චාර්ල්ස්  පෙරේරා විසින්

එදා රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ  නායකත්වය දුන් එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය හා  සම්බන්ධ පක්ෂ එකතුව ඉදිරිපත්කල  ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂක  සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස ලක්ෂ 69 කටත් වැඩි චන්දයකින් පරාජයකොට ගොටාභය රාජපක්ස මැතිතුමා ලංකාවේ ජනාධිපති වශයෙන්  පත්කරගත්තෙ,  එදා යහපාලනය ආණ්ඩුව වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටි හා ඒ ආණ්ඩුවට සමබ්න්ධවී  පාරලිමේන්තුවේ සිටි මන්ත්‍රී  වරුන් සියල්ලම කෙරෙහි විශ්වාශයක් නොමැති බැවින්. ජනතාව  එදා යහපාලනය ආණ්ඩුව පරාජය කලේ  ඒ  වෙනුවට  ජනාධිපති ගොටාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා ඉදිරිපත්කල සෞභාග්යේ දැක්ම පිළිගෙන  එතුමා සමග දේශපාලන ගමනකට සුදානම්  අලුත් මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් පත්කරගෙන අලුත් ආණ්ඩුවක් පිහිටුවීම සඳහායි.

ඒ යහපාලනය ආණ්ඩුව වෙනුවෙන් පෙනීසිටි පාරලිමේන්තුවේ විපක්ෂයේ මන්ත්‍රීවරු අන්තිම මොහොත දක්වාම  කලේ ජනාධිපති  ගොටාභය රාජපක්ශ මැතිතුමා  කරගෙන ගිය වැඩපිළිවෙලට භාදා කිරීමයි.   නමුත්  සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස  ඇතුළු විපක්ෂය කීවා  අපි ජනාධිපති තුමාට සම්පුර්ණ සහාය දෙනවා, පාරලිමේන්තුවට ගෙනෙන ඕනෑම යෝජනාවකට එක අතක් නොවෙයි  අත් දෙකම උස්සල චන්දය දෙනවා කියල.

 නමුත්  මාර්තු මාසයේ කැඳවන ලද පාරලිමේන්තුවට ජනාධිපතිතුමාගේ ආණ්ඩුව  අතුරු ඇස්තමේන්තුවක් ඉදිරිපත්කල අවස්ථාවේ සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස ඇතුළු විපක්ෂයේ මන්ත්‍රී කාන්ඩායම එදා දුන් පොරොන්දුව අමතක කර ඊට විරුද්ධවූ නිසා  ආණ්ඩුව ඒ අතුරු යෝජනාව අස්කර ගත්තා .  ඒ බැවින් ජනාධිපති  තුමාට රටගෙනයාම සඳහා වෙනත් විකල්පයක් නොතිබුන බැවින්  2020  ජුනි 2වනදා පාරලිම්වෙන්තු චන්දයක් සඳහා දින නියම කරමින්  2020 මාර්තු  3වනදාම පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරියා. ඒකයි  ජනාධිපති තුමා  මාර්තු  3දාම පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරීමට හේතුව වූයෙ.    

මේ අතරතුර සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාසත් රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහත් අතර ඇතිවූ  දේශපාලන විරුද්ධතාවයක් හේතුවෙන් සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස සමගි බලවේගයයි වෙනම දේශපාලන පක්ෂයක් පිහිටුවාගත්තා.   ඔවුන් පාර්ලමෙන්තු චන්දයකින් නියත වශයෙන්ම පරාජය වන බව  දැනගෙන  චන්දයකට මූහුනදීමට බියව සිටි අවස්ථාවේ  රටේ අවාසනාවකට  නොසිතුපරිදි කුරිරු කොරෝන වසංගතයක්  පැතිරෙන්න පටන්ගත්තා.

වාසනාවකට අපේ ජනාධිපති තුමා දේශපාලනඥයෙක් නොවන බැවින් කොරෝනා වය්රසයටමුහුණ දීමට දේශපාලනමය  තීරණයක් නොවන පැහැදිලිවම ජනතාතාවගේ ආරක්ෂාව සඳහා  විශේශඥ වෛද්‍යවරුන්ගේ හා තාක්ෂණික  දනුම ඇති අයගේ සහාය ලබාගෙන වීරෝධාර  රණවිරුවන්  හා පොලිසිය ද සම්බන්ධකරගෙන   ඉතා කාලෝචිත  වගකිවයුතු කාර්යක්ෂම වැඩපිළිවෙලක් ගෙන යනවා .

දැන් විසුරුවා හරින ලද පාරලීමේනතුවේ විපක්ෂ මන්ත්‍රී වරු ජනාධිපති තමාගේ කොරනා ව්‍යාසනයට මුහුණදීමේ වැඩපිලිවල පිළිබඳව ධනාත්මකව බලා ඒ සඳහා ඔහුට දිය හැකි ආධාර සොයා බලා ජනාදිපතිතුමා සමග  එක්ව  ඒ වැඩ පිළිවෙලට සහය දෙනවා  වෙනුවට ඔවුන්  විසුරුවා හරින ලද පාරලිමේන්තුව නැවත කැඳවිය යුතුයයි ජනාධිපතිතුමාට බලකිරීම සඳහා මාද්‍ය ප්‍රකාශකරමින් සිටී.    

ජනාධිපතිතුමා  කොරෝනා වයිරසයට මුහුණදීම සඳහා හොඳ වැඩපිළිවෙලක් ගෙනයද්දී, රටේ වෙනත්  ජනාධිපතිතුමාට තනිව තීරණයක්  ගත

නොහැකි විශේෂ තත්වයක් ඇතිවී නොමැති හෙයින්  විසුරුවාහරින ලද පාරලිමේන්තුව කැඳවීමට අවශ්‍ය තාවයක් නැත.

නමුත් මොවුන්  කියා සිටින්නේ කොරනා වයිරසයෙන් රට ආරක්ෂා කරනු සඳහා ජනාධිපතිතුමාට විශාල මුදල් ආධාර ලැබෙමින් තිබෙන බැවින් ඒ මුදල් කලමනාකරණය පිලිබඳ ඔවුන්ට සාධාර න සැකයක් ඇතිවී තිබෙන හෙයින්  ඒ ලැබෙන මුදල් පිලිබඳව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට දැන්වීමේ වගකීමක් ජනාධිපති තුමාට තියෙන නිසා   විසුරුවාහරිනලද පාරලිමේන්තුව කැඳවා  ඒ පිළිබඳව රපොර්තුවක් ඉදිරිපත් කලයුතුයයි ඔවුන් විශ්වාශ කරන බවයි.

මේක බොරු මනස්ගාතයක්. ව්‍යවස්ථාව අනුව ජනාධිපති තුමා විසින් විසුරුවාහරින ලද පාරලිමේන්තුව නැවත කැඳවීමට කිසිකෙනෙකුට බලකළ නොහැකිය.  විසුරුවා හරින ලද පාරලිමේන්තුව කැඳවීම හෝ නොකැඳවීම ජනාධිපති තුමාට ඇති  විශේෂ බලයක්. ඒ  විශේෂ බලය පාවිච්චි කරන්නයි බලකරන්න කිසිවෙකුට නොපුළුවන.

රටේ යුද්ධයක් වැනි විශේෂ අවස්තාවක් ඇතිඋවහොත් ජනාධිපතිතුමාට විසුරුවාහරින ලද පාර්ලිමේන්තුව නැවත කැඳවිය හැකියා .  එවැනි ජනාධිපති තුමාට තනිව තීරණයක් ගත නොහැකි අවස්තාවක් තාමත්  රටේ ඇතිවී නැත.  එබැවින් විසුරුවාහරිනලද පාරලිමේන්තුව නැවත කැඳවීමට අද අවශ්‍යතාවයක් නොමැත.

ඒ විසුරුවාහරින ලද  පාරලිමේන්තුවේ බහුතරයක් තුබූ,  විපක්ෂය අබමල් රේණුවක් තරම් වත් විශ්වාශකළ නොහැකියි. 

ජිනීවා නුවරදී අමෙරිකාව සමග එක්වී තාමාගේම රටේ විරෝධාර යුදබලකායන් යුද අපරාධ කරුවන් වශයෙන් පාවා දුන්,  සංඝරත්නය ත්‍රිවිධ රත්නයෙන් අහක්කල,  මුසල පාපකාරී මංගල සමරවික්‍රම, නින්දාසහගත ලෙස බොරුවෙන් සත්‍ය වසන්කරන රාජිත සෙනාරත්න, අසරණ තරුණයකු ජීවිත කාලයටම  ආභාදිතයෙක් කර එය නොපිළිගත් වාන්චනික චම්පික රණවක, තෙරුමක් නැතිව කට තියෙනවාට  දොඩවන එස් ඒම මරික්කාර්,  අප්‍රේල් මාසයේ පාස්කු ඉරිදා භිෂනයට් කෙලින් හෝ වක්‍රව සම්බන්ධ  රවුෆ් හකීම්, රිෂාඩ් බද්යුදීන්, මුජුබු රහමාන්,  මාන්නයෙන් පිම්බුණ  රංගේ බන්ඩාර, සදාචාරයක් නැතිව ඕනෑ නොහොම්බිනා දෙයක්  කිරීමට සුදානම් කතානායකව සිටි කරු ජයසුරිය,  එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය වෙනුවෙන්  නා නා විධියට බල මෙහෙවර කම් කල අදටත් කරන ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුනේ හිටපු මන්ත්‍රී රැළ,  ආදීන්ගෙන් සමන්විත වූ විසුරුවාහරින ලද එවුන් විසින් මඩ ගොහොරුවක් කල විසුරුවාහරින ලද  පාරලිමේන්තුව නැවත කැඳවන්නේ මොන කෙන්ගේඩියකටද  ?  

සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස ඇතුළු විපක්ෂයේ හිටපු මන්ත්‍රීවරු  දැන් පුන පුනා ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ,

විසුරුවාහරින ලද පාරලිමේන්තුව නැවත කැඳවන ලෙසයි.  මේ ඉල්ලිම පිටුපස කුමන්ත්‍රණයක්  තිබේ ද ?

විසුරුවා හරින ලද  පාරලිමෙන්තුව යලි කැඳවූවහොත් ඒ පාරලිමේන්තුවේ  බහුතරය තිබෙන්නේ  ඔවුන්ටයි.  එවිට  මේ අවස්ථාවෙන් ප්‍රයෝජනය ගෙන ඔවුන්ට පුලුව්න්  වෙනවා ජනාධිපති තුමාගේ වැඩකටුයුතුවලට භාදාකල හැකි   පනතක් කඩිමුඩියේ පාරලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත්කරගෙන එය අනුමතකරගන්න. කරු ජයසුරියගේ  අතීත හැසිරීම අනුව එහෙම කුමන්ත්‍ර කාරී වැඩපිළිවෙලක් තියෙනවානම්  කතානායක වශයෙන් කරු ජයසූරිය කිසි පැකිලීමල් නොමැතිව එවැනි කුමන්ත්‍රණයකට සහාය දෙනවා ඇත.  ඒ නිසා ජනාධිපති තුමා මොවුන් එතුමා ඉදිරියේ තබන උගුලට හසුවිය නොයුතුය.

ජනාධිපති තුමා විසින් පාරලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවාහැරීමෙන් පසුව, ඔහු රටේ විවිධ කාර්යයන්  සඳහා කරන වියහියදම් පිළිබඳව වගකිවයුත්තේ අනාගතයේදී කැඳවනු ලබන අලුත් පාරලිමේන්තුවට මිස, විසුරුවාහරින ලද  පාරලිමේන්තුවට නොවේ.

ජනාධිපති තුමා පාරලිමේන්තුව විසිරුවා හැරිමෙන් පසුව අලුත් පාරලිමේන්තුවක්  කැඳවීම  සඳහා චන්දය පැවැත්වීම චන්ද කොමසාරිස් වෙත පැවරෙන වගකීමයි, ඒ සඳහා ජනාධිපති තුමාට මැදිහත්විය නොහැක.

මේ විපක්ෂයේ හිටපු පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී වරුන්ට උවමනා යම් විධිහක චන්ද ප්‍රචාරක කටයුතු කොටසක්  කොරෝන වය්රසය මුවාවෙන් කරන්නටනම්, ඒ සඳහා තමන්ගේ කොට්ටාසවල මිනිසුන්ට  ඔවුන්ට හැකිපමනින් ආධාර උපකාර කිරීම සඳහා වැඩපිළිවෙලක් ඔවුන්ට සකසාගත හැකියි. නැත්නම්  දේශපාලන වෙනස්කම් අත්හැර ආණ්ඩුවට යම් විධියක සහයක් දීමට  ජනාධිපතිතුමාට  දන්වා  වැඩපිළිවෙලක් සකස් කර ගැනීමට භාධාවක් ඇතැයි නොසිතමි.

මේපිළිබඳව සුමන්දිරන් වගේ බෙදුම්වාදී  හිටපු මන්ත්‍රීවරයෙක් ශ්‍රේශ්ටාධිකරණයට ගියහොත්  උසාවිය මොන  තීන්දුවක් ගනීවිදැයි කිව නොහකියි. පුද්ගලිකව ලංකාවේ ශ්‍රේශ්ටාධිකරණය පසුගිය කාලයේ ගත් තීරණ දෙකක් සම්බන්ධව  මම ඒකඟ නැත.  එකක් අග්‍රවිනිශ්ච කාරවරියට විරුද්ධව ගෙනා  ද්යෝෂාභියෝගය පිළිබඳව ශ්‍රේශ්ටාධිකරණය ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ වගන්තියක් පිළිබඳව දුන් අසම්පුර්ණ අර්ථකතනයක්. දෙවෙනුව ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන  මැතිතුමා එදා පරලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරීමට  විරුද්ධව ශ්‍රේශ්ටාධිකරණ දුන් තීන්දුව.  මේ දෙකම  පිළිගත නොහැකියි. . .

එංගලන්තයේ නිතිය හදාරන කාලයේදී  අධිකරණ තීන්දු විශාල ගණනාවක් කියවලා  දැනගත් දෙයක් තමා බ්‍රතාන්‍ය විනිශචකරාවරුන් බොහොවිට තීරනය ගැනීමේදී  නීතියෙන් ඔබ්බට ගිහින්  වැරදිකරු හා වැරැද්දට භාජනය  වූ තැනැත්තාගේ ජීවිත වාතාවරණයන් හා ගතිගුණ  සලකා බලා මානුෂික මය නඩු තීන්දු දෙනවා. . නමුත් ලංකාවේ විනිශ්ව්යකාරවරුන්  එවැනි තීරණ ගන්නවාද යන්න ප්‍රශ්නයක්.

ජනාධිපති වරයාට පාරලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවාහැරීමට ඇති අයිතියක් තියෙනවාද නැද්ද  විනිස්චයකිරීමෙදී  නඩුකාරයන් විසින්   පාරලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරීම වැරදියයි නඩුතීන්දුවක්  දීමට තීරණයක් ගෙන,  ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ  ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී වගන්ති නොබලා  නඩු තීන්දුවක් දී තිබෙන බවක්  ජනාධිපති සිරිසේන මැතිතුමාගේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරීමේ තීරනයට විරුද්ධව  දුන් නඩු තීන්දුවෙන් පෙනෙනවා.    

අවුරුදු හතරහ මාරකට පෙර පාරලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවාහැරීමට ජනාධිපති තුමාට  අයිතියක්  නොමැතියි ප්‍රජාන්ත්රවාදයට පටහැනි වගන්තිය පමණක් කියවා,  ජනාධිපති තුමන්ට අවුරුදු හතරහමාරකට  පෙර  පාරලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරීමේ  බලය තිබෙයයි  කියන වගන්තිය සම්පුර්ණයෙන් අත්හැර දමා එදා  ඒ නඩුකාර කට්ටලය වැරදි තීරණයක් ගත්තා. .

යුක්තිමත්, සාධාරණ හා ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී  නඩු තීන්දු ගන්නට තුබූ අවස්ථාවේ ගෙනත් තිබුනේ අයුතු, අසාධාරණ නඩු තීන්දු.  එබැවින් අද අපේ විනිශ්චයකාරවරු නීතිය අකුරටම පිළිපදියි ද  පවතින කොවිඩ් 19 ව්‍යාසනය තත්වය  නඩුවට අදාළ නැතියයි  සලකා  දරදඬු තීන්දුවක් ගනිත්දොයි නොදනීමූ. සරත් ආබ්රු නඩුකාරවරයා තාමත් සිටිත් දැයි නොදනිමු.

දැන් ඔය ජනාධිපතිතුමාට කොන්දෙසි විරහිත සම්පුර්ණ සහාය දෙනවා කියල ගිවුසුම  අත්සකරලා දෙන්න සුදානම් වන විසුරුවාහරින ලද පාරලිමේන්තුවේ  හිටපු මන්ත්රීවරු පහුගිය දවස්වල් ජනාධිපති තුමාට ගෞරවාන්විතව හෝ ප්‍රශාන්ශනීය ප්‍රකාශයන් කලේ නෑ.   ජනතා වීමූක්ති පෙරමුන කීවා ජනාධිපතිතුමා ගෙන යන්නේ මිලිටරි පාලනයක් කියල, තවත් තැනක යහපාලනයෙ  හිටපු මන්ත්‍රීවරයෙක් කීවා ජනාධිපතිතුමා  ආඥාදායකයෙක් කියලා.  තවත් එකියක්  කීවා ආන්ඩුවට විශාල ධනස්ඛන්ධයක් ලෑබෙනවා නමුත් ඒ මුදල් පරිහරණය  කිරීම පිළිබඳව සාධාරන සැකයක් තියෙනවා කියල.

යහපාලන ආන්ඩුවකාලයේ  මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා ඇතුළු ඒකාබද්ධ  විපක්ෂය  පාරලිමේන්තුවේ ව්පක්ෂය මෙන් පිළිනොගෙන දෙමල සන්ධානයේ සම්බන්ධන්  විපක්ෂනායකයා කරගත් ,ඒ විසුරුවාහරින ලද පාරලිමේන්තුවේ හිටපු එකම මන්ත්රීවරයකු කෙරෙහිවත්  කිසිම විශ්වාශයක් තැබීය නොහැකිය  එබැවින් මොවුන් නැවත කැඳවාගැනීමට  අවශ්‍යතාවයක් තියෙනවාද ? ඇත්තටම එහෙම අවශ්‍යතාවයක් කිසිසේත්ම නැත. 

චන්ද්‍රසිරි විජයවික්‍රම, LL.B., Ph.D.

මිණී වෙළෙන්‌දෝ

අන්තිමේදී ඇමෙරිකාවේ සිගරැට් සමාගම් රට අතහැර චීනය, වියට්නාමය, අප්‍රිකාවේ හා ලතින් ඇමෙරිකාවේ රටවල් වලට ගියේ ඒවාට විරුද්‌ධ නීති හා නඩු තීන්‌දු නිසාද, නැත්නම් මිණීමරුවන් ලෙස (මර්‌චන්ට්ස් ඔෆ් ඩෙත්) ඒවායේ අයිතිකරුවන් හංවඩු ගැසීම නිසාද යන්න පැහැදිලි නැත. එහෙත් පාරේ තිබූ මී මළකුණක් දැක එය විකුණා ධනවත් සිටානන් කෙනෙක්‌වූ පුද්ගලයෙක් පිළිඹඳ ජාතක කතාවට සමාන සිදුවීම් මාලාවක් දැන් ලංකාවේ සිදුවෙමින් පවතී. කොරෝනා මර්‌ධනය සම්බන්‌ධයෙන් ආණ්ඩුවේ වැඩපිළිවෙලේ නොයෙක් අඩු පාඩු හා දුර්‌වලකම් ඇති බව සැබෑය. නමුත් යහපාලනකාරයින් පාස්කු ප්‍රහාරය හෝ මහ බැංකු මංකොල්ලය කළමනාකරණය කල ආකාරය සිතන විට, මේ වේලාවේ ගෝඨාභය නොසිටින්නට ලංකාව සුනේ සුන් යන කියමණ අතිශොක්තියක් නොවේ. ග්‍රාම සේවකගේ සිට ඉහලට මුළු සිවිල් සේවාවම හා සිවිල් ජන සමාජය වැඩකරන්නට පුරුදුවී සිටින්නේ, ඒ කාලයේ සරත් ෆොන්සේකා විසින් බිම් බෝම්බ අස්සේ ඉදිරියට යන ලෙස විධානය කලවිට සොල්දාදුවන් ගිය අන්දමට නොවේ. යුද හමුදාවලට උපාධිධාරීන් නොගන්නේ, යුද පිටියේදී වෙඩිතියන්නට යයි අණක් දුන් විට, ඊට කලින්, ඒ ඇයි, කියා යම් සොල්දාදුවෙක් අසන්නට යනවානම්, යුද හමුදාවක් පවත්‌වා ගෙන යානොහැකි නිසාය.

