Emeritus Professor Ariyasena de Silva of
Moratuwa University, writing in The Island (1st Dec. 2019) suggests the
following.
“[making] blocks one metre long and 0.5 m across … outside
plastered with a thin layer of cement mortar … Compressing the garbage into a
steel casing can also be done with a press made locally. If the blocks are sunk,
at about 0.25 km away from the coast where the depth is roughly about three
meters, a wall of one to two km in length can produce a land area of 0.25 sq km.
Once the wall is built the normal garbage can be dumped as it is collected …
It has to be a job lasting several years, but it can be done in smaller sections
and the land put to some use. Perhaps (growing) coconuts will be the best.
Rainwater storage in the land must also be considered. The equipment can be
totally built by our youth … and it may even be possible to grow some leafy
food like Mukunuwenna.
Those who value the beauty of Sri Lanka’s beaches
will find the proposal quite unacceptable. However, let us examine it
further.
The engineering professor was led to this idea because rubble
from buildings demolished during World War II were used in building the coast
line of the USA. However, since then, our knowledge of the ecosystem and the
inter-relatedness of the web of life has grown by leaps and bounds. Various
international conventions exist regarding what can be disposed in the sea even
within territorial waters.
Almost all countries are party to the
“Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other
Matter, 1972 (the London Convention) and the related the 1996 Protocol”. These
agreements are there because what is dumped in Chennai or New York may have
non-local effects even on Sri Lanka’s coasts, and vice versa
Garbage is
not some inert material like rubble from demolished buildings. It is a living
ecosystem full of microbes and bugs. The microbes are feasting on the
bio-degradable components of garbage and producing a lot of greenhouse gases
like methane and carbon dioxide. That is why composting which allows such gases
to escape into the environment (instead of being harvested) is very bad. Such
gases cause global warming. Furthermore, if the garbage is compressed and
encapsulated, the aerobic processes become anaerobic, but gases are produced,
and the blocks proposed by Prof. De Silva will eventually explode or crack open.
Even the garbage compressed inside large open garbage mounds explode from time
to time, as has happened several times in Meethotamulla.
Professor de
Silva envisions that blocks of encapsulated garbage could be used to form a wall
in the sea. From then on, he suggests using the space between the wall and the
sea coast as a landfill for garbage where one can eventually plant coconuts and
even grow “Mukunuwenna”. Urban garbage is rather rich in metal toxins like
cadmium, lead and arsenic, as well as industrial pollutants, petro-chemical
residues, excreted or discarded pharmaceuticals, electronic waste etc. If crops
are grown on soil containing such rotting garbage, or compost made from such
garbage, the toxic substances present therein are also absorbed by the
Mukunuwenna or Murunga grown there. There is also a mechanism known as
phyto-magnification, whereby the toxins accumulate and concentrate in the crops,
sometimes up to a factor of 100 times more. That is, toxins concentrate as you
go up the food chain. So, the Mukunuwenna is even more toxic than the soil
ecosystem.
Your food is only as clean as the soil and water used to grow
crops! Of course, the false propaganda is that all the pollution come from
agrochemicals. Actually, such pollution and toxicity from agrochemicals are
utterly minuscule compared to that of other sources. However, it makes good
propaganda for the “organic food” marketeers who promote their products and
cater to the elite, while destroying the agriculture that feeds the vast
majority of poor humanity. The Yahapalanaya government followed the appalling
agricultural dicta of Ven. Ratana and his minions who claim to get their
“science” from God Natha, and banned the herbicide glyphosate in 2015. Sri
Lanka’s key agricultural sectors are yet to recover from that crippling blow
that cost the country far more than the Bond Scam.
Even if we ignore the
agricultural proposals of growing crops on the garbage disposed landfills on the
sea coast, the project is destined to fail. As a mechanical Engineer, Prof. De
Silva would know that the slow but incessant effect of tides, currents etc., as
well as the tremendously variable dynamic loads from waves in monsoonal and
inter-monsoonal times will take their toll on the garbage wall. Only strong
well-designed breakwalls (aka breakwaters) can face such furious power. Anyone
driving along the southern coastal strip of Sri Lanka will know that efforts at
controlling sea erosion along those coasts have failed. So, what chance has the
proposed wall of garbage against the power and fury of the ocean?
It is
most likely that any such garbage-packed wall will disintegrate within a year
and spew garbage all along the world famous golden coasts of Sri Lanka. In
addition to the irreparable pollution to its own fishery, tourism, its
marine-coastal ecosystem, many international treaties of the sea will be
contravened.
In Canada and many other countries where the integrity of
marine ecosystems have come to be greatly valued, what can be disposed in the
ocean are strictly controlled. They are listed in Schedule 5 of the Canadian
Environmental Protections act. Some examples of acceptable disposal at sea
are:
1. the sand at the bottom of a channel is dredged and disposed at
sea to help control rising water levels and increase ship safety.
2. a
fish plant in a remote location disposes the fish waste (flesh, skin, bones,
entrails, shells etc.) at sea as there is no other option
3. a ship is
cleaned and sunk at sea when no ship recycling facility is available
4. a
rock slide occurs on a remote road along the coast, and the rocks are disposed
of at sea for efficiency in cleaning up the road when the rocks are not a
potential risk for the marine environment
5. in a remote rural location,
where there is no practical alternative, the offal from disease-free muskox is
placed on the ice and allowed to fall into the sea during the spring
melt.
Item numbers 2 and 5 show that no rotting matter can be lightly
disposed off in the sea.
Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe severely criticized the
Chinese port city project in the run up to the 2015 January election when the
Yahapalanites won. But the addition of rubble and sand to the sea in the
construction of the port city is not as serious as adding a wall of rotting
garbage along the coast, or the ecological dangers of oil exploration in the
Mannar basin.
The Yahapalanaites stopped the port city when they came to power; then
re-authorized it and even paid heavy penalties for delaying the project.
However, perhaps some individuals profited handsomely in the process. Now the
port city is being built, giving an opportunity for ecologists who complained
about the project to gather daily data on the environmental impact of such
construction. There is a dearth of information, especially for tropical waters
regarding such projects.
(The author pioneered courses in Food Science and environmental
studies during his tenure as a Vice Chancellor and Professor of Chemistry at
Vidyodaya which is today’s SJP university. He is currently a Professor of
Physics at the University of Montreal, and works for the National Research
Council of Canada.)
His Excellency, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka, Presidential Secretariat, Colombo 1.
Your Excellency,
The National Joint Committee wish to congratulate you on
being elected as the seventh Executive President of Sri Lanka. We also wish you
every success during your term in office as President of Sri Lanka to implement
the election manifesto that you presented to the people. You have proven to be
an achiever who has always successfully implemented whatever task that you were
entrusted without any fear or favor. We are therefore confident that you will
be able to protect and preserve the unitary character of the state, its territorial
integrity and the sovereignty of the people of our nation for posterity.
You have unfortunately been elected the President of a
country in which people are divided based on ethnicity and religion. One of the
reasons for such division is ethnic and religious based party politics. We
sincerely hope that you will be able to unite the people of our country by
doing away with ethnic and religious based party politics. The other reason
that divides the people is the gradual establishment of ethnic enclaves in
certain parts of the country. Such ethnic enclave need to be discouraged and an
effort needs to be initiated to integrate people of all ethnic groups and
religious beliefs in all parts of the country.
The Indo Lanka Agreement that was forced on Sri Lanka by
India through gunboat diplomacy that resulted in the introduction of the 13th
Amendment to our Constitution has to be abrogated as the Provincial Councils
thus established have proven to be white elephants. Devolution of power as
opposed to decentralization of power can even result in
the division of our nation.
It is our view that Provincial Councils or similar
institutions should never be given legislative powers. We endorse your policy
of having one law for the entire nation. Granting legislative power to
Provincial Councils would go counter to such policy Therefore legislative power
given to Provincial Councils should be removed as a matter of priority.
Legislative power should only be exercised by Parliament. Even if Provincial
Councils are allowed to remain we are in favor of strengthening the Local
Authorities and Provincial Council members to be nominated from the existing
Local Authorities thus avoiding Provincial Council elections. Such a move would
prevent Provincial Council members being remunerated utilizing public
funds.
The National Joint Committee appreciates your pledge to
follow a strictly nonaligned foreign policy. Due to the fact that Sri Lanka is
strategically located in the Indian Ocean the country needs to remain
nonaligned and refrain from getting involved in the geopolitical confrontation
that is developing between America and China, through agreements that would
enable these countries to gain a foothold in Sri Lanka. Therefore all bilateral
agreements Sri Lanka has signed or propose to sign needs to be evaluated to
ensure that our country follows a strictly nonaligned policy. We are very
much concerned with the numerous trade and other agreements the Government of
Sri Lanka signed or attempted to sign with other countries against our national
interests. We therefore urge that Article 157 of the Constitution be further
strengthened to ensure that no future Government would enter into such
agreements surreptitiously without the approval of Parliament.
