof Quadri Ismail who wrote: There cannot be peace in Sri Lanka until the Sinhalese come to terms with their bloody history, and disavow majoritarianism.” — A critique of (Tamil) Self-determination. (10/7/2013 – Groundview, Centre for Policy Alernative). This is typical of the minority blaming the majority. In any case, why should only the majority come to terms with their bloody history, and disavow majoritarianism”, eh Professori? Shouldn’t the minority too come to terms with their  bloody history of persecuting  and oppressing  their own people for centuries  and their crimes against humanity in the Vadukkoddai War and  disavow minoritarianism? This racist tactic of blaming the Sinhala-Buddhists has been going on since G. G. Ponnambalam denigrated the Sinhala-Buddhists in 1939 which caused the first racial riots. Where has it taken them? And for how long can they go on repeating the same anti-Sinhala-Buddhist mantra that has led them only to Nandikadal? Since all minoritarian gambits, including violence and international pressures, have failed should not the minorities seriously consider their next move on a rational basis with the aim of securing the good of all concerned?

Isn’t it time for them to revisit their failed past and consider how they can rephrase their rhetoric and their agenda to achieve peaceful co-existence as there is no space for disproportionate power and territory in the future?

By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph..D. in NonFormal Education & Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University

It is sad that though we have the ideal climate to produce what we need, an intelligent people and  verdant land resources we yet are in short supply. Let us take coffee. Once we produced coffee for export. Today we import coffee. We have ideal land for coffee. In Kitulgala we have perhaps the best climate for coffee. I have seen coffee bushes full of fruit on  my irrigation inspections up in the hills of Kitulgala. Today we not only import coffee but we see Nescafe everywhere. What we require is a long term plan to get coffee planted. But we gave up National Planning in the late Seventies at the behest of the IMF. We have to get National Planning back and have long term as well as short term development programmes going. There is absolutely no other way ahead.

 Since I left Sri Lanka in 1973 I have worked in four countries and have travelled- motored   in many countries and it is difficult to find a country that can beat Sri Lanka in resources.      .

Professor Buddhi Marambe in his very informative Paper, “Battle to Tackle Food Security”(Sunday Island 20/5)  has stated that  our food and beverage imports amount to some  Rs 422.5 billion. It is interesting to note that we produce only 69% of our maize,  56% of cow pea, 84% of ground  nut, 49% of black gram. These are all products of the chenas in the dry zone and there can easily be a programme to get farmers to produce these items. It is easily a year’s programme with chena cultivation at the end of this year. I can remember my days in Agrarian Services in           1963 or 1964 when I had my cultivation committees active in Anuradhapura, I offered to get farmers to produce all the maize we needed. If that had been approved I could have easily done that in one season. With the farmers organization and the officers I had I could have produced all the items in short supply quoted by Professor Marambe in one season.  I had the men and the farmer’s organization- the cultivation committees to attend to that task.  Sad to say the cultivation committees are no more and no other peoples organization has come up either. The  grassroot overseers of the Agrarian Services as well as the Agricultural Overseers of the Agriculture Department are no longer in service.  This is an aspect that requires immediate attention.(more later)

Profesor Marambe  further points out that  we produce only 10% of big onions and 80% of red onions.  Red Onions were produced in plenty in Jaffna and the Assistant Commissioner of Marketing in Jaffna had to get them purchased through cooperatives and be  stored. He had to work a fifteen hour day for three months and that includes Saturdays and Sundays. The night goods train from Jaffna carried easily twenty or more wagon loads of red onions to the rest of the country daily for close on three months and we Assistant Commissioners in all other Districts were held responsible to get the onions to the market- at our shops and at private dealers by sales to them at wholesale rates.. Once I covered the Southern Province from Ambalantota. Then three wagon loads of red onions came daily to Boosa and another three to Matara. My officers had to get them unloaded and sold, retail and wholesale to shops. I had to ensure indirectly that red onions were available even in private shops. One day I checked our stores and our shops and the availability of red onions among private dealers in Galle. Everything was OK and I was back in Ambalantota by night. The next morning I got a telegram from Head Office. These were the days when telephones hardly worked.  It read  Dahanayake Member of Parliament at Galle reports the non availability of red onions in Galle. Investigate and report”. I hooked to my car, back to Galle as soon as I could. I found all shops and our shops selling red onions. Everything was in order. I went to see Mr Dahanayake- waited for him at his residence. He came at about eleven and inquired why I was there. I knew him well. Sir you have reported to the Minister that red onions are not available in Galle. That is not true. I was here yesterday and am back again here today. There is no shortage of red onions.

He gazed at me for a while. You know, Garvin,  one of my supporters came and told  me that there is a shortage of red onions and to satisfy him I had to send a telegram to the Minister.”

“But  my Minister will have a poor opinion of me as I cover Galle and am in charge of seeing that red onions are not in short supply.”

That is politics, We have to be in the good books of the voters to get re-elected. I will tell the Minister that there is no shortage  in Galle”  That was all. Back in my office I wrote what happened. The matter ended there. Mr Dahanayake had evidently spoken to the Minister.

This incident illustrates the task the Marketing Department accomplished. The MD shops had to be having stocks of all essentials- Sugar,Flour, Dhall in addition to vegetables all at rock bottom prices and we Assistant Commissioners were charged to ensure that they never ran out of stock. That was how the MD contributed to controlling inflation.  Sad to say today there is no Guaranteed price for red onions. The Marketing Department was axed and there is no system whatsoever. Farmers get fleeced with low prices and they hardly produce. Shortages and high prices is the order of the day. We cry out aloud that inflation is high. We have even forgotten that we ourselves undid the infrastructure we had intact to combat inflation.

Professor Marambe  is happy about the production of the staple crop, paddy. However I have grave doubts.

What has actually happened in Sri Lanka in the field of agricultural development is that since the 1970s  we have neglected the development of  agriculture.

Paddy(Rice)

 Having played a major role in peasant agriculture- as an Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services, later as Senior Assistant Commissioner and  Additional Government Agent at Kegalla in 1968 and 1969 and later as the Government Agent at Matara in 1971-1973 I was part and parcel of the green revolution in Sri Lanka. In fact I implemented the Paddy Lands Act in the Anuradhapura District in 1962-1964 and organized paddy cultivation with the farmers actively participating in the elected cultivation committees, adopting new varieties of paddy following transplanting, applying fertilizer and being rewarded with a bountiful harvest.

Let me also make a statement that will not be believed by many. I am of the opinion that in around 1966- 1970 we were not only self sufficient in paddy, but some of our paddy was taken away to India. I worked in Anuradhapura in 1962 to 1964 an am aware of the movements of paddy lorryloads in the District.  Later as Senior Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services covering the island, I often visited  Anuradhapura and noticed that many lorryloads of paddy were moving northwards from the Jaffna Junction in Anuradhapura every night.   In my days in 1963 1964 when I was in Anuradhapura not a single lorry of paddy moved north at the Jaffna Junction. Any cargo moving north of the Jaffna Junction will go to Medawachchiya and there was no need for paddy to be taken from Anuradhapura towards the north. This was very surprising  and I purposely checked this move of paddy again on my visits- I was working In Colombo at that time.  I even reported  to the Commissioner that I suspected that  paddy was being transported north from Anuradhapura and that a possibility was that it was moved to Mannar and finally to South India. I sought approval to proceed and look into it further. The Commissioner disagreed and there the matter ended. It was decades later that a Police Officer confirmed that paddy was an item that was taken from Sri Lanka to South India at that time. What is important is to note that we were more than self sufficient in paddy at that time.

To get back to the paddy crops in Sri Lanka  Since 1978 we have gone down hill. Let me quote a discussion I had with the Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture in 1980:

In 1980 when the achievement in paddy production was boasted about I asked the Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture for the records of the crop cutting surveys which we as District administrators had attended to in order to ensure that the statistics of production submitted by the Department of Agriculture were correct. To my utter dismay, he replied that crop cutting surveys were no longer done. Instead the statistics submitted by agricultural officers was accepted as correct.  No check was done. These were the officers in charge of agriculture and their promotions depended on increases recorded., The importance of the crop cutting surveys was  that these were done by gazetted officers of high rank directly appointed by the Government Agent. The idea was to have  a super check on reported statistics.” (My 2006  book))  I have good reason to doubt the reported statistics of yields and production.

Paddy production was  reduced due to certain changes that took place.

Agricultural ExtensionService

By the Fifties Sri Lanka had a highly developed agricultural extension service with District Agricultural Extension Officers, all  graduates in agriculture at the district level.  At the divisional level there were Agricultural Instructors, officers who had a two years’ training at Colleges of Agriculture.  Under them there were around a dozen Agricultural Overseers- called Krushikarma Vyapti Sevaka at the village level. They had an years’ training in agriculture.  These were the field level officers who attended to work with the farmers. With the Agrarian Services Department coming in, with cultivation committees under the Paddy Lands Act this agricultural extension system was boosted.  Under this Act, cultivation committees were elected from among the cultivators and  the Department of Agrarian Services had Divisional Officers at the divisional level and  a Field Assistant, an officer with an years’ training in agriculture at the village level. This combination of the effort of both departments-Agriculture and Agrarian Services  was an excellent agricultural extension service. The cultivation committees met and made all decisions re cultivation, and the inputs- the new hybrid seed, the fertilizer etc was decided by the cultivation committees. The inputs were provided by active multipurpose cooperative societies. I was a part and parcel of this extension system myself attending meetings of the cultivation committees in Anuradhapura in 1963 and 1964., planning cultivation, the use of high yielding varieties, getting in inputs in time, arranging loans and finally seeing that the producing farmers were able to sell the crop at the premium price paid under the guaranteed price scheme. The Department of Agrarian Service had a staff of close on four thousand organizing paddy production. With the Agriculture Department staff it was easily an army on the move. None in my team flayed. All slow movers were whipped into action and the recalcitrant were sent home. That did happen wherever I worked and later as Senior Assistant Commissioner covering the entire island in 1966 to 1968, I can assure that the entire country was terribly activated. The Government Agents were also charged with paddy production and even the Prime Minister devoted most of his time to ensure that the agricultural development programme was effective. In this effort I can assure that no stone was left unturned. This was how Sri Lanka became self sufficient.

This excellent extension service went though a few changes.

Low Emphasis on Paddy Production from 1970

With the election of Prime Minister Sirimavo in 1970, the Government Agents ceased to play a major role in agriculture. Instead Prime Minister Sirimavo came up with the Divisional Development Councils Programme and the focus of attention switched to that programme which concentrated on small industries.  In detail, in 1967 and 1968, when I was the Additional Government Agent at Kegalla, every Saturday and Sunday the Prime Minister would spend the entire day in his electorate and the task of accompanying him fell on me. He hardly left the shores of Sri Lanka.. He would attend around eight to ten functions, meetings of societies partly arranged by me and partly arranged by his Party supporters and he would go into great detail to ensure that paddy production  took place without any hindrance. He had even gazetted all Government Agents as Deputy Directors of Agrarian Services, Agriculture  and Cooperative Development  The Government Agent was divested of a large section of his work by the appointment of an Additional Government Agent to each District.  In fact at a Government Agent’s Conference when the Prime Minister inquired as to what has to be done to enhance the agricultural development programme, one Government Agent submitted  that a District had only one Land Rover and this held up work. The Prime Minister ordered not one jeep but three jeeps to a district.

Lack of a peoples institution to organize cultivation

The extension service was crippled by the abolition of the Paddy Lands Act in around 1980. It was the cultivation committees elected under the Paddy Lands Act that organized the cultivation of paddy, planning to use new varieties and arranging the inputs. With the cultivation committees ceasing to exist there was no organization attending to this task.

Farmers have to work together in paddy cultivation. Cultivation has to be timed to coincide with the rains. A part of our paddy acreage is rainfed while the rest is covered by irrigation schemes. Irrigation schemes too depend on the rain to fill the tanks. Farmers have to work together because water flows from field to field. In order to enable farmers to work together in ancient times the GamSabha,   did the coordination. Under British rule Gam Sabhas ceased to exist and instead the Government Agent appointed a Vel Vidane for each village or tract. It was the Vel Vidane’s duty to hold a Kanna meeting of all farmers at the beginning of each season to decide the area to cultivate, which depended on the water in the tank in irrigation areas.  The dates for clearing canals, ploughing,  sowing and harvesting were all decided at this meeting. The decisions included the fines that have to be levied for non compliance. The Vel Vidane generally happened to be an influential person in the village and he could get things done. He could prosecute farmers for not adhering to dates fixed at the Kanna meeting and the Village Tribunal President  would impose the fines. Generally the farmers complied. With the enactment of the Paddy Lands Act the cultivation of paddy fell on the cultivation committee. The CC comprised cultivators and had office bearers from among the cultivators. Generally the cultivation committees were successful in planning the cultivation to time. Some cultivation committees in Anuradhapura were so successful that they were given the contract to rebuild the tanks which they did by hiring  D8 or D4 tractors to move earth from the tank bed and rebuild the tank bund.  The  cultivation committees played a major role in the green revolution becoming a success.

When the Paddy Lands Act was abolished in the Eighties, there was no peoples organization to coordinate  cultivation. The farmers were deprived of an organization to freely participate and act together in cultivation. Later by the Agrarian Services Act  Yaya Palakas were appointed but the system was very ineffective. During the days of the Vel Vidane, he held authority from the Government Agent through the DRO(DivisionalSecretary) and cultivation was orderly done. When the Paddy Lands Act was implemented the Cultivation Committees attended to this task. With the abolition of the PL Act and the cultivation committees ceasing to exist this organization fell on the  Yaya Palakas who were very  ineffective, The situation today is that Kanna Meetings are not properly held and cultivation suffers. A glance at paddy lands in many areas today indicates that farmers do not adhere to any timing. This results in late cultivation, where the harvest gets caught in the incoming rains of the next season. The very disorganized cultivation today is due to the lack of a vibrant peoples organization, a cultivation committee in the days of Agrarian Services in Sri Lanka or a cooperative in the case of the celebrated rural development programme of the Kotwali Thana in Bangladesh, where the yield of paddy was doubled and full employment was reached, the only such achievement in the annals of development.(The Comilla Programme of Rural Development) It is absolutely necessary to have a peoples institution where farmers can participate and decide and work together. This is a prime necessity today.

Crippling the Agrarian Services Departnment.

The Agrarian Services Department was also crippled and sections abolished. The agrarian services centers play an insignificant role today.

What was important with the Cultivation Committees was that it provided full participation to the farmers. In Anuradhapura they met and discussed for hours about following innovative practices and cooperated. It was this type of cooperation that played the path to boost yields and achieve self sufficiency

The World Bank forbidding  agricultural officers to use institutions in extension

In the Eighties, The World Bank came up with the Training and Visit System of agricultural extension which forbade agricultural extension officers from using  any peoples organizations like cultivation committees and cooperatives in extension. The officers were detailed to visit farmers direct. A single agricultural instructor has to  cater to between 3000 to 13,000 farmers  and they can never contact all farmers direct.  In order to make countries adopt this T & V system the World Bank came with grants of money, supporting the countries with funds and the countries gladly submitted. It is my contention that this move of the World Bank was an attempt to ruin the extension systems that the countries had developed. It was essentially a method of sabotage, like the Structural Adjustment Programme that was forced on countries after the late Seventies by the International Monetary Fund. .There the aim was to make countries  indebted.  (For more details: Karunaratne: How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development:2017)

Promoting Agricultural Overseers to Grama Niladhari

President Premadasa in around 1992 promoted some 2400 Agricultural Overseers(Krushikarma  Vyapti Sevaka) to the rank of Grama Niladhari and no trained officer took their place even till today. . It was after a few years that Niyamakas were appointed to that position. These Niyamakas were never trained in agriculture. Till today the Agricultural Instructors at the Divisional level have to attend to any number of farmers between 3000 and 13,000 and this is an impossible task. In extension it is an accepted fact that peoples organizations, where farmers can meet and be addressed by officers  , where they can discuss and decide what to do-using new varieties,  use of fertilizer and arranging loans etc are essential.. The agricultural extension system was crippled. It is sad that the authorities are silent about this. Instead we find Samurdhi officers and such being appointed to attend to various tasks at the village level.

Thus today the agricultural extension system exists only in name. The System ceases at the divisional level and the extension centers that are manned by Niyamakas who know no agricultiure  are actually ignored by  the farmers. I can narrate my own experience:

Around 1997, running my small family farm I had the occasion to visit the Extension Centers at Kadawata and Delgoda. The officers did not know  the amount of fertilizer to be used and when. At my insistence they raked their files and unearthed details. The circular advised the use of Urea and Ammonium Sulphate at the basal stage  and no mention was made of the top dressing(urea or ammonium sulphate). I brought this to the notice of the Secretary to the Ministry  who was so ignorant of the use of fertilizer that he had to refer it to the Director of Agriculture and he too was so ignorant that he had to refer it to the Rice Research Institute at Batalagoda and months later I got a reply that the advise given to me was out of date by half a dozen years. It is very necessary  to undertake inspections of the advice offered to farmers  at the extension centers and to correct the set up. About a year later I dropped into one of these Centers  and to my amazement I found  that even the top dressing has not been incorporated into the advice. In our inefficiency we are wasting fertilizer..”(2006 Book, pg.310)

The situation today is perhaps worse: A World Bank Report of 2007 reads: The Report concluded that Sri Lanka’s agricultural research and extension system was weak and probably incapable of supporting  agricultural growth”(Reviewing Sri Lanka’s Agricultural Research & Extension System:Towards More Innovation & Market Orientation: World Bank:Colombo:May 2007)

Today there is an ineffective Agrarian Services which has little functions and  with the abolition of the PL Act the Agrarian Services is dead. The Department of Agriculture is a specialist department without a base with no Field Officers at the village level.

Provincial Ministries cripples extension activities.