සිකුරාදාට වයින් බොන කල්ලිය

මේ යුද්ධය නම් කවදාවත් දිණන්න බෑ කියූ පිරිස, කොරෝනා වසංගතය හරහා යහපාලන පාර්ලිමේන්තුව නම් මළකුණ ගොඩගන්නට කරණ වෑයම මීයාගේ මළකුණට සමාන කල නොහැකිද? මෝස්තරකාර මංගල සමරවීරට අනුව පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට යලි ඔක්‍ෂිජන් නොදුන්නොත්, ජනාධිපති ඇතුළු කැබිනට් මණ්ඩලයේම පුරවැසි අයිතිවාසිකම් අහෝසි වෙන්නේය. මෙහිලා අළුත්ම හා භයානකම <ආයාචනය> එන්නේ ෆ්රයිඩේ ෆෝරම් එකේ සාවිත්‍රි ගුණසේකර නෝනා ගෙන්‌ය. කලින් ජනාධිපතිට යැවූ සංදේශයට පසු, ඉදිරියේදී සුප්‍රිම් උසාවිය විසින් දියහැකි යම් නඩු තීන්දුවකට අවශ්‍යවන මූනිස්සම් සහිත සංදේශයක් ඇය විසින් දැන් ලියා ඇත (කලම්බු ටෙලිග්‍රාෆ්, 4/30/20). කබරගොයා තලගොයා කිරීමේ (අර්‌‌ථ නිරූපනය කිරීම) නීතිවිද්‍යා රීතිය යටතේ ඇයගේ ත‌ර්‌ක-විත‌ර්‌ක යම් නඩුකාරයෙකුගේ කණට දමණ මී පැණි වැනි විය හැකිය. යම් නඩුකාරයෙකුට ඒවා හීනෙන් පෙනෙන්නට පවා පුළුවන. මීට හේතුව, 2018 සිරිසේන-රනිල් නඩුවේ තීන්‌දුව ඒ නඩුව ගැන සාවිත්‍රි කලින් ලියා පලකල සංදේශයට සමාන වීමය. ජී. එල්. පීරිස් මෙන් සාවිත්‍රි ද මේ බොහෝ නඩුකාරයින්ගේ ගුරුවරු විය. ඇමෙරිකන් තානාපතිනි රහස් කේබල් යවමින් ඇඳ උඩ පිණුම් ගහනවා නිසැකය. ඇමෙරිකන් මහජනයා මේ ක්‍රීඩා දන්නේවත්, අනුමත කරන්නේවත් නැති බව ලංකාවේ ජනයා දන්නේ නැත. ආර්‌ථික ඝාතකයෙකුගේ පාපෝච්චාරණ (2004) යන ජෝන් පර්කින්ස්ගේ පොත මේ දෙරටේම අහිංසක මහජනතාව කියවා නැත. මෙය යමෙකු විසින් සිංහලට පෙරළන්නේ නම් යෙහෙකි.

මාර යුද්‌ධය

කොරෝනා මළමිණී මතින් යහපාලන ප්‍රමුඛ කළු සුද්දන් ගෙන යන මේ ශීතල යුද්‌ධය ගෝඨාභයට විරුද්‌ධ සටනක් නොව, මේ රටේ අවුරුදු 550 ක කාලයක් තුලම පෑගී, පාපිසි වී සිටි සිංහල බෞද්‌ධ ජනයාට විරුද්‌ධව (බුදු අම්මෝ පිරිසට), ඕ මයි ගෝඩ් කල්ලිය ගෙන ගිය, ගෙන යන මාර යුද්‌ධය මය. මෙහිලා අවශ්‍ය වන්නේ, 1956 මාර යුද්‌ධ කාටූනයේ ඉන්නා අයගේ නම් වෙනුවට රනිල්, සුමන්තිරන්, මනෝ ගනේෂන්, මුජිබර් රහමන්, කිරිැල්ලේ, මංගල, චන්ද්‍රිකා, ලාල් විජේනායකලාගේ නම් ආදේශ කිරීම පමණක් නොවේද?

1978 ව්‍යවස්ථාව බයිබලයක්ද? කෝරානයද? භගවත් ගීතාවද? එය, ධම්මපදයක් නොවන බව නම් ඉතාමත් පැහැදිලිය. 1978-2015 ව්‍යවස්ථාව, පංචස්කන්‌ධ හතරක් පහක් විසින් තමන්ගේ වාසියට සකස්කල කොලකෑලි නොවේද? මෙය සැදූ ජේ. ආර්. එය සංශොධනය කලේ රට හදන්නද? ඉන් පසු ප්‍රේමදාස 1988 ජනාධිපතිවරණයට කලින්දා, දිස්ත්‍රික් අවමය 12.5 සිට 5% දක්වා අඩුකලේ රටට ආදරේටද? චන්ද්‍රිකාලා 2001 දී 17 වන සංශොධනයෙන් ඈ විසින් බහු භූතයක් ලෙස හැඳින්‌වූ ජේ. ආර් ගේ එක තවත් අවුල් නොකලාද? මහින්දගේ 18 වන සංශොධනය ඔහු විසින් නොකල යුතුව තිබූ දෙයක් නොවේද? අන්තිමේදී මෛත්‍රීපාල රූකඩයක් කරගෙන, ජයම්පති-සුමන්තිරන්-ලාල් වීජේනායකලා ගෙනා 19 සංශොධනය රට අරාජක කරන්නට කල කුමණ්ත්‍රනයක් නොවේද? පාස්කු ප්‍රහාර ජනාධිපති කොමිෂම ඉදිරියට එන අළුත් ශාක්‍ෂි කරුවන් මඟින් (රිෂාඩ්, අසාද් සාලිලාට සුදුහුණු ගෑමටගෙනා පාර්ලිමේන්තු කොමිටු බොරුව මෙන් නොව), මෙම අරාජික කිරීමේ තරම එලිදරව් වෙමින් පවතී. ඕනෑම නරක දෙයක් වුවත් හොඳ අරමුණක් සඳහා සාර්‌ථක ලෙස යොදාගත හැකි බව 30 යුද්‌ධය ජයගැනීම 1978 ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ බලතල නිසා වීමෙන් ඔප්පුවේ.

මේ නිසා රට ඉදිරියේ ඇති ප්‍රශ්ණය වන්නේ, වටේ රවුම් යනවා වෙනුවට, ගොනාගේ අං තට්ටුවෙන්ම අල්ලාගෙන පොර බදනවාද නැද්ද යන්නය. සාවිත්‍රි නෝනාගේ කෙස් පැළෙන ත‌ර්‌ක අතරින් එක් මූලික ත‌ර්‌කයක් වන්නේ මැකෝට නීතියෙන් බලය ඇත්තේ යම් චන්ද දිස්ත්‍රික්කයක (කීපයක?) චන්දය කල්දමීම මිස, මුළු රටේම චන්දය කල් දාන්නට නොවන බවය! ඇගේ මේ තර්‌කය උසාවියක් විසින් අනුමත කලොත් එය පුදුමයට කරුණක් නොවන්නේ ලෝකය පුරාම උසාවි නොමැරී පවතින්නේ (නඩුකාරයින්ගේ හා නීතීඥයින්ගේ ජොබ් සෙකියුරිටි තිබෙන්නේ) මෙවැනි වැට උඩ තර්‌ක නිසාම වීමය. සදාම් හුසේන්ගේ, අරාබියේ, කිම් ඉල් සුන්ගේ, චීනයේ, කියුබාවේ උසාවි වල වුනත් එය එසේමය.

සාවිත්‍රි විසින් හා ඇගේ සිකුරාදා විස්කි පාටි සාමාජිකයින් විසින් අමතක කරණ දෙය හා ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභය විසින් මතක තබා ගත යුතු කාරණය නම් රටේ හාමුදුරුවරු ඔහුට බලය ලබාදුන්නේ, සුළු ජන වර්‌ග වලට වෙනස් කිරීමට නොව, එහෙත් සිංහල බෞද්‌ධ ජනයාට සාධාරණය ඉෂ්ට කිරීමටය යන්නය. එක රටක්, එක නීතියක් යනු, මංගල සමරවීර කිව්වා මෙන් චන්දයෙන් පසු අමතක කලයුතු, චන්ද ප්‍රකාශණ වගේ නොවිය යුතු බව රටවැසියා පෙන්‌වා දී තිබේ. මැල්කම් රංජිත් කාදිනල්තුමා විසින් සිංහල බෞද්‌ධ යන්නට, 2018 පමණ සිට සිංහල කතෝලික යන්නද එකතු කලේය. මේ ජනයා චන්දය දුන්නේ, මුන් 225 ම එපා කියාය. එම 225 න් බොහෝ අය 2020 පොහොට්ටු නාම යෝජනා ලැයිස්තු වලද ඉන්නේ ගෝඨාභයගේ ආශිර්‍වාදයකින් නොව, නාස්ලණුවාදය (ප්‍රජා-තන්ත්‍ර) අනුව දැන් තිබෙන චන්ද ක්‍රමයට අනුව වෙන ගත හැකි තීරණයක් නැති නිසාය. එසේ නමුත් එසේ නම් දමා ඇති අය නැවත එන්නේ බලගතු බඩ විරේකයකින් පසුවය. පරණ සෙල්ලම් දමන්නට ඔවුන්ට නොහැකි බව ඔවුන් දන්නේ, වියත් මඟ නැතත්, මගෙන් බේරී ගියාට හූණා ගෙදර ඉන්නවා යයි කිඹුලා කිව්වා මෙන්, හොඳ ශක්තිමත් අළුත් නම් දුසිමක්වත් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට යන නිසාය. රටේ හැම මන්ත්‍රී කෙනෙක්ම තම වත්කම් රටටම දැනගත හැකි වන ලෙස ප්‍රසි‌ද්‌ධ කල යුතු යයි නීතියක් ගෙන ඒම මීලඟ පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ ප්‍රථම පණත නොවුනොත් එය ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභයට එන අනතුරු ඇඟවීමක් වනු ඇත.
විහිළුවට, පුදුමයට හා සතුටට කරුණ වන්නේ සාවිත්‍රිගේ ඉහත සඳහන් සංදේශයේත්, අවලංගු කාසි වැනිවූ යහපාලන පක්‍ෂ විසින් කලා මෙන් පාපෝච්චාරණ, බැගෑපත්‌වීම් හා පොරොන්‌දු, පිලිපැදීමට සුදානම් කොන්දේසි පවා ඇතුලත් කර තිබීමය. උදාහරණයක් වශයෙන්, පඩි නොගැනීම, කොරෝනා හැර වෙනත් දේ ගැන කතා නොකිරීම, තෝරාගත් මන්ත්‍රීන් පමණක් ඒම, රැස්වීම් නියමිත කෙටි වේලාවකට පමණක් වීම, යනාදී යෝජනා, සර්‍වාධිපත්‍ය ඇත්තේ ජනතාවට මිස මන්තිරී පරාණ වලට නොවන බව ඇය විසින් දැන හෝ නොදැන සටහන් කර තිබීමය. එය ඇය විසින් ඩෙස්පරේට් (අමාරුවේ වැටී ඉන්නා) රටකට ඩෙස්පරේට් හැසිරීමක් (අමාරු විසඳුම්) යෝජනා කිරීමක්ද, නැත්නම් ඇගේ ඩෙස්පරේට් මනස පිළිඹිඹු කරනවාද?

1978 ව්‍යවස්ථාව කීපදෙනෙකු විසින් ඇටවූ ජරමරයක් මිස, මහජනතාව ගම් මට්ටමින් තබා මහජන රැස්වීම් මට්ටමින් වත් අනුමැතිය ලැබූ දෙයක් නොවේ. මන්ත්‍රී පරාණ වල කෙරුවාව 19 සංශොධනයෙන් එලිවිය. ඒ වෙනුවෙන් දරදිය ඇද, ඒ නිසා ඔහුම ඔහුව නෙල්සන් මැඩෙලා කෙනෙක් කරගත් මෛත්‍රීපාල ජනාධිපති විසින් එය රටට ගෙනා ලොකු විනාශයක් ලෙස පසුව පව්සමා කිරීමෙන් එලි නොවේද? මන්ත්‍රීලා මහරෑ නිදිමරගාතේ අත ඉස්සූ බව කිව්වේ එය භාරව සිටි අධිකරණ ඇමති විජේදාස රාජපක්‍ෂය. එය තව දිනයකට කල් තැබුවේ නැත්තේ ඇයි? තදියමක් තිබුණේ කාටද? එකම ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨ මන්ත්‍රී වූයේ රෙයාර් අද්මිරාල් සරත් වීරසේකර උසාවිය මෙහිදී කියන්නේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව, මන්ත්‍රීන් මොන පිස්සු හා කපටි වැඩ කලත් කතානායක අස්සන් කල පසු නීතිය නීතියම බවත්, උසාවියට ඒ ගැන කල හැකි දෙයක් නැති බවත්‌ය. මෙය පුදුම රූල් ඔෆ් ලෝ එකකි! නඩුත් කොළඹ කෛරාටික පක්‍ෂ නායක දුසිමක දෙකක ගේය; බඩුත් ඔවුන්ගේ (හා උසාවියේ) ය. උදාහරණයක් වශයෙන් පාලිත තේවරප්පෙරුම හිටපු මන්ත්‍රීට පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ කෙරුවාව ගැන ශාක්‍ෂි දීමට ඉඩ දීම 1954 දී ඇමෙරිකාවේ සුප්‍රිම් උසාවිය ආරම්භකල එක්ස්ට්‍රාර් ජුඩිෂියල් එවිඩන්ස් ගනයට නොවැටේද? ඔහු ජන මාධ්‍ය වලට කියන කතා අසණවිට රටට ආදරය ඇති ඕනෑම කෙනෙකුට අනේ අපේ රටට වෙච්චදේ කියා සිතී ඇඟ කිලිපොළා යනවා නිසැකය.

මෙසේ නම් ගෙවිඳු කුමාරසිංහ විසින් පෙන්නා දුන් අයුරු, සුභා හා යස චරිතය රඟ නොපා, සුමන්තිරන්ලා සාවිත්‍රි පිටපත උසාවියෙන් අනුමත කරගෙන ආවත්, දියවන්නා හෝටලයට ඇතුල්වීමට ඉඩ නොදීම මහජන සර්‌වාධිපත්‍ය අනුව ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභයට, ලංකාව ආරක්‍ෂාකරණා විෂ්ණු දෙවියන් විසින් ආරූඪ කර ඇති බලයකි. බොරු නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍ය කතාවක් හරහා 2019 නොවැම්බර් 18 ප්‍රකාශ වූ මහජන මතය, උඩුයටිකුරු කරන්නට, ප්‍රභාකරන් මරා දැමූදා සිට රාජපක්‍ෂ පවුල ගැන වෛරයෙන් බලා ඉන්නා, ඇමෙරිකන් හා බටහිර තානාපතිලාට ඉඩ නොදිය යුතුය. මහින්ද, බැසිල් යම් වැරදි කලා නම් එවැනි වැරදි නොකල කෙනෙක් සොයා ගැනීමට පාටාචාරා ටෙස්ට් එක අවශ්‍යද? රනිල්, සජිත්ලා ලෝක හීතල හොරු නොවේද? උසාවිය විසින් යම් විධියකින් සාවිත්‍රිලාට, සුමන්තිරන්ලාට, පරණ කතානායකට ඔක්‍ෂිජන් දුන්නොත්, ඩොලර් වලින් වෙන කොළඹ හෝටලයක් කුලියට ගෙන කොරෝනා මුඛ ආවරණ පැළඳ ගෙන එක්‍රැස්වීමට ඔවුන්ට හැකිය. එවිට බැසිල් කොරෝනා සල්ලි හොරකම් කරනවාද යන කරුණ සළකා බැලිය හැකිය. බලයේ සිටි කාලයේ එසේ කලා නම් බැංකු මංකොල්ලයේ ඇත්ත කාරණා රටට එලිවන්නට හොඳටම ඉඩ තිබුණි. ගෝටාභයට දුන් ලක්‍ෂ 69, කැපුවත් කොල අයගේ චන්දත් සමඟ ලක්‍ෂ 80 ක් වෙන්නටත් ඉඩ තිබුණේය.

හැමදේටම වඩා කොරෝනා මර්‌ධනයට රනිල්-සජිත්ලා, රාජිත සුවපති සමඟ ගේනා විශ්වකර්‌ම ප්‍රතික‌ර්‌ම හෝටලය තුල පවත්‌වන නිරන්තර මාධ්‍ය ප්‍රකාශණ මගින් රටට එලිකල යුතුය. ඊට රාජිතගේ පුතාවද සහභාගී කරවා ගැනීමෙන් අර කිඹුල් මාධ්‍ය සාකච්චාවද රටට අමතක කරවාගත හැකිය. පාලිත තේවරප්පෙරුමලා 100 ක් වත් රටපුරා යැවීමට පාලිතට අරමුදල් පාස්කර දීමටද ක්‍රියාකල හැකිය. ඒ සඳහා රංජන්ව ගෑව්වොත් කිරිකලේට ගොමබිංදුවක් දැම්මා වන බවද තේරුම් ගත යුතුය. අවසාන වශයෙන්, දයාන් ජයතිලක විසින් සාවිත්‍රි සංදේශය කියවා යෝජනා කර ඇති අයුරු, ජනාධිපති විසින් මෙම සුමන්තිරන්-සාවිත්‍රි-මංගලලා කියන ව්‍යවස්ථා අර්බුදය ගැන ජනමත විචාරණයකට යෑම ගැනද හෝටලයේ සිට සාකච්චාකල හැකිය. එසේ සාවිත්‍රි නෝනාට අමතකවූ නීති පොතේ තියෙන කාරණාවක් නීතීඥයෙක් නොවන දයාන්ට පෙනීයාම, ලංකාවේ නීතිඥ ප්‍රජාවට ඔහු ඉගැන්‌වූ හොඳ පාඩමක් යයි මම සිතමි. ඔහු පෙන්‌වන මේ <එස්කේප් වෑල්ව්> එක මඟින්, නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යය නම් කොරෝනා මළමිණී තර්‌කය, පාරාවලල්ලක් කරගත හැකිය. එය ජනාධිපතිට නීතියෙන් දී උසාවි මතය අභිභවා ජන මතය ජයගැන්‌වීමකි. ඌරාගේ මස් උගේ පිටේම තබා කැපීමකි. නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යය නමැති ජරමරය (ඌරා) ජනතා සර්‍වාධිපත්‍යය නමැති පිහියෙන්, උගේ මස් උඩම තබා කැපීමය.

Senaka Weeraratna

Arahant  Mahinda in his very first encounter with King Devanampiyatissa at Mihintale 2300 years ago delivered an invaluable piece of advice to the King: He said:

“Oh! Great King, the birds that glide the skies and animals that roam the forests have an equal right to live and move about in any part of this land as thou. The land belongs to the people and all other living beings and thou art only the guardian of it”

This utterance of Arahant Mahinda is one of the greatest statements made in the history of both human and animal rights, as it defines the space that both categories are mutually entitled to.   

I would like to share some thoughts on the value of birds particularly crows to our Sri Lankan society.

Some time in year 2002 there were reports in the newspapers of the destruction of the lives of over 150 crows in the heart of Colombo.

150 crows had died in Colombo by consuming a chemical known as carbo-fluran.  It was said that a leading Hotelier in Colombo 3 had deliberately poisoned these birds since it was found that the Crows were interfering with the Hotel’s outdoor Buffet arrangements.

Leaving food mixed with poison for animals is barbaric conduct and a clear infringement of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance, No. 13 of 1907, which is still the governing legislation despite its obsolescence. Rs. 100.00 is the maximum fine for committing a heinous crime on an animal under this legislation. The quantum of the fine has not changed since 1907, thereby revealing the insensitivity of our current political leadership and lawmakers to crimes against animals and their suffering, in the country.    

If Sri Lanka is taken to task internationally on lack of statutory recognition of animal rights than on violation of human rights as we see happening today at UNHRC in Geneva we will have nowhere to look. The lack of political will in Sri Lanka to extend effective legislative protective cover to defenseless animals is unsettling to all those who care for these voiceless sentient beings.

Crows

Crows constitute a part of the traditional Fauna and is an important link in the ecology of this country. It is a natural scavenger and discharges a vital function by complementing the role of the Municipal Council in removing rubbish from the roads and alleys of Colombo.

Any one closely observing the Crows would realize that they are also an intelligent species. Like children of human beings, young Crows love to play between themselves and sometimes with other species. They can be very exciting to watch when they are engaged in their little games, and moving from tree to tree, telephone pole to telephone pole or roof top to roof top. 

People who dislike or destroy crows are those who are alienated from the traditional Buddhist culture of this country. They are unaware of a long – established bond that exists between mainly rural people and this bird and why people in some parts of this country still religiously participate in ‘Balukaputu Dana ’ – feeding stray dogs and crows.

There is enough scientific evidence to demonstrate that crows are some of the most intelligent of the birds, and may also be more intelligent than many of the highly regarded mammals such as cats and monkeys. Given their superior brain power ( compared to other animals ), their love of play, their tightly knit family groupings, their preference for life-long mate pairing, their relatively simple lifestyle, and a rather complex ability to communicate with sound, crows are entitled to a lot more respect than has come their way from some uncaring humans. It is no wonder that in some regions of the world where crows and ravens are common, the indigenous peoples have often placed these birds very high in their totem pole or scale of reverence.

Homo Sapiens

The planet Earth belongs to all living beings. If there is an over population of one species then the chief culprit are the Homo Sapiens. (Homo Sapien – Latin for ‘wise man’). Humans have been increasing in numbers exponentially and encroaching on the living spaces of other non – human living beings. The crow is an intelligent animal performing a vital service in scavenging and cleaning the environment. It would be an ecological disaster if crows are removed from our environment.