Finally we sincerely hope you will take necessary action to
enable Sri Lanka to withdraw from the co-sponsorship of UNHRC Resolution 30/1
taking into consideration information available in the Report of the Second
Mandate of the Maxwell Paranagama Presidential Commission of Inquiry and Lord
Naseby’s discloses to the British Parliament. It is our view that your
Excellency as a matter of priority prevent NGO’S both local and foreign from
interfering with state affairs. The anti Sri Lankan resolutions and agreements
were entered into and numerous legislation enacted to harass our Armed Forces
at the instigation of these NGO’S. Therefore we suggest for you to appoint a
special Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the conduct of these NGO’S and
prevent them from interfering with the affairs of our motherland.
Yesterday I
stood in the hall of the Durham Union to argue for the proposition: This house
believes Britain owes reparations to its former colonies”. The following is the
text of my ten-minute speech, followed by five brief reflections on the
opposition’s arguments.
I still remember the first time I taught colonial history at the
LSE.
LSE students are among Britain’s finest: they graduate from top
schools, perform brilliantly on their A-level exams. And yet when I gave a
lecture about the Indian famines of the late 19th century to a classroom full of
third years, I was met with blank stares. As a direct result of British policy,
30 million Indians died needlessly of hunger between 1875 and 1902. Laid head
to foot, their corpses would stretch the length of England, from Dover to the
Scottish borders, 85 times over.
No one in the classroom had ever heard of it.
And this tragedy was not an isolated incident. There were many
more. The Great Bengal Famine in 1770 killed 10 million people, one third of
the region’s population. Here too historians blame British policy: brutal tax
collection, enclosure of forests and waterways, forcing farmers to rip up their
rice to plant crops for export. Similar policies imposed over the following
decades claimed the lives of another 22 million people, all while record
agricultural exports were being siphoned away to London.
Historian Mike Davis has famously likened these famines to the
holocaust. And yet the corpses that the British left strewn across India have
been almost entirely forgotten. Tell me: would we ever tolerate such amnesia
when it comes to the crimes of Nazi Germany? Never. Any such ignorance is
rebuked, and rightly so. Yet when it comes to the crimes of the British Empire,
an insidious form of holocaust denialism vipers right through our culture.
While he was Prime Minister, David Cameron went on record saying:
There’s an enormous amount to be proud of in what the British Empire did.”
Why? Because the British brought development” and whatnot. Or so the argument
goes.
But there isn’t a shred of evidence to back this up. During the
entire 200-year history of British rule in India, there was zero increase in per
capita income. In fact, during the last half of the 19th century—the heyday of
British intervention—income in India collapsed by half. The average life expectancy of Indians
dropped by a fifth from 1870 to 1920.
India wasn’t developed” under British rule – it was de-developed.
And not just in terms of social welfare. British policy was designed to destroy
India’s domestic industries by imposing asymmetrical tariffs, by dismantling the
institutions that trained up producers, and in some cases even by maiming
skilled artisans – all to create captive markets for British goods. During the
course of British rule, India’s share of the global economy shrank from 27% to
3%.
Yet despite this litany of violence, a recent YouGov survey found
that 80% of Britons do not regret colonialism. 44% are actively proud of it.
How is this possible? I hear it all the time: pundits and politicians arguing
that colonialism brought democracy, property rights, rule of law, railroads…
What a strange twist of reason this requires.
Democracy? British rule was dictatorship! Africans and Asians
struggled and bled for the right to vote in their own countries. Property rights?
The whole point of colonialism was dispossession—securing the rights of the
colonizers to the property of the
colonized: land, gold, diamonds, taxes, even the bodies of the colonized
themselves. Rule of law? The object of colonial legal codes was to deny equal
rights to colonial subjects. And India’s railroads were used to pump
resources—grain and timber—out of the hinterlands to the ports for British use.
Even if we accept that useful things were shared during colonialism
– universities, for instance – that is not the same as saying they were a benefit ofcolonization. Colonialism is not a
necessary vector for the transfer of knowledge or technology. Britain has long
enjoyed the Arabic numeral system, algorithms, and even algebra itself, without
ever submitting to Arab invasion. It takes a warped mind to believe that the
best way to share ideas with other humans is to colonize them.
But we have barely scratched the surface. Let’s not forget that
Britain’s first forays into colonialism were linked to the consummate expression
of barbarism: the Atlantic slave trade. 300 years of state-sponsored human
trafficking. 14 million souls shipped across the sea. Countless bodies shackled
to British plantations and churned into the sugar and cotton that fueled
Britain’s industrial rise.
And yet in the book I was made to read to become a British citizen,
this long, dark history was reduced to three sentences. You can visit Glasgow,
Bristol, London, Liverpool and every other British city that grew rich on the
slave trade without encountering a single memorial. Denialism vipers through
our culture.
We could spend all night listing off Britain’s crimes against
humanity. But that is not the point I want to make. This is not just about a
list of crimes. The denialism runs much deeper than that.
You see, we have this story we tell ourselves, that Britain’s
crowning moment of greatness, the Industrial Revolution, emerged sui generis from within Britain’s
borders – robust institutions, good markets, advanced science and technology.
This is the story that’s written into our children’s textbooks: we must all be
proud of Mr. James Watt and his inventions.
But scholars remind us that there is much more to the story than we
are normally told. From historians like Sven Beckert, Kenneth Pomeranz, Ellen
Wood, Parthasarathi and Karl Polanyi, the evidence is clear: the Industrial
Revolution was built on state violence, slavery and colonization. Britain’s
economic rise depended on cotton, sown and harvested by enslaved Africans on
land expropriated from indigenous Americans; depended on the theft of
agricultural products from Indian farmers; and depended on the forced
de-industrialization of Asia.
But, I can hear you say, that was all in the past. It ended more
than 70 years ago. Things are different now.
Are they? Only if you’re willing to forget what happened
afterward. Only if you’re willing to forget the British-backed coup that
deposed Mohammed Mossadegh, the first elected leader of Iran, when he tried to
regain control of the country’s oil reserves from Britain. Only if you’re
willing to forget the British-backed coup that deposed Kwame Nkrumah, the first
elected leader of Ghana, when he sought to reduce his country’s dependence on
British imports. Only if you’re willing to forget the structural adjustment
programs that Britain helped impose across its former colonies in the 80s and
90s, one after the other, reversing the progressive policies of the postcolonial
era to restore British access to cheap labour, raw materials and markets,
devastating the livelihoods of ordinary people in the process, adding hundreds
of millions to the ranks of the poor.
But we’ve forgotten all that. And we’ve forgotten much more
besides, including things that are happening right now. We’ve forgotten that
the City of London operates at the center of the world’s tax haven network,
which helps facilitate illicit financial flows that cost the South more than $1
trillion per year. Colonialism may be over, but the system that it created – a
system designed to siphon wealth from South to North – remains very much in
place. The word reparations” suggests that the problem is in the past. It is
not.
Frantz Fanon had it right when he wrote, in Wretched of the Earth, that Colonialism
and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn from
our territories. The wealth of the imperialist nations is also our wealth.
Europe is literally the creation of the Third World.”
So go ahead – I challenge you: chalk up the billions of hours that
enslaved Africans worked on British plantations, pay it at a living wage. Tally
up compensation for the 60 million souls sacrificed to famine for the sake of
British surplus. Boost it all by 200 years of compound interest, and add that
to the trillions lost during structural adjustment and the trillions more in
stolen cash that flows through Guildhall. Try it. The numbers begin to swell.
They rise like a chorus of voices from the forgotten corners of our past. They
march like an army of ghosts who demand a reckoning.
And then it strikes you…. Then it strikes you that there is not
enough money in all of Britain to compensate for these injustices. And you
realize, that if Britain paid reparations – real, honest, courageous reparations
– there would be nothing left. Britain would not exist.
And that is exactly what
people find so terrifying about the question of reparations. It’s not that they
fear the actual prospect of paying. It is that even just thinking about what is owed reveals the
hard truth: that what is owed, is everything.
But really, this is not about the money. This is about something
far more important… this is about the story. The real reparations we need are
narrative reparations. So this is
what I ask of this house tonight – that we demand, at minimum, repair of the
broken story we tell ourselves: an end to the denial that has festered among us
for too long. Let us demand the truth be told in our schools and in our town
halls. Let us demand that alongside every statue celebrating Victoria and
Churchill there be memorials to their victims. Let us demand that the real story
of Britain’s rise be worn like poppies upon our breasts.
As Aime Cesaire put it, A nation which colonizes, a civilization which justifies colonization, is a sick civilization, a civilization that is morally diseased.” So what is at stake here, in the end, is not only justice for the dispossessed, but Britain’s own healing. Britain’s own humanity. To repair this broken story will cost you nothing, and yet you have everything to gain.
The brand new Chuda Manikkya (Pinnacle) of
Swarnamali Maha Seya was caused to be specially designed, crafted and made and
placed on the November 25th 2019 along with the unveiling of the
newly Gold Plated Koth Wahanse (Dome) on the 26 the November, through the
guidance and employing the full and sole financial donations of the founder of
the Vishwa Parami Trust, Mr. Prabath Nanayakkara. He is the fourth generation grandson of the great philanthropist,
Ransirinel Kumarasinghe of Averiwatte, who initiated the major restoration of
this Maha Seya in the late 18th Century, through the Chaithya
Development Society” of which he directed and implemented activities as the
Chairman.