In 1962 in the Agrarian Services Departrment I drafted the first circular  on using fertilizer for paddy and every Overseer in the entire island had to know it by heart. If any of my officers were found giving the wrong advice they knew what would happen to them. The creation of Provincial Ministries of Agriculture created a system where instructions had to flow to the provincial Ministries and Secretaries. Provincial Ministries held up work and this is no system for a small country like Sri Lanka

Marketing of Agricultural Produce

By the Sixties the Government had built up a unique agricultural marketing system.. This was the Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing. This Department  was commenced in the days of Premier DS Senanayake  and it attended to the purchase of paddy and other cereals in short supply, the purchase of vegetables and fruits, the sale of vegetables and fruits as well as other essential supplies at small Fair Price Shops all over the cities- controlling inflation in the process, running a bakery making bread and pastries, running restaurants at festivals (like Kataragama) aimed at providing cooked food to people-intentionally to control the prices at which private restaurants sold eats   to people, producing food preparations at a Canning Factory, making fruit juice, jam, tomatoe sauce aimed at creating self sufficiency.

The aims of this Department were multifold- enabling producers to obtain reasonably high prices for their produce, controlling inflation, making the country self sufficient and developing an export market for canned produce.  This was a unique department the likes of which does not exist in any country today. The aim was also not to make a profit, but to break even. This was a difficult task, entirely done by pricing purchases and sales- running a staff of over a thousand with over a hundred lorries. I was an Assistant Commissioner in this Department from 1955 to 1962 and was in charge of the vegetable and fruit marketing section based at Tripoli market for one year.

Paddy

Under the Guaranteed Price Scheme for paddy and other cereals,  the Government offered to purchase paddy and other cereals at a premium price. This was done through cooperative societies.. The Department prepared a list of  farmers that specified the amount of paddy that could be purchased . This Scheme was implemented by the Department of Agrarian Services and  later by the Paddy Marketing Board. The cultivator  was assured of a good price, well above the local price for paddy and other cereals in short supply.. The Government of President Jayawardena abolished the Guaranteed Price Scheme. Today what happens is that every season when there is agitation by producers being unable to sell, the Government fixes a price for purchasing and paddy is purchased from anyone. In this system the incentive price does not go to the producer. Instead it goes to traders that collect the produce and hand over to the Government stores. The government stores are few and far between and the producers cannot take their produce  to the stores situated far away.  Actually today the set up of officialdom in agriculture is such that there is no official who can prepare the list of producers. This was done by the Agricultutal Overseers the KVS and by the Cultivation Committees and they do not exist now.

An efficient system of marketing the produce has to be made available. This is not there at the moment.

Vegetables & Fruits

Since the late Forties, we developed a unique vegetable marketing system where reasonable prices were assured to the producers. At that time all produce was brought by the producers to the Fairs that were held weekly. This was done by the MD too purchasing vegetables and fruits at the producer fairs in the country, competing with traders.  The country was fully covered by Purchasing Depots and Marketing Officers went to all major producer fairs purchasing . The entire country was covered by Marketing sleuths- Assistant Commissioners of Marketing assisted by Marketing Officers reporting the availability of produce and the rates at which traders were purchasing. Simultaneously officers covered the wholesale market in Colombo , reporting the availability of produce and the prices at which the wholesalers sold to the retailers. The Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Scheme based at Tripoli Market, a large hanger in the Colombo Goodshed, decided the prices at which vegetables will be purchased at the producer fairs. This was always higher than the prices at which the traders were purchasing at the fairs. The traders kept a margin of around 50% at the purchasing point at the producer fair and another  50% at the wholesale market and again the retailer kept a similar margin. The MD kept a margin of around 15% to cover handling and wastage, brought the goods overnight to Colombo and goods were sorted out and sold at small shops in the cities. The aim of the MD pricing formulae was to cover up wastage and transport costs and no profit was kept.  When the MD offered a high price at the producer fair, the traders too had to offer a similar higher price because otherwise no producer will sell to them.  Similarly in the cities when the MD shops offered  goods at low prices the retail traders too had to sell at similar rates because otherwise no one will buy from them. Thereby the MD indirectly controlled the prices at the fairs as well as prices in the cities. The latter helped to control inflation.  The MD Scheme ate into the profits kept by the dealers.

Another service was offering advice to cultivators on what crops are required for the country and what crops should be cultivated.

A further development was made when the Canning Factory was established in 1954.  Then the  MD offered to buy the total available stock of Red Pumpkin which was made into Golden Melon Jam, Ash Pumpkin which was made into Silver Melon jam and Pineapples made into jam, pieces, rings and juice. Tomatoes was also an item where Tomatoe Sauce was made. Then a floor price was offered for these varieties. A floor price meant that MD will purchase the entire stock. Traders generally purchased an amount that the wholesaler wanted.  With the establishment of the Cannery producers earned a good income. Simultaneously Sri Lanka became self sufficient in all Jam and Fruit Juice. This was achieved by 1957- in a matter of three years 1954 to 1957- a task that can easily be accomplished today, because the raw products- red pumpkin, ash pumpkin, melons etc are chena crops that can easily be cultivated in a single season. Today the chena producers produce  limited quantities because if they produce large quantities the price goes down and they cannot sell their produce. Each Purchasing Center was equipped with a lorry and there were instances when additional lorries were sent when large quantities were found at the Fairs. Daily produce came to the Tripoli market- twenty wagon loads and another twenty lorry loads. These had to be cleared and sent off to the retail sales depots.  There was never a situation where farmers had to bury their tomatoes, red pumpkin or pineapple. If that did happen  the Assistant Commissioner in charge at Triploi Matket as well as the Assistant Commissioner in that district will have to face major censures from the Commissioner BLW Faernando.  At the begining of every month there was a conference of Assistant Commissioners when the profit and loss for each unit will be scrutinized by him and  if any of us had priced in a manner where we incurred a loss or profit of over 10% we would be hauled over the coals. The golden rule was to break even. We always planned for a profit of ten percent to be on the safe side. The MD was a difficult department to run. In the districts, on four days of the week at 4 A.M.  I was in my car going off to be at the producer fairs by six. Pricing and changing the prices was an ordeal. The work ended late with even van sales in cities offering produce at low prices to clear stocks.

The Vegetable and Fruit Purchasing Scheme with its fair price shops and the Cannery is an essential pre requisite for any development. By 1957, Oswald Tillekeratne the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Cannery had even developed an export trade in pineapple pieces and rings.  The earnings from exports will easily pay for the total expense of establishing this Cannery again. 

The MD suffered when the staff came under the Administrative Service. It took months to understand and more to be able to admiunister the programme..  Later there were Commissioners appointed to the Department who failed to understand the details of how it was run. It was a specialist department and it was run by officers who had developed a specialism.  It was a daunting task running a department with multifarious aims- helping the producer as well as helping the consumer, controlling inflation  and also helping the foreign exchange intake through exports. By all yardsticks it was well run, a great success. The MD with a Cannery is a pre requisite for development.

Conclusion

The details provided of the demise in agricultural extension and in marketing the produce is genuine and  it is sad that the authorities are continuing as if nothing is wrong. These details may not be known to plant specialists and professionals working at university level. It so happens that I was a part and parcel of the vibrant extension service and the active marketing system that rendered our country self sufficient in paddy, cereals and in vegetables and fruits. The system in vegetables and fruits not only ensured self sufficiency but also brought in foreign exchange by the export of pineapple pieces and pineapple rings.

The International Monetary Fund had its arms twisted by the Washington Consensus in the Seventies and all the development infrastructure developed by the countries to enable development had to be sacrificed. The MD of Sri Lanka was also sacrificed and today foreign exchange flows from Sri Lanka to the Developed Countries for imports. Even tomatoe sause and vinegar is imported from the USA. Re establishing the infrastructure for development is a prerequisite to enable development goals to be achieved.

As far as agriculture is concerned the extension service, which has been weakened has to be restored to enable development, to achieve  increases in production and the poverty alleviation goals.

I am certain that the facts revealed in this Paper will be contested by many specialists. I may mention that all what I have written is true and it is with the sincere motive of helping agricultural development and achieving poverty alleviation goals. In case there are any doubts about the facts disclosed I will be there toface criticisms and  substantiate further.. The cost of bringing about self sufficiency and development  can also be fully recouped in foreign exchange earnings from exports and savings in foreign exchange on avoiding imports.

 My aim is to contribute to make Sri Lanka the granary of the East and it is a task that can be done within two to three years at most. May my message reach our new  leaders.

Garvin Karunaratne

Former GA Matara, Ph.D Michigan State University

03/07/2020

Author of How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programmes of Success(Godages{2006)

Papers on the Economic Development of Sri Lanka, (Godages:2012)             

 How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development (Kindle/Godages;2017)

Shenali D Waduge

There is a notion that MCC has nothing to do with Title Registration because it was a project started well before MCC Compact was introduced. The answer is only half correct. Yes, Title Registration Act 21, was passed in 1998 but it was not implemented. It was introduced as a World Bank project and passed as an Act in 1998. First stage was launched in 2007. World Bank funded the project probably sniffing that the terrorist conflict was drawing to a close and the international players needed to alternate ways to keep Sri Lanka on a leash. Let’s not forget the international cartel use foreign investment & aid/grants with hidden intentions and these projects have been tried out in doses in different countries. With more people questioning their entry – their response has been to legislatively pass their projects to make them domestic law yet giving them full diplomatic immunity. With the entry of MCC the Title Registration project began get steam rolled completely ignoring the complications associated with transferring 8.5m land plots which has been following a deed registration system. Now the country is expected to transfer from locally practiced deed system to title registration & foreign/international laws for a paltry $67million.

HOW BIM SAVIYA (Title Registration) CAME 

Torrens Land Title Registration is a foreign title registration system first launched in Australia in 1858. In 1998 this system was introduced not because Sri Lankans wanted or asked for it but because World Bank recommended it. The Act was passed without debate in Parliament or discussion by public. The banks protested by submitting reports, the Sri Lanka Bar Association presented reasons for why it was detrimental and lawyers even made representations later when Mahinda Rajapakse became President.

These reports made it clear that Sri Lanka cannot function with a law practiced for over 100 years in Australia, which completely repeals the law practiced for over 100 years in Sri Lanka.

Title Registration is the process by which Sri Lanka’s private deeds are taken by the State and replaced with an one page title registration certificate. There are various issues associated with this some of which include that title registration is only given to one owner. There is no scope for co-ownership, even a husband & wife cannot have joint-property, issues related to life-interest ownership etc while title registration will also remove personal customary laws.

The Title Registration is being rolled out in Sri Lanka as Bim Saviya though the legal and binding name should be Title Registration. However, of the 8.5million land plots only 700,000 people have so far received title registration certificates.

The process of taking deeds and converting them to title registration & handing the deed owner a registration certificate has been happening at a snail’s pace. One of the main reasons for this is that grievances related to co-ownership, life interest and other issues relevant to its omission in the title registration can only be taken up at grievance stage with the district courts but not after the title registration certificate has been issued. In short, court intervention in Title Registration is only to the district court stage and not beyond. Supreme Court has no adjudication and instead the Commissioner of Title is tasked to adjudicate where only compensation can be given but not the returning of one’s land lost for some faulty reason like fraud or wrong entry. You can imagine the numerous scenarios where hiccups can happen at village level among the poor & legally illiterate.

So this process has been happening since 2007 without much enthusiasm from officials or owners, simply because funding has come.

Keep in mind how FUNDING and INVESTMENTS are modern means of ‘invading’ and ‘plundering’ nations by other means.

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka undergoes regime change in 2015 installing a bandwagon of individuals and parties that have a series of treacheries to their name. Out of the blues a mass murder takes place and within days MCC gift” of $480m is announced. MCC is the 3^rdarm of America’s 3D tactic under the Indo-Pacific Strategy. (Defense-ACSA/Diplomacy-SOFA/Development-MCC)

Every funding from US whether it is by USAID or MCC or any other comes from US Treasury.

MCC & its associates claim Sri Lanka’s 2 issues are Transport & Land out of which $67m was to be allocated for the land project which in reality is the most dangerous & invasive of the 2 projects. The draft agreement is reluctantly made public amidst mass protests. For even the most ordinary laymen, reading the clauses is no different to giving one’s land to a donor to build a house to discover that one has not only lost one’s land, house and evidence that one even owned the land! With all these factors erased one has nothing to prove even to a court. Imagine this happening to even half of the 8.5million plot owners!

MCC land project is plugged to the Title registration primarily because it is a foreign system that foreign legal consultants are experts in.

Annex 1-28 answers the question that Title Registration (Bim Saviya) is directly linked to MCC Land Project.

Even if MCC is not signed the funding ensures what MCC wants as project scope is what is being implemented on the ground. It is extremely important for everyone to understand this. Simply because MCC is NOT SIGNED (YET) do not think that the elements under the MCC objectives are not taking place. It is naïve to think that by not signing, the MCC project is over because what MCC project plan envisages is taking place as all of the projects mentioned above are operational. That these initiatives are taking place because of foreign funding and because of criteria stipulated by international agencies like World Bank, USAID which are the key actors in the MCC overall project is important to realize the nature of their game plan.

Only one pre-condition could not be fulfilled by yahapalana. This was to privatize all 84% of State land. The former PM tried to do so 4 times by presenting the State Land Privatization Bill but did not succeed. Had the Bill been passed all of Sri Lanka’s land would have been turned into private land and there would have been no state land in Sri Lanka.

Without a doubt, alternate avenues must be getting explored to privatize state land. They did try one alternate method the Ruhunu Development Act but that too failed. However, they will be now working on various other models to get state land privatized or devolved to the provinces and away from the Central Government via $$$ funding. Notice how foreign embassies are making a cry over lands being given to provinces under 13a – why are they so bothered about our land? Why do they want forests to be under provinces? Why are they giving funding specifically for projects that eye our resources?

We have to seriously look at the nature of these ‘foreign investments’ and what the exact benefit for Sri Lanka is for what they assume to give us!

Thus, MCC though not signed as yet has the advantage of pushing more funding to ensure the title registration process is expedited alongside the e-land registration which was advertised by the US embassy Colombo and private parties selected by the embassy to enter into the e-land registry the title registration certificates from deeds. The computer system that is operating the e-land registration is foreign and for every change Sri Lanka is asked to pay. What we are now paying for will not be even considered with signing of MCC under clause 3.9 Intellectual Property.

Thus even without the MCC signing the initiatives under MCC Land Project is taking place. We should not think that because MCC is not signed Title Registration is a separate project. MCC & US Government must be laughing because what they want is happening even without a signature.

The danger of this lies if another regime change is engineered.

If yahapalana II is returned to power and with 99% of the title registration/e-land registry, State land inventory & valuation is complete, propping a US-friendly government to power will mean a quick signing of MCC and the immediate enactment of clauses 3.9 (intellectual property over all of Sri Lanka’s data) MCC 6.8 clause where MCC will be given full immunity for anything in Sri Lanka may not be even necessary if ACSA and SOFA are signed as this will allow US military to ‘tour’ Sri Lanka when they like, as they like and commit what they like with impunity & immunity. ACSA-SOFA-MCC cannot be taken separately from each other. All 3 are part of US Govt. Immunity to one automatically gives immunity to all US personnel arriving in Sri Lanka.

Therefore, it is important that the GoSL realize this danger and immediately come up with an alternative and take local ownership of all land projects especially e-land registry and have our IT experts take complete control with a set of patriotic lawyers to look into every legal angle as well as ensure that all manual deeds are conserved and protected as well as we do have an electronic transaction act that prohibits fully automation of land under an e-registry. Just because a country or a monetary organization is offering a grant, no country should have to cede its land ownership, sovereignty or historical identity to the foreign party & have it changed or erased by them because they recommend to do so with their funding!

Shenali D Waduge

සම්බන්ධීකරණය චන්ද්‍රසේන පණ්ඩිතගේ

ප්‍රශ්නය: : මහත්මයාණෙනි, ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ මහා මැතිවරණයට ඇත්තේ ඉතාමත් කෙටි කාලයක්, මේ මැතිවරණය හා බැදුන ගැටලු රාශියක් රට පුරා පැන නැගී තියෙනවා, මේ ගැටලු වලට පැහැදිලිව පිලිතුරු දිය හැකි අයෙකු ඔබ විසින් ගොඩනැංවූ දේශපාලන පක්ෂයෙන් සොයා ගැනීම අසීරු කරුණක්, දැන් ඉන්නා නියෝජිතයින් එකම ප්‍රශ්නයට විවිධ පිලිතුරු සපයනවා, මෙය මාධ්‍යවේදීන් වන අපට මහත් අපහසුවක්, ඒ නිසයි අප ඔබ හමුවට පැමිණියේ.මේ වනවිට ඔබ ආරම්භ කල එම පක්ෂය මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාට එරෙහිව කටයුතු කරනවා. ඔබ මේ තීරණය සම්බන්ධව දරන ආකල්පය කුමක්ද?

පිලිතුර: පලමුව මම සදහන් කරන්නට කැමතියි එම පක්ෂය මා ආරම්භ කල පක්ෂයක් ලෙස හදුන්වන්න එපා. එය ආරම්භ කලේ එදා පැවති සමාජ අවශ්‍යතාවයයි. එය කිසිවෙකුගේ පෞද්ගලික බූදලයක් නොවේ. මීලගට මට කීමට ඇත්තේ මේ සමාජය සම්බන්ධවයි. මේක මහා සංකීර්ණ සමාජයක්; මේ සමාජය තුල පවතින වැදගත්ම ඒකකය මිනිසායි. අපට පෙනෙන මිනිසා අප කිසිවෙකුත් නොදකින මනස හා බද්ධවයි පවතින්නේ; මනස තුල අප කිසිවෙකුත් නොදකින මිනිසුන් රාශියක් ජීවත් වෙනවා ඔවුන් අතරත් නිරන්තර අරගල සිදුවෙනවා; විටෙක මිනිසා තුල ජීවත්වෙන සත්‍ය ගරුක මිනිහා ජය ගන්න අතර විටෙක ඔහු තුල ජීවත්වන කපටියාට පුලුවන් වෙනවා, ඔහු තුල ජීවත්වෙන යුක්ති ගරුක මිනිසාව විනාශ කරන්න; මේ වනවිට සිදුව ඇත්තේ එම පක්ෂයේ දේශපාලන මණ්ඩල සභිකයින්ගේ මනස් තුල ජීවත්වූ සැබෑ යුක්ති ගරුක මිනිසාව විනාශ කර දමා තිබීමයි. ඒ නිසා එම පක්ෂය සෘජුවම සතුරාට සහය පලකරනවා. මෙය එම පක්ෂයහි උපතට හේතුවූ බීජයට එරෙහිව ගත් තීරණයක්.