The accumulation of garbage and food waste at Colombo Public places and parks is largely the fault of the CMC. If the work is done on time then there will not be waste matter for the Crows to feed on or pick and drop pieces here and there. But this is not widespread as some allege. If the trash at public places is collected daily and properly then the crow population will decrease rapidly.  

Extermination of the Sparrow in China

Chairman Mao Tse Tung (later called Mao Zedong) when he was the leader of China, made the mistake of exterminating the Sparrows and it led to the greatest mass starvation in history.

In 1958 Mao Zedong, decreed that all the sparrows in the country were to be killed. He decided that China could do without pests like sparrows. Mao thought that sparrows ate too much grain and it seemed rational to him for all sparrows to be killed. Sparrows were getting in the way of the economic development of China.

People were mobilized to eradicate the birds. They used beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly until they died of exhaustion. People tore down sparrow nests and shot sparrows down from the sky. The result of the campaign was to push the birds close to extinction in China.

The impact of this ill-conceived decision was that it caused a domino effect of destruction. Three years later, as many as 45 million people were dead.

The disastrous nature of the Great Sparrow Campaign became evident in 1960. It was discovered that the sparrows didn’t only eat grain seeds. They also ate insects. With no birds to control them, insect populations boomed. Locusts among other insects swarmed all over the country, eating everything they could find — including crops intended for human consumption. On the other hand, people quickly ran out of things to eat, and millions starved. Though the numbers of fatalities vary, some scholars, estimate that the fatalities were as high as 45 or even 78 million. Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng, who chronicled the famine in his book “Tombstone,” estimates the deaths at 36 million people. (The book, published in the U.S. is banned in China.)

Mao Zedong wanted to conquer nature. But he lost that battle. His policies led to a famine in which millions of lives were lost.

There are some echoes of this disaster in the Coronavirus Pandemic which started in the Wet Markets of Wuhan, China in December 2019. Abuse of wild animals e.g. bat, has led to a virus jumping the species barrier and the rest using a cliché ‘is history’.  

Senaka Weeraratna

Senior Advisor

Justice for Animals Sri Lanka 

ඇම් ඩී පී දිසානායක විසිනි

මහින්දට මිනිස්සු බය නැහැ. ඔහු දරුවන්ට අප්පච්චී. සමහරුන්ට එක්කෝ මහින්ද මාමා, එක්කෝ මහින්ද චංඩියා, එක්කෝ මහින්ද සීතල ගනන්කාරයා,  එක්කෝ මහින්ද බොස්,  එක්කෝ මහින්ද වැඩ කාරයා.කොටින්ම කීවොත් මහින්ද මුලු රටටම  සැමටම එදත් අදත් ගව්‍රරාරර්තයේ බහු වචනයෙන් කීවොත් අමතන්නේ මහ රජානණී කියලයි.

ඒත්  ජනපති බලය ලැබුනොත් ගෝඨා හරියටම මොනවා කරයිද? ගෝඨා මොනවගේ මිනිහෙක්ද ? කියා හරියටම නොදැන සිටියේය.  ඉංගිරිසියෙන් කීවොත් HE WAS AN UNKNOWN QUANTITY”.

ඉතින් මොකද කලේ මතකයි නේද ඔබ හැමටම?

බයක් ඇතිකලා. මොන බයද ?  ගෝඨා  “භය”  බය.

රාජිත මහත්තයා කිව්වා මහනුවරදී  “මම ගෝඨාට හරිම ඛයයි කියලා. මංගල කීවා HE IS TERRIED OF GOTABAYA RAJAPAKSE”.  සුමන්තිරන් කිව්වා “මම ගෝඨාට හරිම බයයි, ඔහු ආවොත් දෙමල යෙපි යිවරයි, ෂිංගලයෝ පරදන්න සජිත්ට ජංදෙ දෙන්න කීවා.

දැන් ජනපති ගෝඨාභය, කොරෝනා හැදෙන දෙමල මුස්ලිම් ලෙඩ්ඩුන්ට ඛෙහෙත් නොදී මැරෙන්ට  අරිනවාද?  ඉංදියාවේ වගේ පොලීසිය දාලා අසරන මිනිසුන්ට ගහනවාද? මහ පාරේ ජනතාව හාවෝ පන්නනවද?  වි ශ්ව විද්‍යාල ලමයින්ට කදුලුගෑස් වතුර බවුසර ගසා එලවනවාද?

ගෝඨා තවමත් යකෙක්ද? මිනීමරු වෙක්ද? නැතුව බෝධිසත්ව පෙරුම් පුරණ ධර්මිෂ්ඨ රාජය පාලකයෙක්ද?

එසේත් නැතිනම්, නිවන් සුවය ලැබීමට උරුම ලත්, එහෙත් අවියත් වියත් ජනතාවගේ දුක සමනය කිරීමම අරමුණු කරගෙන නිවන් මගට පිවිසීම  පුරමාද කරගන්නා අයෝමය පුරුෂයෙක්ද?

By M D P DISSANAYAKE

The general public was not scared of Mahinda Rajapakse.  For children, Mahinda was an Appachchi”. If not he was Mahinda Mama.

For some others, Mahinda was a Thug. Equally for some Mahinda was Shrewd Man”.   If not Mahinda was a Boss. If not for others, Mahinda was a person who delivered the goods”.   By and large,  Mahinda is still a King for the nation.

But the general public was not exactly aware of what Gotabaya will do if he is given the powers of Executive Presidency. They were not sure exactly as to what type of person Gotabaya was, as he lived a quiet and frugal life, in Sri Lanka or overseas.  Therefore, he was an unknown quantity to a great extent.

We all remember, how his opponents capitalized the Unknown Factor” to intimidate the general public. So they brought in the Fear” factor, the Fear for Gota  Bhaya.

Rajitha Senaratne said in Kandy I am very frightened of Gotabaya if he becomes the President:”.  Mangala Samaraweera said, HE IS TERRIFIED OF GOTABAYA”.   Sumanthiran said ” I am very scared of Gotabaya. If Gotabaya becomes President, we Tamils are finished. Therefore, to defeat Sinhalese, vote for Sajith”.

 But now, the President Gotabaya what he has done against Tamils and Muslims? Did  he deliberately ignore the Tamil and Muslim corona sufferers allowing them to die?

Did President Gotabaya give powers to Police to beat and force Rabbit Jumping  on the main street  to those who violated social distancing or curfew rules?

Did President Gotabaya use Water Bowsers and Tear Gas to disperse protesting University Students?

Is Gota  still a Devil? Or is he a Murderer?  Or is Gotabaya  a Compassionate  Leader, aspiring to achieve the status of a Bodhisatwa?

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

Sri Lanka has had several centuries-old traditions of rulers rigidly following the admonitions of the Maha Sanga on matters relating to the country and the people.  Even to go on a war they always seek the advice of the Maha Sangha.  However, this age-old tradition was completely obviated during the Sirisena/Ranil foreign and diaspora servile regime and it was from the Sambandan/Sumanthiran/Anura Kumara troika. the Thrishoola they sought guidance for everything. When the Maha Sanga of the Thrinikaya (the three chapters) vehemently opposed the adopting of a new constitution, the federal and secular constitution this Thrishoola disregarded their admonitions and said that it is the parliament that should decide on legislative matters and not monks in the temples who enjoy free meals and free Sivuru.

November 16^th has reversed this trend and the newly elected President is evidently making all attempts to take the country back to the value-based traditions based on Sinhala culture.  He made his Throne Speech from Anuradhapura, a tradition introduced by King Dutugemunu, and selection of this venue was widely criticized by the foreign servile elements.  Now, these foreign servile elements are attempting to create a chaotic situation demanding to re-convene the defunct and obsolete parliament which was dissolved by the President in accordance with powers vested in him by the constitution instead of helping the country to fight a global enemy dangerous than the terrorist war, which has deprived daily wage earners their income avenues, shop keepers to keep their shops closed and thereby lose income from their businesses and at the same time make several hundred thousand people who worked in these shops jobless, university and other students unable to continue with their studies, three-wheel, truck and school van drivers unable to seek hires and those employed in the private sector firms remain homebound without their salaries and with the uncertainty of their future employment opportunities. 

Despite over 80% of the people suffering these hardships the former MPs of the (Shameless Jabbering Bandits) SJB – Willi Lejja Naethi Waachaala Hora Thakkadiyo and their cohorts want only to convene the defunct parliament and make it functional to its full term so that most of the MPs in the SJB will not lose their pension rights regardless of people falling prey to the deadly Corona Virus. The reason for this hard stance being taken by the SJB in spite of associating with Corona control activities indicates that it is because this political grouping is completely under the minority elements such as Sumanthiran/Ganeshan/Champika/Rajitha/Hakeem and Bathiudeen who do not bother or care at all if people get killed from Corona.

Manusha Nanayakkara a well-known butterfly who allegedly got several hundred million rupees for deserting the UPFA and joining the then UNP, his original party, and who is also a pension loser,  has even threatened to bring an Impeachment against the President if he doesn’t convene the old parliament.   Does one wonder whether this butterfly has the least knowledge about what is meant by impeachment and terms and conditions applicable to it?

The Maha Sangha reminiscent of the tradition of the past has firmly demanded that the country should not be put in jeopardy by reconvening the old Parliament, They have that said no decision should be taken outside the Constitution. The Maha Sangha have expressed these views when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa enlightened them on the measures taken by the Government to control the spread of COVID-19 virus and their progress during a meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat on 24th April.  The Maha Sangha had also unanimously agreed with the decision not to convene the dissolved legislature.  Nayaka Theras of all three Chapters have said that they approve the conduct of the President and the Government. Ven. Niyangoda Vijithasiri Thera said the previous Parliament should take responsibility for the current financial crisis in the country. Ven. Thrikunamale Ananda Thera, the Maha Nayaka of the Amarapura Sri Dharmarakshitha Chapter, said that when looking at the initiatives taken by the President to prevent the spread of coronavirus as well as for the future, it is clear that there is a new vision being implemented in the country. Ven. Prof. Medagoda Abayathissa Thera was of the view that the measures implemented by the President to prevent the spread of the coronavirus could be an example for other countries in the world. “The young generation of the country and other various groups have invented many new products. ‘This is a golden opportunity for a better future’, the Thera further said. He also said that the Maha Sangha of the country will always support the steps taken by the President. Ven. Prof. Indugare Dhammarathana Thera presented a set of proposals comprising 12 points to make the Motherland secure. Ven. Dr. Diviyagala Yasassi Thera and Ven. Prof. TubulleSeelakkanada Thera pointed out the importance of creating an environment to celebrate the Vesak festival using electronic media while remaining at homes. It was decided to appoint a committee in this regard. The President explained the control of the spread, quarantine process, reliefs granted to people and future measures to revive the national economy. The support rendered by every segment of the society including health, security, and the entire state mechanism in the face of current challenges is enormous, President said. President stressing the necessity of a strong Parliament to fulfill the aspirations of the people bestowed on him with the landslide victory said that there are no Constitutional powers to reconvene the old Parliament but to convene a new one. President said that he expects to meet Maha Sangha regularly on the 3rd Friday of every month and expressed his anticipation of blessings and guidance of Maha Sangha as he stated in front of Ruwanweli Seya and during the assumption of office.

The President has said that he has given thought to change the current practice of useless and expensive election campaigns. He has made these remarks when be met with the Maha Nayake of Kotte Sri Kalyani Samagri Dharma Maha Sanga Sabha, Most Ven. Dr. Iththapana Dhammalankara Thera and His Eminence Dr. Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith at the Presidential Secretariat on Tuesday (28^th April).

At the meeting, His Eminence Cardinal Ranjith has observed that the time has come to deviate from election propaganda that is wasteful and spiteful and adopt a new political culture.

Meanwhile, Ven. Dhammalankara Thera has pointed out that some tanks and irrigation schemes have been neglected in areas where agricultural crops are cultivated.

President Rajapaksa has responded saying that funds will be allocated to renovate these tanks and irrigation canals from the next Budget.

The alleged holder of a doctorate purchased from an American degree shop and the one who suffers from a superiority complex and dreaming to make this country an extreme capitalist country, capitalist even than America,  Harsha de Silva has said that the Supreme Court interpretation would be necessary to prevent an unprecedented and unwarranted Constitutional crisis over President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s refusal to reconvene parliament ahead of the June 02 deadline to meet again in terms of the Constitution. Since this rogue Dr. has a steep lacuna about constitutional laws a detailed explanation about the legal aspects of the subject by Attorney At Law and the veteran journalist C, A.Chandre[rema, Sri Lanka’s nominee to be the Permanent Representative to UN office in Geneva will follow at the tail end of this article.  

Now let us see comments by reputed and experienced journalists and anti-government reactionary and foreign servile scribes on the so-called brewing constitutional coup to reconvene the defunct parliament, an attempt being made to give life to a dead horse. 

The well known investigative journalist Shenali Waduge states that calls to reconvene Parliament come from the same coterie of people who orchestrated regime change in 2015 capitalizing on a Presidential Election victory to bring to power a minority UNP government and place Ranil as PM without removing the sitting PM. She explains that a hurriedly cobbled ‘national government’ was created to dish out various roles to their co-partners who were made Opposition Leader and Chief Government Whip despite they being the minority of minority parties in the parliament and little needs to be said of the Black Sheep Speaker’s role in the drama that unfolded. She reminds that these crooks used every trick in the book to delay elections and prevent the holding of elections for 3 years. The parochial Election Commission showed little teeth in upholding the people’s right for elections throughout and when the former Speaker now declares I am bound to uphold judiciary’s decision’ that’s like the cat popping out of the bag before schedule! The spilling of intent warrants the government to be alert to all avenues this bandwagon is likely to take and the influences they are likely to make tapping their powerful friends overseas. The drawback this time may be the difficulty in handpicking some for overseas jaunts in view of COVID-19.

The PM’s statement on 18th April quite rightly pointed out how uncooperative the Opposition had been in helping support the Government with covid-19 and blocking every effort by the Government, therefore those that are appearing on youtube & talk shows claiming Parliament has to reconvene to lend support & to pass laws is all humbug and meant only to satisfy the international gallery.

What could Sri Lanka’s Parliament possibly do that is not currently being done by the Health Services and Armed Forces & Police involved in hands-on covid-19 operation by simply reconvening Parliament & spending Rs.7 million for a day’s Parliamentary sitting? The answer automatically comes in just picturing the scenario. Between January & August 2019, Parliament had convened 70 times and out of the 225 Members-only 51 attended over 60 sessions.

Rallying 225 MPs: A wasteful necessity?

The current calls to reconvene Parliament is to undo a major faux pas that has arisen as a result of submitting separate nominations. With UNP still to announce who will lead UNP for the General Elections 2020, UNP-Ranil faction handed nominations separately and SJB-Sajith faction also handed separate nominations to contest all districts. What is likely to ensue from this is nothing but hara kiri and UNP votes is likely to get split and UNP may even lose its bloc vote. Having calculated the likely risk, the teams are obviously frantically pursuing all options to cancel nominations that closed on 19th March 2020. By reconvening Parliament, the nominations that closed will be null & void and if President again dissolves Parliament fresh nominations will be called and SJB will get buried and Sajith will return to UNP to contest under UNP.

South Korea held elections in April 2020 recording 66% turnout with 44m going to vote and the ruling party recorded the highest seats since 1987. South Korea has over 10000 covid-19 cases and 240 deaths. The US is also going to polls in November and already primaries are being held. The US has nearly 2 Mcovid-19 cases and over 53,000 deaths! With everyone realizing that they need a change in mindset post-covid it is essential that the politicians also adjust their ways and depart from the bad behaviors that have become part and parcel of their lifestyle as a politician. This is applicable to politicians/political parties of all colours. The corrupt and incompetent manner that was a hallmark of rule since 1978 can no longer continue.

An article written by Lawyer Chanaka Bandarahge, who has authored several books, explains the powers vested in the President under Articles 33(1)., 70 (7) and 150 (3) of the Constitution to face emergency situations and states that it is unnecessary to reconvene the Parliament and the government should concentrate on curbing the Corona Pandemic. He says that there is no public consensus for such a demand (reconvening the Parliament) and expresses the belief that any judicial action seeking to reconvene the Parliament is doomed to fail.

Lawyer Bandarage points out that owing to the President’s early dissolution of the Parliament 62 MPs lost their pension rights, as they failed to complete the full Parliamentary term of 5 years.  If the Parliament is reconvened now, those MPs may become eligible for pensions (if they manage to complete the full 5 years); as well as their salaries.  The daily cost of running Parliament is enormous. These will be a huge unnecessary drain on taxpayer funds.

He also points out that many of them have failed to vacate their parliamentary accommodation – bungalows, houses, and flats and there is no public consensus in holding the general election on 20 June 2020 as the people live in extreme fear of the Corona Pandemic.  They want the Government/Presidential taskforce to working full steam and take every possible action to eradicate the Pandemic. They are least concerned about an election and an election can be conducted only after the Corono Pandemic is successfully defeated; as currently seen, definitely not on 20 June 2020.

The former Chief Editor of the Observer newspaper Mr. H.L.D.Mahindapala (HLDM) states that each time the Rajapaksas win a legitimate mandate from the people the moralising mafia comes out howling mendaciously that it is going to be the end of democracy. Historical evidence, however, has debunked this canard of the hired fear-mongers. If the tumultuous post-independent years have proved anything, it is that the bitter battles to eliminate fascist dictators, whether they came from the South or the North, or from the Left as well as the Right, were fought and won by the fiercely independent Sri Lankans. The Rajapaksa brothers crushed the Northern fascists ending the biggest threat to democracy and regional stability. These leaders were forced to fight with fire. Despite the punditry of the moral purists they had no alternative.

Mahindapala stresses that the telling testimony of their role as defenders of democracy is in the longest-running war in living memory fought on Sri Lankan soil. The Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) fought it within a democratic framework, preserving one of the commendable welfare states that distributed social justice within its limited means and without any systemic discrimination thrust upon any community.

Despite the evidence staring in their faces, the moral mediocrities – synonymous with anti-Sinhala-Buddhist media critics — have rushed to pick on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, ever since he won the impossible victory projecting him as the latest manifestation of the ‘Rajapaksa dictatorial syndrome.’ They deliberately ignore that the greatest battle to restore democracy right across the nation was waged by the Rajapaksa brothers who dismantled decisively the killing machine of Tamil extremists. It was the greatest threat to peace, democracy, security, and stability of the whole of SAARC region, mainly India. By demolishing the one-man regime of the Tamil Pol Pot the Rajapaksa brothers had saved democracy, human rights, and regional stability more than Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu – picking just one of the fake human rights activists — and his mercenary mafia could ever imagine.

HLDM states that it was the victory of the Rajapaksas in the battlefield that put history back on its democratic tracks. Everyone can agree that they have provided a far superior political alternative to anything that the LTTE fascists could have ever offered to the nation. Besides, the peace they won restored the dignity, particularly of the Tamils’ basic political rights to act freely according to their political will and elect representatives of their choice. It was a right that either R. Sampanthan or Abraham Sumanthiram ever had under their Pol PotLeader.

The two brothers have restored the rights of all citizens of all communities to share the peace they won by eliminating Tamil tyranny from the political equation. As enunciated in the classic, Mahavamsa, the Rajapaksa brothers wrote their chapter in keeping with the historic mission of making the island a fit dwelling-place for men.” This is not hagiography written to boost the image of the Rajapaksas. This is to recognise in our time the hard facts that will fill the pages of historiography sooner or later.

But the moralising mafia, with their pretentious political prescriptions which have never worked to resolve any of the vexed issues of the nation, gang up to demonise the majority and their iconic figures.presenting the majority as the enemy of the minorities has been the political mantra on which they have survived.

The new Sinhala-Buddhist middle class, particularly the English-speaking, trousered elite in the mushrooming urban and village marketplaces, is the new force that rallied behind Gotabaya’s viyath maga. Armed with Facebook and Twitter, they had replaced the traditional native ‘pancha maha balavegaya of 1956.’ They rose in unison on November 19, 2019 to throw the neo-liberals of the West allied to the International Democratic Union (IDU) led by Ranil Wickremesinghe into the dustbin of history.

Attorney at Law and the leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya the former MP Udaya Gammanpila said that the President has no desire to hold an election amidst the pandemic.  He said that the prat-fallen opposition is making a baseless allegation that the President is very kenned to hold election despite the pandemic threat. 

Explaining the history of the Corona Virus spread in this country Mr. Gammanpila said that the first Covid-19 patient of this country was reported on 26^th January and that patient was fully recovered and left the hospital on 19^th February. When the President dissolved the parliament, there was no Covid-19 patient in Sri Lanka for the 35 days from 26^th January to 2^nd March. Accordingly, in the first opportunity that became available, the President dissolved the Parliament and it was on March 11th, 9 days after the dissolution a Covid-19 patient was reported. 

He said that it was not the President who decided to hold elections on 20^th June, but it was the Election Commission.  Mr. Gammanpila said that they have nothing to worry about even if the election was not held as it is a government of theirs that is in power, it is their President and their Prime Minister, and their Ministers who are ruling the country.  He further stated that they would definitely become victorious if an election is held at any time. 