The Chuda
Manikkya being such a unique and reverential object was especially made using
Crystal a most expensive and rare mineral and the difficult and very exacting
task of crafting it to the highest perfection was entrusted to the World’s
premier specialist organization in this sector, SWAROVSKI” of Austria, who in
turn did so using the most modern and sophisticated tools and technology and
utilizing the best Master Craftsmen in the trade.
I thus reiterate
and confirm once again, that the Chuda Manikkya (Pinnacle) placed on the
Swarnamali Maha Seya on the 25th November 2019, among the
incantations of rejoice of many lakhs of devotees is this very same Chuda
Manikkya described above, which was donated to Buddha Sasana with great
veneration and purity of purpose by the said Vishwa Parami Trust using entirely
its own financial resources and utmost devotion.
A
few weeks ago, indigenous leaders from Australia visited the Manchester
Museum. They went there to collect various sacred ceremonial artifacts
which were said to have been ‘taken without permission’ by early 20th
Century British colonialists.
Danny
Teece-Johnson, a journalist for Australia’s National Indigenous
Television, had an interesting comment on the language of extraction.
‘You’re
saying borrowed, you’re saying this and that. Nah, let’s talk about the
white elephant in the room: you stole it, you took it without
permission, that’s theft. If you did that these days, you’d get put in
jail for it.’
Language
is cute and few are as cute about its use than the British and of
course the country which borrowed their language and perfected the art
of political cuteness, the USA. Countries are never invaded, they are
‘democratized.’ The victims of terrorist attacks launched by such
countries are not people, they make up ‘collateral’. Land theft never
happened. Resource plunder? Never happened. Cultural genocide? No. Mass
slaughter? What? That’s called ‘civilizing’. A good thing, surely?
Now
around the same time or a few days after the above return of stolen
goods, the University of Edinburgh, in a moment of insane generosity,
returned nine skulls to Uruvarigaye Wanniyalaetto. The skulls are
supposed to be more than 200 years old and are thought to be those of
Wanniyalaetto’s ancestors.
Nice. Let’s say ‘Thank you, thanks for the kind and generous gesture.’
Alright.
Enough applause. Let’s talk of skulls and skullduggery, taking without
permission and outright theft. In 1974, P.H.D.H. De Silva published a
book titled ‘A catalogue of antiquities and other cultural objects from
Sri Lanka (Ceylon) Abroad.’ There
are over 15,000 items listed. Remember, these are thefts that have been
recorded and stolen goods that are given names, numbers and catalogued.
They have ended up, as far as we can say with absolute certainty, in 23
countries and 140 holding facilities. This is not counting gene piracy
and post-colonial extraction, let us not forget. The vast majority of
the artifacts listen in the book are in Britain. Bristol, Cambridge,
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berkshire, Leister, Liverpool, London, Sheffield and
Windsor are among the cities mentioned.
And they return nine skulls!
So
we say ‘Thank you,’ and think ‘Such lovely folks.’ Well, Wanniyalaetto
has stated that the lovely folks in Manchester had told him there were
14,000 more skulls and bones. Apparently they are to take steps to
return them as well. If you clapped once for the nine skulls, you would have to clap 1555.5 times if/when these other bones are returned.
Now
this stuff is not new. Eight years ago, almost to the day, i.e. from
September 14 to November 24, the British Council in Colombo arranged a
traveling exhibition of artifacts. It was called ‘A Return to Sri
Lanka.’ That’s tongue-in-cheek that was lost on one and all, indicating
how sycophantic we have become. The following was the blurb advertising
the event: ‘…covers nearly 300 years of the country’s history through
150 digital facsimiles of materials from major British collections,
including maps, manuscripts, prints, drawings and photographs as well as
other artifacts’.
The
first question: ‘Only 150?’ Wear an expression of incredulity as you
ask it. Second question: ‘Facsimiles?’ Whatever expression you wear it
should indicate the words used to camouflage without really wanting to,
i.e. ‘What the flower?’
The
then Country Director of the British Council, Tony Reilly, called the
exhibition ‘a partnership event.’ The purpose, he claimed, was ‘to share
it, to experience, to enjoy, to argue and talk about 300 years of
cultural diversity described in each piece.’ He left out ‘theft’. He
left out ‘butchery’. He left out ‘genocide’. That’s par for the course,
of course.
That exhibition was interestingly funded by the World Collections Program. Well! Let’s talk ‘collections’.
In
August 2018 the British Museum decided to return to Iraq eight 5,000
year old artifacts looted following ‘the fall of Saddam Hussein’ as they
reported it. Fall, huh? Ha! Apparently the objected were seized by
police from a London dealer in 2003 and had been in the hands of the
state for 15 years before being identified as having been extracted from
a site in Tello in southern Iraq. The Director of the British Museum
Hartwig Fischer said at the time that the institution was ‘absolutely
committed to the fight against illicit trade and damage to cultural
heritage.’
Wow!
He
missed this important point: Britain is the product and the repository
of illicit trade (sanitized term for ‘plunder’ in the lexicon of British
Apologetics).
Britain’s
partners in crime in this business across the Atlantic, the USA, uses
the same kind of language. In September 2019, US authorities returned a
stolen coffin to Egypt, two years after it was acquired by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The 2,100 year old coffin
of a priest called Nedjemankh had been featured in a exhibition of
artifacts from Egypt. Apparently it had been looted and smuggled out of
Egypt in 2011. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, speaking at a
repatriation ceremony, opined that this was one of hundreds of
antiquities stolen by the same ‘multinational trafficking ring.’
Multinational
trafficking ring! That’s a descriptive worth holding on to. That’s what
colonial rule was all about, wasn’t it? That’s what’s happening even
now, isn’t it? Wars are not about democracy, resolutions are not about
human rights. It’s about creating conditions (including the support of
or installation of pliant governments) for the highly profitable
business of plunder. Land, oil, strategic geographies, water, genetic
resources, you name it, it’s all ‘open to exploration,’ let’s say.
What’s
the market value of nine skulls? What’s the market value of 300
facsimiles compared with that of the originals? Of course, the curators
of museums and custodians of other ‘collections’ didn’t kill anyone or
rob things. They are, however, holding on to stolen goods. There is no
talk of returning these to the descendants of those who were robbed and
probably killed in the process as well.
And
it can’t start and end with artifacts. Yes, it is hard to ascertain the
true value of everything that was stolen and even more difficult to
obtain the true cost of the damage in terms of cultural erasure,
destruction of livelihoods and lifestyles, forced dislocation and all
the trauma that was part of such things. Britain
is reported to have paid out 20 million sterling pounds to slave owners
in the colonies of the Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope
as per a census on owners as of August 1, 1834 under the Slave
Compensation Act of 1837. Words! It was not the slaves who were
compensated but the slave-drivers!
That’s
a benchmark. Contrary to the Anglophiles in Sri Lanka, who get
nostalgic about a ‘British Rule’ that took places long before they were
born, and who talk about roads, railways and such, the truth is that the
British were out and out brigands. They
didn’t build roads and railways. A subjugated people’s labour is
congealed in all that was built with money extracted through brutal
systems of taxation (without representation, mind you!). In addition to
mass slaughter, they destroyed temples (and built churches on their
foundation — ‘to civilize the heathens!’ Yeah, right!) and
either burnt or robbed countless invaluable Buddhist manuscripts. Yes,
we can add the theft of intellectual property to artifact theft,
resource extraction, labor exploitation and gene piracy. If the British
could quantify and compensate slaves, we could quantify reparations for
colonial plunder.
And they return nine skulls! Did someone say ‘Hooray!’?
There
are no facsimiles of the blood they spilled, the tears shed, the
screams before butchery. No facsimiles of villages torched and children
killed. No facsimiles of temples razed to the ground or forests cleared
(and the timber shipped out) for coffee and tea. And it’s not facsimiles
of artifacts and manuscripts that are now housed in the British
Library, the Victoria and Albert Museums, the Natural History Museum in
London and other loot-holding facilities.
Eight
years ago, when the British Council was bragging about facsimiles, a
friend offered the following: ‘they fokkin’ brazen aint they? so let’s
see, they steal and then show us pix of what they stole but wont return?
No one asking for reparations or loot? Is there a catalog of the stolen
in collections? Is Keppetipola’s skull still in Scotland?’ And I wrote,
‘This is not a return” to Sri Lanka. This is about slapping one cheek
and slapping the other too for good measure. Returns that can be
Xeroxed” sums up the season of plunder that does not seem to have ended
after the British left”. They could return what they robbed and keep
the facsimiles in their collections, after all.
But they’ve returned nine skulls! Hooray!
But
then again, they’re refusing the return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius
despite an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of
Justice (ICJ). The archipelago is now the site of the US military base
in Diego Garcia. And the USA, which just the other day threatened to
arrest and sanction judges and other officials of the International
Criminal Court if it moves to charge with war crimes any US citizen who
served in Afghanistan, would probably thumb its nose as the ICJ if it
‘tried to be funny’.
Well, funny is the word. It’s hilarious.
They returned nine skulls. I could die laughing. EXCEPT, it is no laughing matter. It’s skullduggery in cute form indulged in by multinational artifact traffickers.