ප්‍රශ්නය: එම පක්ෂය කාලාන්තරයක් මුලුල්ලේ මේ රටේ විධායක ජනාධිපති ධූරය ඉවත් කරවා ගැනීමට අඛණ්ඩව අරගලයක් දියත් කල පක්ෂයක්; එය 2015 මැතිවරණයේදී, පොදු අපේක්ෂකයාගේ ජයග්රහණය තුලින් එය ඉටු කරවා ගැනීමට උත්සහ කලා. නමුත් එය සම්පුර්ණයෙන්ම ඉටුකර ගැනීමට හැකිවුණේ නැහැ. ඒ සම්බන්ධව ඔබ දරන්නේ කුමන අදහසක්ද?

පිලිතුර: මේ පක්ෂය, මේ රටේ විධායක ජනාධිපති කම ඉවත් කරවා ගැනීම උදෙසා බිහිකල පක්ෂයක් නොවේ. විධායක ජනාධිපති කියන්නේ, සියලූම බලතල හිමි රාජ්‍ය නායක ධූරයක්. ඒ ජනාධිපතිතුමා, හමුදාපති සතු සියලුම බලතල ඔහුට ලබාදුන් නිසා යුද්ධය ජයග්‍රහණය කල බව ඔබ මනාව දන්නවා; කප්පාදු කල පදවියක් ගන්න මේ ලෝකයේ කිසිම පුද්ගලයකු කැමති නැහැ. අපි සැබෑ ලෙසම අපේක්ෂා කරන්නේ තමන් දරන තනතුරට හිමි බලතල අනිවාර්යෙන් හිමිවිය යුතු බවයි.එහෙම බලතල නැති නපුංසක පදවියක් නිර්මාණය කරලා ඒ පදවියට තරග වැදීමට කැමති පුද්ගලයින් ඉන්නවාද?ප්‍රශ්නය: ඔබ ඇත්ත වශයෙන්ම විධායක ජනාධිපති ධූරයට විරුද්ධ නැද්ද?පිලිතුර: ඔය ප්‍රශ්නයට පිලිතුර, 1982 ජනාධිපතිවරණයේදී පැහැදිලිවම අප ප්‍රකාශ කලා. එදා අප බලය ඉල්ලුවේ විධායක ජනාධිපති ධූරය අහෝසි කරන්න නම් නොවේ. ඒ ජනාධිපති බලතල උපයෝගී කරගෙන මෙරට තුල නව සමාජ සංස්කෘතියක් ගොඩනංවන්නයි.

ප්‍රශ්නය: ඔබට 1982 ජනාධිපතිවරණයේදී, කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය නොවූ දෙයක්; රටේ අංක එකේ ප්‍රශ්නය ලෙස හුවා දැක්වීමට වර්තමානයේදී එම පක්ෂය උත්සහ කරන්නේ ඇයි?

පිලිතුර: ඔබ ඔවුන්ගෙන් ඇසිය යුතු ප්රශ්නයකුයි මගෙන් අහන්නේ. මේ රටේ මූලික වශයෙන් ජන බල ඇණි නවයක් තියෙනවා. ඒවා පිලිවෙලින්; භික්ෂූන් වහන්සේලා, වෛද්‍ය පරම්පරාව, ගුරු පරපුර, බුද්ධිමතුන්, ආරක්ෂක හමුදාවන්, ගොවියන්, කම්කරුවන්, රැකියා විරහිත තරුණ පරම්පරාව හා ශිෂ්‍යයින් වශයෙන් නම් කරන්න පුලුවන්. මේ කාගේ කුමන ප්‍රශ්නය විසදන්නද විධායක ජනාධිපති ධූරය හරස් වෙලා තියෙන්නේ? ඇත්ත වශයෙන් එහෙම ගැටලුවක් ඇතිවෙලාම නැහැ. ඔබ තේරුම් ගන්න; කිසිදු ගැටලුවක් නැති දෙයක් මහා හිසරදයක් සේ මවා පෙන්වන්නට පුලුවන් සමාජයක් මේක. සමාජය විනාශ කරන්නේත්; ගොඩනංවන්නේත් මිනිස් සිතුවිලියි. මේ සිතුවිලි දහරාවට ඇති බලය අසීමිතයි. මේ වනවිට විධායක ජනාධිපති කම මහා විනාශයක් සේ ඉස්මතු කර රටපුරා රෝපනය කර හමාරයි. අද ඔබ ලබන්නේ එහි පලයන් නමුත් ඔය විධායක ජනාධිපති කම ඔය කියන තරම් භයානක දෙයක් නොවේ.ඔබ මදක් කල්පනා කර බලන්න! 1966 ජනවාරි මාසේ 8වෙනිදා කොල්ලුපිටියේ ගාලුපාර මත වාඩිවී සිටි මහා සගරුවන මතින් වාහන පදවාගෙන ගොස් වෙඩිතබා මරා දැමූයේ විධායක ජනාධිපති බලතල ඇති රජයක්ද? ඇත්තටම නැහැ. අපරාධයක් හරි විනාශයක් හරි සිදුකරන්න ඕනි නම් විධායක කමවත් ව්‍යාවස්ථාදායක කමවත් උවමනා නැහැ. අපරාධය නිරීමේ උවමනාව පමණයි ඇවැසි වන්නේ.

ප්‍රශ්නය: අපිට පුදුමයි ඔබ කථා කරන විදිය සම්බන්ධව. මුලු රටම මහා භීතියකින් කථා කරන ඒ විධායක ජනාධිපතිකම සම්බන්ධව ඔබ ඇයි මෙතරම් සැහැල්ලුවෙන් කථා කරන්නේ?

පීලිතුර : ඔබතුමන්ලා පොඩ්ඩක් කල්පනා කරල බලන්න. එදා ජේ. ආර්. ජයවර්ධන මහත්මයා විධායක ජනාධිපතිකම පිහිට වීමත් සමගම සෑම ආණ්ඩු පක්ෂ පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්රීවරයකුගෙන්ම දිනයක් සදහන් නොකල ඉල්ලා අස්වීමේ ලිපි ලබා ගත්තා. ඒ ඇයි? පෙඩ්ඩක් කල්පනා කරල බලන්න. ඔය කියන තරම් මහා බලයක් තියෙනවා නම් ඔය වගේ කාර්යයක් සිදු කරන්නේ නැහැ.මේ රටේ ජීවත්වෙන ජනතාවගේ වෘත්තීන්ට සැබෑ ලෙසම බල නොපාන කරුණක් මේක, නමුත් මේ රටේ බොහෝමයක් දෙනා මෙය ත්රස්තවාදයට එහා ගිය ප්රශ්නයක් ලෙස වර්ධනය කර පෙන්වනවා. ප්‍රශ්නය: සොරකම හා දූෂණය; පවතින රජය තුල අරක්ගෙන ඇති බව ඒ පක්ෂය චෝදනා කරනවා ඒ සම්බන්ධව ඔබ දරන මතය පැහැදිලි කරන්න.පිලිතුර: මේ පවතින්නේ ධනවාදී සමාජයක්; ධනවාදය යටතේ සොරකම හා වංචාව අනිවාර්ය අංගයක්; ඒ අනුව පවතින සෑම රජයක් තුලම, මෙය අඩු වැඩි වශයෙන් පවතිනවා. මෙය සැබෑ ලෙසම නතර කලයුතු අංගයක් නමුත් අවුරුදු 30ක යුද්ධය අවුරුදු තුනහමාරක් වැනි කෙටි කලෙකින් නිම කිරීම හරහා මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ රජය සුවිශෙෂී රජයක් බව ජනතාවට ඔප්පු කර තිබෙනවා. දැන් එම කටයුත්ත ඉටුකිරීමට එතුමාගේම සොහොයුරු,ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතාත් සම්බන්ධවෙලා සිටිනවා. මොවුන් මේ ඉටුකරමින් සිටින්නේ, සිය ආත්මීය කාර්යය භාරයයි, 1505 දී ඇරඹි බටහිර අධිරාජ්‍යවාදයට එරෙහි වූ සටන පරපුරින් පරපුරට ගලා ගෙනවිත් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගේ පාලන කාලය තුලදී ජයග්‍රහනය කර පසුව පරාජයට පත්වූ සටන යලි ජීවයක් ලබාගෙන තියෙනවා. කොහොම වුනත් අවුරුදු 515 කාල පරාසයක් තුල බිහිවූ විශිෂ්ඨතම නායකයා ඔහු බව සදහන් කල යුතුමයි.

ප්‍රශ්නය: මේ දිනවල ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ විසින් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා හා එම පවුල මෙරට අංක එකේ සතුරාය යන අරුතින් දේශපාලන සංවාද හා පුවත් පත් සාකච්ඡා වලදී මත පලකරනවා ඒ සම්බන්ධව ඔබේ මතය කුමක්ද?

පිලිතුර: අපි තනි පුද්ගලයකු හෝ තනි පවුලක් සතුරු බලවේගයක් වශයෙන් සලකන්නේ නැහැ. ඇත්තටම තනි පුද්ගලයකු හෝ පවුලක් සමාජ බලවේගයක් නම්; අපිට කොච්චර පහසුද සමාජ ක්‍රමය වෙනස් කරන්න. විශේෂයෙන් මාක්ස්වාදී දේශපාලන ක්‍රියාකාරිත්වය තුලදී පුද්ගලයකු හෝ පවුලක් බලවේගයක් වශයෙන් සැලකිය නොහැකියි.

ප්‍රශ්නය: වර්තමාන දේශපාලන පිටියේදී ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ විසින් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා හා එම පවුල, මෙම රට සූරා කණු ලබන පවුල බවට නම් කර හමාරයි. එම පවුල බලයෙන් පහකිරීම හරහා මේ රටට ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය ගෙන ආ හැකි යයි ප්‍රකාශ කරනවා.

පිලිතුර: හොදයි කවුද මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාව බලයට ගෙන ආවේ?ඒ ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණයි. වර්තමාන ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ ප්‍රකාශ කරන ආකාරයට එතුමා දූෂිතයෙකු නම්, පවුල් වාදියකු නම්, දූෂිත සහෝදර සමාගමක් නඩත්තු කරන්නෙකු නම් ඒකට සම්පූර්ණයෙන් වග කියන්න ඕනි ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණයි. පලමුව ඒ සම්බන්ධව ජනතාව ඉදිරියට විත් ජනතාවගෙන් සමාව ගන්න ඕනි.මේ වනතෙක් එවැන්නක් සිදුකොට නැහැ. එසේ ජාතියෙන් සමාව අයදින්නේ නැතිව තවත් අපේක්ෂකයකුට සහය දෙන්නයයි කියන්න එම පෙරමුණට කිසිදු සදාචාරාත්මක අයිතියක් නැහැ.පවුල්වාදය ගැන කියන කොට අපේ සිහියට නැගෙන රටක් තමයි උතුරු කොරියාව. සීයා විමුක්ති සටන්හි පෙරමුණ ගෙන, ඊට පසු තාත්තා විමුක්ති සටන ජයගෙන, අද පුතාත් අඛණ්ඩවම සිය පාලනය ගෙන යනවා.සහෝදර සමාගම වර්තමාන ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ දකින්නේ; මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ සහෝදරයින් හරහා නම්, ඔවුන් විසින් නියත වශයෙන්ම කියුබානු කස්ත්‍රෝ සොහොයුරන්ටත් එම අවලාදයම භාවිත කරන බව වටහා ගන්න. ඇමරිකාව කියුබාව උදෙසා බාවිතා කල පිලිණුවුන අවලාදය ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණට මේ අවස්ථාවේදී හිමිව තිබෙන බව පමණක් කිව හැකියි.ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ සුපිරි සහෝදර සමාගම බිහිකිරීමට වෙර දෑරුවේ අපයි. අපේ පක්ෂයේ සිටි හැම අයෙක්ම සැබෑ සහෝදරයකු සේ සැලකුවේ අපයි. සහෝදරකම උත්තරීතර පදවියක් ලෙස දුටුවේ අපයි. සහෝදරකම උත්තරීතර පදවියක් ලෙස හදුනාගෙන, හැම අයෙක්ම ලේ නෑකම ඇති සහෝදරයින්සේ එකට බද්ධවීමට වෙරදැරූ පක්ෂයක නායකයින් සහෝදරකමට ගරහන ආකාරය අපුරුයි.ඔබලාට මේ ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ වර්තමාන මහත්වරු කවුදැයි මනාව වටහා ගන්න, එක කරුණක් පෙන්වා දෙන්නම්. මේ මහත්වරුන්ට අනුව, මේ රටේ විනාශයට ඒකායන හේතුව රාජපක්ෂ සහෝදර සමාගම නම්, එදා පිත්තල හන්දියේ බෝම්බයෙන් ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතාත්; බදුල්ලේදී මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා ඉලක්ක කරගෙන අටවා තිබූ බෝම්බයත් නිසි ලෙස ඉලක්ක ගතවූයේ නම් මේ රට ගලවා ගන්න තිබුණා යයි ඔවුන් පැහැදිලිවම කියා සිටිනවා නේද? ඒක සැබෑද ? නැහැ! එදා එහෙම සිදුවුණා නම් ඔය වගේ පච සහ අවලාද ගහන්න ඔය මහත්වරුනුත් සිටින එකක් නැහැ. මතක තියා ගන්න එදා වීර පුරංඅප්පු සිය මරණ මංචකයේදී කල ප්රකාශය. ඒ අපේ අම්මා තව මංවගේ එක පුතෙක් වැදුවා නම් මම මේ පර සුද්දන්ගෙන් මේ මව්බිම නියත වශයෙන්ම මුදවා ගන්නවා යන්නයි. එම ප්‍රකාශය තුල ගැබ්වෙලා තියෙන්නේ සහෝදර සමාගමක වැදගත්කමයි. සාමුහිකත්වය දේශපාලනයේදී ඉතා වටිනා අංගයක්

.ප්‍රශ්නය: මෙම මහා මැතිවරණයේදී, ඔබ අනුග්රහය දක්වන්නේ කාටද?පිලිතුර: අපේ සතුරාගේ, සතුරාට.ප්‍රශ්නය: ඔබේ පිලිතුර පැහැදිලි මදි. පැහැදිලි කරන්න.

පිලිතුර: අධිරාජ්‍යවාදීන් තමන්ගේ අංක එකේ සතුරා සේ දකින මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාට.ප්‍රශ්නය: ඔබට ඔබේ පක්ෂයට හෝ එහි සාමාජිකයින්ට මේ අවස්ථාවේදී පැවසීමට යමක් තිබේද? පිලිතුර: ඔවුන් පවසන කිසිම දෙයක වගකීමක් මට නැහැ.ප්‍රශ්නය: ඔබට ජනාධිපති මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගෙන් ජාතිය වෙනුවෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටීමට යමක් තියෙනවාද?පිලිතුර: ඔව් සැබෑ ලෙසම මට එතුමාගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටින්න කරුණු ගනනාවක් තියෙනවා. නමුත් එතුමනලා මේ සියල්ල සිදු කරමින් ඉන්නේ ධනවාදී සමාජයක් තුලයි. අද ධනවාදය මුළු ලෝකය පුරාම අර්බුදයකට ලක්වෙලා එහි අවසන් අධියරේ පසුවෙන්නේ. එක ඉතා හොද ප්‍රවනතාවයක්. අපි එම තත්වයෙන් ප්‍රයෝජනය ගත යුතුයි. ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා සුවිශේෂී දේශපාලන සලකුණක්. ඔහුව සුරකින්න බලවත් කරන්න අපි අපේක්ෂා කල සියලු දෙයක්ම ඔහු ඉටුකරාවි. ඊට එහා ගිය දෙයක් පැවසීමට. මට නැහැ. නිදහස් අරගලය ජයවේවායි! පතමි. ඔබ හැමට ස්තුථියි.ඔබටත් ස්තුථියි.සම්බන්ධීකරණය චන්ද්‍රසේන පණ්ඩිතගේ

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

The Indian Cultural Center in Colombo conducted a webinar on Buddhism in India-Sri Lanka relations to mark Esala Poya Day

Colombo, July 4 (newsin.asia): Buddhism forms one of the most important civilisational links between India and Sri Lanka. Addressing the Dharma Chakra Day celebrations in New Delhi on Saturday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the world fights extra-ordinary challenges. To these challenges, lasting solutions can come from the ideals of Lord Buddha. They were relevant in the past, are relevant in the present and will remain relevant in the future.

Prime Minister Modi had visited Sri Lanka during the 2017 International Vesak Day celebrations as Chief Guest. To further strengthen the ties of these shared bonds,

The High Commission of India marked Poson Poya last month by creating Poson Pavura – an art exhibition by Sri Lankan artists on the walls of the High Commission of India premises.

The panelists from Sri Lanka participating in the webinar to mark the Esala Poya day were Venerable Galkande Dhammananda Thero, Head, Department of History, University of Kelaniya; Kala Shuri Dr. Praneeth Abeysundara, an award-winning scholar, and Professor of Sociology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura; Prof. Samantha Ilangakoon, Dean, Faculty of Buddhist Studies and Professor, Department of Religious Studies & Comparative Philosophy, Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka; and Mr. Daya Dissanayake, an award-winning novelist and poet.