Mr. Gammanpila alleged that it was the UNP that forced the election to be held amidst Corona.  It was the UNP that laid the condition that Parliament cannot be dissolved until it completes at least 4 ½ years.  Hence the President, after winning the presidency on 16th November was forced to wait until the arrival of the first opportunity to dissolve the Parliament.  Therefore the UNP should accept the responsibility of forcing an election amidst the Corona pandemic.

Norway bankrolled accidentally born Sinhalese Tamil jingoist Jehan Perera states that the government’s plans to have an early general election have suffered a setback with the decision of the Election Commission to have them on June 20 and not on May 28 as the government had hoped for. The keenness of the government was such that the Health Minister even predicted that by April 19, the crisis would be under control with the inference that an election campaigning would not be a problem. The example was given of South Korea, which held its general election in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. This may not have been a fair comparison as the combination of early voting and electronic voting in South Korea will not be possible in Sri Lanka at its present stage of economic development.

He says that the situation in Sri Lanka continues to remain better than in most other countries due to the strict actions taken by the government to lock down the country. However, the continuing coronavirus spread makes it more likely than not that even the later date of June 20 will also not be practicable. At the present time, the coronavirus acceleration has got even higher than it was on March 19 when the Election Commission decided that the original date of the general elections, set for April 25 by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was too soon to safely conduct free and fair elections.

This Tamil jingoist says that the unexpected rise in the number of coronavirus detections has led the government to reconsider its plans to end the long-running curfew in all parts of the country and instead to clamp it down once again. The sudden discovery of large numbers of coronavirus cases within the military who have been at the forefront of the anti-coronavirus campaign has been a shocking blow to public confidence. Consequently, there is very little enthusiasm or support for early elections from the general public. Most of them would prefer if the government set aside the money for the election to give subsidies and direct assistance to the vast masses of people who are experiencing great hardship without having been able to work for their living for over a month.

He on his visualization claims that until late last week government leaders were continuing to insist that the elections would be held on June 20 with the possibility of the election being held in stages, beginning with the least affected districts. However, President Rajapaksa appears to be more circumspect and aware of the issues of governance according to the constitution that he faces with regard to the elections. The president has stated that it is the independent Election Commission that has to decide the date on which the elections will be held. He said that the Election Commission has the right to hold the election appropriately under the present circumstances and if they want, they can take several days for the election. He also said that he was not going to pressure the Election Commission to hold or postpone elections.

The president has also stated that according to the Constitution, the new parliament should meet within three months after the dissolution of the Parliament. This is a constitutional requirement which, if not adhered to, would give rise to a constitutional crisis. If this crisis is to be averted the last date for the new Parliament to be convened is 2 June. The question is what is to happen now that the election is only scheduled to be held on June 20 so that a new parliament cannot be convened on June 2. Finally, this Jingoist also parrots the opposition demand that the best constitutional option available to the president is to re-summon the parliament he dissolved on March 2 by rescinding his proclamation that dissolved it.

To be continued………………..

 

Neville Ladduwahetty

M. J.M, in response to my article of April 08, states, “Taking refuge in the inadequacies of the law, to justify the said presidential pardon, is hypocrisy…. Here, the law did not fail. The prosecution did.” I am not sure whether it is only the prosecution that failed. Since the law did not fail, let us start with the law, and its application and interpretation.

As mentioned in my article of April 8, The Supreme Court ‘set aside’ counts one to 10 and stated that, “What remains are counts 11 to 19 which are based on vicarious liability, or common intent.”

What is ‘Common Intent’? Given below are the opinions of two former Chief Justices as to what is meant by Common Intent, in law.

Queen v. Vincent Fernando, Basnayake, J. has stated as follows, “A person who merely shares the criminal intention, or takes a fiendish delight in what is happening, but does no criminal act in furtherance of the common intention of all, is not liable for the acts of the others. To be liable, under Section 32, a mental sharing of the common intention is not sufficient, the sharing must be evidenced by a criminal act. The Code does not make punishable a mental state, however wicked it may be, unless it is accompanied by a criminal act which manifests the state of mind. In the Penal Code the words which refer to acts done extend also to illegal omissions.

Ariyaratne v. Attorney-General. (2) In that case G.P.S.de Silva, C.J. has reiterated that the inference of common intention must be not merely a possible inference, but an inference from which there is no escape’. The facts revealed that the principal witness speaks only of the presence of the Appellant at the scene. The Appellant had thrown a stone at the deceased and uttered the words “This is what you deserved”. This utterance was at a stage when two other Accused had attacked the deceased with a sword i.e. the evidence against the Appellant was the incriminating words uttered by him and throwing of a stone. Which in fact has not been mentioned to the Police, or non-summary inquiry. The learned Chief Justice has held that the prosecution was left only with the presence of the Appellant at the scene, and therefore a conviction on the basis of a common intention by the jury, was clearly unreasonable, having regard to the evidence.

It is clear, from the above, that Common Intent has two components. One, that ‘sharing of common intent’ is not enough. The second is that the Common Intent has to be followed by an ‘evidenced criminal act’. There was no evidence to establish that the former Corporal Rathnayake was part of a criminal act, even if he took part in sharing a common intent. Furthermore, the fact that four others who perhaps participated in a common intent were acquitted for whatever reason, means that the planning and execution of the criminal act was all done by Rathnayake; a fact the Court found “impossible or highly improbable”. This is the paradox that I referred to, which M.J.M. cannot objectively comprehend.

Although M.J.M. may find such conclusions frustrating, because as he states: “it’s an open and shut case where all the accused seemed responsible for those barbaric killings”. This is not “wriggling out of legal loopholes.” This is the law and how it is interpreted, notwithstanding its inadequacies. To call it hypocrisy, is to insult the evolution of Law over the centuries; the very laws M.J.M. may someday find refuge in to address a personal grievance.

Courtesy The Daily News

Deputy Inspector General of Police Ajith Rohana said that out of 31 main Covid-19 clusters identified across the island, only four clusters still remain active.He said that according to the government intelligence service information, the total number of Covid-19 patients has been reported from 31 clusters, since the first Covid-19 infection was reported in Sri Lanka.

“Of those 31 clusters, only 4 clusters are currently operational. Out of those 4 clusters, three clusters are on the verge of becoming inactive. Therefore, people’s corporation is essential to control this situation,” he said.While addressing the media briefing at the National Operation Centre of Prevention of Covid-19 outbreak, he said that out of 649 cases which were reported, 14 cases were of drug addicts.

DIG Rohana said that the cluster from Suduwella in Ja-Ela was a special one and that drug addicts were main reason for the spread of virus in that cluster.”The number of clusters should be minimized and the people should assist to control this situation,” he said.

He also said that so far the Police had arrested 42,365 individuals and 11,000 vehicles for curfew violations and within the last 24 hours about 500 people have been arrested for curfew violations across the country.”In the past six hours, 264 persons have been arrested in the Western Province and Puttalam District,” DIG said. (Yoshitha Perera)

Courtesy The Daily News

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said the spread of COVID-19 is under control in general, and that immediate remedial steps have been taken following the sudden spike in recent positive cases, the President’s Media Division said.

President Rajapaksa said this in response to a query by the Acting Ambassador and Chargé d’affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Colombo, Hu Wei, when he called on the President at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday.

The Acting Ambassador inquired on the progress of current COVID-19 prevention activities in Sri Lanka. President Rajapaksa said the spread of the virus is under control in general. While explaining the reasons for the sudden spike in infections during the last few days, he said remedial steps have been taken immediately. (Lahiru Pothmulla)

Courtesy Adaderana

Sri Lanka has reported fifteen new recoveries from the COVID-19 virus, stated the Epidemiology Unit of Health ministry.

Accordingly, the total number of recoveries recorded in the country is 154.

Meanwhile, three more cases are added to the number of coronavirus cases identified from the country today (30).

Thereby, the tally of total coronavirus cases stands at 663, said the Ministry.

A total of 502 patients are currently under medical care at hospitals across the island, according to the Epidemiology Unit.

Seven COVID-19-related deaths have been reported in the country.

Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa states the parliament which has been dissolved cannot be reconvened.

The President has stated this yesterday (29) in response to the letter directed to him by opposition parties representing the dissolved government, urging the President to reconvene the parliament.

Secretary to the President P. B. Jayasundara, has written to former Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa informing him of the President’s response to their letter.

The letter reads that it is observed that the opposition parties disregard the need for an election and are engaged in a petty political process at a time when the entire state is focused on the health, social security and welfare of the people.

With all opposition parties accepting the dissolution of the parliament through their statement, the notification of dissolving the parliament is further consolidated, reads the letter.

Further, the President informs that there has been no situation that needed him to comply with Article 70 (7) of the Constitution.

ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂගේ උපදෙස් මත ජනාධිපති ලේකම්වරයා විසින් හිටපු විපක්ෂනායක වෙත යවන ලද සම්පූර්ණ ලිපිය පහතින්.

2020 අප්‍රේල් මස 29 වන දින

ගරු සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස මහතා
හිටපු විපක්ෂ නායක

ගරු ප්‍රේමදාස මැතිතුමනි,

විපක්ෂයේ ඒකාබද්ධ ප්‍රකාශය.

ඔබ විසින් 2020-04-26 දින ඉහත මැයෙන් ඉදිරිපත් කළ විපක්ෂයේ ප්‍රධාන දේශපාලන පක්ෂවල නායකයින්ගේ අදහස් හා අදාළ ප්‍රකාශය හා සබැඳේ.

එම ප්‍රකාශය අනුව නිරීක්ෂණය වන්නේ ප්‍රකාශයට අත්සන් තබා ඇති පාර්ශ්වයන් මැතිවරණය පැවැත්වීම අවශ්‍ය නොවන බවත්, කොවිඩ්-19 වෛරසය තුළ ජනතාවගේ සෞඛ්‍ය, සමාජ සුරක්ෂිතතාවය හා සුභසාධනයට උපරිම ලෙස සමස්ත රාජය තන්ත්‍රයම යොමු වී ඇති මේ අවස්ථාවේ පටු දේශපාලන ක්‍රියාවලියක නිරත වන බවත්, කොවිඩ්-19 රෝග නිවාරණය හා අදාළ කටයුතු වල නිරත වන සෞඛ්‍ය හා අනෙකුත් රාජ්‍ය සේවා, ත්‍රිවිධ හමුදාව, පොලීසිය හා පෞද්ගලික අංශයේ දැඩි පරිත්‍යාගශීලි කාර්යභාරය අගය නොකිරිමත් බව අතිගරු ජනාධිපතිතුමාගේ උපදෙස් මත දන්වනු කැමැත්තෙමි. අතිගරු ජනාධිපතිතුමා තවදුරටත් අවධාරණය කරනුයේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසිරීම එහි වසර 5ක කාලය අවසන්වීම තුළ හෝ ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසින් විසුරුවන අවස්ථාවක සිදුවන බවත්, ඒ අනුව 2020 මාර්තු මස 02 වන දින අතිගරු ජනාධිපතිතුමා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැර අති බවත්ය.

එම විසුරුවා හැරීම ඔබ විසින් ඉදිරිපත් කර ඇති ප්‍රකාශනයට අත්සන් කර ඇති සියලු පාර්ශ්වයන් පිළිගැනීමෙන් ද ඉහත සඳහන් විසුරුවා හැරීමේ නිවේදනයේ වලංගුභාවය තහවුරු වන බව දන්වන ලෙස මා වෙත නියෝග කර ඇත.

විසුරුවා හැර ඇති පාර්ලිමේන්තුව නැවත කැඳවිය නොහැකි බවත්, 2020-03-02 වන දින අති විශේෂ ගැසට් පත්‍රය මගින් ප්‍රකාශයට පත්කළ විසුරුවා හැරීමේ නිවේදනය අනුව 2020-04-25 දින මැතිවරණය පැවැත්විය යුතු බවත්, ඉන්පසු මැතිවරණ කොමිෂන් සභාව විසින් 2020-06-20 දින මැතිවරණය පැවැත්විය යුතු බවත් නිවේදනය කර ඇති බව දන්වන ලෙස ද මා වෙත උපදෙස් ලැබී ඇත. තවද, ආණ්ඩුකම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 70(7) අනුකූලව කටයුතු කිරීමේ අවශ්‍යතාවයක් මතුවී නොමැති බවද අතිගරු ජනාධිපතිතුමා ඔබ වෙත දන්වන ලෙස මා වෙත නියෝග කර ඇත.

මෙයට – විශ්වාසී,

පී.බී. ජයසුන්දර
ජනාධිපති ලේකම්

Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has considered the possibility of using digital technology as a medium to exchange data among the farmers, consumers, and suppliers, stated President’s Media Division.

Secretaries to the Ministries of Agriculture, Internal Trade, Consumer Welfare, Plantation Industries, and Export Agriculture and several other officials including officials of Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute held an explorative meeting at the Presidential Secretariat this afternoon (April 30).

At the meeting, the prospect of applying digital technology to a quick exchange of data to sell agro-crops from wholesale buyers to daily consumers was discussed in depth.

The mechanism is also expected to assist the farmers to easily compete to obtain a profitable price for their crops.

The President emphasized that anyone should be able to join this digital exchange via easily accessible, simple technology. The final objective is to create a self-sufficient Sri Lanka, President Rajapaksa further added.

Further, digital technology will connect Divisional Secretariats with each other, directly linking farmers and the buyer conveniently. It is expected to cut down the middleman and secure a higher profit for the farmer through this process.

This practice could also be used as a survey to examine the consumer needs of the Sri Lankan citizens, states PMD. 

The President added that the Sri Lanka Transport Board, the Railways, and the Postal Department should be incorporated in this digitalization process and its operations for transportation purposes.

Minister Chamal Rajapaksa and Secretary to the President, Mr. P.B. Jayasundera were also present at the discussion.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Cabinet of Ministers has approved the procurement of 150,000 metric tons of fertilizer to cultivate 523,000 hectares of land during the upcoming Yala Season, says the Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Bandula Gunawardana.

Speaking at the media briefing held this morning (29) to announce Cabinet decisions, the Minister revealed that an allocation of Rs. 10 billion will be made for this purpose.

The Cabinet has unanimously approved the provision of seeds, fertilizer and other financial allotments for cultivating lands in Yala Season, the Cabinet Spokesman said further.

He added that Minister of Agriculture Chamal Rajapaksa has submitted three cabinet papers with regard to this agricultural revolution.

A decision has been taken to distribute urea, phosphate and potash fertilizers to the farmers starting from May 20, Minister Gunawardana continued.

Speaking further, he said the government has imposed a guaranteed price for 16 crops including potatoes, onions, chilli, garlic and turmeric.

Govt will procure these crops from farmers if they are unable to sell the harvest for the guaranteed price in the market, Minister Gunawardana added.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

There are three categories of objects which are venerated by Buddhists, said historian Lorna Dewaraja. Firstly, the charred bodily remains of the Buddha which were collected and distributed after his cremation.   Secondly, objects which came in touch with the Buddha in his life time, such as the Alms Bowl and the Bodhi tree.  The third category is Buddha images.

The most important items in the first category are the Tooth Relic and the Collar Bone, both of which are enshrined in Sri Lanka. The history of the Tooth Relic is known. The ‘Dathavamsa’ says that when the remains of the Buddha were divided, after the cremation, among rival claimants,   the left Eye Tooth came to an Elder named Khema who took it to Dantapura in Kalinga where it was accorded the highest honour by the rulers of Kalinga. Kalinga is present-day northern Telangana, northeastern Andhra Pradesh, most of Odisha, and a portion of Madhya Pradesh .

For eight centuries the Tooth Relic remained undisturbed in Dantapura.  In the 4 century AD the ruler of Dantapura, Guhasiva, who was a convert from Brahmanism to Buddhism, paid homage to the Tooth Relic. This angered the Brahmin priests who complained to their king, Pandu at Pataliputra who ordered that the Tooth Relic be brought to the capital.   The Tooth Relic came, but Pandu converted to Buddhism and the Tooth Relic was safe .Then Pandu was defeated in a battle with the king of Savaththi, who demanded the Tooth Relic. However, according to Dathavamsa, the Tooth Relic went back to Guhasiva.

Thereafter, the son of the king of Ujjain, who was an ardent Buddhist, came on a pilgrimage to Dantapura      bringing offerings to the Tooth Relic. Guhasiva gave his daughter Hemamali to him in marriage and appointed him ‘Dantarakkkhadhikari’ or custodian of the Tooth Relic.

Savaththi again sent a large army demanding the Tooth Relic. Guhasiva entrusted the Tooth Relic to his son- in- law and daughter and told them that if he lost the battle with Savaththi, to take the Tooth Relic to his friend, Mahasena, king of Sri Lanka, who had shown a great desire to possess it.

Guhasiva must have lost the battle and probably his life, said Dewaraja, for Danta and Hemamali brought the Tooth Relic to Sri Lanka.  They had travelled disguised as beggars and after many adventures had arrived at the port of Lankapattana situated in the Jaffna peninsula. They travelled to Anuradhapura and offered the Tooth Relic to the king.  By this time, King Mahasena had died and his son, Kirti Sri Meghavanna (301-308 AD), was king.  He was a contemporary of Emperor Samudragupta in India.

Culavamsa only gives one sentence to this event, observed Dewaraja.  Culavamsa simply says the Tooth Relic was brought to Sri Lanka during the time of King Kirti Sri Meghavanna. But there are other     writings which commemorate the event, particularly the ‘Dathavamsa’. The Dathavamsa was written in the 13 century, but it was based on an earlier work, ‘Daladavamsa’   which   was composed during the reign of Kirti Sri Meghavanna, at the express command of the king.

  Dewaraja says information in Dathavamsa can be taken as authentic.  The information agrees with conditions in India at the time. In India the Gupta period saw a powerful Brahmanic revival .But there were flourishing Buddhist centers too, and these had close religious ties with Sri Lanka. That is why Guhasiva wanted the Tooth Relic sent to Sri Lanka for safety.

Kirti Sri Meghavanna showed great reverence to the Tooth Relic. He placed it in an urn of pure crystal and deposited it in the Dhammachakka building, constructed by King Devanampiya Tissa on the palace premises. This building was then called the Temple of the Tooth Relic. Kirti Sri Meghavanna  held a  great festival for the Tooth Relic, for which he spent 900,000 kahapana. Dewaraja says the Tooth Relic went to Abhayagiri and not  Maha vihara, because Kirti Sri’s  father supported Abhayagiri and not Maha vihara. The son,  perhaps out of loyalty, did the same.

Kirti Sri Meghavanna  ordered that the Tooth Relic must be brought every year to Abhayuttara vihara (Abhayagiri vihara) and the festival be held there. The annual Tooth Relic perahera associated with Abhayagiri vihara continued throughout the Anuradhapura period, said Dewaraja. It was a spectacular event. Fa Hien who was in Anuradhapura in 410 AD has   left an account of the Tooth Relic perahera in Anuradhapura.

 Fa Hien said there were many noblemen and rich householders living in the city. The houses of the merchants are beautifully adorned. The streets and passages are all smooth and level. There are fifty or sixty thousand priests in the country.  At the head of the four principal streets there are Preaching halls. On the 8, 14 and 15 days of the month they hold bana preachings.

They always bring out the Tooth Relic in the middle of the third month, continued Fa Hien.  Ten days before hand, the king magnificently caparisons a great elephant, and commissions a man of great eloquence, dressed in royal apparel and riding on the elephant to sound a drum and proclaim a statement about the greatness of the Buddha.

‘After ten days the Tooth Relic will be brought forth and taken to Abhayagiri vihara,’ the announcer said.  ‘let all ecclesiastical and lay persons within the kingdom who wish to lay up a store of merit , prepare and smooth the roads, adorn the streets and high ways,  let them scatter every kind of flower and offer incense in religious reverence to the Relic.”

Dewaraja summarizes the above account. The King commissions an officer riding a gaily caparisoned elephant to announce the fact that the Tooth Relic will be brought from the city to the Abhayagiri vihara and kept for ninety days for the public to worship.

Fa Hien,   continued his description, saying, the king next causes to be placed on both sides of the road representations of the     500 bodily forms which the Buddha assume during his births, such as elephant and antelope. These figures are all beautifully painted in diverse colors and have a very life like appearance.   Then the Tooth Relic is brought forth and conducted along the principal road. As they proceed religious offerings are made to it.

 When the Tooth Relic arrives at Abhayagiri vihara, they place it in the Hall of   Buddha, where the clergy and laity all assemble in vast crowd and burn incense,   light lamps and perform many religious ceremonies both night and day without ceasing. After ninety days they again return it to the Vihara. This vihara is thrown open on the chief holidays for the purpose of religious worship,” concluded Fa Hien.  

Dewaraja observes that this shows that Kirti Sri Megavanna’s order was followed even hundred years later. Fa Hien said the Tooth Relic was taken out in the middle of the third month, this will be Esala added Dewaraja.

 The Tooth Relic continued under the protection of the king. In AD 428 king Mahanama had sent a letter to the Sung Emperor in China together with a model of the Tooth Relic as a sign of friendship.

King Dhatusena (455-473) showed great devotion to the Tooth Relic. He repaired the temple and   had a casket made for the Tooth Relic with a ‘halo’ made of closely fitting mosaic thickly set with precious stones. Aggabodhi I (571-604) decorated the temple and built a golden reliquary with brightly gleaming precious stones. Sena II (853-887) held a glittering festival of the Tooth Relic.