Danny
Teece Johnson was correct. They should all be serving time in prison,
these do-gooding, skull-giving beneficiaries of skullduggery.
Skulls. Indeed!
READ ALSO:
If the Common-Welt is to be erased…Returning facsimiles of loot does not compensate, sorry malindasenevi@gmail.com
After the release of the ‘Executive Version’ of the Millennium Challenge Compact, between the United States of America (acting through the Millennium Challenge Corporation) and the Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (acting through the Ministry of Finance), and its accompanying ‘Constraints Analysis’ document on the website of the Ministry of Finance of Sri Lanka, in early November, a number of reviews are beginning to appear, on public websites on its benefits (some organized by pro-US think tank, Advocata Institute) as well as those on likely disadvantageous, or detrimental impacts.
This is, indeed, a healthy trend for the conscious public to get a balanced understanding of this compact. This is specially so because the ACTA, SOFA and MCC agreements are considered together by some critics as ‘Unholy Trinity” during the period leading to the recently held presidential elections, in Sri Lanka.
However, some of these reports seem to have thrown the baby with the bath water, while the others apparently have strived to keep the baby with the bath water. Although there were many politically charged report, from both sides, I was able to read only a very few essays which have specifically addressed the substantive technical issues of the MCC Sri Lanka Compact draft agreement – the executive version available on the Government websites.
Having written two reviews on the MCC Sri Lanka Compact earlier on (The Island, 03 May, 2019, and 15 July, 2019) before the release of the above agreement, I now wish to add my own perspective on some substantive technical issues, specially in relation to environment and socio-cultural impacts of the proposed Land Compact of the MCC, in addition to addressing related sovereignty issues which were also raised by some other writers.
Almost all the concerns have been raised on the Land Compact rather than on the Transport Compact of the MCC. However, both have been prepared on the strength of an independent Constraints Analysis Report, assimilated using a threshold grant and submitted in 2017. Interestingly, it was prepared using a ‘Growth Diagnostics’ model (developed by a Harvard University research team) which is ‘predicated on the idea that wholesale policy transformation into a western-style market economy may be excessively burdensome and even counter-productive for poor countries to prioritize challenges to a country’s development’.
According to this economic model, the ‘idea that wholesale policy transformation into a western-style market economy’ (meaning a lead to a ‘grant trap’?) need to be avoided. Instead, the model proposes that a country should conduct a diagnostic assessment, concentrating on the policy reforms necessary to achieve economic growth which should be less burdensome in addressing the challenges facing a country’s development. I wish to examine the documents, available to us on public media, in the light of the above statement of the Growth Dynamics of the MCC Sri Lanka Land Compact.
There are also a number of critical assessments of the MCC Compact programme, by independent international scholars (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436597.2017.1401463?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=ctwq20), as well as those who had been associated with the programme since its inception two decades ago reflecting on their personal experiences in handling these compacts worldwide (www.CarnegieEndowment.org/ pubs; https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32427.pdf ). Also there is a recent review on ‘Millennium Challenge Corporation: Overview and Issues’ published by the US Congressional Research service, prepared for Members and Congressional Committees (https://crsreports.congress.gov/
RL 32427), updated on 03 October, 2019. These are freely available on the web and I have taken those also into consideration during the preparation of this essay.
Sustainable Economic Growth
At a time when the United Nations is assertively promoting ‘Sustainable Development Goals’, worldwide, the ‘economic development and economic growth’ referred to in this nationally important MCC Sri Lanka document with far reaching consequences, we hope that the Compact – the Land Compact, in particular, – is very sincerely aligned with the ideals of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which Sri Lanka is legally bound to implement.
The SDG No. 08 says – ‘Sustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs that stimulate the economy while not harming the environment. Job opportunities and decent working conditions are also required for the whole working age population. There needs to be increased access to financial services to manage incomes, accumulate assets and make productive investments. Increased commitments to trade, banking and agriculture infrastructure will also help increase productivity and reduce unemployment levels in the world’s most impoverished regions’.
The overall MCC Compact Goal in Section 1.1 of Article 1 says ‘ The goal of this Compact is to reduce poverty through ‘ economic growth’ in Sri Lanka. MCC shall provide assistance in a manner that strengthens good governance, economic freedom, and investments in the people of Sri Lanka’.
To what extent the factors contributing to the ‘sustainability’ of the proposed economic growth models have been taken into consideration, in the preparation of successive scorecards for Sri Lanka from 2016 -2019 (under Good Governance??), need to be explained to reassure the Sri Lankan public of its alignment with the SDGs and accompanying green growth.
The MCC claims that it has formally adopted the International Finance Corporation’s ‘Performance Standards on Environmental and Social sustainability’ and once again we sincerely hope that the ‘economic growth’ in the Article 1 of the MCC Compact agreement, refers to ‘sustainable economic growth’, recognizing Sri Lanka’s alignment with the relevant SDGs and Aichie Biodiversity Targets, while being a Global Biodiversity Hotspot.
It is my view that this aspect should be further developed before signing the agreement, through the engagement of forums of Sri Lankan professionals familiar with the current trends in the MCC performance Indicators on 1. Ruling Justly, 2. Investing in People (e.g. Natural Resource Protection and Health Expenditure) , and 3. Economic Freedom (e.g. Land Rights and Access) which were used in the preparation of Constrains Analysis Report (2017) for Sri Lanka. Most of these documents being under preparation since 2016, they caught the public attention that they deserve, only a few months ago.
Country Reports vs. Reports in scorecard preparation
These scorecards, on which the Constraint Analysis most likely have been prepared for the country as a whole, have been sourced from the country reports prepared by the WHO, Columbia Centre for Int’l Earth Science Info Network/ Yale Centre for Env. Law and Policy (CIESIN/YCELP) – and IFAD/IFC. It is not clear as to what extent these indicators have been scored in a sub-regional context of the targeted seven districts of the MCC Land Compact.
In Sri Lanka, climatic and associated socio-cultural-livelihood contrasts are clearly evident in the seasonal South-west and the 1.seasonal rest of the country. As such, land rights and access (e.g. cascade irrigation systems – a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System), 2.) natural resource protection (e.g. Global Hotspot of Biodiversity, ecological corridors for megafauna, riverine forest formations) and 3.) Health expenditure (resulting from severe agro-chemical pollution e.g. CKDU) particularly in Dambulla, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Trincomalee regions need to be analyzed separately to achieve more robust scorecards using local expertise leading to the preparation of the Constraints Analysis report thus aligning with the relevant SDGs.
Based on the Constraint Analysis Report prepared by the Government of Sri Lanka and the MCC (in partnership with Harvard University’s Centre for International Development), three binding constraints acting as most severe hindrances to economic growth have been identified;
1. Policy uncertainty, especially regarding revenue collection and tax policy;
2. Transport bottlenecks, particularly in the Western Province; and
3. The difficulty of the private sector in accessing land for commercial purposes.
Large-scale Commercial agriculture vs. Cascaded Tank-Village Systems – Ellangawas
As I said at the beginning of this essay, much of the criticism has come in respect of the land compact, which apparently is paving way for removing constraints on accessing both government and privately owned land in the above districts of ‘Wew bendi Rajya’ – ancient agricultural heritage of ‘reservoir kingdom’. The constraint analysis seem to have taken in to consideration both the distribution of small tanks and river basins (Figure 6.1 of the Constraints Analysis Report – page 34) in their planning exercise and the maps included therein acknowledged as those from IWMI and CGIAR are reproduced here.
Figure 6.1 of Constraint Analysis Report – River Basins and Locations of Small Tanks in Sri Lanka reproduced together with map representing areas of CKDu Prevalence (from Govt. sources)
As evident from this figure, most of these small tanks, the very foundation of the ingenious ancient irrigation system ensuring landscape and livelihood security to local populace, are concentrated within the districts that are being apparently considered for medium and large-scale private sector development projects. These Cascaded Tank-Village systems or ‘ellanga gammana’, master-pieces of sustainable irrigated agricultural systems have been designated as ‘Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) by the FAO of the United Nations in April 2018.
The disused or abandoned cascade systems of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Matale and Kurunegala districts are being systematically restored at present with both national and international sources of funding. These landscape restoration initiatives are being considered as a solution to climate change adapted agriculture and also to reduce heavy agro-chemical pollution that has knocked down the backbone of the traditional agricultural heritage of these rural communities. As such, they have been given high priority by the Government for their rehabilitation.
The Constraint Analysis of Sri Lanka Compact is very critical on the restrictions on land parcel size, the absence of land titles, and longstanding laws affecting rural land use all it claims to reduce agricultural productivity and rural well-being. It goes on to say that unlike other comparator countries, Sri Lanka restricts private ownership of agricultural land to 50 acres per person, which obviously prevents economies of scale from being realized in the case of large private sector agricultural investment.
Our concern is that how the privately driven medium and large scale commercial agricultural (or other industrial) enterprises proposed in the Land Compact could be realistically super-imposed on these sophisticatedly designed small holder-dominated traditional agricultural landscape mosaics.
Medium and large scale commercial agricultural enterprises, usually taking to cultivation of a few commercial crops of promising export markets, are reputed to be aiming at maximizing their profits while externalizing their environmental and social costs. There is already evidence from some of the already established commercial plantations in these areas, that the water availability for small-scale farming communities being reduced as a result of competition for water at the same time contributing to increasing ground water pollution from heavy use of agrochemicals in these commercial plantations.