The panelists from India included Dr. Baidyanath Labh, Vice Chancellor, Nav Nalanda Mahavihara (Deemed University), Ministry of Culture, Government of India; Dr. Bimalendra Kumar, Professor and Head, Department of Pali & Buddhist Studies, Banaras Hindu University; Dr. Saswati Mutsuddy, Professor and Head, Department of Pali, University of Calcutta; and Dr. G. B. Harsiha, an award-winning writer, poet, cultural historian and Director of Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre, Embassy of India, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Dr. Rewant Vikram Singh, Director, Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre, Colombo, delivered the welcome remarks and moderated the webinar.

The panelists discussed the significance of the Buddha Dhamma for global well-being, particularly considering the current challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Highlighting the importance of Esala Full Moon Poya day, when Lord Buddha gave the First Sermon, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, at Sarnath, India, the scholars stressed upon the need for compassion and kindness towards each other, and suggested that only through right physical, verbal, and mental actions, as prescribed by Lord Buddha, one can ensure global well-being.

The scholars highlighted the deep socio-religious, cultural and historical relationship between Sri Lanka and India that dates back to more than 2500 years. Esala Full Moon Poya Day being one of such festivals, which reiterate this relationship. It was on this Poya Day Arittha, the nephew of King Devanampiya Tissa, along with 55 others were ordained by Arahant Mahinda Thera, the son of Emperor Ashoka of Magadh, India. This event marked the establishment of Buddha Sasana in Sri Lanka. Also, it was on Esala Poya Day, the Most Venerated Tooth Relic of the Buddha was brought to Sri Lanka from Kalinga, India.

The scholars appreciated the initiative of Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre (SVCC), High Commission of India in Sri Lanka, and requested for many such discussions between scholars of Sri Lanka and India, as well as with other parts of the world.

The panel discussion was webcast live on the Facebook page of Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre, Colombo.

Courtesy Adaderana

Laws will be brought forward to prohibit the sale of the country’s resources, says Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

As the former President of the country, I initiated and carried out the development of the whole country. We constructed a port, an airport, an international cricket ground and an expressway in Hambantota,” the Premier said addressing a public meeting in Beliatta on Friday (03).

He said the UNP-led government sold the port built during his administration. They stored paddy at the airport we built. They influenced the Cricket Board to withhold permission for cricket matches being played at the Hambantota Stadium and they even dismissed the panel. Yoshitha, Namal, and I were sued for various allegations. These actions display the mentality of the UNP,” PM Rajapaksa continued.

He said the UNP has split into two factions and it is now beyond repair, adding that this was subtly carried out by the leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Sajith Premadasa. Not only will the UNP receive the lowest number of votes but it will also mark the end of the oldest political party in Sri Lanka, the PM noted. This is a good opportunity for everyone to reflect on what services he has done for the public while he was appointed as a Minister for five years, he added.

We work together to build this country as one nation. We have a president who is determined to take this country forward and we have many initiatives that will transform our nation. Due to this, it is vital that the President’s party is strengthened and secures the majority of the Parliament. We do not want a repetition of the Ranil-Maithripala conflict as the damage done by such conflicts will directly impact our people.”

PM Rajapaksa said he recently met with a Trade Union of Ports and resolved their issues through a successful discussion. However, it became clear that we now have to pay the dues of mistakes done by the previous government who has already sold most of our country’s resources. Nonetheless, we have a responsibility to respect and uphold agreements signed with other countries.”

A new system has to be devised to prohibit the sales of our resources, the PM said further, adding that he intends to introduce a proposal to get the Parliament’s approval when signing diplomatic agreements.

Since the day we came to power, there have been many parties who intend to topple our government. I hope our people will take the right measures to protect the government from such individuals,” the PM continued.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Ministry of Health says five more persons have tested positive for COVID-19 in Sri Lanka as of 7.30 pm today (04).

The latest coronavirus infections have moved the tally to 2,074.

The Department of Government Information said these patients are arrivals from the United States (01), Madagascar (01), Qatar (02) and Bangladesh (01).

Meanwhile, the total number of COVID-19 recoveries confirmed in Sri Lanka increased to 1,885 earlier today as 22 patients were discharged from hospitals as they have returned to health.

According to the Epidemiology Unit’s statistics, 178 active cases are currently under medical care at several hospitals across the country.

Eleven patients have succumbed to the virus to date.

Will personal laws have a place in Sri Lanka with the MCC e-land registry & Bim Saviya? Deeds which had described the various rights and description of property under these laws have been repealed. The land contracts are reduced to about 17 published in a gazette and the e-register will operate only with the forms as they call them. The forms after they are notatrised is not given to the owners. In fact, they are destroyed after entering the ownership in the e-register. All of your deeds passed down through generations will cease to be valid. Please refer section 53 destruction of instruments in Title Registration Act 21 of 1998.  

How many Tamils, Muslims and Kandyans are aware that with the implementation of e-land registry converting deeds to titles and signing of MCC may permanently remove all personal laws that exist.This is clearly stated in the Title Registration Act 21 of 1998 section 73 which does not allow conflict with other laws. This will result in the end of restrictions & conditions prevailing in existing customary laws applicable to land.

Title Registration Act 21 of 1998 is the Torrens law also called Title registration practiced in Australia, but in Sri Lanka it has been promoted as Bim Saviya (this name is not legally binding) This also prevents anyone from referring to the literature that is available to understand the law.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Deeds-pertaining-to-property-rights-gender-inequality-and-discrimination-118537.html

Title Registration law gives ownership by registration only to ONE OWNER not MULTIPLE OWNERS as the present deed system allows. 

Title Registration law does not allow SHARED OWNERSHIPnor does it give ANY SPECIAL STATUS to a MAN or WOMAN as required under the personal laws mentioned. What matters is who the owner is – not whether the owner is man, female, Sinhalese, Tamil or Muslim or whatever customary laws that they have been historically adhering to.

This will certainly be a jolt to all those currently practicing Kandyan Laws, Thesawalamai Law & Muslim laws. What they had been following over centuries will be brought to zero with full implementation of Act 21 of 1998/Bim Saviya in digital e-land registry format.

Kandyan Law – rights that cannot be written in deeds will not even be considered on a title e-registrar! 

• Binna marriage– where husband joins wifes family, where wife inherits her family’s property in equal or more portion but husband does not inherit his wife’s estate which transfers to their children on her death though husband may administer her holdings & has life interest over her estate (will no longer prevail)
• Diga marriage– where wife joins husbands family, where wife may only inherit a lesser share of her family property or her dowry is incorporated into the wealth of her husband’s family.

Jaffna Matrimonial Rights & Inheritance Ordinance / THESAWALAMAI

Thesawalamai was a foreign customary personal law practiced in India by Malabars and was codified in 1701 by the Dutch after bringing scores of Tamils from India to Sri Lanka as slave workers. It was a personal law applicable to the Malabar Tamils’ in Jaffna.

• Under Thesavalamai law, husband is required to sign for land transactions – Title Registration (Bim Saviya) does not require husbands signature for land transactions.
• Pre-emption law which is the right over immovable property in the Northern Province by which a co-owner, co-sharer or adjacent landowner, who has mortgaged a particular land has the right to demand the seller to sell it to him at a price which any bonafide purchaser is prepared to pay a higher price than the persons entitled to pre-empt. Pre-emption would benefit non-Tamils because of the territorial nature of Thesavalamai. However, Act 21 of 1998 Title Registration once fully implemented will not require this obligation.
• No SHARED OWNERSHIP can be registered in Title Registration system
• Property acquired during Thediathetam (marriage) with ½ share owned by husband & wife will no longer prevail
• Deeds specifying land as Mudusam, Urumai, Thediathetam WILL NOT BE ENTERED under Title Registration (Bim Saviya) transaction forms. In short, all included in the Janna Matrimonial Rights & Inheritance Ordinance will not be entered into Title Registration & subsequently to the MCC e-land registry
• Under Jaffna Matrimonial Rights & Inheritance Ordinance there are applications relating to interest of land that can be taken to the District Court for grievance hearing. But this status will be repealed under the Title Registration Act when in full operation.

Muslim Law

• Act No. 13 of 1951 Marriage & Divorce (Muslim) Act. Act 10 of 1953 Muslim intestate Succession Ordinance and Act No. 51 of 1956 Muslim Mosques and Charitable Trusts or Wakfs Act.
• Shares get transferred and restrictions prevail specially on inheritance not recognized under Title Registration (Bim Saviya) as whoever is registered becomes the full owner.

There are many other laws governing the country which are likely to be repealed automatically without anyone even knowing it once the entire country has been given title registration and all land titles are given to MCC e-land registry team to register.

As of now we can assume that ALL PERSONAL LAWS, PRESCRIPTION LAWS, PARTITION LAWS, CONVEYANCE PRACTICE, RIGHT for INJUNCTIONS and WRITS will all be non-existent or have no teeth once Title Registration is fully operational and all of Sri Lanka’s land are given a Title Registration 10-digit number. 

If an e register is required why not continue with the deed registration system and the customary laws that are known to the lawyers and the land owners. 

What has to be fixed is the loopholes available for land fraud not arbitrarily removing customs and traditions without even obtaining consent of the People. 

What is repealed are the laws of the country 

What is not repealed are the loopholes to prevent fraud. 

Even the forms for land transactions and the e-register continues with the loopholes available in the old colonial statutes of 1907 and 1927. 

What is the big deal in claiming to ‘modernize’ a system but legalizing fraud?

The Central Bank regulations to retain identification data to prevent fraud for monetary transactions are not adhered to. Anyone can sign with an illegible signature and move the ownership to a man or woman ignoring the personal laws. 

Once registered owner cannot be questioned in any country of law whether it be under Theswalamai Kandyan law or Muslim law as section 33 of the act 21 stipulates.

Have Sri Lanka’s IT Personnel and Legal Fraternity as well as National Policy Makers completely ignored MCC clause 3.9 which GoSL without even signing MCCis virtually handing over to the US Government, Sri Lankan citizen’s land rights as well as all State Lands by entering all data into the e-land registry which is owned and controlled and is a key component of the MCC Compact in Sri Lanka. 

Are Kandyans aware that their personal laws to land are getting repealed?

Are Tamils practicing Thesawalamai personal laws to land aware that the Thesawalamai laws will not exist?

Are Muslims aware that their Muslim personal laws to land will not exist?

Shenali D Waduge

By Rohana R. Wasala

Today, at the end of seventy two years of  so-called independence, Sri Lanka finds itself pushed to the edge of a precipice, despite the many sacrifices made by patriots in blood, sweat and tears for its unity and stability as a flourishing sovereign state during that period (and before, for that matter, over two millennia). Sri Lankans are teetering on the brink of the dark abyss of an uncertain, unsettled and chaotic future through no fault of theirs (or rather, paradoxically, through their very innocence and decency). They have been entrapped in this position by cold calculating inimical political forces, internal and external, treacherously assisted by the customary opportunism of a couple of minority politicians who inflame communal sentiments within their respective communities, while striking a feigned nationalist pose among the majority community voters during elections; this entrapment is equally strongly supported by the hypocritical, shortsighted, ‘political correctness’ postures that mainstream politicians assume in order to placate the handful of minority communalists while ignoring the progressive up and coming non-communalist young generation of politicians  in those communities. The appeasement of racist minority politicians by the big national politicians hampers the successful emergence of their progressive rivals.  

The mainstream polity (composed of the usually Sinhala speaking 75% and the usually Tamil speaking -Tamil and Muslim – 25%) is divided between the two traditional main camps generally identified with the right of centre, decidedly West-dependent, UNP which looks upon its cynical nonchalance towards the majority Sinhala Buddhist community as a main plank of its politics (designed to attract minority votes and the approval of the interventionist foreign powers who hardly care about the humanity of Sri Lankans) and the left of centre SLFP with traditional nationalist leanings, which also feels induced to conceal its sensitivity to the just demands of the majority community lest it be misconstrued as something prejudicial to the minorities. 

Internal and external enemies of the state are exploiting this situation, among other things, for their own advantage. In the engineered regime change in January 2015, the UNP and a section of the SLFP that opportunistically joined its general secretary who had betrayed his boss to win the presidency (as part of a conspiracy), formed a coalition government called Yahapalanaya. The Yahapalanaya appointed its own subservient opposition consisting of communalist and sectarian minority parties and the JVP. That official opposition actually provided the previous regime with a bulwark against the real, but legally unrecognised, opposition that came to be called the Joint Opposition. The latter comprised the majority of the UPFA that fought the Yahapalana misgovernance tooth and nail; but its success rate was less than what it should have been, principally because foreign intervention queered its pitch (with, for example, diplomats of meddling foreign powers cheering from the lobby of Parliament during the forced passage of hotly debated pieces of nationally harmful legislation). With the release, on June 23, 2020, of the report of the expert committee on the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact (which had been introduced secretly under the previous regime in violation of a supposedly sovereign people’s democratic rights), ordinary Sri Lankans have started getting an idea of where they have been deceitfully led to by the powers that be. 

 People don’t know whether the MCC Compact is already a fait accompli. Hopefully, it is not, though two preliminary agreements have already been signed under Yahapalanaya. But there is hardly any doubt about the stand taken in this regard by the current president and the SLPP government: they are against signing it. However, a final disposition of the MCC agreement issue will very much depend on the quality of the next parliament.  MPs of the common mould who have taken to politics out of selfish motives far outnumber the patriotic few. They have earned a bad name for all politicians. They engage in their petty schemes to grab power oblivious of  the behemoth of superpower domination camouflaged with the clothes of ‘human rights’ and ‘Western democracy’, breathing down the neck of Sri Lanka. Ordinary citizens are becoming more and more aware of this existential threat to the nation, among other similar crises.  Hence, MPs, be they members of the government or of the opposition, particularly after the disastrous Yahapalana experience, have come to be indiscriminately censured by the public as the (despicable) ‘225’. Apparently, even the MPs of the past are not exempted from this universal condemnation. Of course, not all MPs of the past or of the present deserve such universal denunciation. Yet it cannot be denied that they are collectively responsible for betraying the country to Western imperialist aggression through their failure to manage internal majority vs minority politics so as to create national unity. While establishing such unity is the shared responsibility of leaders of all communities, the onus is especially on the leaders of the majority Sinhalese, who should be able to persuade the few racist minority politicians to accept what is good for the whole nation before acceding to their self-centred parochial demands for the sake their support in parliament. Until November 2019, mere political expediency seemed to have determined the conduct of the average MP, who is content being a shrewd survivalist. Only the few notable exceptions that there are understand, or possess enough brains to understand, what the country needs to ensure its long term survival as an independent sovereign nation. 

The bright hopes of national resurgence which were kindled during the May 2009 – December 2014 period were totally doused by the Yahapalanaya that lasted from January 2015 to November 2019. The latter’s campaign slogan had been ‘Change We Need’, a borrowing from former US president Barack Obama’s 2008 general election campaign; but Sri Lanka by January 2015 was already established in the process of achieving the change it had been yearning for for three decades, namely, a peaceful secure independent country free from separatist terrorist violence and foreign interference, a country that was all set to make rapid progress in its economy.  Significantly, the changes the post-civil conflict Sri Lanka was successfully making related to the three areas of development, defence and diplomacy, the three D’s that figure in the MCC Compact. It is no exaggeration to say that the Yahapalanaya left the country in a shambles in all these respects.

Fortunately, the unholy Yahapalana alliance broke up before its commitments to its interventionist foreign sponsors could be fully honoured, leaving the UNP and the SLFP disintegrated beyond any hope of reintegration. The nationalist forces from all communities have joined a common front under the leadership of the SLPP that is already poised to overwhelm the next parliament (unless something untoward happens as in August 2015), while the UNP, fragmented into four or five directionless small factions, is barely hovering between life and death, its feuding leaders having become popular laughing stocks among the impatiently waiting electorate through their funny electioneering shenanigans and inane utterances on the campaign trail. The genuinely patriotic elements among the rank and file of the grand old party find themselves left in the lurch by their self-absorbed leaders. But when the time comes, they will join the nationalists, for they are sure to realise, if they have average intelligence, that only a nationalist victory will save the country for all its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, and politics, as an independent sovereign state where they can hope to eventually resuscitate their historic party, that will eventually emerge as a worthy rival to the SLPP. 

Sri Lanka will not survive as an independent sovereign nation unless it manages to break loose of the stranglehold of the hegemonic West which operates through the UNP and its opportunistic allies. Antinationalist forces enjoy an advantage in the existing electoral system that does not allow a clear winner to emerge at parliamentary elections, which results in minority parties becoming kingmakers. This allows communalist minority politicians to play politics at the expense of the broad national interest, whichever of the two main parties or respective alliances led by them comes to power with their assistance. Until Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resounding victory in November 2019 it was accepted wisdom that a presidential candidate cannot win on the strength of Sinhalese votes alone. 

But Gotabaya’s election was an unplanned/unintended/unexpected exposure of that long existing fallacy. Does this mean that the Sri Lankan electorate is permanently divided into two blocs: majority vs minorities? No. During campaigning for the presidential election, nationalists led by Gotabaya and Mahinda made all possible overtures to the minorities to become partners of the historic victory that was by then assured, though they already knew they could win even without their participation. The final result showed that the minority contribution to Gotabaya’s 

election was less than what was expected. This was because of the influence of the few powerful communalist minority politicos over their polity. After the election, Gotabaya said that, though he won because the majority of the majority voted for him (notwithstanding the fact that the majority of the minorities voted for his rivals despite his pre-poll appeal to them to support him), he was elected president for all Sri Lankans and invited them to participate in nation building with him. His conduct during the election and after has shown that he is eminently suitable for the job he has been elected for. But he is being hampered by the absence of a parliament that can work with him. The non-racist ordinary Tamils and Muslims are getting a chance to help the majority Sinhalese elect that parliament on August 5.  This is no easy task, though. Many odds are stacked against them. What these are everybody knows. At the moment 

Dr Sudath Gunasekara Mahanuwara

What people of this country should do at the upcoming election to save the Sinhala Nation, the Buddha Sasana, and the country and to take it to new heights?

3.7.2020.