Dewaraja points out that  in this time, several persons, kings and nobles have  the Pali word Datha’ or the Sinhala word ‘Dala’ which  mean ‘tooth’, attached to their names, such as Dhatusena,  Dathapabhuti ( 531AD) Dala Mugalan ( 531-551) Dathopa Tissa ( 639-650) Hattadatha (659-667).

The Chinese traveler, Hiuen Tsang   who came to  the island in  629 AD reported  , that beside the  king’s palace was the Temple of the Tooth, which was  decorated with all kinds of gems which dazzled like the sun and above the  temple at considerable height  was fixed a great ruby that shone with brilliant light,

Dewaraja observed that in Anuradhapura the Tooth Relic had to compete with other shrines such as the Sri Maha Bodhi and the Maha thupa.  When the capital shifted to Polonnaruwa only the Tooth Relic could be taken there. The Tooth Relic became the sole object of worship In Polonnaruwa and this continued in all the other capitals to which the Sinahla monarchy moved after that.

Dewaraja also observed that by about the 12th century, the Dalada came to be regarded as the symbol of royalty and its custodian was destined to wear the crown. So deep rooted was this belief in the minds of the public that in 1818 the capture of the Tooth Relic by the British, quite by accident, marked the end of the rebellion.

The Polonnaruwa kingdom   faced an invasion of the Tamil  Cholas, who ruled there for   seventy years. When the Cholas invaded    Sri Lanka, the bhikkhus took the Tooth Relic and fled to Ruhuna in the south. The Tooth Relic returned to Polonnaruwa when Vijayabahu I (1055-1110) chased away the Cholas and started to rule from Polonnaruwa.

 Vijayabahu built a beautiful costly temple for the Tooth Relic and   instituted a permanent great festival for the Tooth Relic.  Vijayabahu also obtained a fresh upasampada from Burma as the Sangha had declined in his kingdom. In return King Anaurata asked for the Tooth Relic. Vijayabahu sent a replica.

According to the Culavamsa, Vijayabahu’s son Vikramabahu plundered the treasures offered to the Tooth Relic by devotees. The bhikkhus, thoroughly alarmed, once again  hid the Tooth and Bowl relics, taking them from place to place to ensure their safety. The Tooth Relic ended up at Udundora and its custody passed into the hands of the princes of Ruhuna.

Parakrama bahu I (1153-1186) found that his rule was challenged because he did not possess the Tooth Relic when he took power. The Tooth Relic was still in Ruhuna in the care of Queen Sugala. In 1157 Parakrama bahu waged war against Ruhuna to get the Tooth Relic and the Bowl relic back. Ruhuna had planned to send the two relics abroad. Parakrama bahu gave express orders to his generals to capture the relics.  After a fierce battle led by Commander in chief Rakkha, the Ruhuna group were defeated. The army took possession of the two relics at Uruvela, southeast of modern Moneragala. They were sent to Polonnaruwa under strict security.

Culavamsa said that Parakrama bahu shedding tears of joy and with his hair standing on end walked eight miles to the river to take charge of the relics. He held a grand festival then and there. He left the relic heavily guarded, and returned to the capital. He ordered a temporary pavilion for the exhibition of the Tooth Relic and a splendid edifice as a permanent home for the Tooth Relic.  The Tooth Relic was placed in a casket studded with costly gems. The casket was then placed inside a gold box.

Parakrama Bahu I held a festival for the Tooth Relic. .Culavamsa describes this festival. The king riding his favorite elephant  accompanied by his courtiers on horseback, and hundreds of dancing girls and musicians, and surrounded by his people, carried the relics amidst the trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses, the clatter of chariot wheels, the rattle of drums and the cries of victory of the bards.’ Dewaraja notes that the king’s procession as described in the Culavamsa has a martial note to it. It includes all four components of war fare, elephants, cavalry, charioteers and infantry.

Culavamsa says torrential rains fell at that time, though it was not the monsoon season. Dewaraja observed, this is one of the reasons the Tooth Relic is of such importance to the king. As custodian of the Tooth Relic he could play the role of rain maker which is vitally important in an agricultural society. Even today, she says,   it is believed that rain will fall when the relic is taken in procession.

Nissanka Malla (1186-1197) also looked after the Tooth Relic. He built for it the temple known today as Hatadage. He made several offering to the Tooth Relic, including his own son and daughter whom he then redeemed by paying the price of a golden Dagoba to the relic. Dewaraja observed that this custom is followed today.  Parents place their new born children before the Relic chamber in the Dalada Maligawa in Kandy and then buy them back by paying whatever they can.

 King Kalinga  Vijayabahu, known as  Magha, ruled from 1215 to 1236. He was against Buddhism and destroyed Buddhist monuments. Therefore, the Sangha, headed by Ven. Vacissara took the Tooth Relic to Malaya rata and buried it in a mountain for safety, reported Culavamsa. In the latter part of Magha’s rule, Vijaya bahu III (1232-36)  was also ruling at Dambadeniya.

  His son, Parakrama bahu II (1236-1270)  rescued the Tooth Relic and took it to  Dambadeniya,. He   held a grand festival and built an edifice for it near the Palace.  He is said to have offered his 64 ornaments including his diadem and bracelet to the Tooth Relic. He wanted his son to take the Tooth Relic back to Polonnaruwa. But his son Vijayabahu IV took it to Yapahuwa, which he made his capital.

Chandrabanu of Ligor invaded Sri Lanka at this time to obtain relics, presumably the Tooth Relic.  Ligor was another name for Nakon si Thammarat, in present day Thailand. In the Vat Hva Vian inscriptions datable to 1230 .Chandrabanu is identified at king Siridhamma of Dhammarajanagara. Dhammaraja nagara has been identified as Nakhorn si Thamarat, and the ruler has been identified as the Chandrabanu who invaded Sri Lanka.   Chandrabanu  invaded twice and the second time he is said to have lost his life, according to Culavamsa.

There was a Pandya outpost in Jaffna during this time headed by Ariyachakravarti. Ariyachakravarti successfully invaded Yapahuwa, in the time of king Buvaneka bahu 1 (1272-84), captured the Tooth Relic and sent it to the Pandya king Kulasekhera who was ruling in Madura in present day Tamilnadu.

Parakrama bahu III (1287-93), who succeeded his father, Buvaneka bahu 1, went to Madura, spoke to Kulasekera and brought back the Tooth Relic. This diplomatic achievement has not received the applause it deserved. Parakrama bahu took the Tooth Relic to Polonnaruwa as his father had wanted.

In the meantime, the reputation of the Tooth Relic had spread across Asia and Chinese emperor Kublai Khan sent an embassy to the Sinhala king asking for the Tooth Relic and Bowl relic. At that time the two relics had gone to Madura. Kublai Khan then sent an embassy to Madura, but by then, the relic had come back to Sri Lanka.

The next king Buvaneka bahu II (1293-1302), established his capital at Kurunegala and took the Tooth Relic there. Parakrama bahu IV (1302-1326) known as Pandita Parakrama bahu also ruled from Kurunegala.  “Dalada sirita” was written by Devrad in 1326 during the reign of this king. Dalada Sirita” said that festivals of the Tooth Relic should be held to obtain rain.

Dalada sirita” described the ritual connected with the Tooth Relic and also how the king should behave towards it. When the king enters the Temple of the Tooth he should leave his retinue outside, clean the room and reverently pay homage to it, said Dalada Sirita.

Dalada sirita” also said that when a king went to reside in a new palace the Tooth Relic  should be brought accompanied by  the Sangha, reciting pirit and sprinkling  sacred water. The temple was to function as a sanctuary and those who entered it enjoyed immunity. Any money taken from the temple,   due to economic difficulties, should be returned with interest within six months.

According to “Dalada sirita” every year the Tooth Relic was taken in procession around the capital and exhibited to the public. For seven days preceding the date fixed for the procession, special offerings were made to the Tooth Relic, with the king, the high dignitaries of the state and the public taking part.

After morning service on the 7^th day the relic was taken out and paraded along the streets of the city. The casket containing the Tooth Relic was taken out in the presence of the head of the Uturumula   sect of the Abhayagiri vihara.

The casket was then placed on an ornamental chariot which was yoked to a gaily decorated elephant. Sacred water was sprinkled on the streets. In front of the chariot walked members of the Sangha, each one holding a string of protection, tied to the chariot, chanting pirit. Officials attached to the temple of the Tooth, palace officials and detachments from the army followed. After this the casket was opened and the relic exhibited to the public.

The next king, Buvanekabahu IV (1341-51) moved his capital to Gampola and the Tooth Relic went to Gampola. The only information available for this period is that the Tooth Relic was housed in the Niyamgampaya Maha vihara.

The capital then shifted to Kotte. Parakrama bahu VI (1412-1467) set up his capital there. The literature of  the time say that he built a splendid three storey mansion to house the Tooth Relic near his palace.

The Chinese emperor Yung Lo (1402 – 1424) asked   Cheng Ho, the admiral of the  Chinese fleet, to try and get the Tooth Relic from Sri Lanka, when his ship docked there. There was a clash between Cheng Ho and the chief officer of the king, Vira Alakesvara, during Cheng Ho’s  two visits to Sri Lanka ,  the last of which was in 1412.  Cheng Ho was unable to get the Tooth Relic. The Tooth Relic never went to China. It stayed in Sri Lanka.

The Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka in 1509 and eventually took control of Kotte ruling it through king Dharmapala. The Portuguese were hostile to Buddhism. They had come to spread their    religion, Christianity (Roman Catholic) to Sri Lanka. Due to this, the Sangha fled from Kotte, taking with them the Tooth Relic which they hid in a grinding stone in the Delgamu vihara in Sabaragamuwa.  Records indicate that during this time, King Bayinnang ( 1551-1581) of Myanmar sent offerings to the Tooth Relic , and showed great concern for its safety.

When the Portuguese  took over  the Kotte kingdom, the Sinhalese moved the Sinhala kingdom to  the Udarata. Vimaladharmasuriya I (1592-1604) the first ruler of Udarata kingdom, rescued the Tooth Relic from Delgamu vihara. He built a splendid two storied relic house  near his palace and placed the  Tooth Relic there.

The Udarata kingdom was a huge kingdom, extending from the western shore to the eastern shore and including the ports of Kalpitiya and Trincomalee. The Portuguese and the Dutch possessions in Sri Lanka in the south west, were small in comparison. (See map no 4 in KM de Silva ‘History of Sri Lanka ‘)

The Udarata kingdom never went under the rule of either the Portuguese or the Dutch. The Udarata kings such as Rajasinha II were feared by them. The Tooth Relic continued to stay safely in the Udarata.

The Udarata capital, Senkadagala was   attacked several times by the Portuguese and the Dutch. Whenever this happened the Sangha took the Tooth Relic away from the capital Senkadagala  and hid it. During the rule of Senerat when the Portuguese invaded, the Tooth Relic was hidden in  Pansiyapattu in Dumbara. Pansiyapattu had impenetrable forests,   mountains and rivers. The public there  were  ‘made to protect the relic’.

Vimaladharmasuriya II (1687-1707) was very religious. He held a festival of the Tooth Relic  built a three storied palace and golden reliquary inlaid with precious stones . Hs son, Narendrasinha, rebuilt the palace his father had built for the Tooth Relic and had thirty two jatakas tales painted on the two walls of the courtyard. Reported the Culavamsa.

 The next king came from Andhra Pradesh,  India. He was Sri Vijaya Rajasinha ( 1739-1747). According to Culavamsa, he became a Buddhist  and patronized Buddhism . He  refurbished the Dalada Maligawa ,  organized  a grand festival in honour of the Tooth Relic and displayed the relic to the public.

 King Kirti Sri Rajasinghe (1782- 98) is remembered today as the king who combined the Dalada perahera with the annual procession held in Senkadagala for the Hindu gods, Pattini, Kataragama and Vishnu. I think that the Natha devale perahera would also have joined this collection of peraheras  once the Dalada Perahera  came in. Natha  is not a Hindu god. Natha is  a Mahayana deity, the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. The Esala perahera which continues to this day in Kandy, started in the  time of Kirti Sri Rajasinghe.

The last King of the Udarata kingdom, Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe added the Pattirippuwa to the Dalada Maligawa. This is today, the most conspicuous part of the Maligawa. During the reign of Sri Wickrema, in 1815, the British took the Udarata kingdom. The Sangha once again took the Tooth Relic away from Senkadagala for safety. After considerable persuasion, they surrendered the Tooth Relic to the British rulers. The Tooth Relic was brought back to the Dalada Maligawa in procession   in April 1815.

It was brought back in a  magnificent procession. This procession was conducted very correctly, said observers, not a single lapse. It is difficult to see how this could be. It had at least one alien element in it, the British representative John D’Oyly.

This perahera,  according to the description related by Dewaraja, was full of tusked elephants, grandly dressed,  in sets each of eight, six and five.  First came eight  elephants, followed by the  High priests, then Adigar Molligoda heralded by whip crackers and accompanied by other disawas, then came another five elephants with the Maligawa tusker in the middle, his tusks cased in gold. Then came John D’Oyly  followed by Ehelepola on a horse. The procession was a mile long. 

The Tooth Relic was handed over to the Sangha. D’Oyly was invited to join them in the relic chamber. D’Oyly accepted and said that the Governor, Robert Brownrigg wished to  make an offering to the Temple and  handed over  a beautiful musical clock. This was accepted with great delight by all present.

The keys of the casket containing the Tooth Relic were now given to D’Oyly. The Dalada perahera was held again in 1917 and there are two eye witness accounts of it, by John Davy, physician to the Governor and also by Milleva, former dissawe for Vellassa.

Then came the  rebellion of 1817 which was led by the ex-Bhikkhu Vilbave. He obtained possession of the Tooth Relic , which he had  secretly removed from Kandy, with the help of soldiers and some bhikkhus.  The British quelled the rebellion, took back the relic and in 1818 banned the Dalada perahera.  But after a prolonged drought, the British administration was persuaded to re-start the Perahera. The perahera was held   in 1828 under the patronage of the Governor.  There were torrential rains during the entire festival.

The British government was now the custodian of the Temple of the Tooth. And the Tooth Relic was in the custody of the Government Agent, Central Province.  The keys of the casket were with him. The temple officials were appointed by him. The temple lands continued to perform services for the Maligawa.

The Christian  missionaries in England were dead against the  British administration supporting Buddhism like this in Sri Lanka . Viscount Torrington was sent as Governor in 1847  with orders to de link the British administration from Buddhism . In October 1847, the Temple of the Tooth was handed over to a committee of two Bhikkhus and a chief, a decision which the Buddhists accepted with great reluctance, said Dewaraja.

Today, Dalada Maligawa is open to the public all through the year, every day.  But as far as I know, the only time the relic is presented for public exposure is the Esala Perahera.  The audience seated on the pavement watching the Perahera say ‘Sadhu Sadhu’ and bow before the Maligawa Tusker, as he moves along majestically carrying the karanduwa.

The Dalada Maligawa has various rituals including daily rituals.  There is the morning, noon and evening thevava, with drumming in the open area facing the relic chamber. The Maligawa is also the focus of the Alut sahal mangalyaya ceremony held in January at the commencement of the harvest. At an auspicious hour, the paddy set aside for the Maligawa from the new harvest is brought on an elephant and ritually offered to the Maligawa, which means it is offered to the sacred Tooth Relic.

The Sinhala   kingdom  and the Tooth Relic  would never have migrated to the central hills as it did, if not for the arrival of the Portuguese. The Sinhala king and the Tooth Relic ended up in the ‘Uda rata’ only because of the foreign occupation in the ‘Pahata rata’.

From the 13 century the seat of government was moving downwards as the East-West trade routes started operating near the island’s fat bottom. The great leap to Kotte from Gampola shows that the monarchy realized that they had to get to the southern coast fast.

I think that the capital city would not have stayed for long in Kotte either. It is not possible to rule the whole island from Kotte. The central hills are blocking. The capital city would probably have moved from Kotte to a permanent capital in Ruhuna from where it would have been easy to monitor the rest of the island, specially the east coast .The Tooth Relic would then have gone where it had not gone before, to Ruhuna.

 I have extensively used the text of The Kandy Asala Perahera” by Lorna Dewaraja (Vijita Yapa, 2018) for this essay and wish to make grateful acknowledgment.

චන්ද්‍රසිරි විජයවික්‍රම, LL.B.,Ph,D.

කොරෝනාව හරහා දියවන්නා හෝටලය, යහපාලන වැසිකිළියක් කරගන්නට දඟලන කූඨ සැලැස්මේ නායක හොරා ඒබ්‍රහම් සුමන්තිරන්‌ය. මොවුන්ගේ අළුත්ම ගේම් එක වනාහි ඕනෑම දේකට අත උස්සන්නම්, හෝටලයේ දොර ඇරලා දෙන්න යනුය. මීට හේතුව දැන් යුද හමුදාව මුරට දමා ඇති නිසා කලින් අරලියගහ මන්දිරයේ රනිල් හා තානාපතිලා කල සෙල්ලම මේ පාර කල නොහැකි නිසා යාඥාකර, පරාදෙට අකුලා ගෙන හෝ ඇතුලට රිංගා ගැනීමය. අන්තිම දවසේ ණය ගෙවීමට අතුරු සම්මත ගිවිසුම අනුමත කරන්නට අඩු තරමින් ජේවීපීකාරයින් වත් කැමැත්ත පලකලාද? ගිය වහාම මොවුන් කරන්නේ ඇමෙරිකන් තානාපති ප්ලෑන අනුව විශ්වාසභංගයක් ගෙන ඒමය. යම් හෙයකින් අධිකරණය කරු ජයසූරියට යතුර දුන්නත්, දැන් සිදුවන්නේ අසාත් සාලි-මුජිබර් රහමන්- මරික්කාර්ලා කදුළු ගෑස් කා ඉස්පිරිතාලයට යෑමය.

2005 ජනාධිපති චන්දයේදීද සරත් ෆොන්සේකා හෝටලයක් බදු අරගෙන කරන්නට සිතූ මොකක් හෝ දේ, යුද හමුදාව විසින් හෝටලය වට කිරීම නිසා බකල් වුනා මතකද? සුමන්තිරන්ලාගේ, කරු ජයසූරියලාගේ පොරොන්‌දු, අළුයම ලූ කෙලපිඬක් සේ ඉවත දැමිය යුත්තේ මොවුන් වංක පුද්ගලයින් නිසාය. ඩොනල්ඩ් ට්‍රම්ප් පවා අතට අත දීම වෙනුවට අයූබෝවන් කියන අදවැනි දවසක බටහිර තානාපතිලාට විෂ්ණු දෙවියන් රැක දෙන මේ ලංකාද්‌වීපය, ඊජිප්තුවේදී, ලිබියාවේදී හෝ යූක්‍රේන්හිදීමෙන් ජනයා දෙකට බෙදී මරාගන්නා රටක් බවට පෙරලා කල්ලමරේ කරගත හැකිද?

කණගාටුවට කරුණ නම් මොවුන් නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යය කරපින්නාගෙන, ඒ වෙනුවෙන් දිවි පුදනවා කියන අය වීමය. සුමන්තිරන් විසින් දින කීපයකට පෙර රංජන් රාමනායක වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිට ඔහුට ඇප දුන් පසු කල මාධ්‍ය ප්‍රකාශණයට අනුව හරි නම් උසාවියට අපහාස කලා යයි ඔහුව කොරෝනා හදිසි නීති යටතේ රිමාන්ඩ් කල යුතුව තිබුණි. ඒ ඇප දීම සුමන්තිරන් විස්තර කලේ කොරෝනා හදිසි නීතිය, නීති විරෝධී නීතියක් නිසා මහේස්ත්‍රාත් රංජන්ට ඇප දුන් බවය. ඔහු ව්‍යංගයෙන් කිව්වේ, ජනයාට ඒත්තු ගන්වන්නට හැදුවේ ඔහුගේ මොළයෙන් ඔහු ගෝඨාභය ජනාධිපතිව දණ ගැස්වූවා බවය. මුළු රටේම කොරෝනා මර්‍ධන වැඩපිලිවෙල බාල්දු කර, හෑල්ලුවට ලක් කිරීමය. මේ ප්‍රකාශයෙන් මහජනයා තුල ඇතිවිය හැක්කේ මොන අන්දමේ ආකල්පයක්ද? දැන් 50,000 ක් වන නීති කඩන (කුඩු කාරයින්ද සමඟ) පිරිස තවත් වැඩි නොවන්නේද?

රංජන් කොරෝනා බඩු බෙදමින් කලේ යහපාලන දේශපාලනය බව වීඩියෝ බලන විට පෙනේ. එක අවස්ථාවක ඔහු බඩු බෙදීම අවසාන කලේ පාක්‍ෂික ගෙදරක දේශපාලන රැස්වීමක් තබා බැසිල් රාජපක්‍ෂටද මඩ ගසාය. ඔහු හරි ඥානවන්ත යයි රංජන් සිතයි. ඔහුගේ යටි වංක අරමුණ, හදවත ගලවා අතට දෙන ඔහුගේ වචන යටින් එලියට පණින බව රංජන්ට හා ඔහුගේ චැක් ගෝලයින්ට නොතේරේ. පාලිත තේවරප්පෙරුම හා සසඳන විට රංජන්ගේ වංක හැසිරීම හොඳටම පැහැදිලිය. පාලිතලා වගේ 100 ක් සොයාගෙන රට පුරා යැවීමට ජනාධිපති නියෝගයක් දෙන්නේ නම් කෙතරම් අගනේද? පක්‍ෂ දේශපාලන උගතුන්ට වඩා පාලිතලා රටට වටින්නේය.