Issues of this nature should be resolved before the agreement is signed. A case in point is reported in the evaluation brief on the implementation of the Moldova MCC Compact, titled ‘ Removing barriers to high-value agriculture in Moldova’.
Evaluation brief of the Moldova compact is indeed an eye-opener for Sri Lanka, thus avoiding it being a ‘Grant Trap’.
($259 million from 2010 – 2015 – file:///D:/Ecosystem%20Services%20&%20their%20valuation%20-%20MCC/2019%20-%20MCC/Economic%20value%20of%20land%20-%20%20MCC/Oct-Nov%202019/Moldova%20compact%20-%20evalbrief-20190022199-mda-agriculture.pdf)
Under ‘MCC Learning’ section of this Moldova compact evaluation, the Evaluation Brief goes on to say the following: ’Instead of rebuilding old Soviet irrigation systems, designed to irrigate large areas of land, irrigation systems could have been designed better to serve the existing situation in Moldova, where many farmers have small plots of land and are hesitant to cooperate. Greater farmer consultation in the design phase would have facilitated understanding farmer needs’
Therefore, modernization of ancient irrigation systems in the ‘wew bendi rajya’ in North Central Sri Lanka by introducing innovative technologies and management practices of organic agriculture including inland fisheries redevelopment into small-holder farming community programmes, could be considered as promising private sector ventures as opposed to large-scale high through-put commercial agriculture.
Designing a judicious blend of these widespread traditional agricultural systems, with modern innovative technologies incorporating the updated MCC Environmental Guidelines, would, indeed, be a challenge under article 2.7c of the MCC Sri Lanka Compact Agreement. Some local enterprises are already engaged in such organic agricultural ventures by regrouping marginalized local farmer communities to produce environmentally certified products and purchasing them at a premium price for export.
Economic Corridors
There are a number of punching and counter-punching bouts on the issue of developing ‘economic corridors’ under the MCC Sri Lanka Land Compact. As I mentioned in my earlier articles in The Island (May 03 and July 15), the spatial space of the MCC Sri Lanka Land Compact is in most part overlaps with that of Colombo – Trincomalee economic corridor development project of the then Megapolis Development Ministry, in accordance with the new National Physical Plan 2050.
Under Section 2.6 of the MCC Agreement (Government Resources; Budget), it says that the Government shall not reduce the normal and expected resources that it would otherwise receive or budget from sources other than MCC for the activities contemplated under this Compact and the Programme. This means, at least to me, that although the MCC Sri Lanka is not involved in designing an economic corridor from Trincomalee to Colombo, its program activities complements with those of the Megapolis ministry and the denials of an economic corridor by MCC is no more than a matter of political and diplomatic squabble.
Interestingly however, the first economic corridor for this region has been proposed almost a half a century ago as reported by the eminent town and country planner, Prof. Willie Mendis, in 2009. Even at that time, about 3/4ths of development and economic growth stemmed from a 50-mile wide corridor formed between two lines connecting Chilaw—Kuchchaveli, and Bentota—Katankudy. Accordingly, the corridor was clearly identified as the stomach or ” belly” for powering Sri Lanka’s economic growth and development. At that time it held about 70% of Sri Lanka’s population, and 35% of its land area. (Figure 2).
Prof. Willie Mendis’s following comments on the Colombo – Trincomalee economic corridor is even more valid in today’s context, if judicious sustainable development programs taking lessons from the environmental and socio-economic sustainability outcomes of Mahaweli Development Project could be designed to suit the needs of the 21st century in a country driven primarily by a small-holder economy:
‘Colombo’s primacy has been considered to be overwhelmingly biased towards further polarization of development in the south-western seaboard of the island. This situation favored the shift of policy to the provinces beyond the west end. Its centerpiece was the multi-purpose Accelerated Mahaweli Development Project which embraced a large spatial envelope in the north-western and north-central provinces of the country. The telescoping of its completion, in 1978, to six years was an impetus for spatial planners to propose it’s integration with the Colombo—Trincomalee Development Axis.
However, for whatever reason, this did not happen, and its missed opportunity is now history. The downside was the relegation to the backburner of it’s strategic component of constructing a rapid transit connection between Colombo and Trincomalee, through the aforementioned ” belly”. Its route trace offered the potential for triggering the spread of development activity in the north and south of the country. Its envisaged spur on the Habarana-Vavuniya-Jaffna route was an opportunity to transform the economic landscape of the north, due to it’s rapid connectivity with the markets in the south.
However, as emphasized in a recent report on ‘Integrated Spatial Planning and Analysis to Prioritize Biodiversity Conservation in Sri Lanka’ by Environmental Foundation (Guarantee) Limited and the National Biodiversity Secretariat of Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment, Sri Lanka (December 2017), there is an urgent need to identify and spatially map the biodiversity conservation priorities so that they can be integrated in to the mega-development plans like those of the MCC Land Compact and the Economic Corridor projects of the Megapolis Ministry. Doing so will minimize land allocation conflicts and minimize and mitigate the impacts from hurriedly designed socio-economic development projects.
I have already dealt with the related issues on the likely impacts of increase tenure security and tradability of land and the urgent need for improving the valuation of state and private lands in a ‘green economic milieu’ in my previous article on the 15th July in The Island newspaper. A sustainable green economic growth is what Sri Lanka is yearning for amidst a plethora of environmental problems it currently faces. It is rather intriguing how a green score card (77% -&79%) for environment protection has been obtained for years 2016-2019 during the preparation of the Constraint Analysis Report.
Sovereignty Issues
This aspect has been sufficiently dealt with in several previous articles including those by Neville Laduwahetty and Rusiripala Tennakoon which demand explanatory responses from the proponents of the Land Compact for the benefit of the interested public.
Elaborating further on what they have said, I wish to draw the attention of the public on Article 5 Section 5.1b of the Compact Agreement on Termination;Suspension;expiration of the MCC Compact (pages 13 and 14). There are eight sub articles i-viii describing circumstances ‘but not limiting to them’ as a basis for suspension or termination. A constitutional legal expert can perhaps analyze this better as to what degree Sri Lanka is going to be bound in the context of its sovereignty issues.
Furthermore, under Section 5.3a on Refunds; Violation it says ‘ If any MCC funding , any interest or earnings thereon, or any programme Asset is used for any purpose in violation of the terms of this Compact, then MCC may require the Government to repay MCC in United States Dollars the value of misused MCC funding, interest, earnings, or asset, plus interest thereon in accordance with Section 5.4 within thirty (30) days after the Government’s receipt of MCC’s request for repayment’.
Although the MCC Sri Lanka Compact, as a whole, is a total grant to Sri Lanka, the clauses as given under Article 5 seem to make this Agreement serious inroads in to Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and if violated, the consequences seem to be very severe, at least in my humble non-legal opinion (Section 5.3 on page 14). It is not a simple case of giving a ‘free lunch’ as some people claim. If that is the case, is there a way to avoid this seemingly a ‘Grant Trap’?
We have been informed that the Hambantota Harbour deal has been flawed and need to be re-negotiated and do not know at what cost. The MCC Sri Lanka Compact being a so called outright grant hailed as a once-in-a-lifetime freebie, it is better to be careful of the pitfalls from these ‘free lunches’ from the very outset.
The MCC has a past record of suspending or terminating threshold programs in Yemen (2005) and Niger (2009) due to deteriorating selection criteria performance, and in Mauritania (2008) after a coup triggered automatic aid prohibitions. Compacts in Nicaragua and Honduras were each partially terminated due to governance concerns, and the Armenia compact was also put on hold for similar reasons in 2008, though the Board did not suspend it. Coups in Madagascar (2009) and Mali (2012) each led to in wholesale termination. Sri Lanka need to be mindful of what happened in these country contexts. Independent evaluations on these are available on the web to take lessons from their failures.
Land Special Provisions Act:
The Land Special Provisions Act (LSPA) proposed in relation to 2(a) (iv) (a) Registration of Absolute Land Grants Sub-Activity is expected to define the process of the Government shall use for this conversion of State Lands to private domain, creating a marketable and bankable title to this land in the name of the land holder. However, due to Provincial Councils being dissolved at present, the possibility that this bill may need PC consent, GOSL has withdrawn this bill. Therefore, the paragraph 2(a)(iv)(a) need to be removed according to GOSL sources.
This indeed has given a yet another window of opportunity to critically reexamine the impacts, legal or otherwise, of this LSPA on other existing Acts such as Mahaweli Authority Act of 1979.
Conclusion
Taking all the above into consideration, it is better to take a step back and be very clear of the selection criteria performance agreed upon by the previous Government in the context of the policy directions of the newly elected Government. The eight sub articles i-viii in the Sri Lanka Compact Agreement describing circumstances ‘but not limiting to them’ as a basis for suspension or termination need to be re-examined before signing the final version of the MCC agreement (which may be different from what we have been commenting upon) , the accompanying Project Implementation Agreement (PIA) , any other Supplemental Agreement and any Implementation Letters which provide further details on the implementation arrangements, fiscal accountability and disbursement described in Article 3 section 3.1 of the current Executive version of the Compact Agreement. The latter documents are not yet publicly available for comments.