My prediction on the August 5th General Election

Landslide victory for the SLPP and a white wash for the UNP and nemesis for all communal political parties and Independent candidates

What the people of this country should do at the upcoming election to ensure this reality

Before I present my write up on the above topic I give here my prediction made on the last Presidential Election on 14 Oct 2019 in an email I sent to Mr Gothabhaya Rajapaksa.

Your victory as well as that of the country is a foregone conclusion. I am repeating, you will be definitely starting with at least 65 lakhs the minimum that is what the SLPP, UPF and SLFP got at the 2018 Local Government Elections. Looking at the present trend no one should be surprised even if it exceeds 70 lahks.

(This is the opening passage of an email sent to Gothabhaya on 14.Oct 2019)

The accuracy of my prediction was proved   to the letter when he polled 6,924,255 votes and won that election and I take pride in that forecast as I was the only man who said so. Even my teacher at the University, an internationally acclaimed eminent scholar emeritus Professor Gerald Peiris expressed his reservations on my conclusion. But I persistently maintained my conviction and finally it was proved correct.

Similarly I am making this prediction this time too on the upcoming General election after making an in-depth study of the political situation on ground by listening to people in the work place, paddy field and on the street. Changes bound to occur in the behavior of the electorate between now and the 5th of August also has been taken in to consideration in arriving at this conclusion. The rousing welcome received by the President at the SLPP’s inaugural election meeting held at Anuradhapura today is good forecast of  the prediction I am making  in this note.

Dawn of a historic land mark in the political history of this Island nation

I opine the next General Election is going to be an important land mark in the political history of this Island nation for the following reasons. It will also mark a turning point in the post-Independence period of Sri Lanka.

The beginning of this turning point will dawn with this political revolution that will emerge with the election results on the 6^th of August.

A political Revolution

1The SLPP will get over 175 out of 225 seats in the next Parliament (Eg 155 elected and 20 national list)

 2 The divided and disarrayed UNP (R+P camps together) will settle around 35 (elected + national list)

3 TNA 12 elected and 1 National list member

4 JVP will get eliminated

5 Others not belonging to 1 to 4=2

6 All independent candidates will lose even their deposits.

The demise of UNP at this selection will create a political vacuum. The need for such a new national political party is called for as both traditional parties, the UNP and the SLFP are no more  there. That will give rise to a chance for a new national Political Party that is more patriotic and village based, to take over the country when one day the SLPP fails in its duty by the Nation. The SLPP will govern the country under the present patriotic regime at least for 15 years. That is Gota at least 10 and his successor 5.

I predict this overall result on the basis of two sets of mutually exclusive factors coming in to play at this election, one negative and the other positive. The most significant feature of this political revolution is that the interaction of both these diametrically opposed factors will have negative effects on the UNP vote base as a political party. Vituperative and mudslinging at each other, devoid of any substance  or constructive political dialogue by these two Camps (R&S) spearheaded by corrupt, baseless, verbose and vicious political misfits like Sajit, Rajita, Champika, Vijitamuni Zoysa and Kiriella and extreme communalists like Hakim. Badurdeen on one side and Bank robbers, traitors like Ranil, Mangala, Ravi, Range Bandara and jokers like Ranjan Ramanayaka and Mervin Mervin Silva will meteorically enhance the chances of the SLPP to unexpected levels, recording a landslide victory never expected by any, including even those in the SLPP and the President’s Office.

First let us look at the negative factors

1This election is held after a period of 5 years of complete anarchy and political and economic mismanagement in this country under Sirisena–Ranil- Karu three headed Government. Going by the present situation in the country, the political environment in the country could be compared to a sinking and wrecking ship in mid seas caught by a Tsunami, sans a captain to rescue and navigate it in the proper direction for safety.

2 This election is also held at a time when the country is beset with extremely serious crises in a plethora of political, economic and social fields and the collapse of national security and law and order never witnessed before in this country.  

3 The country is going through a serious economic depression after the nation’s Central Bank was robbed by the then ruling UNP, manipulated by none other than the Prime Minister of that so-called Government and subsequently the whole country paralyzed by extremist Muslim terrorist attacks on the economic and religious nerve centers of the country, now in complete disarray and reached its lowest growth level in its 72 years of Independence. On the top of it is a time when the whole  world is undergoing one of the most difficult and unpredictable future due to the world wide Covid 19 pandemic that has almost crippled the whole world and brought it virtually on its knees almost to a non-returnable situation.

4 The country’s economy is also undergoing one of the most difficult times ever in its history more or less facing a national crisis level with no agricultural or industrial production and nor exports, and where the main foreign exchange inflow channels like foreign employment has almost got dried up and printed money has to be pumped in billions to run the country.

5 Scanty domestic FE reserves and worldwide economic depression and limitations and constraints on imports due to global restriction on shipping and international trade mechanisms has badly affected both exports and imports

6 Meanwhile continued interference and competition by powerful countries to take control of our strategic situation on the great E-W trade route in the Indian Ocean in view of its importance in the context of emerging supremacy of the Indo-Pacific zone in world politics and by various International organizations agencies and countries like UK. Germany, Canada and Norway driven by LTTE Diaspora elements hostile to this country that are trying to create disunity within the country for example between the various ethnic and religious groups also have created many a problem to this country.

 The positive side

1 In spite of this darker side, after 72 years of So-called Independence on the other hand, we as a nation have got a patriotic and strong Sinhala Buddhist Statesman in President Gothabhaya Rajapaksa as a man with a clear vision and a mission who has a proven capacity  to successfully face all these challenges of  this multifaceted conundrum and take this country out of the Augean mess it has been put in to by all politicians who are supposed to have ruled this country for the past 72 years since the so-called Independence.  

None of them knew the kind of fake Independence they got in 1948. As I see it none of them knew that the kind of Independence given by the British was only a transfer of continuation of the same British governance mechanism to a set of local kaluSuddhas to run the country as their proxy. This is exactly what, we are doing even today. But the politicians call it Independence. The true Bhumiputras of this country, that is Sinhala Buddhists have elected Gothabhaya Rajapaksa as their new leader. They expects new President to make this country a fully pledge Independent and sovereign State after this election.  This perhaps is the priority number one the people of this country expect from him. This long overdue political   strategy forms the cornerstone of all the rest as an as Independent sovereign and free country.

  Is  Diyasena Born at last?

Going by his past record as the Secretary of the Ministry of Defense as to how he defeated the LTTE and how he converted Colombo to be recognized as the best City in Asia within four years after the war are enough testimonies for his ability and leadership as a task master. His peerless success in these two fields almost made him the Sinhala Buddhist benevolent leader overnight; the nation was desperately looking for seven decades. That is why the whole nation almost unanimously got him elected as the 8^th President of this Island nation with 6,924,255 votes that gave him an unprecedented majority of 1,360,016 in spite numerous false and vicious conspiracies and intrigues’ relentlessly deployed against him until the last moment by anti-national ant-Sinhala forces both from within the country and outside, the shores to prevent him from getting even nominations. All such attempts were successfully foiled and finally truth prevailed, justice won and he got elected as the 8^th President of this country to the overwhelming joy of Sinhala nation.

The way how he has conducted in office as well as in personal life since he was sworn in front of the Ruwanwelimahaseya and his short but dignified and patriotic speech from the hallowed precincts of the Great Stupa reminded me ancient traditions of our great Kings who swore in in front of the Mahasangha to rule the Lankan Kingdom according to the Dasaraaja Dhamma. How he set about thereafter by ordering not to exhibit his photo in Government offices, reducing his staff, and even security and banning all state tamasa, reducing the Cabinet to 17 and his simple dress and manners won the admiration and the hearts of the masses of this country. How he managed the Covid 19 pandemic when even countries like USA have miserably failed, has already made him the most outstanding national leader the post Independent Sri Lanka has produced. The majority in the country are unanimous on this consensus. For them he is already a national idol and a hero as well. For the poor and those deprived of their daily bread due to the Covid 19 disaster, the food basket and the 5000 payment given was manna from heaven in their difficult times.  As for me I see in him the legendary Diyasena, eulogized in Perakumbasirita by Sri Thotagamuve Rahula Thera is born at last to rescue this thrice blessed Punyabhuumi, by Lord Buddha.

Patriotic and honest Sinhala Buddhist task master cum – true Statesman

All these actions on his part have convinced the masses that at last after 72 years of so-called Independence they have got a Patriotic and honest Sinhala Buddhist task master cum – true Statesman of proven ability and unblemished character beyond any doubt in Gothabahay Rajapaksa, as the Head of State.

2 At the same time there is an unprecedented emerging unity among the Sinhala nation from west to East and North to South and from the sea to the top of Samangira encompassing the whole country sans all their differences like caste, creed and religion as one nation.

3 A towering sense of belonging together is also emerging among the masses throughout the country as one nation getting polarizes around the exemplary leadership of Gothabha and Mahinda inspired by the support of the Maha Sangha right round the country in unison and Catholic clergy headed by His Eminence Cardinal Malcom Ranjit

4 The splitting of the UNP (a dead party in any case) in to two parts under two Kalusuddhas, Ruinil as someone has named him and Sajit a round peg in a square hole, both of whom have no leadership qualities and don’t feel the pulses of the masses as both of them being direct products of the Colombian society, do not know what Sri Lanka is. Both of the think Colombo is Sri Lanka. They are for personal gain and glory rather than the concern for the common people. This Colombian leadership of right Royal College products has left the grass root UNPers disgusted, dismayed, frustrated and high and dry. Majority of UNPers have already realized that hanging on to out dated UNP will not take them anywhere under the prevailing situation.

In sum all of them know pretty well that there is virtually no UNP as an alternative Political party that can come to power in the foreseeable future. It is already dead and buried under six feet or more, thanks to Ruinil and Sajit Premadasa. No one will hear about the UNP after 5^th of August.

5 The patriotic younger generation looking for change and new hopes getting attracted by this new leadership qualities displayed by Gota have already got rallied round him

6 Nationwide hope and the dream for political stability under a joint partnership between the proven and able leadership qualities of the Rajapaksa brothers specially the charismatic MR and proactive and dynamic Gota the task master who does not tolerate humbug and who has aptly proved his capacity in his war against the savages LTTE, as the Defense Sec of the country and as the President of the country from the day he was elected as  the President have made the people confident that at last they have got the leadership they were looking for decades who can rescue this country out of the political, economic and Social mess in to which successive Government have dumped it.

7 The newly emerging wave of unprecedented Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and the sense of patriotism  gathering momentum around this new leadership supported by the three Forces, Professionals, Civil Servants and the Six National Forces sanga, veda, guru, Govi-kamkaru and Ranaviru and the youth votes around the country brimming with new hope like a multi barrel war machine rolling across the battle field is taking the lead  for nation building under the new President.

 At the same time we see all round auspicious sings like anti-national elements getting caught and exposed daily clearing the way for the nation to march forward without any obstacles. In this most encouraging and welcome backdrop, the Pohottuwa will emerge victorious in a landslide victory unheard and unseen in the political history of post Independent Sri Lanka.

My prediction on the 2019 Presidential Election

I predicted Gotha will get 69-70 lakhs at the last Presidential poll and Gota polled 6,924,255. Based on the same argument at this election the SLPP should get it increased to at least 80 lakhs of votes taking in to account the ground reality factors like the defections from the UNP, JVP, Tamil and Muslim votes and new youth segment. Even the minorities who are fed up with their own communal minded extremist politicians who have ruined them over the decades without doing any service to their people,  are seriously looking for a complete change in Sri Lanka politics. Therefore the SLPP should bag at least 155 out of 196 elected seats and it will therefor, should bag at least 20 national list pin slots as well, making the total to stand around 175. The UNP disarrayed factions together are very unlikely to get even 25 lakhs this time as against the 5,564,239 Premadasa polled at the Presidential election .Premadasa will get 2,500,000 less than what he got at the Presidential election. This is the Tamil and Muslim component which Premadasa will not get this time.

1 A substantial number out of UNP voters will also vote with the Pohottuwa this time as they are convinced that there is no point in betting a losing horse. Majority of disgusted UNP hard liners will boycott elections and that will also drastically reduce the UNP votes. The JVP as usual will get eliminated at this election for their sins they have committed to this nation and they are also very unlikely to get any national list slots either. The chances of UNP getting Thodamans votes is also not there at this election as Mahinda has played his cards well, the SLPP will get a majority of Estate Tamil votes. With Digambarans help Premadasa might get at least one seat more than Ranils faction on the overall.

 On the other hand even if those brainless Sinhala Budhhist UNPers who are suffering from chronic and incurable UNP constipation syndrome fail to realize the gravity and the seriousness of the crime they are going to commit against the Sinhala nation and the Sinhala Buddhist civilization in this country by voting an anti-Sinhala, anti- Buddhist and anti-national force, that is UNP, now fast disintegrating and disappearing as a political force in no time from the surface of this land, no man or god can  stop the victory of the Sinhala Buddhist forces led by Rajapaksas. There is a likelihood of all Sinhala forces drifting towards this historic goal.

Under these circumstances no one can stop the MR Camp getting at least 175 seats in the 2020 Parliament and it will go down in history as the biggest electoral victory ever in the post Independent Sri Lanka by any political Party. As for me, I am fully confident that this miracle will happen on the 5th of August, the results of which will be obvious by the 6th evening.  

My appeal to the Sinhala Buddhist nations

The whole nation should rise in unison as a mighty force like the Phoenix from ashes under the new patriotic and vibrant leadership of President Rajapaksa taking the above situation as a stimulant and a blessing in disguise for us to march forward as one united and determined nation. I do not think you will get a better chance than this to get your aspirations realized again. If you neglect your duty by the nation and the country at this time I can vouch you, you might never get such an opportunity at any time in future.

Once we do our duty I am confident Gothabhaya and Mahinda will lay the firm foundation to rescue this country and the Sinhala Nation from all misdeeds and omissions committed by all the previous Governments since 1948 at least.

What all of us, the patriotic people of this country have to do at this election

 All the patriotic people of this country have to give the President a strong and stable Government by voting en-block to the SLPP at the forthcoming election to enable them   to have a strong government exceeding 2/3 majority under MR in Parliament to enable it carry out the Presidents avowed mission by the nation and our motherland. That I think is the best lesson patriotic people of this country can teach cynics like Rajan Philip and other lunatiks like Rajeewa Jayaweera (see Island 27th 2020 At the centre of it will be Rajapaksa v. Rajapaksa, sounding like Kramer v. Kramer of by Rajan Philip) who are trying to drive a wedge between Mahinda and Gota to deprive this nation of this unprecedented golden opportunity of rescuing the Sinhala nation and the motherland from the Augean mess in to which it has been put in to by all those who were supposed to have ruled this country since 1948.

By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island

Today, at the end of seventy two years of  so-called independence, Sri Lanka finds itself pushed to the edge of a precipice, despite the many sacrifices made by patriots in blood, sweat and tears for its unity and stability as a flourishing sovereign state during that period (and before, for that matter, over two millennia). Sri Lankans are teetering on the brink of the dark abyss of an uncertain, unsettled and chaotic future through no fault of theirs (or rather, paradoxically, through their very innocence and decency). They have been entrapped in this position by cold calculating inimical political forces, internal and external, treacherously assisted by the customary opportunism of a couple of minority politicians who inflame communal sentiments within their respective communities, while striking a feigned nationalist pose among the majority community voters during elections; this entrapment is equally strongly supported by the hypocritical, shortsighted, ‘political correctness’ postures that mainstream politicians assume in order to placate the handful of minority communalists while ignoring the progressive up and coming non-communalist young generation of politicians  in those communities. The appeasement of racist minority politicians by the big national politicians hampers the successful emergence of their progressive rivals.  

The mainstream polity (composed of the usually Sinhala speaking 75% and the usually Tamil speaking -Tamil and Muslim – 25%) is divided between the two traditional main camps generally identified with the right of centre, decidedly West-dependent, UNP which looks upon its cynical nonchalance towards the majority Sinhala Buddhist community as a main plank of its politics (designed to attract minority votes and the approval of the interventionist foreign powers who hardly care about the humanity of Sri Lankans) and the left of centre SLFP with traditional nationalist leanings, which also feels induced to conceal its sensitivity to the just demands of the majority community lest it be misconstrued as something prejudicial to the minorities. 

Internal and external enemies of the state are exploiting this situation, among other things, for their own advantage. In the engineered regime change in January 2015, the UNP and a section of the SLFP that opportunistically joined its general secretary who had betrayed his boss to win the presidency (as part of a conspiracy), formed a coalition government called Yahapalanaya. The Yahapalanaya appointed its own subservient opposition consisting of communalist and sectarian minority parties and the JVP. That official opposition actually provided the previous regime with a bulwark against the real, but legally unrecognised, opposition that came to be called the Joint Opposition. The latter comprised the majority of the UPFA that fought the Yahapalana misgovernance tooth and nail; but its success rate was less than what it should have been, principally because foreign intervention queered its pitch (with, for example, diplomats of meddling foreign powers cheering from the lobby of Parliament during the forced passage of hotly debated pieces of nationally harmful legislation). With the release, on June 23, 2020, of the report of the expert committee on the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact (which had been introduced secretly under the previous regime in violation of a supposedly sovereign people’s democratic rights), ordinary Sri Lankans have started getting an idea of where they have been deceitfully led to by the powers that be. 