සුමන්තිරන්ගේ ප්‍රකාශයට විරුද්‌ධව පොලිසිය උසාවියට ගියවිට, මහේස්ත්‍රාත් කියා සිටියේ තමන් රංජන්ට ඇප දුන්නේ පොලිස් හදිසි නීතිය නීති විරෝධි යයි සුමන්තිරන් ගෙනා තර්‌කය උඩ නොවන බවය. යමෙකුට ඇප දීමට හේතුවන නොයෙක් කරුණු ඇතැයි කියන මේ මහේස්ත්‍රාත් ඇප දුන්නේ මොන කරුණක් උඩ දැයි කිව්වාද? ඔහු සුමන්තිරන් කල මාධ්‍ය ප්‍රකාශය දැන ගත්තේ පොලිසිය ඔහු ඉදිරියට මෝසම ගෙනාවාට පසුව නම්, මෝසම සළකන වේලාවේ වත් සුමන්තිරන්ට ඔහු කල බොරු ප්‍රකාශය ගැන අවවාද නොකලේ සුමන්තිරන්ට බයේද? මේවා දෙස බලන විට සිතෙන්නේ සුමන්තිරන්ලාට නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යය යනු වෙසඟනක් නොවේද යන්නය. මොවුන් දියවන්නා හෝටලයට රිංගීමට දෙන බොරු පොරොන්දු සතපහකට වත් විශ්වාස නොකල යුතු මේ නිසාය. මොවුන් ගරු කරණ කෙහෙල්මල් නීතියක් හෝ ආධිපත්‍යයක් හෝ නැත.

Chanaka Bandarage

There is an argument being made that in accordance with Article 150 (3) of the Constitution the President has power to appropriate funds from the Consolidated Fund only until 20 April 2020; hence, the dissolved Parliament should be reconvened. This argument is wrong.

The writer states that in accordance with Article 150 (3), the President has power to raise such funds on his own accord, at least 14 -21 days after 20 September 2020 (which is 3 months+ from the date of the election on 20 June 2020 – the current scheduled date).

The 14 -21 days apply because the date of summoning the new Parliament happens after the lapse of such a number of days from the date of the election.

See especially the bold in Article 150 (3), both English and Sinhala versions below:

150(3)- Where the President dissolves Parliament before the Appropriation Bill for the financial year has passed into law, he may, unless Parliament shall have already made provision, authorize the issue from the Consolidated Fund and the expenditure of such sums as he may consider necessary for the public services until the expiry of a period of three months from the date on which the new Parliament is summoned to meet.’

150(3)- කිසියම් වර්ෂයක විසර්ජන පනත් කෙටුම්පත නිතිය බවට පත්වීමට පෙර ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසින් පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසිරුවා හරිනු ලැබූ අවස්ථාවක පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසින් රජයේ සේවාවන් සඳහා මුදල් වෙන් කර නොමැත්තේ නම් අභිනව පාර්ලිමේන්තුව රැස්වීමට නියමිත දින සිට මාස 3ක් ඉකුත් වන තෙක් රජයේ සේවාවන් සඳහා යම්කිසි මුදලක් අවශ්‍ය වෙතැයි ජනාධිපතිවරයා සලකයි නම් එම මුදල ඒකාබද්ධ අරමුදලෙන් නිකුත් කිරීමටත් වැය කිරීමටත් නියම කිරීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට බලය ඇත්තේය.”

Currently, the Opposition’s argument that the President’s financial power under Article 150 (3) ends on 20 April 2020 has merit.  This is because the Government has failed to set a date for the new Parliament to meet after the election. The Election Commission has set a date for the election (20 June 2020), but Article 150 (3) refers to the first date which the new Parliament meets. This has to be set by the President.

This is a major drawback on the part of the Government!

Thus, at the moment the 2 March 2020 gazette notification seems to be ineffective. Technically, the Opposition’s Petition should succeed.

Thus, what the Government must do is to immediately gazette such a first Parliament meeting date.

If they are slack, the Government will have to pay a huge price.

The Writer in his article dated 26 April 2020 (published in Lankaweb) stated that the proposed Petition before the Court is doomed to fail.  He standby his assertion.

Those who demand reconvening of the Parliament seeks a declaration from the Court that the President’s gazette notification dated 2 March 2020 issued under Article 70 (1) should be declared null and void. They have failed to substantiate their argument sufficiently and adequately. Their current argument that the election date mentioned in the gazette – 25 April 2020, and sitting date of the new parliament – 14 May 2020 are unachievable is a weak one.  The defective date for holding the election has already been cured by the Election Commission by proclaiming a new election date of  20 June 2020. The Government should soon gazette the first date that the new Parliament meets.

The only way to mount a proper challenge that the Parliament must be immediately reconvened is to allege that given the dangerous Corona Pandemic, the President has failed to exercise his discretion in relation to Articles 70 (1) and 70 (7) in good faith.  But, the Opposition’s proposed Petition does not raise this.

Article 70 (1) – The President may by Proclamation, summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament.

Article 70 (7) – If at any time after the dissolution of Parliament, the President is satisfied that an emergency has arisen of such a nature that an earlier meeting of Parliament is necessary, he mayby Proclamation summon the Parliament which has been dissolved to meet on a date not less than three days from the date of such Proclamation and such Parliament shall stand dissolved upon the termination of the emergency or the conclusion of the General Election, whichever is earlier.

Note mayin both Articles. That suggests the President’s power is discretionary (not mandatory). 

The exercise of a discretionary power is subject to judicial challenge.

The following are grounds of review that could be relied upon (they are set out herein only for academic purpose):

                     (a)  taking an irrelevant consideration into account in the exercising of the discretionary power (showed the desire to dissolve the Parliament early and hold early elections disregarding the danger of Corona Pandemic (breach of Article 70 (1);

                     (b)  failing to take relevant considerations into account in the exercise of the discretionary  power (the dangerous Corona Pandemic has created an Emergency situation in the country, and during the Corona Pandemic the government is ought to be present in the Parliament to answer to the people (breach of Article 70 (7).  Refuses to reconvene the dissolved Parliament (breach of Article 70 (7));

                     (c)  exercise of the discretionary power for a purpose other than a purpose for which the power is conferred (dissolved the Parliament disregarding the Corona Pandemic and set down a date for early elections with the view of securing an absolute parliamentary majority (breach of Article 70 (1). Refuses to reconvene the dissolved Parliament (breach of Article 70 (7));

                     (d)  exercise of a discretionary power in bad faith (dissolved the Parliament and set down a date for holding elections during a deadly Corona Pandemic that is likely to expose the public to unnecessary risk including death (breach of Article 70 (1). Refuses to reconvene the dissolved Parliament (breach of Article 70 (7));

                     (e)  exercise of the discretionary power in accordance with a rule or policy without regard to the merits of the particular case (dissolved the Parliament disregarding the importance of upholding ‘representative democracy’ – the Government is answerable to people through the Parliament during an Emergency (breach of Articles 70 (1) and 70 (7). Refuses to reconvene the dissolved Parliament (breach of Article 70 (7));

                     (g)  exercise of the discretionary power that is so unreasonable that no reasonable President could have so exercised the power (the Government is committed to explain to the public through the Parliament about distribution of food/how essential services would operate during the curfew, social distancing measures/conduct of PCR tests, receipt and disbursement of very large foreign/local aid/funds etc (breach of Article 70 (7).  Refuses to reconvene the dissolved Parliament (breach of Article 70 (7));

                     (h)  exercise of the discretionary power in a way that constitutes abuse of the power (breach of Articles 70 (1) and 70 (7)).

Chanaka Bandarage

Rap music evolved around 1960s from hip hop music. It involves delivering existing songs in hip hop style, rock rhythms and fast beats.

Sri Lanka’s current young performers are heavily involved in rapping music (songs).  By doing so, they do a great disservice to our highly respected, old, established songs.

Dhanno Budunge is such a song. It was written by John De Silva in early 20^th century (precisely in 1903). The first singer is unknown. Some say it was the song writer himself. In 1940s and 1950s Rupasinghe Master sang it brilliantly.

Dhanno Budunge was first released as a LP record under ‘His Master’s Voice’ label in late 1950s. The cassette, CD, DVD, MP3 versions later emerged.

Dhanno Budnuge has been played in Sinhala homes with devotion to Lord Buddha and Anuradhapura, the ancient city. The song has nobility, impeccability and perfection.

Even Dhanno Budunge has been rapped. It has been sung by artistes over different pop vocal deliveries/beats. The writer has been told that there had existed baila versions of Danno Budunge.

By rapping our highly respected, oldish songs like Danno Budunge with cynical/ulterior intention, these artistes not only cause disrespect to the song but also to our traditions, customs and heritage.

Dhanno Budunge is not a song that should be sung in a baila beat to dance.

Amazing Grace is sung devotionally in Anglo Saxon countries since late 18^th century. There is so much respect shown to this song in those countries. They would never allow it to be rapped.

Another similar song is Australia’s Waltzing Matilda. It is protected in that country as a National Treasure.

In 1960s and 1970s Sri Lanka produced brilliant and finest singers and musicians.  Rapping music (songs) was never done by them. They created their own, original, authentic  music. Sunil Shantha, CT Fernando, Amaradeva, Victor Rathnayake, Nanda Malini, Milton Mallawarachchi, Clarence Wijewardane, MS Fernando, Anton Jones, Freddie Silva, Sanath Nandasiri, TM Jayarathne, Abeywardane Balasuriya, Dyarathne Ranathunge, Amara Ranathunga, Chitra Somapala and Anula Bulathsinhala come to mind.

The importance is that the highly respected artistes never stole others’ songs to create their own. It is true that Amaradeva too sang Dhanno Budunge. But, that was alright.  He never tried to own it.  Furthermore, he did not disturb the song’s originality, seriousness and sacredness.

Unarguably Victor Rathnayake has produced some of the best music of our time. He is a living legend. He must receive the State’s patronage. The remarkable thing is that at nearly 80 years of age he continues to produce brilliant masterpieces. His most recent  මගේ සඳ ඇවිත්,  නිවී සැනසිල්ලේ and හිතින් යන අය are examples. If  he sings someone else’s song (very rarely), he would always mention the original artiste’s name.

We have highly talented young artistes today. Some of the music that they have created is most outstanding and marvelous.

But, sadly there are many that tend to sing old, favourite songs. They think that this is the only way to become popular. This inhibits their creativity. They should try to make their own quality songs/music.

On  two different aspects –

(1) Dancing to famous old tunes has become a new norm; veteran artistes in gala shows, children in school concerts commonly do this. They dance beautifully wearing incredible costumes. Often, they demonstrate superb choreography. The writer is not saying that this is bad, but it is good if new music is also created. Rather than dancing to old songs/old beats with new words/Hindi songs; performers should try to dance to new songs/music either created by themselves or others. This is how a culture is progressed. As stated earlier there is enormous new talent today. In olden days children performed in school concerts of their own creations (songs, acts/dances); later in life they ended becoming highly talented artistes.   Even in ‘Handa Mama’ today, children tend to recite old children songs; those days they mostly sang their own songs. During the show, some children made new songs instantly.

(2) There is a tendency to ‘rap’ our traditional dancing as well – Kandyan and Low Country. They rap them with Indonesian/Korean, Lebanese, Latin American style dancing. Sadly sometimes such things are done by our ‘acclaimed’ dancing teachers. The writer has attended events where our Kandyan dancing had contained ‘sexy’ overtures. Recently dancers did inappropriate Kandyan type dancing before an audience that was largely of foreign dignitaries. Their costumes exposed body parts – something abnormal in our traditional Kandyan dancing. In a certain scene, a Kandyan type dancing couple as part of the dance kissed each other on the stage. Why did the organisers tolerate such nonsense?

Again, rapping old songs is very common and fashionable in Sri Lanka today. Such rapped music is in demand and promoted heavily by our TV stations and FM radio stations. Unlike their older counterparts, many of our younger generation seem to accept any music that comes their way.

About 30 – 40 years ago, it was SLBC and Rupavahini/ITN that promoted good, local music. They may still be trying to do that; but very few people listen/watch them. As they have lost dominance, they are no longer the major source of local music.

Rapping our older, quality songs like Dhanno Budunge, Shantha Me Re Yame, Lo Ada Ninde/Mal Bara Himidiriye (CT Fernando version) should not be allowed. The writer states that it is alright to sing others’ songs in  public including older, quality songs. But, it should be done without harming the songs originality, meaning and authenticity. What they must not do is to rap them, like hip hop, heavy metal or baila.

by Chandre Dharmawardana.

Mr. Soyza writes (Lanka Web, 27-04-20) that “We hear many a good story about how Hela Vedakama can restore immunization in the human body from Hela Suwaya school of medicine.  The time tested methods are available to our citizens in these times of fear to protect them from a virus for which there is hardly any treatment except vaccinations under the Western system….”

The Hela suvaya system is NOT Hela vedakama.  One may “hear” many stories, but nice anecdotes are   NOT sufficient for sick people to rush to them. Fortunately hospitals as well as “Hela Veda hal” are equally available to the public for them to choose. Note that the Helas Suvaya team do not observe physical distances, or wear face masks in their U-tube display. Do they claim that they don’t need such things because they have boosted immune systems?

The “Hela Suvaya”  publicity claims that they get their “vattoru” directly from Gods like  “Daedimunda, Natha”  and other Gods that Mrs. Senanayake is  able to communicate with. This is indeed stated in the U-tube that they have issued, with the claim that:

“”දුමක් අල්ලා කැඳක් පොවලා දින 3න් කොරෝනා සුව කළ හැකි” යි (Can cure Corona in three days, giving a herbal smoke and a rice broth). No one has heard of proven cases of “immunity being built up in three days”, even with a vaccine. Immunity building up involves building up  specific proteins (antibodies), or the capacity to build such proteins when needed,  and inactivate pathogens as well as control oxidative stress etc., that build up in the body when faced with a disease.

Cocvid-19 is a NEW virus, and so the body does not know how to deal with it. All evidence point to the need for some two weeks or more, for even a very healthy person to build immunity.

The very claims of the Hela Suvaya group seems too extreme and raise red flags in the minds of those  most people.

It was said at one time that God Natha revealed to Mrs. Senanayake  that there is Arsenic in the Rajarata soil, and that was the cause of the mysterious chronic kidney disease found in some villages of the Rajarata. Dr. Nalin de Silva was the Dean of Science in Kelaniya at the time, and so manged to direct the Chemistry Dept. of Kelaniya University to look for Arsenic in the Rajarata soil. When they could NOT find any adequate arsenic in the Rajarata soil , one can imagine that Dr. Nalin de Silva was not at all amused!

If Mr. Ranjith Soyza is talking of  “Sinhala vedakama”, or Ayurveda, then indeed, such medical systems have existed in Sri Lanka since ancient times, and there ARE various time tested remedies for certain ailments.

When the Spanish flu epidemic hit Sri Lanka in 1918-1920 period, thousands and thousands of village people (who had NO access to Western medicine, as is the case today)  perished.  There were no flu vaccines in Western medicine either, but the wealthier, “westernized” people had better standards of living and were healthier – so somewhat more resistant to disease. However, it was a new virus, and  immunity to previous types of infections was of no use. Today also we are dealing with a new virus. 

Sinhala vedakama and Ayurveda were resorted to by the ordinary people during that flu epidemic in 1918, because they had nothing else to resort to, but it was to no avail.  Prior to vaccinations for small pox, Sinhala vedakama had no defence against small pox. One need not mention all the other diseases, against which children are inoculated now a days, making us forget about mumps, whooping cough, measles, typhoid, etc, etc. All medical systems, including indigenous medicine asnd Western medicine, had been helpless against such diseases, till vaccine development became better understood.

So why does Mr. Ranjith Soyza claim that “time tested methods are available to our citizens in these times of fear to protect them from a virus”. Can he give just one instance of when traditional methods protected people from any virus, if it is so time tested? I think Mr. Soyza is merely expressing a common, well-entrenched  belief for which there is no evidence what so ever.

We know that Dr. Nalin de Silva and others close to him have  declared that some “non-human forces” and “Naga beings” acting in consort are responsible for the illness. Perhaps  some people  do not even believe that it is a virus?

Was this why the Head monk of Sri Pada felt that there is no need to cancel the Vandana season this year?

Prior to the discovery of germs, and the rise of knowledge of human physiology etc., the so-called Western medicine was also a  system  based on herbs, very similar to what we call “indigenous medicine”, or Ayurveda.  Greek and Roman medical systems  used the theory of the four humours,  viz., breath (va), yellow bile and black bile (pith), and phlegm (sem), and blood. In Ayurveda, e.g.,  in the “Sushruta Samhita”, the theory of the four humours can be found;  this includes the above-mentioned “tri-dosha”  as well as blood as the fourth humour. The medical system of Europe in medieval times was a mixture of Greek, Roman and Arabic medical systems.

However, the discovery of the microscope which showed micro-organisms, advances in anatomy and physiology, discoveries of gases like oxygen,  changed all that. That these are facts valid every where, be it in the West, or in the East, and not relative to any culture  is clear to most people who know that the same diseases can be found in the East or West, and the same laws of physics and chemistry apply every where, be it here, in Moscow, or in a space station. However, there is an irrational fringe of people who believes that Western Science is a well-concocted lie (“patta pal boruwa”), and that truth must be found by  meditation as revealed knowledge, given to suitable people  by divine spirits like God Natha.

That dependence on “revealed knowledge”  is NOT the tradition or the culture that we know of in Sri Lanka, or what we see in the Pali Chronicles. The Pali texts chronicle a people who followed the Theravada tradition, with its emphasis on an analytical and critical approach, as exemplified in the Kalama Sutta and the Gnana Sutta.

In the Gnana Sutta, the Buddha emphasized the experimental method long before Archimedes, wherein he says, Oh Monks, if you want to know if a piece of metal is Gold, or a base metal, then surely you apply the test of the touch stone. In the same way with various teachings…..”. Furthermore, in the Brahmajala Sutta, the Buddha rejects the epistemology that the Helasuvaya is using to justify its medications and  treatments.  They need some mystical justifications as their treatments are NOT based on any hereditary knowledge or empirical testing.

So if Mr. Ranjith Soyza believes that the Hela Suvaya medications are “time tested traditional medicine” he is mistaken. One gets the impression that their age is not more than when Mrs. Senanayake learned of them through her claimed psychic powers.

Of course, if a medication works, it does not matter to the patient whether the medication was revealed or scientifically discovered. However, the claims of the Hela Suvaya group are anecdotal, and it would be unethical to make guinea pigs out of Covid-19 patients  on the basis of such claims.

In the 19th century, when the Veda paramaparaavas (indigenous  medical-practitioner families) were intact, and when Western medicine had made NO INROADS into the treatment received by the people, the average life expectancy was less than 40 years ( Dr. Jayantha Kelgama and others have done historical research on this sort of thing). So, if  Hela Vedakama can restore immunization in the human body, we see no clear  sign of it, and no evidence for it, from verifiable cases. However, if Mr. Soyza is able to present such cases, that would be interesting.

Some people may allude to the fact that “in their memory” their fore fathers lived to a ripe old age. Indeed, those who survived the infections that young children face, for which indigenous medicine provides no protection, one came out with various types of immunity, acquired the hard way, by actually getting measles, small pox, mumps  etc. So, those who survived  did live up to a ripe old age. But the majority died very young. So it was necessary to have big families, with many children, so that at least a few will survive.

However, one may ask about the power  of Coriander, Nelli, Rasakinda, Veni-vael gaeta, Ashwagandha, Kuturolu, Gotukola,  tea, beli-mal, wheat germ,  echinacea,  turmeric, linden flowers, cow urine, camphor, citronella, senna leaves, St John’s wort,  and so on. I have examined all these and many more plants (see dh-web.org/place.names/bot2sinhala.html), and documented their known pharmacological properties, as reported in Ayurvedic  texts, or in Western research documents. Indeed, all these plants have various valuable chemicals, and also contain various stimulants which may give an uplifted feeling.  Inhaling some  any plant in steam will bring along essential oils (volatile in steam) and give a feeling of temporary relief. But  NO EVIDENCE of any enhanced immunity has been unequivocally established for any of the above herbs, where ever  such double-blind tests have been done.

The slight exception may be citrus fruits, as they have vitamin C. However, one hears little of it as an immunity booster in indigenous medicine. Even with vitamin C, except for scurvy, the claimed enhanced immunity even for the common cold has not been established. Vitamin C is the in-vivo anti-oxidant par excellence. Linus Pauling, the great scientist and visionary suggested that Vitamin C can be effective if taken in very large doses (e.g, 2-5 g per day). However, even 10 oranges gives one only 0.7 g.    So it is no where near what is needed – if Linus Pauling is correct. In the same way, even herbs that contain useful medicinal agents have them only in minuscule proportions unless used in high concentrations, as in some “kasaahayas”.

“දුමක් අල්ලා කැඳක් පොවලා දින 3න් කොරෝනා සුව කළ හැකි” යයි  මංමුළා වූ අය.