The author of this article is a Professor Emeritus at Peradeniya University and a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka. He can be contacted at nimsavg@gmail.com
Colombo, December 2 (newsin.asia): China claims that Sri Lanka has agreed to develop the Hambantota port and other on-going China-assisted projects as per the existing consensus,”, thus virtually opting out of a bid to renegotiate the controversial 2017 agreement on the Hambantota port which had leased it out to China for 99-years.
A Chinese embassy statement, put out by Xinhua on Monday, said that during the visit to Colombo of Wu Jianghao, representative of the Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday and Monday, China and Sri Lanka had agreed to speed up the implementation of cooperation on big economic projects, including the Colombo Port City and the Hambantota Port, under the existing consensus”.
The statement added that on the basis of the existing consensus, the two countries will draw up and promote a new blueprint for future cooperation.”
Wu Jianghhua and the Lankan leaders also agreed to further strengthen robust political trust between the two countries and upgrade their pragmatic cooperation,” the statement further said.
It is significant that Foreign Minister Wang Yi sent Wu Jianghua as his representative because Wu was China’s Ambassador in Sri Lanka during the earlier Rajapaksa regime between 2005 and 2014. Wu therefore knew Gotabaya Rajapkasa and Mahinda Rajapaksa well. Mahinda Rajapaksa was then the Lankan President and Gotabaya Rajapaksa was Defense Secretary.
Wu had paid separate calls on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and other Sri Lankan leaders.No” To Renegotiation?
The Chinese statement, in effect, means that China will not agree to renegotiate the 2017 agreement on Hambantotaa port as desired by the Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Gotabaya had told Nitin Gokhale editor-in-chief of the Indian defense journal Bharat Shakti prior to his departure for a meeting with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 29, that he opposes the giving of Hambantota port to a Chinese company on a 99-year lease.
The newly elected Lankan President said that the people of Sri Lanka do not like the alienation of a strategic asset like the Hambantota port to a foreign entity and that for such a long period. He announced that he would renegotiate the pact entered into by the previous Ranil Wickremesinghe government.
(The feautured image a the top shows the Chinese special representative Wu Jianghua with Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa)
Sri Lanka and Switzerland have got embroiled in a diplomatic row of sorts over the alleged abduction and subsequent release of a Sri Lankan woman working at the Swiss Embassy in Colombo. Curiously, the alleged incident was not reported to the police immediately. The Swiss mission has declined to name ‘the victim’ for reasons of her safety. Let’s, therefore call her Ms X.
Bern is reported to have summoned the Sri Lankan Ambassador to register its protest. Colombo is pressuring Swiss envoy Hanspeter Mock, to co-operate with the ongoing police investigations. It has gone so far as to issue a detailed denial of the Swiss envoy’s claim; insisting that CCTV footage, GSP data, telephone and Uber records, etc. have proved the alleged adduction never took place, it has requested the Swiss embassy to allow Ms X to be interviewed by the police. It also wants her to be examined by a doctor because her employer says she is not well.
The Swiss Embassy claims that Ms X was intimidated and interrogated by her abductors, who sought to elicit information about Chief Inspector Nishantha Silva, who recently left for Switzerland with his family. The abduction drama has eclipsed the issue of the controversial CID officer seeking asylum in Switzerland. It has also helped put Colombo on the back foot.
The Sri Lankan government has claimed that the alleged abduction is part of a plot to discredit it. Some grandees of the incumbent dispensation have a reputation that is difficult to live down. Even if a tippler happens to drink a glass of milk, people think he is consuming toddy, as the local saying goes. It is said that ‘he that has an ill name is half hanged’.
There are three possibilities as regards the Swiss Ambassador’s claim. He is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or he has been misled by those who, the government says, are party to a conspiracy to bring it into disrepute, or he finds himself in a position where he cannot admit he erred and misled Bern and the international community. In respect of the counterclaims as well, there are three possibilities; the government is telling the truth, or it is trying to suppress the truth to avoid international condemnation, or the abduction was carried out without its knowledge.
Various arguments anent the alleged abduction smack of circular reasoning. The rivals of the government insist that the abduction really took place because the Swiss Ambassador says so! The apologists of the government argue that the abduction never took place because it has been officially denied! They may go on claiming that the assumptions they are required to prove are true and, therefore, their conclusions are valid, but others who keep an open mind and are desirous of knowing the truth will be left none the wiser.
The question is how to get at the truth. This is a task that cannot be accomplished without a thorough probe. The Sri Lankan police have a pivotal role to play in investigations into the alleged incident and they must be given access to Ms X, who deserves justice if her abduction claim is true.
The alleged abduction has already attracted international media attention and is sure to be used against Sri Lanka in Geneva when the UNHRC has its next session. The Sri Lankan government must, therefore, probe it, and the Swiss Embassy ought to act responsibly and cooperate with the police fully.
The argument that the identity of Ms X will be disclosed and her life endangered if she is allowed to be interviewed by the police does not hold water; if it is true that the abduction has really taken place, as the Swiss embassy insists, then her identity must already be known to her ‘abductors’. An opportunity for the police to question her will not put her in harm’s way because she has taken refuge in the Swiss Embassy. It is imperative that she be examined by a qualified doctor without further delay.
We can only hope that Bern will realise that the alleged abduction of Ms X is not purely a diplomatic issue, and the legal aspects thereof have to be looked into. It will be interesting to see the Swiss Embassy’s response to the government’s denial of its Ambassador’s claim.
The CID today fact-reported to the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court to launch a fresh investigation into the controversial statement made by former Minister Rajitha Senaratne on ‘white van drivers’ at a press conference held prior to the presidential election.
Addressing a press conference held on November 10, the former minister said a new government of theirs would probe into the alleged murders and abductions took place during the Rajapaksa regime.
In front of the media, he had presented two individuals whom he claimed were a ‘white van’ driver and victim of an attempted abduction in such a setting.
However, reporting facts before Colombo Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne, the CID informed that it would launch investigations into suspects Anthony Douglas Fernando and Athula Sanjaya Madanayake who were reported to be a white van driver and victim.
Furthermore, the CID said it would conduct investigations into accommodation facilities provided to both suspects and on concealing facts in connection to the said incident.
The CID requested a magisterial order for television channels requesting unedited video clips of the press conference. Accordingly, the Magistrate ordered the channels to provide the needful.
The complaint has been lodged by an individual identified as Kumudu Pradeep Sanjeewa Perera and the CID is to continue investigations according to Section 102, 113 and 119 of the Penal Code.
Power and Energy Minister Mahinda Amaraweera today sought a report on the controversial tender given to a Chinese consortium to construct the Kerawalapitiya 300MWs LNG power plant. He instructed Ministry Secretary, Ms. Wasantha Perera, to submit a report on the issue in two weeks.
A crucial meeting to take a final decision on the matter is scheduled to be held on Thursday.
Chinese consortium GCL China WindForce and RenewGen got approval for the proposed power plant thus bypassing LTL whose bid was the lowest. Eight bidders out of 39 investors were short-listed in April 2017 by the Power and Renewable Energy Ministry while Consortium of Samsung C and T, Komipo and GS Energy, The Consortium of Sojitz Corporation, CGNPC International Ltd., Consortium of Gel, WindForce, RenewGen, Korea Southern Power Co. Ltd., Lakdhanavi Ltd., Hyflux Ltd. and Consortium of Summit Power International Pte. Ltd. were selected as possible investors for the project and short-listed as bidders.
Later, WindForce and RenewGen were selected as investors in spite of LTL’s unit price being Rs.14.98 and the unit price of Chinese company GCL being Rs.15.97. During the bidding time, the US Dollar stood at Rs.150 against the rupee and the rate has now risen to Rs.180 and price difference soared to Rs.1.21. LTL’s total project estimate was $175 million and the second-lowest bidder’s estimated $299 million.
Kerawalapitiya LNG power plant was proposed as a solution for a possible power crisis during 2019 and 2020. Perhaps to make amendments to offering the tender to the Chinese company, the government decided to award another contract to LTL to set up a new 300MW LNG plant.
I want to go to the bottom of the tender offered to construct the Kerawalapitiya power plant as there have been a few gray areas in the tender procedure. I will take a final decision on the matter shortly as the construction of the power plant with an installed capacity of 300MWs is extremely vital to prevent a possible power crisis in the next few years,” Minister Amaraweera said.
Until
such time the investigations officially conclude after the Swiss release a Sri
Lankan National kept inside the embassy compound since 25th November
2019, it is only correct that the distortions and lies being spread is
corrected officially by the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry. Invite all diplomatic
mission heads & key staff – explain the timeline – do a presentation and
ask them to raise counter questions. Follow full transparency methods and show
to the world how Sri Lanka is conducting the investigations and how embassy is
withholding the victim from being questioned.
Overall
objective was to accuse the Govt of abducting a Swiss employee
Timeline of incidents
24 Nov
Sunday
CID CI Nishantha Silva secretly flees
Sri Lanka with wife & 3 children
to Switzerland. Visa given by Swiss embassy without police approval letter.