 People don’t know whether the MCC Compact is already a fait accompli. Hopefully, it is not, though two preliminary agreements have already been signed under Yahapalanaya. But there is hardly any doubt about the stand taken in this regard by the current president and the SLPP government: they are against signing it. However, a final disposition of the MCC agreement issue will very much depend on the quality of the next parliament.  MPs of the common mould who have taken to politics out of selfish motives far outnumber the patriotic few. They have earned a bad name for all politicians. They engage in their petty schemes to grab power oblivious of  the behemoth of superpower domination camouflaged with the clothes of ‘human rights’ and ‘Western democracy’, breathing down the neck of Sri Lanka. Ordinary citizens are becoming more and more aware of this existential threat to the nation, among other similar crises.  Hence, MPs, be they members of the government or of the opposition, particularly after the disastrous Yahapalana experience, have come to be indiscriminately censured by the public as the (despicable) ‘225’. Apparently, even the MPs of the past are not exempted from this universal condemnation. Of course, not all MPs of the past or of the present deserve such universal denunciation. Yet it cannot be denied that they are collectively responsible for betraying the country to Western imperialist aggression through their failure to manage internal majority vs minority politics so as to create national unity. While establishing such unity is the shared responsibility of leaders of all communities, the onus is especially on the leaders of the majority Sinhalese, who should be able to persuade the few racist minority politicians to accept what is good for the whole nation before acceding to their self-centred parochial demands for the sake their support in parliament. Until November 2019, mere political expediency seemed to have determined the conduct of the average MP, who is content being a shrewd survivalist. Only the few notable exceptions that there are understand, or possess enough brains to understand, what the country needs to ensure its long term survival as an independent sovereign nation. 

Fortunately, the unholy Yahapalana alliance broke up before its commitments to its interventionist foreign sponsors could be fully honoured, leaving the UNP and the SLFP disintegrated beyond any hope of reintegration. The nationalist forces from all communities have joined a common front under the leadership of the SLPP that is already poised to overwhelm the next parliament (unless something untoward happens as in August 2015), while the UNP, fragmented into four or five directionless small factions, is barely hovering between life and death, its feuding leaders having become popular laughing stocks among the impatiently waiting electorate through their funny electioneering shenanigans and inane utterances on the campaign trail. The genuinely patriotic elements among the rank and file of the grand old party find themselves left in the lurch by their self-absorbed leaders. But when the time comes, they will join the nationalists, for they are sure to realise, if they have average intelligence, that only a nationalist victory will save the country for all its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, and politics, as an independent sovereign state where they can hope to eventually resuscitate their historic party, that will eventually emerge as a worthy rival to the SLPP. 

Sri Lanka will not survive as an independent sovereign nation unless it manages to break loose of the stranglehold of the hegemonic West which operates through the UNP and its opportunistic allies. Antinationalist forces enjoy an advantage in the existing electoral system that does not allow a clear winner to emerge at parliamentary elections, which results in minority parties becoming kingmakers. This allows communalist minority politicians to play politics at the expense of the broad national interest, whichever of the two main parties or respective alliances led by them comes to power with their assistance. Until Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resounding victory in November 2019 it was accepted wisdom that a presidential candidate cannot win on the strength of Sinhalese votes alone. 

But Gotabaya’s election was an unplanned/unintended/unexpected exposure of that long existing fallacy. Does this mean that the Sri Lankan electorate is permanently divided into two blocs: majority vs minorities? No. During campaigning for the presidential election, nationalists led by Gotabaya and Mahinda made all possible overtures to the minorities to become partners of the historic victory that was by then assured, though they already knew they could win even without their participation. The final result showed that the minority contribution to Gotabaya’s election was less than what was expected. This was because of the influence of the few powerful communalist minority politicos over their polity. After the election, Gotabaya said that, though he won because the majority of the majority voted for him (notwithstanding the fact that the majority of the minorities voted for his rivals despite his pre-poll appeal to them to support him), he was elected president for all Sri Lankans and invited them to participate in nation building with him. His conduct during the election and after has shown that he is eminently suitable for the job he has been elected for. But he is being hampered by the absence of a parliament that can work with him. The non-racist ordinary Tamils and Muslims are getting a chance to help the majority Sinhalese elect that parliament on August 5.  

ලංකා ගුරු සේවා සංගමය ජනමාධ්‍ය නිවේදනයයි

2020. 07. 03

ගරු අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍ය,
ඩලස් අලහප්පෙරුම මහතා,
අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යංශය,
ඉසුරුපාය,
බත්තරමුල්ල.

ඇමතිතුමනි,

අ.පො.ස උ/පෙල විභාගයට දින නියම නොකොට ජනාධිපති සාකච්ඡා හා සමීක්ෂණ කරමින් කල් මැරීම සම්බන්ධවයි.

මෙවර අ.පො.ස උ/පෙල විභාගයට අගෝස්තු මස පෙනි සිටීමට නියමිතව සිටි සිසු දරුවන්ට කොරෝනා වසංගතය හා පසුගිය වසරේ සිදු වු පාස්කු ප‍්‍රහාරය නිසා අහිමි වු මාස 05ක පමණ අධ්‍යයන කාලසීමාව නැවත සැලසුම් කර ගැනීම සඳහා වන සාධාරණ කාලයක් ලබා දී විභාගයට දින නියම කරන ලෙස අවස්ථා ගණනාවකදී අප සංගමය ඉල්ලීම් කර ඇතත් ඒ සම්බන්ධව සාකච්ඡාවකට නොකැඳවීම හෝ කිසිදු ප‍්‍රතිචාරයක් නොදැක්වීම සම්බන්ධව ලංකා ගුරු සේවා සංගමය දැඩි විරෝධය පල කර සිටිමු.

ඔබගේ උපදෙස් මත විභාග දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව අවස්ථා කීපයකදී කල් දැමු මෙම විභාගය පාසල් ආරම්භ කිරීමෙන් පසු ගුරුවරුන්, විදුහල්පතිවරුන්ගෙන් හා දෙමව්පියන් සමඟ සාකච්ඡා කර කඩිනමින් තීරණයක් දැනුම් දෙන බව පැවසුව ද එය තවත් සතියකින් කල් දමා ඇති බව කැබිනට් තීරණ දැනුම් දීමේ මාධ්‍ය හමුවේදී ප‍්‍රකාශ කර ඇත. මෙම තත්වය, පටු දේශපාලන වාසි වෙනුවෙන් යොදා ගනිමින් පසු ගිය මැතිවරණයේදී ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්‍ෂ පාර්ශවය වෙනුවෙන් මැදිහත් වු උපකාරක පන්ති ගුරුවරුන් කීප දෙනෙකු සම්බන්ධ කර ගනිමින් මෙම ගැටලූ පිලිබඳව සිදු කල සාකච්ඡාවට අධ්‍යාපන ලේකම් මෙන්ම විභාග කොමසාරිස්වරයා ඇතුලූ රාජ්‍ය නිලධාරීන් කැඳවමින් ඔවුන්ගේ වෘත්තිය ගරුත්වය කෙලෙසීම පිලිබඳවද අප සංගමය විරෝධය පල කරමු.

තවද ඔබ ඇතුලූ අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යංශය මෙම අවස්ථා යොදා ගනිමින් මාධ්‍ය සංදර්ශන මෙන්ම පදනම් විරහිත සමීක්ෂණ පවත්වමින් කල් මැරීම මෙවර විභාගයට පෙනී සිටින ලක්‍ෂ 4 කට ආසන්න වන සිසු දරුවන්ට වර්තමාන අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යවරයා ලෙස සිදු කරමින් සිටිනුයේ බලවත් අසාධාරණයක් බවද අවධාරණය කරමු.

එමෙන්ම කොරෝනා වසංගතය හමුවේ පාසල් හා උපකාරක පන්ති සම්පුරණයෙන් වසා දැමීමෙන් පසු අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යංශයේ නිවේදන හා චක‍්‍රලේඛ වලට අනුව අන්තර්ජාල පහසුකම් යටතේ සිදු කල අධ්‍යයන කටයුතු ඉතා අඩු සීමාවක සිදු වු නමුත් සාතිශය බහුතරයක් සිසුන් හා ගුරුවරුන් අදාල ක‍්‍රියාවලියකට අනුගත නොවු බව ඔබ හොඳින් දන්නා කරුණකි.

එහෙයින් තව දුරටත් පටු දේශපාලන උවමනාවන් වෙනුවෙන් මෙම සිසු දරුවන්ව පීඩාවට පත් නොකොට ඔවුන්ගේ අතපසු වු අධ්‍යයන කටයුතු සැලසුම් කර ගැනීමට සාධාරණ අවස්ථාවක් හා ලබා දෙමින් අදාල විභාගයට කඩිනමින් දින නියම කරන ලෙස ලංකා ගුරු සේවා සංගමය නැවතත් බල කර සිටිමු.

ස්තූතියි.

මෙයට,
විධායක සභාව වෙනුවෙන්,
මහින්ද ජයසිංහ,
ප‍්‍රධාන ලේකම්,
ලංකා ගුරුසේවා සංගමය.

පිටපත් –
01. ලේකම්– අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යංශය
02. විභාග කොමසාරිස්– විභාග දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව

RANJITH SOYSA

We have reached an unenviable situation as regards the Eastern Terminal of the Colombo harbour that we are unable to move ahead, We are told that that it is due to the agreement entered into with India by the previous government and also it is reported that the pressure is exerted by a powerful local company and a ,multi-national conglomerate,

Whatever is the reason, we request Sri Lankan government led by the exemplary leadership of the President not to blink but to convince all the pressure groups that Sri Lanka is no longer for sale, The country’s assets must be used fully for the benefit of its poor citizens now affected by the Covid 19 lockdowns etc. Ever cent is invaluable in our war to save the economy of the country. ECT will be a star earner of foreign exchange with its capacity to handle bigger ships. New opportunities will be created for shipping in the post Corvid period.

It is heartening to note that the Trade Unions in the Port of Colombo are determined to protect this national treasure from falling into foreign control by stressing on the right reasons. We remember in the fifties when the Ports were nationalized how the trade unions acted positively and again after nearly 65 years the trade union movement in the Port has adopted a nationalist stance in preserving the important economic artery. As long as the trade unions are unanimous in their demand , the other powerful forces will be required to fall in line as they  cannot undermine the people’s power.

It is up to the Government to take the right decision to clear the gantry cranes and fix it as soon as possible to get the ECT giant to perform its tasks for the higher productivity of the Nation battling the Covid 9 implications.

RANJITH SOYSA

නිදහස් වෙළඳ කලාප සහ පොදු සේවා සේවක සංගමය

2020 ජූලි 02 වන දින

ප්‍රධාන ධාරාවේ සියලූ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ වෙත

නායකතුමා,
ප්‍රධාන ලේකම් තුමා,

විරැකියාවට සහ සමාජ රැකවරණය සඳහා ස්ථාවර විසඳුම් ඉල්ලා සිටීමේ යෝජනා

ඔබ අප කවුරුත් පසුගිය මාස 03 ට වැඩි කලක් බිඳ වැටුණු ආර්ථීක කි්‍රයාවලියක, සුපුරුදු දෛනික ජීවිතය සඳහා අවකාශයක් නොලැබුණු කෝවිඩ්-19 වසංගතය පැතිරීම වළක්වා ගැනීම වෙනුවෙන් නිවෙස් තුල කොටු වූ කාලයක් ගත කළෙමු. කෝවිඩ්-19 පැතිරීම පාලනය කිරීමේදී එය සැළකිය යුතු ආකාරයකින් සාර්ථක වූ බැව් පිළිගත යුත්තෙමු.

එසේ වූවත් මේ රට කෝවිඩ්-19 හේතුවෙන් බරපතල ආර්ථීක අර්බූදයකට තල්ලූ වූ බැව් අද විවෘතව කතා කෙරෙන්නකි. එහි බර විශාල වශයෙන් කර ගැසීමට සිදුව ඇත්තේ පොදුවේ රජයේ, අර්ධ රාජ්‍ය සහ පෞද්ගලික අංශයේ වැටුප් ලබන සේවක සේවිකාවන්ටය. විශේෂයෙන් අපනයන ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ සේවක සේවිකාවන්ටය. මේ වන විට දළ වශයෙන් 30,000 ට වැඩි එවන් පිරිසකගේ රැකියා අහෝසි කර ඇත. ඉදිරියේ තවත් පිරිස් රැකියා අහිමි වීමේ අනතුරට මුහුණ දෙනු ඇත.

දැනට මේ මට්ටමින් හෝ රැකියා ආරක්ෂා වන්නේ කම්කරු ඇමති දිනේශ් ගුණවර්ධනගේ මූලිකත්වයෙන් පිහිටුවා ඇති කෝවිඩ්-19 බලපෑම් හා රැකියා සම්බන්ධ ත්‍රෛපාර්ශවීය කාර්ය සාධක බලකාය සහ ජාතික කම්කරු උපදේශක සභාව මැදිහත්වීමෙන් පැමිණි තෙමසකට වලංගු සම්මුතිය හේතුවෙනි. ඒ සමග කෝවිඩ්-19 වසංගතය හේතුවෙන් කිසිදු සේවකයෙකු වැටුප් ලේඛනයෙන් ඉවත් නොකළ යුතු යැයි ආණ්ඩුව විසින් ගනු ලැබූ ප්‍රතිපත්තිමය ස්ථාවරයද විය.

රැකියා අහිමිවීමේ අවදානම යනු අලූත් රැකියා උත්පාදනය වන්නේ නැති බව සහතික කිරීමකි. එබැවින් ඉදිරි විරැකියාවද අප දැඩි සේ අවධාරණය කරන්නකි. එය අමතක කර යා නොහැක.

එවගේම, කෝවිඩ්-19 වසංගතයෙන් ලොවට ඉගැන්වූ වැදගත්ම පාඩම ලෙස අප දකින්නේ, ගෝලීය හා දේශීය නිෂ්පාදනයට හවුල්වන සියල්ලන්ගේ ජීවිත සුරක්ෂාව සහතික කිරීමේ ස්ථීර සමාජ රැකවරණ ක්‍රම තිබිය යුතු බවත්, විරැකියාව සඳහා මාසික දීමනාවක් සමග ඔවුන්ට රැකියා ලබා ගැනීමේ අවකාශ පුළුල් කිරීමේ වෘත්තීය පුහුණුවීම් පාඨමාලා සකසා දිය යුතුය යන කාරණාවත් ය.

ඒ අනුව, කෝවිඩ්-19 පාලනය කර ගැනීමෙන් පසු එළැඹෙන ඊළග යුගයේ රාජ්‍ය සේවයේ, අර්ධ රාජ්‍ය අංශයේ සහ පෞද්ගලික අංශයේ සියලූ සේවක සේවිකාවන් සඳහාත් විරැකියාවට හසුවන සියල්ලන් සඳහාත් සමාජ රක්ෂණය හා රැකවරණය සඳහා අපි මෙලෙසින් යෝජනා ඉදිරපත් කරමු.

1. පාසල් හා විශ්ව විද්‍යාල අධ්‍යාපනයෙන් පසු ශ්‍රම බලකායට එකතුවන සියල්ලන්ටරැකියාවක් ලැඛෙන තුරු ඔවුන්ගේ යැපීම වෙනුවෙන් මාසික විරැකියා දීමනාවක් සහ ඔවුන්ගේ තේරීම අනුව කුසලතා වර්ධන ශිල්පීය පුහුණුවීම් පාඨමාලා ආණ්ඩුව විසින් ලබා දිය යුතු ය. zzවිරැකියා දීමනාවZZ, ඉදිරි උද්ධමන තත්ත්වයන්ද සළකා වර්තමාන මාසික අවම වැටුපට සරිලන ලෙස රුපියල් 15,000 ක් විය යුතු යැයි අපි යෝජනා කරමු.
2. පෞද්ගලික ක්ෂේත්‍රයෙහි සේවක සේවිකාවන් ඔවුන්ගේ රැකියා සම්බන්ධයෙන් මුහුණ දෙන නුදුරු අනාගත අවදානම සමග මේ සමාජයේ ඇතිවන බරපතල අවිනිශ්චිතය වැඩිමනත් බලපාන්නේ විශ්‍රාම යෑමත් සමගින්ය. ඔවුන්ගේ විශ්‍රාමික ජීවිතය රැකගෙන යාම සඳහා ඔවුන්ට එකවර ලැඛෙන සේවක අර්ථසාධක අරමුදලේ ඔවුන්ගේ සාමාජික තැන්පතු මුදලට අමතරව මාසික zzසමාජ රැකවරණයක්ZZ තිබිය යුතුය. ඒ සඳහා ඔවුන්ට මාසිකව රුපියල් 15,000 ක zzසමාජ රැකවරණZZ දීමනාවක් ලබා දිය යුතු යැයි අපි යෝජනා කරමු.
3. සමාජ රැකවරණ දීමනාවන් ලබා දීම සඳහා නිත්‍ය අරමුදලක් පාර්ලිමේන්තු පනතකින් පිහිටු විය යුතු යැයිද, ඒ සඳහා සථාවර අරමුදලක් වෙනුවෙන් වාර්ෂිකව අපනයන නිෂ්පාදන ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ ආයෝජන සඳහා දෙනු ලබන විවිධ බදු සහන මගින් ආණ්ඩුව අත හැර දමන ආදායමින් අවම සියයට 05 ක ප්‍රතිශතයක් නැවත සමාජ රැකවරණ අරමුදල සඳහා ලබා ගන්නා මෙන්ද අපි යෝජනා කරමු.

මෙම යෝජනා ඔබගේ මැතිවරණ ව්‍යාපාරයේ ප්‍රධාන පොරොන්දු ලෙස වහා ප්‍රකාශයට පත් කරන මෙන් අපි මෙයින් ඉල්ලා සිටිමු.

ස්තුතියි.

මෙයට විශ්වාසි

ඇන්ටන් මාකස්
සම ලේකම්
නිදහස් වෙළඳ කලාප සහ
පොදු සේවා සේවක සංගමය

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

The Attorney General’s Department yesterday informed Supreme Court that it would raise preliminary objections against the Fundamental Rights petition filed seeking an order to immediately arrest Former LTTE commander and armed group leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias ‘Karuna Amman’ over a controversial statement he made recently.

Senior Deputy Solicitor General Haripriya Jayasundara appearing for the Attorney General told court that she is expecting to raise preliminary objections against the petition since it had not been filed within the time period stipulated in the Constitution.

However, counsel Yalith Wijesurendra appearing for the petitioner submitted to court that his client is challenging the offensive statement made by Karuna Amman for making a hate speech, which could be punishable under International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Act.