දේශීය නම ආරූඪ කර ගෙන එයින් ලැබෙන පිලිගැනීම උපගෝගී කර ගනිමින්, නාථ දෙවියන්, දඩිමුන්ඩ දෙවියන්, මහා බ්‍රහ්මයා ආදීන් සඳහන් කරමින් කෝවිඩ්-19 සුව කිරීමට හැකියයි හෙලසුවයේ කණ්ඩායම ඉදිරි පත් වී ඇත.   ඔවුන්ගේ ප්‍රතිකර්ම ක්‍රමය සැබැවින් පරම්පාර්ක වෙදකමක් නොව, ප්‍රියන්ත සේනානයක මහත්මිය දෙවි ඇසුරෙන්, භාවනා මාර්ගයෙන් ලබාගන්නා ක්‍රම වේදයක් බව  ඔවුන්ගේ ප්‍රකාශ වලින් දක්වන බවක් මට පෙනේ.  
(http://magazine.lankahelp.com/2011/10/04/the-lady-who-deals-with-god-%E2%80%9Cnatha%E2%80%9D/)
ස්වයං මුළාවකින් පටන් ගෙන වෙද ව්‍යාපරයක් බවට හැරී, දැන් දැන් වෙන අතකට ද හැරුනු ව්‍යාපාරයක් මෙන් අපට පෙනෙයි. එය දේශීය වෙද කමක් නොව, සියුම් ප්‍රචාරණ ක්‍රමයක් යොදාගන්නා අලුත් මාදිල්යේ පුද්ගලික වෙළඳ  ව්‍යාපාරයක්  බවට හැරී ඇතැයි යැයි මම හිතමි. මහජනයා රවටන්නේ නැතිව එවැනි ව්‍යාපාර ගෙන යාමේ වරදක් නැත. සමහරවිට, රැවටී ඇත්තේ මහජනයාම  නොව වෙලෙන්දා ද විය හැකිය. එවිට වෙද වෙලෙන්දා ගේ ප්‍රචාරය සාවද්‍ය වූවත්, පට්ට පල් බොරුවක් වූවත්, කූට ක්‍රියාවක් නොවේ.   ඇත්ත වශ්යෙන් ම, මහජන  හිතෛෂී වූවත් නොමංග ගිය ව්‍යාපාර වලින් මහා හානි ඇති විය හැක. යම් මහජන  හිතෛෂී   චේතනාවක් තුබුනත්, නොමංග ගිය වෛතුල්‍ය වාදී ව්‍යාපාර වලින් මහා හානි ඇති විය හැක.  

නුමුත්, බ්‍රහ්මජාල   සූත්‍රයට ද පා පහර දෙමින්,  දේව බලයම  සඳහන් කරමින්    කෝවිඩ්-19 සුව කිරීමට පැරණි-හාල් කැඳ සහ දුම් හට්ටියෙන් හැකි යයි කියන  පිරිස ද මොවුන්ය.  හාල් කැඳ හෝ කොල කැඳ බීමෙන් ප්‍රශ්නයක්  නොමැති වූවත්, දුම් හට්ටි ගැන ඉතාම සැකයෙන් බැලිය යුතුය.

රජරට ලිං ජලය පානය කරන අයට ඇතිවන ගුප්ත හේතුක වකු ගඩු රෝගයට හේතුව ද නාථ දෙවියන් ගෙන් ආවිෂ්කරණයක් ලෙස ලැබුවායයි කියමින්, හෙලසුව්යේ සෘෂිවරිය වන සේනානායක මැතිනිය  කිව්වේ කුමක් ද? රජරට ජලයෙහි, පසෙහි සහ එහෙයින් අහරෙහි ද ආසෙනික් විෂය   අඩංගු වී ඇති බවත්, එමගින් වකු ගඩු රෝගය  පැන නැංගී ඇති බවත් ය. එහෙයින්, ගොවියා සාමාන්‍ය අන්දමින් වගා කරණ සහල වස බවත්, හෙලසුව්යේ අනුග්‍රහයෙන් වවන සහල වැනි සහල් පමණක්  පරිභොගිකයා මිල දී ගත යුතු යැයි විශාල ප්‍රචාරයක් එදාත් අදත් පවත්වා ගෙන යති.   

 නුමුත්, රසායනික ක්‍රම වලින් රජරට ජලය, පස, පරිසරය  පරීක්ෂා කල විට සැලකිය යුතු  තරම් (මනින්නට වත් ප්‍රමාණ තරම්) ආසෙනික් ප්‍රමාණයක් එහි නැති බව ඔප්පු විය. සේනානයක මැතිනියගේ මතයෙහි පිහිටි නලින් ද සිල්වා මහතා ගේ යටතේ පැවතුන කැලණි සරසවි විද්‍යා පීඨයේ රසායන අංශයෙන් කල පර්යේෂණ  වලින් ද සැලකිය යුතු ආසෙනික් ප්‍රමාණයක් ඇතැයි ඔප්පු කිරීමට නොහැකි විය. එහෙයින් නාථ දෙවියන්ගේ වාක්‍යයක් යැයි කී ප්‍රකාශය  ස්වයං මුළාවක් පමණක් බව සක් සුදක් සේ පැහැදිලිවිය.  එවිට, ආසෙනික් කථාව කිව් අය එය වෙනස් කොට, ගුප්ත හේතුක වකුගඩු රෝගය හැදෙන්නේ ආහාරයෙහි ග්ලයිඵොසේට් වල් නාශකය අංශුමාත්‍ර වශයෙන් ඇති බවය. එහෙත්, සහලෙහි හෝ එලවලු වල  හෝ වකුගඩු රෝගීන්ගේ සිරුරු වල  ග්ල්යිඵොසේට් අංශුමාත්‍රයක් වත් ඇති බවක් කිසි කෙනෙක් පෙන්නා නැත.  එවැන්නක් නැති බව නම් පෙන්නා ඇත.

ව්ද්‍යාඥයන් වැඩිදෙනා පිලිගන්නේ රජරට වකුගඩු රෝගය හැදෙන්නේ ෆ්ලුඔරයිඩ් (fluoride)  ලවණය අන්තර්ගත කිවුල් ලිං ජලය පානය කිරීමෙන් බැවයි.  ප්‍රවේගී මහවැලි ක්‍රමය යටතේ වැව් වලින් ඈතින්  පදිංචි කල, ලිං ජලය බොන අයට හැදෙන මෙම රෝගය නැති කිරීමට යැයි කියා රතන හාමුදුරුවෝ, සේනානයක මැතිනිය, වෛද්‍ය ජයසුමන ආදීන් ගේ පුරෝගාමීත්වයෙන් ග්ලයිඵොසේ තහනම් කොට,  රජරට ජනයාට දේශීය හාල් කැඳ, කොලකැඳ  ආදිය දීමේ ව්‍යාපාරක් ගැන අසන්ට තුබුනි.

එම “කෝකටත්  දෙන කැඳය”  ඩෙඟු රෝගියාටද, කෝවිඩ්-19 රෝගියාට ද ප්‍රතිකාරය ලෙස හෙලසුවය කණ්ඩායම ප්‍රකාශ කරයි.  වෛද්‍ය කුමුදු දහානායක, වැලිසර ස්වසන  රෝහලේ  වෛද්‍ය නිරෝෂ් සමරවික්‍රම, මාතර මහරෝහලේ වෛද්‍ය මාලින් බටගොඩ හා ගම්පහ රෝහලේ පෝෂණවේදී  සූජීවා යන  අය  දුම් හට්ටිය හා කැඳ භාවිතා කර ප්‍රතිපල අත් විඳි බවද , ලෙඩුන් සුව වී ගිය බව ද කියයි.
 
කෝවිඩ් රෝගය ට පාත්‍ර වන  සිය දෙනෙක් ගත් විට, එයින් 2-3% කට පමණක් රෝගය වැලදෙයි.  එයින්ද  සුළු අනුපාතයකට පමණක් රෝගය බර පතල වෙයි. එහෙයින්, දුම් කබල  සහ කැඳ දවස් දෙකක් දුන් නිසා රෝගියා සුව වීය යි කීම පොල් ගහ යටින් තමා ගිය බලයෙන් පොල් ගෙඩිය වැටුනා යයි කීමක් වැනිය.

ඇත්තෙන්ම, ඔව්න් එසේ කියන්නේ භාවනා ශක්තියෙන් සහ දේව අනුග්‍රහයෙන් ලද පරම සත්‍යයයන් ඔව්න් සතු හෙයින්  බව ද, සාමාන්‍ය බටහිර විද්‍යා සත්‍ය ගවේෂණ ක්‍රම ඔවුන් පිලි නොගන්න බව ද පැහැදිලිය.

වෛද්‍ය විද්‍යාව ඉගෙන ගන්නා  අය ට කොතරම් කරුණු රාශියක් සිහි තුල පුරවා ගැනීමට අවශ්‍ය ද යත්, විචාර පූර්වක ව සිතීම සහ විද්යාවේ ක්‍රමය ඉගෙන ගැනීමට අවස්ථාවක් ලැබෙන්නේ නැත. ඥාණ සූත්‍රය මගීන්  විද්‍යාවේ ක්‍රමය මුලින්ම ප්‍රකාශ කල බුදු රුදුන් ලෝහයක් ඊයම් ද, රන් රිදී ද යනු දැනගැනීමට උර ගල පාවිච්චි කොට පරීක්ෂණයක් කල යුතු බව වදාලා සිටීහ. එයට භාවනාව හෝ දේව අනුග්‍රහයක් අවශ්‍ය බවක් වදාලේ නැත.

නුමුත් හෙලසුවය කණ්ඩායම කියන්නේ ඊට හාත් පසින් වෙනස් කතාවකි.   පරීක්ෂණ වලට වඩා   නිවැරදි, ප්‍රත්‍යක්ෂ ඇත්තක් දෙව සහායෙන් සහ භාවනා ශක්තියෙන් ලද හැකි බවය. මෙය ස්වයං මුළා ක්‍රමයක් බව  වකු ගඩු රෝගයේ අග මුල එම ක්‍රමයෙන් සොයන්ට ගොස් වලේ වැටුනු පසුදු තව තේරුම් ගෙන  නැත්තේ, වෙළඳ ව්‍යාපාරයක යෙදෙන අය සත්‍ය  ගවේෂණයෙහි යෙදෙන අය ගෙන යන ක්‍රමට වෙනස් ක්‍රමයකට යන හෙයින් ය.  දේව විශ්වාසය ඇති රටක, තම ව්‍යාපාරයට දේව වාක්‍යයක් ලැබී තිබේ යයි කීමට හැකි නම් එය හොඳම “ඇඩ්වටිස්මන්ට්” එක ය!

කොවිඩ් රෝගය මසක් කල් පැතුරුන මුත් එයින් මරණයට පත් වී ඇත්තේ හතර පස් දෙනෙක් පමණි. එහෙත්, සාමන්‍යයෙන් දිනකට රථ අනතුරු 150ක් පමණ සිදු වන අතර  එයින් මරණ අටක් දහයක් පමණ සිදු වේ. එහෙයින්, බැලූ බැල්මට කොවිඩ්-19 ගැන අපි මෙතරම් බය වෙ න්නේ ඇයි දැයි ඇසිය හැක. කොවිඩ්-19 නිසා යම් විටක ඇති ලෙඩුන් සහ මරණ ප්‍රමාණය සුලු වූවත්, එයට ඉතා වේගයෙන් වර්ධනය වීමටත්, සෑම රෝහලක් ම පිරවීමටත්  ශක්තියක් ඇති බෝවන රෝගයක්- එනම් වසංගතයක් – බැව අපි දන්නා නිසා  ප්‍රධාන වශයෙන් අවශ්‍ය වී ඇත්තේ රෝගය බෝ වීම නතර කිරීමය.

නුමුත් කොවිඩ්-19 රෝගයේ හේතුව වයිරස්යක් යයි පැහදිලිව නොකියා, ඒ වෙනුවට  වැරදි ආහාරය ද, නරක අමනුෂ්‍ය බලයක් ද ඉඟි කරන හෙල සුව ය කණ්ඩායම කොවිඩ් රෝගය ගැන ඔවුන් භවනාවෙන් හෝ  දේව අනුග්‍රහයෙන් හොයා ගත් පරම සත්‍යය  පැහැදිලිව දක්වන්නේ නැත.

ඔවුන්ගේ   මාලබේ පැවතූ මාධ්‍ය වේදී ප්‍රකාශනයේ දී එකිනෙකාගෙන් මීටරයක් වත් ඈත්වීම සහ කථා කරන තැනැත්තන් වත්  මුකවාඩම් පාවිච්චි කලේ නැත.  මේ අය දොස්තර අනිල් ජයසිංහ මහතා ගේ නිර්දේශයන් උල්ලංඝහනය කොට ඇති බව ප්‍රත්‍යක්ෂය.  එම අන්දමින් රෝගය බෝවීම නතර කිරීමේ අවශ්‍ය තාව ප්‍රාගුණ්‍ය කලේ නැත. ඒ වෙනුවට, සාමාන්‍ය හෙම්බිරිස්සාවක් වත් දින දෙක තුනෙන් නැති කිරීමට නොහැකි මේ අය “දුමක් අල්ලා කැඳක් පොවලා දින 3න් කොරෝනා සුව කළ හැකි” යයි මහ කය්යක් කියා ඇත !

ආචාර්‍ය චන්ද්‍ර ධර්ම්වර්ධන විසිනි.

ගෙවිඳු කුමාරතුංග සභාපති – යුතුකම

විපක්ෂයේ රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ, සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස, ආර්. සම්බන්ධන්, පාඨලී චම්පික, රවුෆ් හකීම්, රිෂාඩ් බදුර් දීන් සහ මනෝ ගනේෂන් යන හිටපු පාර් ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් විසින් ඒකාබද්ධ ප්‍රකාෂනයක් මඟින් අතිගරු ජනාධිපතිතුමා ගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ එතුමා විසින් සිදු කරන ලද  පාර් ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැරීම බල රහිත කරන ලෙස ය. එසේ නො කරන්නේ නම් අඩුම තරමින් විසුරුවා ඇති පාර් ලිමේන්තුව නැවත කැඳවන ලෙස ය.

ජනාධිපතිතුමා ගෙන් මේ ඉල්ලීම කරන්නෝ ඔවුන් බලයේ සිටිය දී එතුමාව බොරු චෝදනා මත කෙසේ හෝ සිරගත කිරීමට, අපරාධකාරයෙකු ලෙස හංවඩු ගැසීමට බොහෝ දුෂ්ට ප්‍රයත්නයන් දැරූවෝ ය. එතුමාගේ පුරවැසිභාවය පිළිබඳ පදනම් විරහිත චෝදනා නඟමින් එතුමා ගේ ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකත්වය ම සුණුවිසුණු කරදැමීමට අශිෂ්ට ප්‍රයත්නයක නිරත වූවෝ වෙති. 15 ලක්ෂයක වැඩිඡන්දයකින්  ජනාධිපති තනතුරට පත් වූ පසුව ද මුදල් ප්‍රතිපාදන වෙන් කරගැනීමට ඉඩ නොදුන්නෝ වෙති.

ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා ජනාධිපතිවරණයට ඉදිරිපත් වූයේ ම පැවති පාර් ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හැර නව පාර් ලිමේන්තුවක් පත් කරගැනීමට ජන වරමක් ද පතමිනි. ඒ හා සමඟම බෙදුම්වාදීන් ගේ, ෆෙඩරල්වාදීන් ගේ, ආගමික අන්තවාදීන් ගේ සහයෙන්, කිසිවිටෙකත් රජයක් නොපිහිටුවන බවට ප්‍රතිඥා දෙමිනි. මේ අනුව විපක්ෂය ජනාධිපතිතුමා ගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ 69 ලක්ෂයක් ජනතාව එතුමාට දුන් ජනවරම ම පාවාදෙන ලෙස ය.

එ පමණක් ද නො වේ. බෙදුම්වාදීන් ගේ හා ආගමික අන්තවාදීන් ගේ බලයට නතුව ඇති, පැවති  පාර් ලිමේන්තුව කැඳවූ සැනින් ජනාධිපතිතුමාට සුදුසු පරිදි මුදල් වියදම් කිරීම වළක්වාලනු ඇත. කොරෝනා මර් දනයට  ගෙන ඇති සාර්ථක පියවර අවුල් වන යෝජනා සම්මත කරනු ඇත. එම්. සුමන්දිරන් මහතා කර ඇති ප්‍රකාශවලින් පැහැදිලි වනුයේ ජනාධිපතිතුමාට දෝෂාභියෝගයක් ගෙන ඒමට දැනට ම කුමණ්ත්‍රණයක් පවතින බව යි. කුමණ්ත්‍රණකරුවන් ගේ ම කතානාකවරයෙකු ද වන බැවින් එවන් යෝජනාක් පිළිගැනීමට අවශ්‍ය වනුයේ සාමාන්‍ය බහුතරය පමණි. එ විට ජනාධිපතිතුමාට පාර් ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවීමේ බලය ද අහිමි වේ.

අතිගරු ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපතිතුමනි, මවුබිමට එරෙහි වූ, සමස්ත රට වැසියාට ම එරෙහි වූ මේ දුෂ්ට කුමණ්ත්‍රණය සහමුලින් ම පරාජය කිරීමට නායකත්වය දීම ඔබතුමා ගේ ප්‍රමුඛ යුතුකම යි. එහි දී සාතිශය බහුතරයක් ජනතාව ඔබතුමා සමඟ සිටගන්නා බවට සැකයක් නැත. එ ලෙස ම මාරාන්තික කොරෝනා වෛරසය පරාජය කිරීමට අප සමත්වනු ඇත්තේ ද මේ බෙදුම්වාදී ආගම්වාදී අන්තවාදීන් ගේ කුමණ්ත්‍රණය පරාජය කළහොත් පමණක් බව අප ගේ සදාදරණීය ජනතාව ද තේරුම්ගත යුතු ව ඇත.   ——-

Palitha Senanayake

This is a sequel to your above captioned article by Gehan De Checkera published in the online edition of the 25^th April issue, quoting lawyers and HR activist critical of the Prevention of Terrorism Act., under which Lawyer Heejaz  Hizbulla has been arrested  in connection with the Eater Sunday terrorist attack. Although the caption also includes ‘prevention of terrorism’, there no mention on the prevention of terrorism and instead the article throughout its text criticizes the PTA in the context of upholding human rights.

At the very outset it should be mentioned that the writer’s ( Mr Checkera’s) choice of the topic, PTA, to have this debate, is an aberration. This is because the PTA is not the real issue at hand as PTA has been introduced to our law books in an attempt to prevent terrorism that has haunted Sri Lankan society from time to time. The correct topic for the debate should have been terrorism and its prevention, but the writer, for reasons best known to him, chooses to criticize the PTA and Law enforcement completely disregarding the effect of terrorism on our society. Yes, we do not need the PTA that bestows extraordinary discretionary powers in the hands of the law enforcement officials, but then how do we contain terrorism that has stalked this society, the recent instance of which has been the brutal massacre of 262 and wounding of about 500 devotees at their prayer?  

The writer maintains that, ‘As long as we are prepared to accept the existence of terror laws in Sri Lanka, arbitrary actions void of accountability by the executive such as the arrest of Mr Hizbullah will continue’. This statement is completely out of context with a tinge of malice because,                                                   this subject law is not a terror law but a law to Prevent Terrorism,                                                            the arrest is not an arbitrary action because it is as per the PTA sanctioned by the Parliament and part of the Sri Lankan law,                                                                                                        accountability is only to the extent warranted under the PTA, and                                                                               the arrest is not by an executive order but by the law enforcement office in the course of duty

Therefore, Mr Chickera should understand that as long as there is terrorism among us, the SL society cannot rid itself of Terrorism preventing laws and that prevention of terrorism is precisely what the law enforcement officers are trying to accomplish by arresting Mr Hizbulla. Thus, by criticizing the Prevention of terrorism act and its enforcers, without qualification, in favor of the person who is arrested as a suspect, Mr Chickera places himself in position where he is a purveyor of terrorism. Whether this position is intentional or not is another matter, but the net effect of his advocacy is to denigrate the PTA and its enforcers and to uphold the ‘human rights’ of the suspect who has been arrested. Is Mr. Chickera and his courtier of professionals trying to suggest that we should put the Easter Sunday attack behind and carry on as if nothing has happened? The big question then is, Can we rid ourselves of terrorism if we do that ?

The society judges a person’s limits and ethics by what he tolerates!

The Criminal Investigation Department may not have ‘just arrested’ this person unless there is sufficient evidence to prosecute him. We are aware that there is an ongoing battle between the police and the lawyers to determine whose duty it is to punish a criminal. The Courts have the power to punish a criminal when proved but that power emanates from the power of the police to prosecute by bringing that suspect before the law. However, this arrested person does not become a convict until and unless he is proven guilty by the Courts.

Accordingly, this arrest, is the first step in bringing justice to those innocent who died and were injured during the bomb explosion; an act perpetrated with the sole intention of bringing death and destruction to a set of persons for the fault of being pious about their religion. Why should so many ‘reputed’ persons protest in chorus when a person is arrested in this connection, claiming that arrest to be arbitrary and unlawful when it is NOT. The laws of a country are enacted in the Parliament whether the lawyers of the country like them or not.

 Is it all because, the person arrested is a lawyer? Do lawyers have better human rights that prevent them from being arrested, impinging on the right to life of ordinary folks?  