25 Nov Monday
Female local staffer of Swiss Embassy ‘temporarily
abducted’ & threatened
(note news not made public in Sri Lanka
but relayed via foreign media-why?)
26 Nov/Tue Web article
employee
stationed in the Swiss embassy reportedly abducted in a white van” and ‘released
after two hours’ ‘abductee questioned about Nishantha Silva who worked in the
CID”
‘attack’ connected to t
high-ranking Sri Lankan police inspector who took ‘asylum in Switzerland’‘due to death threats’ because he had
been investigating corruption and rights
violations in connection with the entourage of newly-elected President Gotabaya
Rajapaksa”
detained against her
will on the street and threatened at length”
27 Nov/Wed Web media NYT
New
York Times
Swiss embassy employee is abducted and
asked about asylum applications and investigators are banned from leaving just
days after Gotabaya Rajapakse is elected”
‘forced to hand over
sensitive embassy information’
‘men forced her to unlock
her cellphone data, which contained information about Sri Lankans who have
recently sought asylum in Switzerland and the names of Sri Lankans who aided
them as they fled the country because they feared for their safety after
Gotabaya Rajapakse won’.
police investigator fled
to Switzerland with his family on Sunday”
‘Switzerland
embassy employee was reportedly abducted in a vehicle, detained for two hours
and then released’
27 Nov/Wed Web media
According
Island newspaper
Swiss
ambassador Colombo came to inform incident to PM Mahinda Rajapakse at his
Wijerama Mw – GLP, PM’s foreign affairs advisor and acting IGP were present.
Victims identity was not disclosed by envoy
Secretary/Foreign Relations Ravinatha
Aryasinha together with Secretary/Defence Major General (Retd.) Kamal Gunaratne
and relevant officials met with the Ambassador for Switzerland in Sri Lanka
Hanspeter Mock and the Deputy Chief of Mission
SL Foreign Ministry Press Release
says
sequence of events/timeline of abduction given by Swiss embassy on behalf of
local staffer do not corroborate with her movements as evidenced by witness
interviews/technical evidence, uber records, CCTV footage, telephone records,
GPS data
SL
Foreign Ministry requests Swiss embassy allow law enforcement authorities to
interview her and examine her by a SL medical officer as she claimed injuries
were sustained during abduction
25th
Nov: Questions for Swiss Embassy
How
did she break the news of this assault to the Embassy?
If
as per Sunday Times newspaper the incident happened at 5p.m. – if so, that means
she would have returned to Gregory’s Road at only 7p.m. – was the Embassy
opened at this time & who was in the premises other than the security?
Did
you take a statement from her – is this filed?
Did
you inform the Sri Lanka Police or Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry of incident that
evening itself (25th Nov) if not why didn’t you?
Why
did you decide to keep her inside Embassy compound without sending her home
that evening?
What
was the reason given to the family? Did the family come to visit her on 25th
Nov? If so are they also inside the embassy compound
What
is the source to claim the Swiss local employee was abducted to be questioned regarding
Nishantha Silva who worked in CID?
26th Nov: Questions for NZZ
Swiss news media:
When, how and by whom did NZZ Swiss news hear about this
abduction?
With
what evidence is NZZ Swiss news claiming the abductee was ‘attacked”
27th Nov: Questions for
Swiss Foreign Ministry/swissinfo.ch
Is
this written statement to swissinfo.ch from the Swiss Foreign Ministry AFTER
taking an official statement from the abductee?
27th Nov: Questions for New
York Times
What
is the source that the abductee was forced to hand over sensitive embassy
information?
What
is the source for the statement ‘men
forced her to unlock her cellphone data, which contained information about Sri
Lankans who have recently sought asylum in Switzerland and the names of Sri
Lankans who aided them as they fled the country because they feared for their
safety after Gotabaya Rajapakse won’
How does NYT know staffer was questioned
about Nishantha Silva
27th Nov: Questions for TamilGuardian
What
is the source to claim abductee was abducted in a vehicle?
What
is the source to claim abductee was questioned about Nishantha Silva?
28th Nov: Questions to Sri
Lanka Foreign Ministry
Adaderana
news portal claims incident was conveyed to Foreign Ministry on 26th
Nov – to whom was it conveyed, by whom in the Swiss embassy & was it by
phone/email or official letter?
Questions to Norway
Island Newspaper
sources allege Norway secretly moved out Sri Lankans including LTTE cadres and Rajapakse administration sought
explanation from former Norwegian ambassador in Colombo Hilde Harasldstad.
Questions for Swiss
Embassy
On
what grounds did Swiss give visa to Nishantha Silva who did not have an
official letter to travel overseas (Swiss are one of the strictest countries to
give visas)
Who
arranged visa and tickets for Nishantha and entire family to travel on 24th
Nov – a Sunday?
What
is the relationship Nishantha & Swiss Embassy have been having in secret
and for how long?
How
did the abductors know this local staffer was handling secret visa/asylum papers?
NYT
says abductee had her phone unlocked which contained information about Sri
Lankans seeking asylum to Switzerland and names of Sri Lankans helping them to
flee – does Swiss embassy allow such information to be on mobile phones?
How
come the abductors & the Swiss embassy only know her identity but everyone
else doesn’t?
How
come a health ailment that did not exist from 25th Nov suddenly
result in ‘deteriorating health’ on 30th November when Sri Lanka
Govt insisted on questioning her?
If
she is ill and she has been sexually molested as alleged given that she is a
Sri Lankan citizen, Sri Lanka must be allowed to examine her and give treatment
to her. Why is the Swiss embassy not allowing this?
If
she is too ill to give a statement how can she travel to Switzerland which is a
minimum flight hour time of 14hours and with transit may even be more?
On
what grounds did Swiss give entry permit to a naval officer who gave evidence
against Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Admiral Ravi Wijegunaratne,
Questions to victim (whoever she is –
if she does exist)
Did
you take a hired cab to drop child at school around 5p.m. on Monday 25th
Nov 2019
If
so, why did you not drop the child at school which was walking distance from
Swiss embassy and get yourself dropped at the embassy – why walk to the
embassy?
Why
go to an embassy when it is closed & only security is inside – local recruits
are not allowed to open embassy offices
Our Questions
Was
this drama an attempt to divert guilt away from Swiss for giving asylum to CID
CI Nishantha Silva to flee Sri Lanka & earlier another Naval officer to
flee to Switzerland?
Does
this ‘victim’ actually exist or is it a fabricated story?
Did
the victim create this story to claim refuge in Switzerland similar to an
earlier attempt by another Swiss local staffer in 2009?
Did
the victim and Swiss embassy jointly connive this drama to embarrass the Govt
and the new President?
Gathering all foreign mission heads – putting the truth on the table – having a panel answer their questions will put an end to their spreading lies and distortions. Same should be done to international media outlets too
Colombo, December 1 (newsin.asia): The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said in a press release on Sunday that there is clear evidence” that the sequence of events and the timeline of the alleged abduction” of a Swiss embassy staffer, as formally presented by the Swiss Mission on behalf of the alleged victim to the police, did not in any way correspond with the actual movements of the alleged victim on that date.
That was borne out by witness interviews and technical evidence, including Uber records, CCTV footage, telephone records and the GPS data,” the press release said.
In the light of the incontrovertible evidence presented by the law enforcement authorities to the Swiss Mission, it is underlined that investigations will need to be continued to ascertain the actual facts surrounding this allegation.”
For this, the alleged victim will have to be interviewed by the law enforcement authorities,” the release said.
Further: Given that the alleged victim had also claimed that she had sustained injuries during the alleged abduction, it was noted that she should be presented for a medical examination by a Judicial Medical Officer in Sri Lanka.”
The Embassy has been requested to cooperate fully with the Government of Sri Lanka to establish the veracity of the claims relating to this alleged incident.”
But till date, the embassy has not allowed the police to interview her saying that she is too traumatized to make a statement.
Alleged Abduction
Sunday Times said that the incident is said to have occurred just after 5 p.m. on Monday (November 25) along R.G. Senanayake Mawatha (former Gregory’s Road) where the Swiss embassy is located. In the vicinity are the Japanese embassy and the Australian high commission.
The female Sri Lankan embassy staffer was an aide to the lady Migration Officer in the Swiss embassy, a national of that country. For reasons of security and for their safety their names are not being divulged.
When the local staffer had walked out of a school nearby, to her office premises, five persons in a white Toyota Corolla car had followed her, bundled her into the vehicle and driven away. She had been released only two hours later.
She complained that she was sexually molested. The abductors had bound her and covered her eyes with a black cloth,” said a diplomatic source familiar with the incident.
She was questioned on why she helped her embassy in the issue of a visa to CID Chief Inspector Nishantha de Silva.” She was questioned on this repeatedly. At times, they threatened her of consequences she would have to face if an answer was not given, said the source.
Some Colombo papers reported that the Swiss embassy has asked for government’s permission to take the employee away to Switzerland for she feared that Sri Lanka will not be safe for her any more.
Chief Inspector Nishantha de Silva, who was head of the Organized Crimes Investigation Division of the CID, fled Sri Lanka on November 24 with his family, clearly with the connivance of the Swiss embassy.