Supreme Court two-judge-bench comprising Justice Priyantha Jayawardena and Justice Vijith Malalgoda fixed petition to be taken up for support on September 28.

Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa says that agriculture will be country’s priority after resolving number of persisting issues and shortcomings affecting it.

Issues such as shortage of water supply and fertilizer for agriculture are being addressed by the government, he said. Failure to make payments due to suppliers on time has resulted in delay in the importation of fertilizers. 

The absence of a proper market and a price for their produce has rendered the farmers helpless. The President stresses that he will address these issues and will take steps to protect the farming community.

President Rajapaksa made these remarks joining the Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) election campaign in Anuradhapura, today (July 03).

The President who visited the Thammannawa Nidahas Uyana village in Thalawa, engaged in a cordial discussion with the residents of the area and inquired into their well-being.

President Rajapaksa also looked into the requirements for improving water supply facilities of Eeriyagama tank.  The president has given instructions to the Resident Manager to take steps to provide solutions for the prevailing issues.

Minister S.M. Chandrasena and former Chief Minister of the Province, S.M. Ranjith were present on this occasion.

The President also joined the public gathering organized near Kala Wewa in support of the former Minister Duminda Dissanayake.

President Rajapaksa sought the views of the public regarding the current condition of the road construction activities as well as their agricultural activities.

The President also paid homage to the Kadawara Devalaya near the tank bund. 
President Rajapaksa who visited the Kekirawa Town joined a public gathering held in Kumbuk Sevena area. That was organized in support of SLPP candidate Mr. Weerasena Gamage.

The Maha Sangha of the area, other religious leaders and people living in the area were in attendance. The President who was seen engaged in a very cordial discussion with them paid his attention to the issues faced by the farming community particularly the issue of water scarcity.

People in the area who represent a number of ethnic groups informed the President cultural issues they faced.

The Kekirawa Trade Association handed over a set of proposals relating to the development of the area, to President Rajapaksa.

The President also observed construction works of the Ganadevi Kovil. 

The President joined in another public gathering held in Galkulama area Mihintale in support of SLPP candidate T.M. R. Siripala.

The President who engaged in a very cordial discussion with the Maha Sangha and the public drew his attention to the issues of the area.

-PMD

Courtesy Adaderana

The suspect arrested by Dehiwala Police with more than 1 kg of heroin and Rs 235,000 in cash has been identified as one the agents of the large-scale drug racket run by imprisoned drug trafficker ‘Mervyn Jana’.

Senior DIG, the Western Province Deshabandu Tennakoon stated that the police investigated their bank accounts it was discovered that large sums of money had been deposited to a bank account, which was under the name of a 65-year-old man living in the home of the drug trafficker.

He stated that the owner of the bank account was arrested yesterday and that when they checked his account details, it was uncovered that a around Rs 140 million in total had been deposited into this account during the period between 15-07-2019 and 26-06-2020.

He said that the day after this suspect was arrested a sum of Rs 1.9 million which was remained in the account had been transferred to another account and acting immediately the police had frozen this account.

Tennakoon said that investigations are now ongoing with the assistance of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to determine as to where this Rs 140 million ended up and in whose hands.

Parallel to this, another suspect was arrested yesterday in the Werahera area, the Senior DIG said, adding that this individual is a retired bank employee and that he had operated a business similar to a bank branch.

He said that when drug dealers come and handover their money to this suspect, he accepts that money and carries out transaction to necessary bank accounts using the funds in his account.

According to the data from his computer, a sum of around Rs 6.5 million had been transferred to the bank accounts of drug racketeers through his account within a period of a month.

The Senior DIG said that several steps have been taken to bring back criminals from Sri Lanka who are currently overseas and that the members of these criminal gangs will be identified and investigated.

Courtesy Adaderana

The team of Criminal Investigations Department (CID) officers has left the residence of former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe after recording a statement.

Ada Derana reporter said that the CID team left the ex-Premier’s residence after recording a statement for around 4 hours, regarding the Central Bank treasury bond scam. 

The CID team had arrived at Wickremesinghe’s residence at around 4.00 p.m. today in order to record a statement.

On June 18, the Attorney General had instructed the Acting IGP to record statements from former President Maithripala Sirisena and former Ranil Wickremesinghe over the Central Bank (CBSL) Bond Scam.

In addition to the former President and Prime Minister, statements are also expected to be recorded from the former Advisor to the Prime Minister S. Paskaralingam and the former General Manager of People’s Bank.

Courtesy Hiru News

Two (02) more persons have tested positive for Covid-19 (new coronavirus) infection.

The country total has increased to 2,069 according to the latest information by the Epidemiology unit of the Ministry of Health.

One (01) more person confirmed for Covid -19: SL Country total increases to 2,067

Courtesy Hiru News

Former Minister of sports Mahindananda Aluthgamage says that the police committed a mistake by stopping investigations on match fixing allegations & request the President to carry out a thorough investigation. 

Courtesy Hiru News

According to Prof. Lalithsiri Gunaruwan, Chairman of the MCC Agreement Review Committee although two agreements had been signed in preparation for the MCC agreement, the committee had never stated that the money had been received.

He said this participating at a press conference held at the Government Information Department today.

Meanwhile, another suggestion was expressed at a press conference convened by the National Front of Professionals,

Courtesy Hiru News

Rajitha Senaratne responded to former minister Wijedasa Rajapakse who said at a press conference that former MP Rajitha Senaratne had obtained money from Avant Garde.

Courtesy Hiru News

The Presidential Commission to Investigate the Easter Attack revealed today that a public relations director of former President Maithripala Sirisena has asked the Industrial Development Board to supply 500 tons of copper to the Cinnamon grand hotel Bomber’s copper factory.

That was when the Secretary to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce gave evidence before the Commission.

Former Secretary to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce K.D Ranjith Asoka, who is presently serving as the Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs, testified before the Commission.

The witness stated that a three-member committee had been appointed by the Industrial Development Board to look into how scrap metal was issued to the Colossus copper factory in Wellampitiya owned by M.I. Insaaf Ahmed the suicide bomber at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo.

The witness told the commission that it had been revealed that the former Chairman of the Industrial Development Board Mahinda Jinasena had instructed to issue a large quantity of scrap metal to Colossus.

There were 25 foreign nationals in the Colossus organisation owned by the suicide bomber. Among them were a Nepalese, two Bangladeshis and the rest were Indians.

The Commission inquired whether the then Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen had a relationship with Inshaf Ahmed

The witness stated that although one of Mr. Insaaf Ahmed’s accountants visited the ministry frequently, he did not know whether there was any connection between the Minister and Inshaf.

The witness further stated that they had applied to the Industrial Development Board on several occasions to obtain scrap metal at concessionary rates and he identified two such occasions.

At one point, Shantha Bandara, the Public Relations Director of former President Maithripala Sirisena, had informed the Industrial Development Board that Colossus was to be supplied with 500 tonnes of copper.

Another witness, Devika Liyanage, a senior assistant secretary to the Ministry of Defence, had also informed the Industrial Development Board in a letter to issue Colossus 1000 kilograms of brass.

The Commission questioned whether it was revealed at some point that the scrap metal purchased by Colossus from the Industrial Development Board had been exported to foreign countries.

The witness stated that such materials have been exported to foreign countries through which foreign exchange has been generated. The Commission then asked whether he knew that the money earned into the country as a foreign exchange was used for extremist purposes.

The witness stated that he now knows about it.

Courtesy Hiru News

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa says that a group has been making plans to topple the government since Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa became president.

Addressing a public rally held in Beliatta today, the Prime Minister said that everyone should support to take the President’s program forward.

Courtesy Hiru News

Attorney General Dappula de Livera says that due to the incidents of the Police Narcotics Bureau, public trust in the institution has been tarnished.

He made this remark while delivering a special lecture to the Police Narcotics Bureau officials today.

The lecture was held at the DIG’s office in Colombo and the acting IGP had left the place without staying on.

Addressing the officials of the Narcotics Bureau, the Attorney General also expressed his views regarding the matter.

Although the Attorney General had previously asked the media to cover the event, journalists were not given the opportunity this morning.

Due to this, a heated conversation took place between the police officers who were deployed at the DIG’s office in Colombo and the journalists.

Meanwhile, the Director of the Police Narcotics Bureau, SSP Manjula Senarath has been transferred.

The National Police Commission states that approval has been granted to appoint SSP Sujith Wedamulla for the post.

Police Media Spokesperson SSP Jaliya Senaratne stated that a separate investigation is being carried out under the police disciplinary code.

Sunil Yatalamatta Gamage

Police officers should be held responsible if crimes including theft, murder or drug trafficking, were taking place in the areas coming under them’. GeneraL Kamal Gunaratna Defense Secretary

Four and half years of yahapalanaya”; rule had been a failure in many way to our country. Under the banner of Yahapalanaya” Our Central Bank was robbed, Our Christian people were murdered by decreasing the national security of the country via draining and jeopardizing the national intelligence, Hambantota Port was Sold, Indo lanka trade agreement was about to sign without any mandate of people, as the same Singapore trade agreement, the agricultural sector was embracing it’s natural death sentence, farmers were encouraged to grow Tulips and Roses, legislation for lesbian and same sex marriages, national forest preserves were cut down and living beings and their habitat were threatened, E.G Willpathtu, conspiring MCC treaty signing with US, Attaching our Maha Nayakaya and sanga society. Public strikes, trains strikes, postal strikes, tear gas and water canon for strikers, Parents were scared to send their children to schools. University students were picketing and unrest on daily basis. These were everyday practices and stories of past four and half years in our country. People must recall how much of uncertainty was in their lives past few years with Ranil and Mithree so called Yahapalanaya”. It was a stigma not to be forgotten easily by the general public. Ranil and the gang introduce mockery to governing constitution as he needed to stay in power to do more devastation to our country. I cannot be silent without recalling the past. That is what was happening to my beautiful country. Like every expatriate in the world, I love my country, and now the country is in the right direction with right leadership. I want every possible person to use their platform to educate public to win and vote for a leadership who will continue to develop the country through its resources and value.

In order to establish a law abiding society we need to practise tough rules for sometime until people obey the rules. Rules are prime forming a just society everywhere in the country. Discipline is quite essential quality or a present day skill we need to learn and practice whichever the stage of our lives.We talk discipline people; which means law abiding people. Which means if road sign says 60km/h, everybody need to aware we need to drive the vehicle 60km/h. Probably 5km above or less will not count as a big violation of law. But it is better to stick to that speed limit. If the people are walking on the right at the street speed limit must be maximum 50km/h or otherwise 30km/h is the speed. That is just a simple example of good practice. When we communicate we need to listen as much as possible rather than talking. Then we need to  aware how to listen attentively. We need to respect our parents, elders, teachers, values of others, etc. Think about the time we had gone through over the past 4 and half years. Do you remember the day our former prime minister Ranil Wickramasinge’s behavior in the parliament with his fellow politicians. He said Kauda hora” , then his followers said Rajapakse is the hora”. what this behavior make you aware. Ranil Wickramasinghe is a person more than 70 years old. His basic behavior and conduct in the parliament was very low and undisciplined. We all were watching this through media. Is this the behavior of responsible politicians. This is one of the reasons why people made aware  all the 225 politicians must be useless and utter waste of public money. There is no greatness in such a parliament. Hon President was exactly correct as he decided not to have those people summon to parliament again. Politicians need to be knowledgeable, disciplined, dedicated, trustworthy, committed, competent, respectful law abiding set of people who work as trustees to people of this country. That is why the incoming election is crucial judgement of people. We all need a country of safe for living and politicians of dedicated to protect its constitution and the land. We don’t want to hear divisive speeches of devolution of power again in the upcoming parliament. We want to hear people speak how they will improve our economy, we want to hear hear how they implement laws and orders to protect our forestry, we want to hear how they planning to improve the racial harmony between Our own Tamils, Sinhalese, Moslem s, We want to hear how they are planning to give the new life to our own industries like Valachenai paper mill. How they are planning to improve our fruit industry, How they are going to preserve  our  ancient historical sites and their integrity. Which will eventually gain our lost prestige lost proud again. It is not difficult to achieve. Our security forces achieve much difficult war against terrorism then why can’t we plan and work ourselves to achieve self sufficiency.

Right now only Sri Lankan military personnel only trustworthy based on the choice as well as circumstances by people. There is nothing wrong they have been entrusted more and more portfolios to carry on as they have proved by themselves as they are capable as well as won the hearts and minds of general public. Our military enormously respected by Sri Lankan people. Why is that for them. It is because they were the people established our national borders of the country. They are the people established the national security of the country. We all know how they did it and now they are dedicated to our security. People and Organizations respected and recognize for many achievements. However, there is significant difference between these two Words Anybody can identify recognition and respect are similar words. They apparently look same, but they are different in broad sense. The word recognition is for achievement of something. Mostly it is awarded as certificate or as a valued generous to admire. The recognition explodes in a big way at the time, and then forgotten later on. Probably the significance remains a shorter period of time. That is way I said it explodes and subside later on. But respect not like that; it reverberates as time goes on. It is because it stays in the hearts and minds of the people. Sri Lankan military stays in the hearts and minds of the people because of their contributions towards our motherland.  Even anything they involve to they did it with dedication , vision , guiding with values.  And the achievement through such a pathway is successful. And that success is a story for the country and for the people. That is the reason our military  has been respected by the people of the country.

According to current economic shifts and changes, the future economic prospects of a country will be on how safe the country to travel, stay, their hospitality and how much of bio diversity in that country ; all of these will depend the security; law and order of the country. The places in the world increasingly getting vulnerable and unsafe due to extremists, drug traffickers, religious troubles, racial communal unrest. Especially Asia Pacific region is getting more economic hot spot in the world , the security of that region getting more and more prime. Sri Lanka will be the main destination of many tourist, and cruise liners destination as world is looking for more and more places of safe and secure.

There is a huge potential to introduce brand new international news channel which will cover Asia and the world. It has to be born from a country like Sri Lanka. Such a news channel must prominently dedicated to cover the news of Asia. Right now world news channels doen’t do enough information, due their geo political interest and many more. The Asian news channel need to prepare Asian economic affairs and the world through this news channel. It is because Asian Pacific will be the next economic power center of the world. That is one of the method of getting rid of bogus news channel of BBC, CNN, Fox news etc. Asia Pacific region need a world news channel. This is the time for it. It has to be born from Sri Lanka.

These days all of our news channels broadcasting political discussions of upcoming election and views of politicians. Many people including myself find these discussions are useless and waste of time. They are just political discussions. I do not think most of these panel discussions with politicians bears any national importance to our country. People of this country are hungry of knowing of how this country will develop in economic, cultural, social sectors, planning and implementation of the policies in the next five years. It is necessary media platforms to use the concept to promote in a discussion style to aware the public. Only couple of channels are doing this national duty. Most of the channels are not doing the thing that they suppose to be doing. For example if we need to prosper in fruits; The sweet Green orange requirement for the country. We must invite expertise in agriculture sector and discuss how can we achieve the self sufficiency of green orange requirement to our country. Why this is important? Such a discussion will only be a perspective, but it will have the potential to be developed as an idea and develop further. Now we have a government looking for such opportunities and remember this is a people’ government. This is why made in Sri Lanka concept need to move forward. There is no point of discussing  MCC treaty, Politics in Sri lanka through Davasa” program. We do not need to hear what happen to the justice to drug dealers in the country. That is only a news. Please use your media platform to promote how can we achieve prosperity through self sufficiency in the areas of economy, culture, etc. Media Channels need to bring intelligent, academics, and thought leaders in to such discussions. We need to force those PhD holders into this type of projects and make use their intelligence put into work for the country.

We must need to promote our Sri Lankan entity heavily and aggressively around the world to gain the economic advantage to our country. We have everything for that to achieve. We need planning from a scratch starting with security. Security and safety must shift to focus to ensure individual safety and freedom from north to east without any scary to people. It is about safety culture. Right now we don’t have it. But for sure as there is a task force working round the clock to ensure the individual safety, we can hope it could be achieved.

I am compelled to write on Sri Lanka Police Narcotic Bureau division. According latest arresting of culprits involved in drug dealers in the country; above division front line officers are involved drug trafficking  hiding, & safe distribution of heroin throughout the network. It seems like the police officers involved into drug trafficking had been continuing the business for a long time. The police media spokesman says, when we recruit 100 people there may be 5 or 6 people; with in born hard to train people and every workplace is like that” This is a sensitive subject now it has gone to public awareness. I want to let this police officer;  when you know information worth content of a box. And when you suppose speak information circled in the box. Make sure you speak information within that circle. If you wish to continue to maintain the respect of police department. This has been a beyond dangerous development. We must be grateful being appointing a task force, which has more powers to investigate even police the chief.The immediate next step would have been the collapsing of the system. The end result would have been unimaginable; our country would have been a placed in the world map as a country of drug dealers. There could have been high way gun fights in our country among drug dealing groups. So if the president didn’t appoint the high powered panel of expertise to investigate the island wide narcotic and drug/heroin distribution system, the institutional officers involvement will never come to surface. So the question is what was our police chief doing all this time. He must resign otherwise must laid off from work immediately. People need to urge the government to do this and show the transparency of work. We want to see our country free from drugs dealers sooner than ever before. Making the legal network effective and efficient to bring those drug king pins to justice and the politicians involved into this business need to be revealed. This is a very good starting point to let the public aware which politicians involved in this business and sentence them. We are over looking many more investigations and their outcome. I will highlight something quite clear in this forum. People of this country are watching very closely; what is happening the investigation of Holy Sunday attach. We need to identify people behind this attach and prosecution through our justice system. We need to find brains behind bond scam, and prosecution through our justice system. If this is not going to happen it will be the starting point of falling of trust, people had kept on this government.