Now let me take these professionals one by one for their statements.

PTA is an aberration of the Rule of Law- Dr Asanga Welikala                                                   May be under normal circumstances, but the PTA was enacted in Parliament when the country was battling the most ruthless and organized terrorist organization in the world, the LTTE. The  situation at the time was a social aberration with many innocent lives being lost and even the very act of terrorism is an aberration of human civilization and modern human rights.

Many countries have anti- terrorism laws that respect human rights- Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy                                                                                                                             Yes madam, may be you could cite a few instances with your international experience and thereby educate the SL law makers. That would be more productive than joining the chorus in condemning the lawful arrest to prevent terrorism.

Media quick to slap terrorist label- Ramindu Perera.                                                            This particular person has been arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and that fact has to be stated in the media.

PTA reverses the principle of innocent before proven guilty- Swasthika Arulingam                 Well, the PTA does not make anybody guilty at the time of arrest. It is only after a trial that a suspect is made a convict. However in view of the wanton and cataclysmic nature of the crime of terrorism the arrest laws are stringent.

Attempt to whip up anti-Muslim communalism before polls- Sanjay Wilson Jayasekera   We deplore the attempt by this person to politicize and communalize this issue that we think should be dealt with under terrorism in the best interest of Tamils, Christians and Muslims.

Arrests should not be shrouded in mystery- Ermiza Tegal                                                     Yes, it should not be and you should be told that you are arrested under the PTA. However, when you are arrested under the PTA the police are not obliged to disclose all the details

Attorney –Client confidentiality is fundamental to criminal justice- Dinesha Samararatne  That is a professional ethic but however prevention of crime is a national issue therefore individual rights have to be compromised when it comes to national issues

Citizens should not be misguided by public theoretical display- Vidura Samaranayake.    We are not aware of an attempt to make it in to public theoretical display. Surely these things have to be broadcast over news. It is the lawyers by protesting against, that have given undue publicity to this issue.

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

The acting envoy told President Gotabaya that China is only reciprocating the goodwill Lanka shown by Sri Lanka

Colombo, April 29 (Presidential Media Division): Sri Lanka is a special friend of China. We have long standing and cordial relations between the two countries. When we faced COVID- 19 disaster recently, Sri Lanka stood with us. China is willing to return that goodwill in the form of fullest cooperation to revive Sri Lanka’s economy in the post-COVID – 19 period”, said the Acting Ambassador and Chargé d’affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Colombo Hu Wei, during his meeting with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the Presidential Secretariat here on Thursday.

Quoting a Chinese saying Hu said: True friendship is to stick together in sorrow and happiness”.

The acting envoy further said that his country and the people are grateful to Sri Lanka for being a friend in both good and bad times. Hu emphasized that China expects to assist Sri Lanka to overcome its future challenges also. Sri Lanka will receive help not only from the Central Government of China but also from the country’s leading companies and banks to rebuild its economy in the post – COVID -19 period.

Recalling the assistance extended by China to Sri Lanka from the time of the Rubber-Rice Pact President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said China stood with Sri Lanka during the armed conflict and the post-conflict development drive.

The COVID – 19 pandemic has adversely impacted not only the global economy but also Sri Lanka’s, President Rajapaksa pointed out. The sharp drop in foreign exchange earnings has posed an enormous challenge to the country, President added.

Due to the nosedive of global economy we have lost income generated by the apparel industry and tourism . It might take a considerable amount of time for the global economy to recover. As such, Sri Lanka has planned to adopt a new development model to create a production economy,” the President said.

He added that he hopes to receive positive responses and goodwill from friendly nations to make the development program a success.

Our expectation is not just limited to receiving loans and financial grants. One of our prime objectives is to attract foreign investments which can contribute to increase in production. There are ample opportunities for foreign investments in various sectors including agriculture and construction. I invite China and other countries to make use of those opportunities”, President said..

Replying to a query by the Acting Ambassador on the progress of current COVID – 19 prevention campaign, President Gotabaya said that the spread of the virus is under control in general. He explained the reasons for the sudden spike in infections in the last few days and said remedial steps have been taken immediately.

Mr. President, we are with you”, the Acting Chinese Ambassador said concluding the friendly discussion.

Courtesy Adaderana

Nineteen new confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported increasing the total number of cases in the country to 649, the Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry said.

As of 11.30 p.m. on Wednesday (April 29), a total of 506 patients are currently under medical care while 136 patients have recovered and have been discharged from hospital. 

Seven Covid-19-related deaths have been reported in the country.

Courtesy Adaderana

The curfew which will be re-imposed at 8.00 p.m. tomorrow (April 30) in all districts except Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara and Puttalam districts will continue until 5.00 a.m. on Monday (May 04), the President’s Media Division said.

The curfew currently in effect in Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara and Puttalam districts which have been identified as Covid-19 high risk zones is to continue until further notice.

In the other 21 districts the curfew which will be lifted at 5.00 a.m. tomorrow and re-imposed at 8.00 p.m. later that day will continue until 5.00 a.m. on Monday (May 04).

Courtesy Adaderana

The Chinese government has re-affirmed its support to the Sri Lankan government to revive the economic in the post-COVID–19 period, the President’s Media Division said.

Sri Lanka is a special friend of China.  We have long standing and cordial relations between the two countries.  When we faced COVID- 19 disaster recently, Sri Lanka stood with us. China is willing to return that goodwill in the form of fullest cooperation to revive Sri Lanka’s economy in the post-COVID – 19 period”, the Acting Ambassador and  Chargé d’affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Colombo Hu Wei said, during a meeting with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the Presidential Secretariat on Wednesday (29).

Exchanging pleasantries with President Rajapaka, the Acting Ambassador who paid a courtesy call on the President quoting a Chinese saying said that true friendship is to stick together in sorrow and happiness”. 

He said his country and the people are grateful to Sri Lanka for being a friend in both good and bad times. Mr. Wei emphasized that China expects to assist Sri Lanka to overcome its future challenges. 

Sri Lanka will receive help not only from the Central Government of China but also from the country’s leading companies and banks to rebuild its economy in the post – COVID -19 period.

Recalling the assistance extended by China to Sri Lanka from the time of Rubber-Rice Pact President Rajapaksa said China stood with Sri Lanka during the armed conflict and the post-conflict development drive, the PMD reported.

COVID – 19 pandemic has adversely impacted not only the global economy but also Sri Lanka, President Rajapaksa noted. The sharp drop in foreign exchange earnings has posed an enormous challenge before the country, the President added.

Due to the nosedive plunge of global economy we have lost the income generated by apparel industry and tourism. It might take a considerable amount of time for the global economy to recover. As such, Sri Lanka has planned to adopt  a new development model to create a production economy said the President while adding that he hopes to receive the positive responses and goodwill of friendly nations to make it a success.

Our expectation is not just limited to receiving loans and financial grants.  One of our prime objectives is to attract foreign investments which can positively contribute to the increase in production.  There are ample opportunities for foreign investments in various sectors including agriculture based production and in the construction field.  I invite China and other countries to make use of those opportunities”, the President said.

Replying to a query by the Acting Ambassador on the progress of current COVID–19 prevention activities President Rajapaksa said the spread of the virus is under control in general.  President explained the reasons for the sudden spike in infections during the last few days and said remedial steps have been taken immediately.

-PMD

Courtesy Adaderana

Former Minister and the leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) Rishad Bathiudeen has filed a Fundamental Rights petition before the Supreme Court, seeking a court order preventing his arrest by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

Acting IGP C.D. Wickramaratne, the DIG in charge of the CID, the Director of the CID and the Attorney General have been named as respondents in the FR petition. 

In his petition, the former MP states that the CID has commenced an investigation into an alleged incident of transporting voters from Puttalam using buses belonging to the state-owned Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) during the last presidential election.

The former minister claims that the CID is preparing to arrest him in connection with those investigations. 

Bathiudeen, in his petition, states that he has no connection to the incident in question and that the CID is maliciously attempting to arrest him over that.

He therefore requests the Supreme Court to issue an order declaring that this is in violation of his fundamental rights and to also issue an interim order preventing his arrest until this petition is heard and a verdict is delivered. 

Courtesy Adaderana

Dr. Anil Jasinghe, Director General of Health Services, said no predictions can be made at the moment regarding the emergence of new COVID-19 clusters or the growth of existing clusters in the country.

Issuing a statement, the Ministry of Health stated that all measures have been taken to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the detection of infected persons among naval personnel has arrived at the last stages, said the Ministry.

It is suspected that contacts of the infected Navy personnel such as neighbors, family members, and associates may contract the virus, the statement read.

Health officials, as well as intelligence services, are keeping a close watch on the possible contacts, said Dr. Jasinghe.

However, Jasinghe said that while he does not think the existing COVID-19 clusters will not spread further, it is essential at this moment to keep a watchful eye on whether contacts of navy personnel will emerge from these clusters.

However, all suspected to have infected the virus have been directed for quarantine said the Health Ministry.

It is emphasized that the proper public adherence to health directives issued by the health sector is a key factor in the success of the disease control program.

Courtesy Adaderana

Sri Lanka Police says that investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks have uncovered a location in Sampur which had been used by the terrorists to carry out weapons training while a certain organization in Puttalam linked to the attackers has also been uncovered. 

Investigations pertaining to the Easter Sunday attacks are progressing successfully on a new direction, Police Media Spokesman SP Jaliya Senaratne told reporters in Colombo today (29).

Last week investigations had uncovered information regarding a location in the Sampur area which had been used by the terrorists for weapons training, he revealed.

He stated that the information was uncovered from a suspect who is currently in the custody of the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) under detention orders and also through other investigations carried out by the TID.

He stated that a suspect who is currently in custody had directed the investigative officers to the said location last week and that according to the information uncovered thus far it is believed that this place had been used to provide weapons training to a number of individuals.

This includes basic weapons training such as dismantling, cleaning and reassembling firearms while this camp had also been used to train them on firing various types of firearms and issuing guidelines.

He said that further investigations are ongoing with regard to the information uncovered.

In addition to this, information has also been uncovered regarding a certain organization which had operated out of Puttalam, the police spokesman said.

He said that the organization in question had enrolled certain individuals and held sermons for them regarding extremism while also showing them various videos related to that.

The spokesman said that even Zahran Hashim, the ringleader behind the Easter attacks, had visited the location and held sermons for these individuals and showed them videos containing extremist religious ideologies.

He said that several other suicide bombers had also visited this location and held sermons spreading extremist ideologies with the intention of getting them involved to assist the further continuation for their operations.

He said that several suspects have been arrested in connection with this organization and that their involvement has been confirmed. Further investigations with regard to that are also ongoing, Senaratne said.

Courtesy Adaderana

A total of 226 naval personnel is among the COVID-19 patients confirmed in Sri Lanka thus far, says the Commander of Army.

According to Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, 147 of these cases have been detected from the Welisara Navy Base.

The rest of the 79 officers were reported while on leave, he added.

Confirmed novel coronavirus cases tally in Sri Lanka moved up to 622 as of this afternoon (29). The three COVID-19 patients identified today were also revealed to be naval personnel.

The number of active coronavirus cases under medical care accordingly stood at 481.

Wasantha Senanayake, USA

With the current uncertain outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic, re-opening of the economy, let alone holding public elections, seem to be at a distant future. However, the current situation, where the country is without a parliament, makes holding an election a dire necessity. 

Online campaigning via social media or television can avoid public political meetings. The University of Colombo could create history by being the first to create an online voting system that is foolproof. For those who do not have access to electronic sources, the Grama Sevaka could distribute postal voting cards after checking the ID of each person. All the above would avoid costly human interactions that would lead to disease spread, and a violence-free, fraud-free election.

By Rohana R. Wasala

The news of the postponement of scheduled parliamentary elections by the Elections Commission was carried in the online Asian Tribune newspaper with an apparent anti-government bias. After closing the nominations on March 19, 2020, the EC postponed the general election, earlier scheduled for April 25, in view of the situation caused by fears of the Covid-19 pandemic gradually engulfing Sri Lanka. The move was in accordance with the provisions of the Parliamentary Elections Act of 1981. Immediately reporting this under the headline Sri Lanka’s General Election postponed: Until the polls the country comes under Election Commission”, Asian Tribune (AT) datelined March 19, Colombo, states with strange glee:

 QUOTE The Election Commission (EC) has indefinitely postponed the parliamentary election earlier scheduled for April 25. Until the polls the country virtually coming under the direct control of the Election Commission. Country’s President and the Caretaker Government cant move a ‘bit’ without the consent and permission of the Election Commission even to peeing.

Country’s President had the opportunity to cancel the dissolution of the Parliament, prorogued it obtained the resolution on Covid – 19 and had time until August 290290 to dissolved it and could have called for election again. A missed opportunity is a lost one.” UNQUOTE

Through such reporting, the Asian Tribune editor K.T. Rajasingham implies, wrongly of course, that the temporary/caretaker minority government, appointed after the November 16 presidential election,  is acting in a wayward  manner and is in need of being held in check. He seems to mistakenly assume that the existing constitution has turned the EC into a dictatorial body that, at this moment, is poised to virtually replace the executive president and that the Corona-19 crisis has given it the opportunity to make the necessary intervention in controlling the government’s activities! Nothing is further from the truth. The constitutionally valid decision to postpone the election was taken independently by the EC with unquestioning acceptance of the postponement by the president, who himself had already casually mentioned its (EC’s) power to do so when the nomination process was completed. Nominations having been accepted, the names of candidates and polling booths had to be gazetted as per Section 24 (1) of the Parliamentary Elections Act of 1981. This step had to be fulfilled for the EC to secure the authority to postpone the election in terms of Section 24 (3) of the selfsame Act. 

A retrospective glance at Asian Tribune is in place at this point. Its editor K.T. Rajasingham (KTR) started the online publication in Bangkok, Thailand around 2002. I remember welcoming it as a novelty among the media I routinely consulted. In a note published in his paper years later, he described himself as a Sri Lankan Tamil journalist ‘who was forced to leave his country after LTTE raised its head and systematically targeted him’. According to the same note, he relocated to Sweden with his online newspaper; and at present it is operated by the World Institute for Asian Studies (WIAS), apparently his own creation, whose goal, KTR claims, is to bring Asian nations closer together. 

The phrase Striving for Asian Solidarity” prominently displayed by Asian Tribune as a journalistic catchword on its masthead must be a reference to this alleged mission of the WIAS. But it is difficult for one to see any implicit or explicit definition of ‘Asian solidarity’ as a political, economic, social, cultural or any other worthwhile concept or ideology that may be identified as underlying its reportage. Be that as it may, it is worth thinking about why the Asian Tribune founder and editor  experienced such a sense of malicious pleasure at the unanticipated postponement of the general election. The announcement of the postponement actually caused deep frustration and despair among the sane majority of multiracial and multireligious Sri Lankans who have been impatiently waiting to vote in a new parliament and help form a stable government during the executive presidency of the universally acclaimed Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the common target of all those who are opposed to that extremely probable and propitious eventuality (i.e., the election of a fresh parliament that will enable the new president’s vision and mission for the country to be accomplished). 

KTR’s complaint that the president had the opportunity to rescind his (March 02) dissolution of parliament  in view of the threatened worsening of the Corona-19 situation that would make campaigning and polling impossible is a frivolous one to say the least. The people are 100% sure that nothing could be gained by reconvening the dysfunctional parliament, arguably the worst since 1948, that was dissolved on March 02. No elaboration is necessary to drive home the point. The government under the executive presidency of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has been doing everything possible, from the third week of January itself to deal with the unfolding conditions associated with the global Corona-19 pandemic with the dedicated participation of the health, security, and law enforcement and civil functionaries  as he explained in his address to the nation on March 17. He said that confidence is the mark of real leadership in a crisis. He has demonstrated that quality in himself in abundance since 2005, as the ordinary people know. The president concluded his speech with the words This country that is yours and mine is secure today”. But this confidence was not shared by diehard opponents.

Sarath Alwis of Colombo Telegraph (‘A Brave President, A Benumbed Nation’/March 24, 2020) scoffs at the president’s statement as wrong, after first praising it as a forthright fearless statement”, adding: The President in the statement embodied courage and sincerity.” Sarath Alwis (SA) finds fault with the president’s assertion that the country is secure now because there is more to national security than fighting with separatist terrorists, monitoring the activities of religious fanatics or countering political dissenters. He states the obvious when he says that dealing with an epidemic is different. The extremely biased Sarath Alwis must have chosen to ignore the fact that Gotabaya Rajapaksa has a much more profound, much more comprehensive understanding of what national security involves and has achieved much more for the nation in that sphere than the likes of Alwis would like to appreciate. Colombo Telegraph is run, as they claim, by a group of ‘exiled journalists’ who, significantly, fled the country after it got rid of separatist terrorism for good. The Colombo Telegraph went to town with its one-sided condemnation of the presidential pardon of war veteran Sunil Ratnayake with hardly a glance at the ground realities or the actual circumstances that justify that move, while the Asian Tribune has commented negatively on the pardon of the soldier without showing the self-absorbed enthusiasm of the CT, describing it as ‘Arbitrary release of a convicted non-commissioned military officer’. Though, outwardly, the two publications were or still are at loggerheads with each other, they could be journalistically contributing to the same brand of anti-Sri Lanka destabilizing politics, which, while being sympathetic to the defeated separatist cause, is actually part and parcel of a more global operation launched by external powers running geopolitical agendas in the region.  

Eight years ago, the Colombo Telegraph carried news about KTR being found guilty of gross defamation” by a Swedish court  in a case instituted against him by an alleged Norwegian journalist named Nadarajah Sethurupan (NS) under the headline Asian Tribune Found Guilty for Defamation in Sweden” (CT/February 24, 2012). When it did so, the Colombo Telegraph  exhibited the same sort of schadenfreude that the editor of the Asian Tribune experienced at the recent postponement of the general election. It was reported that Sethurupan told the paper (CT) that KTR phoned him when he (NS) was in Oslo in 2003/2004 and that KTR tried to persuade him to attack the Norwegian peace officials and the SLMM (the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission) and to work with him and his ‘secret unit’ in order to wreck the said peacemaking process; but Sethurupan refused. Subsequently, Sethurupan charged, KTR started attacking him personally calling him a ‘terrorist’ through his newspaper the Asian Tribune. The attacks continued from 2005 to 2008 according to SN.  At a Swedish district court trial KTR was adjudged guilty and this judgement was confirmed by a Swedish Appeal Court, which ordered KTR and the WIAS to pay Sethurupan $ 20,000 and the Swedish state litigation costs incurred. 

Whether the Swedish justice system was correctly apprised of the facts of the case and whether the cause of justice was served is a moot point. The CT reporter drew attention to the fact that the compensation amount of SEK 125,000 (equivalent to $ 20,000) was the highest amount imposed for defamation in Swedish judicial history up until then! How many millions of SEK or Dollars could be claimed by the relevant political leaders of Sri Lanka (I mean, particularly, the Rajapaksas) as compensation if legal action was taken based on the actually available authentic information against Tamil separatist supporters abusing the hospitality of such gullible European societies for defaming them over the last fifteen years calling them war criminals, murderers, crooks, despots, etc. without any evidence to support those denunciations!  

At the time that the  legal action related to, KTR was allegedly accused by separatists of being opposed to the Norwegian brokered peace process while being friendly towards the Sri Lankan government, which was embattled with the anti-state separatist terrorists. It was even held among KTR’s critics that the the then UPFA government financially supported the Asian Tribune; but this was an assumption that was not plausible given that the then president Mahinda Rajapaksa, though he was sceptical (with reason) about the separatists’ actual commitment to finding a peaceful solution, actively went along with the Norwegian mediation effort, until the terrorists forced his hand, by closing the Mavil Aru anicut, to take decisive military action against them, in which they vainly hoped to defeat the government defence forces and realise their separate state dream. 

It is not only online tabloids such as AT and CT that have been co-opted (this is my hunch, but could be wrong) by the powers that be to play a cankerous role against Sri Lanka. Even the mainstream English broadsheets with wide  circulations seem to be subject to the same pressure (The journalists employed by them are helpless; they have no option but to toe the line set by their employers who probably feel obliged to serve vested interests just to sustain their businesses that in turn protect the livelihoods of their employees). Ceylon Daily Mirror (March 27, 2020) published an exclusive interview with a senior US lawyer, Larry Klayman, allegedly a former federal prosecutor under president Ronald Regan. Klayman said that he was ready to work with Sri Lankans and others towards building international pressure on China. No need to say anything about the absurd hypocrisy or the hypocritical absurdity of such a proposal to Sri Lanka as the ground realities relating to the country’s vulnerable position between the two giant contenders China and America are so well known. To his credit, the Daily Mirror journalist Easwaran Rutnam who interviewed him made the apparently needy old lawyer eat his words at every turn through his informed questioning, which was redolent with sarcasm and scepticism. The Daily Mirror of April 10, 2020  carried an edited version of an Open letter (dated April 8) from the Chinese Embassy addressed to the Chairman of its owner Wijaya Newspapers. It was written by Luo Chong, the Spokesperson and the Chief of the Political Section of the Embassy in response to two articles published in the paper (one of them being the interview I have just mentioned). Somebody seems anxious to drive a wedge between tiny Sri Lanka and giant China, two nations that have enjoyed thousands of years of close cultural and trade relations.