චන්ද්‍රසේන පණ්ඩිතගේ

ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ දේශපාලන පක්ෂයකි. මේ දේශපාලන පක්ෂය මෙරට සිටි උගත්, ඇති දක්ෂ තරුණයින් විසින් සිය ශක්තිය වැයකර ඉතා අසීරුවෙන් ගොඩනගන ලද එකම දේශපාලන ව්‍යාපාරයයි. මේ ව්‍යාපාරයට අප සම්බන්ධවුයේ, වර්ෂ 1967දිය. මෙය ගොඩනැංවීමට හේතුව මෙරට උගත් බුද්ධිමත් මිනිසුන් අතට රාජ්‍ය බලය ලබා ගැනීමයි.


ඒ වන විට පැරණි වාමාංශික ව්‍යාපාරයට වසර 30ක කාලයක් ගතව තිබුණි. එතරම් දිගුකාලයක් ගතව තිබුනද රාජ්‍ය බලය ගැනීමට තරම් ඔවුන් ප්‍රබල ස්ථානයක නොසිටියහ. එබැවින් නව වාමාංශික ව්‍යාපාරයක් ගොඩනැංවීමට එම තරුණයින් උත්සුක වුහ. ඇත්තටම ඒ වනවිට මෙරට ජන හදවත්වල වාමාංශික ව්‍යාපාරය පැල පදියම් වී නොතිබුණි. ඒ එවකට සිටි වාමන්ශිකයින් බෞද්ධ විරෝධී පදනමක හා සිංහල විරෝධී පදනමකද  සිටි බැවිණි.

නව වාමාංශික ව්‍යාපාරය මාක්ස්වාදය රටේ ස්වශේෂිත්වයට අනුකුලව ගලප්වන බව කියා සිටියහ.ඒ වන විට අපි දන්නා මාක්ස්වාදයක් නොතිබුණි. අපි සිටියේ මාක්ස්වාදයට එරෙහි කදවුරේය. නමුත් අපේ කදවුර සම්බන්ධව අපිටද කල කිරීමක් තිබී නව දේශපාලනයක් සොයමින් සිටි බැවින් මේ හා බද්ධ විය..අපි කිසි දිනෙක නායකයාව දැක නොතිබුණි. අපට,

1.ආර්ථික අර්බුදය.
2.ඉන්දියන් ව්‍යාප්තවාදය.
3.නිදහස.
4.වාමාංශික ව්‍යාපාරය
5. ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ විප්ලවය ගත යුතු මග

යන පන්ති වලින් සන්නද්ධ කර තිබුණි. අපි සිදුකලේ කිසිවෙක් නොහඳුන දේශපාලනයකි. අපි තරුණයින් වශයෙන් හැමතැනකම ආක්‍රමණය කළහ. සංවාදවලට ගියේ හොයාගෙනය. අපි චීන තානාපති කාර්යාලය, රුසියන් සංස්කෘත මධ්‍යස්ථානය, උතුරු කොරියන් තානාපති සේවාව, යන සාම තැනකම හිදිමින් ඒ ඒ ආයතන වලින් අපට ගත හැකි, දැනුම වඩවන හැම දෙයක්ම හත්හ. ඒ සමගම අපි සියලු දෙනාම අප වටා තිබුන බැදීම් වලින්ද මිදීමට කටයුතු කළහ.අපට තිබුනේ එකම අරමුණකි, ඒ “මවුබිම නැත්නම් මරණය” යන්නයි.ඒ එදා නිර්ධන පන්ති සටන් කරුවන්ගේ ස්වරූපයයි.

අපේ අභිලාශය වුයේ, සටන ජයග්‍රහණය හෝ මරණය යන්නයි.අපි නොසිතු වෙලාවක නායකත්වය සිරගතව සිටින වෙලාවක, සටනට කැඳවීමක් ලැබුණි.පවතී තත්වය තුල අපට සැකයක් ඇතිවුවද, සාමුහිකව කරන මේ ක්‍රියාදාමයට එක්වීමු. අදත් අපි ඒ සම්බන්ධව කනගාටු නොවෙමු ඒ අපට ලැබුන චෝදනා පත්‍රයේ සටහන්ව ඇත්තේ

“බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය මහා රැජිනට එරෙහිව කැරලි ගැසීම ” ලෙසය.

අපි එය සතුටින් පිළිගනිමු. අපි අපේ විරුවන් අනුව යමින් බ්‍රිතානයේ මහා රැජිනගේ ආධිපත්යෙන් මිදීමට කැරලි ගැසුවන් ලෙස සතුරා විසින්ම අපව හදුන්වා තිබීම නිසාය.

දැන් අපිට ප්‍රශ්නයක් ඇත. අප වරක් නොව දෙවරක් මේ රටේ අරගල කල තරුණයින්ගෙන් යුතු පක්ෂයක් ගොඩ නැගුවත්, වර්තමානයේ මේ සිදුවෙමින් පවතින්නේ කුමන තත්වයක පත්වූ ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුනක්ද යන්නයි.

මේ වන විට මේ පක්ෂයට වසර 55ක ආයු ගෙවා දමා ඇත. වයස 30ක සිටි ලංකා සම සමාජ පක්ෂය පන්නා දැමීමට කටයුතු කල ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණට දැන් ප්‍රකාශ කිරීමට ඇත්තේ තමන් මෙරට ජනතාව වෙනුවෙන් මේ දක්වා සිදුකර ඇත්තේ කුමක්ද කියාය.

උත්තරය වන්නේ කිසිත් නැත කියාය. දැන් මේ පක්ෂයට පන්ති සටන අමතකව ගොස් ඇත. පන්ති සහයෝගිතාවය ඉස්මතුකොටගෙන මෙරට ඉතිහාසයේ කිසිදු වාමාංශික දේශපාලන පක්ෂයක් සිදු නොකළ ආකාරයේ අධිරාජ්‍ය ගැති, පැහැර තුට්ටු දෙකේ දේශපාලන ව්‍යාපාරයක් නිර්මාණය කර ඇත. මොවුන්ට මාක්ස්වාදය අමතකව ඇත.සමාජ පරිනාමය ඉවතට විසිකොට දමා ඇත. මොවුන් පන්ති සතුරා ලෙස දකින්නේ, රාජපක්ෂ පවුලයි. මුළු දේශපාලනයම පවත්වාගෙන යන්නේ රාජපක්ෂ පවුල දුෂිත බව කියමිනි. විට අමතරව මොවුන්ට තව සතුරෙක්ද සිටි. ඒ අවන්ට් ගාර්ඩ් සමාගම හා එහි හිමිකරු නිශ්සංක සේනාධිපති මහතායි.

වසර 55ක් දේශපාලනය කල මේ පක්ෂය නිකම්ම නිකම් දේශපාලන කුපාඩිකම් පා කප්පන් ගන්නා චෞරයන් කණ්ඩායමක් ලැගුම්ගත් ගුබ්බෑයමක්  නිර්මාණය කර ඇත. මේ ගුබ්බෑයමේ  සැබෑ තතු දන්නා නිශ්ශංක සේනාධ්පති මහතාට පහර ගසමින්, ඔහු හා කිසිදු සංවාදයකට නොඑමින්, ඔහුව මගහරිමින් සිටින්නේ අපුරු රැඟුමක් පාමිණි.

ජනතාව පයින් ගසා එළවා දැමු එවුන් ජාතික ලැයිස්තුවෙන් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට රිංගා රංගන රැගුම් නවතා ලිය යුතුය.මේ අධිරාජ්‍ය ගැති, හා ඉන්දීය දෙෂව්යාප්තවාදින් මෙහෙයන දේශපාලන පඹයින් පුළුස්සා විනාශ කිරීමට කාලය පැමිණ ඇත. ජනතාව මේ පරයින්ව එළවා දමන බව ඉතා විශ්වාස වන අතර, අනියම් අන්දමින් කුමක් හෝ සිදුකර එක ආසනයක් හෝ ලබා ගැනීමට ඉඩක් තිබේ. එසේ වුවොත් මෙරට ජනතාව මුදල් එකතුකර චන්ද පෙත්සමක් දමා යලි චන්ද ගණන් කිරීමට අවස්තාව උදාකරගෙන මුන්ව දේශපාලනයෙන් පලවා හරිය යුතුය.

“අධිරාජ්‍යවාදයට විනාශය – ජනතාවට විමුක්තිය.”

By Lakshman I Keerthisinghe Courtesy Ceylon Today

During the last stages of the war, many in the Diaspora remained silent in the face of numerous LTTE violations, including holding tens of thousands of Tamils hostage in the Vanni, using violence to prevent their escape and forcibly recruiting children into their ranks. At the end, parts of the Diaspora appeared more concerned about preserving the political State of ‘Tamil Eelam’ than about the suffering of the civilian population trapped between two fighting forces.”  – (Para 418 – UNSG Panel of Experts Report)

UNHRC Statement

The Media reported the UNHRC issued a statement regarding the recent utterances of Vinyagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman at an Election meeting held in Batticaloa. According to Media reports he admitted to having killed 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers in a single day. The UNHRC stated We note that Karuna, former LTTE Commander & Government Minister is being questioned for alleged past crimes. He should also be investigated for the wholesale recruitment of child soldiers, a crime under international law. Accountability should apply to everyone in Sri Lanka.” There is no doubt that recruitment of child soldiers is a war crime of the worst order.

It is relevant to note the Government of Sri Lanka had four rounds of talks with the LTTE during the 31-year Separatist War, to give up arms and enter the political mainstream. The LTTE refused this offer and embarked on their objective of establishing a separate state in Sri Lanka by waging an armed conflict with Sri Lanka.

However, in 2004, Karuna, then LTTE’s Eastern Commander declared his intention to leave the LTTE and surrendered to the Government utilising the peace overtures. Karuna gave up the struggle for separatism and joined the political mainstream. At that time the LTTE was mistakenly perceived as ‘an invincible military foe’ by the international community and the Government and the public approved Karuna’s move. The Government welcomed Karuna’s move and his offer to assist the Armed Forces in defeating the LTTE. The LTTE meanwhile continued with their onslaught boasting about their invincibility. The 4th Eelam conflict caused a large number of casualties on both sides. 

LTTE held 1,000s of Tamils hostage

Therefore, for the UNHRC to single out Karuna alone for ‘war crimes’ is not justifiable and to disregard all the other militants who fought and committed heinous war crimes for the LTTE, especially till the end of the conflict after Karuna’s departure. It is apparent the UNHRC is holding a brief for the Tamil Diaspora against the Sri Lankan Government. It is obvious from the ‘UNHRC’ quote at the outset of this article, that after Karuna’s departure, the LTTE during the last stages of the ethnic conflict, held thousands of Tamils hostage and the Diaspora were more interested in their target for a separate state than the suffering of the vast numbers of Tamil civilians, who were trapped by the LTTE during the fighting

UNHRC must investigate Rudrakumaran and  Surenthiran

T. Rudrakumaran and Suren Surenthiran of the Diaspora have been the most vociferous against the Sri Lankan Government supporting the LTTE during the sessions of the UNHRC. As they amongst many others have been financiers, propagandists and theoreticians of the LTTE and supported all activities of the LTTE in Sri Lanka, the UNHRC should take them to task for recruitment of child soldiers and other terrorist activities of the LTTE rather than singling out Karuna who helped the Sri Lankan forces to overcome the LTTE in many ways despite his past misdemeanors. 

This recent attempt by the UNHRC even without the backing of the US at the behest of the Diaspora attempting to avenge the defeat of the LTTE, is indeed shameful as the UN never ventured to help the Sri Lankan state during the nearly three decade long ethnic conflict engulfing our motherland. Some of these western powers just kept vigil until the LTTE succeeded in separating Sri Lanka in to parts in order to step in to gain undue advantage from such a miserable situation.

All peace loving Sri Lankans irrespective of race, creed or political differences should endeavour to forget and forgive the past mistakes and resolve to live in peace and harmony as one nation. Buddha in his discourses has advocated loving kindness to all living beings even by forgiving Angulimala for his past sins and indicating the correct path. All elected leaders whoever they may be must assist our motherland to tread such correct path.

In conclusion, what has occurred in the past is now history. Sri Lankans should take a lesson from the past and our people should look forward to a safe and prosperous future in our motherland presently fast overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic.

 The writer is an Attorney-at-Law with LLB, LLM, MPhil.(Colombo)-keerthisinghel@yahoo.co.uk

By Sumanasiri Liyanage Courtesy Ceylon Today

The two seemingly unrelated events became quite important in understanding the emerging trends in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The first was the simmering tension that has been prevailing in the border between India and China turned into face-to-face fighting between two sides broke out in the Galwan Valley on 15 June. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) between China and India runs from east to west for some 4,057 kilometres.

As BBC reported, at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese forces in a disputed Himalayan border area. No details about Chinese casualties. The second was the handing over of the final report of the committee appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to investigate on the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement.   

Events and Structures

Historians and social scientists incessantly debate on the relationship between events and structures. A standard dictionary defines events as happening or occurrence of any kind. It was customary to say that describing and analysing an event is a task of the historians while the specific task of the social scientists is to decipher social structure. Historians like Fernand Braudel are against this bifurcation. For him, an event is a mere froth on the waves of history. Hence, history should study geographical, ecological, and mental structures of long duration and how different elements or constituent parts (like economy, demography and politics) are conjoined. Marshal Sahlins puts it crystal clear in the following words: Structure is to the event as the social to the individual, the essential to the accidental, the recurrent to the idiosyncratic, the visible to the invisible, the lawful to the aleatory, the quotidian to the extraordinary, the silent to the audible, the anonymous to the authored, the normal to the traumatic, the comparable to the unique.”

Hence, the task of either a social historian or a social scientist is to look for underlying forces that worked beneath the surface. Some events are epoch-creating. Events may look accidental, but they demonstrate the strength, as well as the weakness of the structure within which they operate. Moreover, events are not isolated; they are linked with multiple events in the past so that to understand them they should be situated in their proper context. Only then their distant linkages may be diagnosed. It is in such a perspective that this column proposes to look at these two recent events.

Indo-China Border Conflict

Let me first deal with Event 1, i.e., the recent escalation of border conflict between India and China in Galwan Valley. Commenting on the event Achin Vanaik has to say this: To understand why these hostilities have broken out now, one must look beyond the immediate conditions on the border to the shifting bilateral relations between the two countries. This, in turn, cannot be separated from a survey of the historically evolving geopolitical ambitions of the two countries, and their respective ties and arrangements with other powerful States”. Of course, there are two drivers that would lead to border disputes between countries with common border, land or sea. They are: (1) nationalism and (2) Imperial domination in its many varieties. Both are in operation in India and China. However, as far as the border disputes are concerned, India’s record is worse than that of China. Vanaik notes: it further bears mentioning that China, which shares a border with fourteen countries, has resolved its land-border disputes with all but India. Of India’s six land neighbours, disputes remain with five of them — excluding only Bhutan”.

Indo-China relations worsened not because of the tension at the Border States but because of outside intrusion into the IOR in the guise of encountering Chinese influence in the IOR. As Vanaik has noted the China factor has divided Indian foreign policy establishment. He writes: ‘One group (the largest) argues that India must further consolidate and deepen its relations with the United States and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue — QSD or the ‘Quad,’ consisting of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India. 

A second group somewhat problematically proposes that India pursue closer relationships with the United States and the Quad, yet also seek to maximise its strategic autonomy and thereby achieve better relations with China, as if both courses of action are compatible through some form of brilliant diplomacy. 

A third group (easily the smallest) call on India to reconsider and reframe its current relationship with the United States and the Quad to become much more independent and non-aligned. The very coinage of Indo-Pacific Region by the US establishment is to get India into this quadrilateral security dialogue. India’s ambiguous position over China has been working as the third driver for the border tension. The US appears to be playing the same role that it played to destabilise West Asia, popularly known as the Middle East, now in the IOR.

Millennium Challenge Corporation

It is imperative to situate the MCC compact in this broader configuration of the IOR. Although Sri Lanka does not fall into the category of poor Nations, the US is keen to offer a US$ 480 million grant to Sri Lanka. This is in itself fishy. The committee report on the MCC has painted the MCC agreement as detrimental to national economy and will not contribute positively to alleviate poverty or to rejuvenate the economy. Nonetheless, in my opinion, the most important negative aspect of the MCC is its possible adverse impact on the country’s sovereignty. Although the US Government has denied that the MCC has nothing to with military agreements, as we all are aware it is an integral part of the overall Indo-Pacific strategy that entails three main elements (diplomacy, defence and development) associated with three major agreements namely Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA) and MCC. 

As I and many others have shown, through the MCC compact and other associated agreements, the US seems to be trying to make Sri Lanka a part of and centre of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between the US, Japan, Australia and India while Taiwan plays second fiddle. Sri Lanka’s decision to sign the MCC compact would be tantamount to moving away from the non-aligned foreign policy that was embedded into our foreign policy discourse in the 1960s and the 1970s. Transcending beyond party affiliations, every citizen in Sri Lanka should say without any hesitation ‘NO’ to the MCC following the message conveyed by the Prof. Gunaruwan Committee. 

(The writer is a retired teacher of Political Economy at the University of Peradeniya.) E-mail: sumane_l@yahoo.comBy Sumanasiri Liyanage | Published: 2:00 AM Jul 3 2020

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

A two-thirds majority in Parliament is needed at the forthcoming the General Elections to amend the Constitution in order to sort out issues in the country, Prime Minister and SLPP Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa said yesterday.

Speaking at an SLPP representatives’ meeting at Baddegama last morning, Mr. Rajapaksa said a good team was needed to execute the proposals made by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa during the presidential election campaign.

The country’s development, which was growing rapidly, collapsed during the previous government’s tenure. This was due to the fact that the President and the Prime Minister of Yahapalana Government represented two different camps. The President disregarded the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister didn’t pay attention to the President. As a result, the people suffered and not even a culvert was built,” he said.

Prime Minister Rajapaksa said a group of legislators who know how to get the job done should be elected to parliament. We have fielded a set of candidates who posses the knowledge of not only about the country buts also the world. They know how the world is evolving,” he said.

Ven. Baddegama Samitha Thera, Minister Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, Mohan P. Silva, Isuru Dodangoda, Sampath Athukorale and other SLPP members attended the meeting. (Lahiru Pothmulla)