The government has learnt that he has sought asylum in Switzerland. It alleged that Nishantha de Silva had been used by the powers-that-be in the then government and some Western embassies were motivating the officer to pursue cases against some people including those in the forces and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and fix them.
After Nishantha de Silva’s escape, the government alerted the authrorities to watch out for over 700 investigating officers who might try to flee the country.
The Ministry of Foreign Relations stated that the timeline of the alleged criminal incident against a local staff member of the Swiss Embassy, as presented by the Embassy, does not correspond with the actual movements of the alleged victim on the relevant date.
The Ministry, issuing a statement, states that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) launched an investigation on the matter despite not being able to interview the alleged victim through law enforcement officials.
The investigations have found that the sequence of events and timeline of the alleged incident, as presented by the Swiss Mission on behalf of the alleged victim, did not correspond with the actual movements of the victim on that date according to witness interviews and technical evidence, including Uber records, CCTV footage, telephone records, and the GPS data, stated the Ministry.
Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Secretary of Defense and relevant officials have, this evening (01), briefed the Ambassador for Switzerland in Sri Lanka and the Deputy Chief of Mission on the results of the investigation.
Stating that further investigations, including interview of the alleged victim by law enforcement officials, must be carried out on the matter, the Ministry stated that the alleged victim must be presented for a medical examination by a Judicial Medical Officer in Sri Lanka as the victim had also claimed that she had sustained injuries during the events.
We
sure hope the Swiss will not be caught doing a Rajitha on Sri Lanka’s new Govt?
Doing
a Rajitha is what we now call the fake white van story using a dressed up
driver. Humour aside, the Swiss claims an injustice has happened to its local
staffer, who is a Sri Lankan citizen so we are all naturally concerned because
she is a Sri Lankan citizen. We are no investigators but we don’t like the
negative and biased publicity against Sri Lanka by very unfair remarks made by
Swiss authorities and their silence in correcting distortions spread via
international media. This is why we are asking questions that the international
readers should also be thinking about without accepting the lies spread regarding
this supposed ‘temporary kidnapping’ & questioning. Up till 30th
November, the Swiss did not say anything about her being ‘ill’ (5 days after
the temporary kidnapping) but we predicted this would be the likely excuse the
Swiss embassy would give. We also predicted the likely scenario of transporting
her & family to Switzerland and now 1st December the Swiss makes
request to ‘air ambulance’ her! So case gets closed with international
tarnishing campaign done against Sri Lanka. Sorry, but Sri Lanka is not ready
to be humiliated until we come to the bottom of this. Whoever has done this – we want to know who it is and we don’t care who
it is – we just want to know who!
This
woman is a local recruit. She therefore, has no diplomatic immunity. She cannot
be kept by force inside an embassy compound. Keeping her inside the embassy compound since 25th November
2019 is a fundamental rights violation. What about her family? Are they
inside too? If not, this family has every right to see their daughter, mother,
wife!
Why was she not allowed to leave the
embassy compound since 25th November? The embassy could have requested police escort to
her home which the Foreign Ministry would have obliged.
Why did the world get to know this ‘temporary
kidnapping’ only via a web portal?
Why did the Swiss Foreign Ministry
make a statement only on 27th November?
Why is the Swiss authorities denying
Sri Lankan police to question her?
The
Swiss officials can be present at questioning – they can even hire a lawyer for
her!
If
the abductors knew her identity enough to abduct her, only we the innocent
public don’t know who she is, so what’s the problem? If the CID abducted her
then they would know her identity, but given that the police don’t know who she
is, that leaves out any CID abducting her! The Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry may
have a list of staff and probably that will include her name.
How did a local recruit get to handle
such important subjects as handling files of people discretely being helped out
of Sri Lanka by a foreign embassy in exchange for sensitive information!
The
truth of this will come out only during next Geneva sessions. So we await to
see what the West will use against Sri Lanka using information handed by
Nishantha Silva in exchange for asylum!
After 5 days since the incident happened the Swiss
embassy says due to a deteriorating health condition, the victim is currently
not in a state to testify”. How did her health ‘rapidly deteriorate’ an ailment
that the Swiss did not inform on 26th Nov, 27th Nov, 28th
Nov, 29th Nov and only on 30th Nov the Swiss say her
health is ‘rapidly deteriorating’?
If the woman is ill after being asked to give a statement
it is only right that Sri Lankan medical attention is given to her immediately.
Has the Swiss embassy given her medical attention? If not why? Shouldn’t the
police seek magistrate intervention for both questioning and examination of
this Sri Lankan citizen by a Sri Lankan doctor?
Swiss Embassy Colombo, don’t get us wrong, but as
members of the general public, we want to certainly find out who did this and
our questions are only based on what your embassy, your western media and
others are publicly stating. We are only breaking down what is in public domain
and asking questions.
If
she was put into a car, blindfolded, where was the car heading, whereabouts
Gregory’s Rd did this kidnapping take place – this is where some 100 US Marines
are also residing. Was she walking from her car to the Embassy or was she
coming by bus and walking down the road when the car came to abduct her? Did
she scream, refuse to get in or was she dragged inside the car and how many did
she see inside before she was blindfolded, if at all that too took place. Why
did no one see all of this drama happening? What time did it happen?
Where
did the car drop her off – before the embassy, after the embassy or on another
street? Did they take her belongings, did they steal her money or did they take
her phone? Or was it just a nice tete-a-tete. We are dying to hear what she was
asked.
The Island newspaper now reports of
the Swiss requesting an ‘air ambulance’ which in other words imply to be flown
to Switzerland where she will join Nishantha Silva & family, a naval
officer and probably scores more of others who have fled Sri Lanka for refuge
in Switzerland the supposed to be ‘NEUTRAL’ country!
The Island newspaper
also says Sources said that Norwegians
were among those who secretly moved out Sri Lankans, including LTTE cadres over
the years. Sources recalled how Rajapaksa administration sought an explanation
from former Norwegian Ambassador in Colombo Hilde Haraldstad regarding
clandestine moving of Sri Lankans via the BIA”
So the Swiss wants to end this drama by simply
claiming she is sick and flying her off to Switzerland. Move over Hollywood!
So she isn’t in a condition to answer a few questions
but she is well enough to fly to Switzerland the fastest of flight times is
14hours, longest being 32 hours!
The
Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry must understand the bigger picture here – it’s not
just immigration formalities. This incident cannot be allowed to be swept under
the carpet by simply allowing this local recruit to leave the country along
with her family after making accusations which have now spread across the
world.
According to Sunday Times from what has obviously
been leaked by the Swiss embassy for public consumption
The local employee
is an assistant to the Swiss Lady Migration Officer
The
local staffer had dropped her child to a school nearby and was walking to the
embassy when a WHITE TOYOTA COROLLA (NOT
WHITE VAN) had bundled her into the vehicle and driven away. New York Times please make correction!
However, this is what
the Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman said on 27th November 2019 ‘local employee of the embassy was detained against
her will on the street and threatened at length by unidentified men in
order to force her to disclose embassy-related information’.
Interestingly
from what the snippets leaked to the Sunday Times is that in between the 2hours she was ‘temporarily abducted’ she was blind
folded & bound (which can
be tested), questioned on why she helped her embassy give visa to CID CI
Nishantha de Silva, threatened if answers were not given and sexually molested
too (this too can be medically tested)
However,
the Swiss Foreign Ministry made NO MENTION of any Nishantha Silva in their
official statement and Nishantha Silva & family had already fled Sri Lanka
on Sunday 24th Nov)
Quite a
lot of fiction seems to be getting in the way of facts. It is no secret that ‘bogus
witness’ and third party accounts were the basis of every UNHRC resolution/report
against Sri Lanka in such a scenario while ‘unknown sources’ ‘questioning NGOs’
‘white vans’ ‘intimidations of NGOs’ going to get visa are going to be used as
a blanket to protect the lies spread against a democratically elected
government, we general public have every right to ask questions and expect
answers.
Swiss
Embassy Colombo, this local staffer is only your employee, hope you are paying
her EPF/ETF, she is a citizen of Sri Lanka and we are concerned that she is
being kept inside an embassy compound and if her family is not inside the
compound it means she is denied access to them by the Swiss authorities.
Perhaps not seeing her family since 25th November is more traumatic
for her!
Swiss Embassy should know when a crime has taken place, in whatever part of the world, it is the police who are tasked to take a statement and then start an inquiry and conclude the investigation. This is an universal procedure. Enough and more sensitive cases have had to face questioning. You will remember how the Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, was arrested & questioned by US State Dept and she was both a diplomat & India’s Deputy Consul General.
So,
why is the Swiss Embassy making such a fuss over a questioning which is an universal
procedure? Why don’t they hire the best Sri Lankan lawyer to represent her!
Sri Lanka needs to clear its name and we as citizens
want to find out who the culprit is – we don’t care if it is the Govt, the
Opposition, the Embassy or anyone else – all that we want to know is the truth.
Did such an incident take place or didn’t it. If such an incident did take
place we want to know who did it and if such an incident did not take place we
demand to know all of the players who contributed to humiliate and tarnish the
image of Sri Lanka.
We sure hope all this doesn’t end up a case of someone’s fertile imagination backfiring!
In 2015 regime change took place and common
candidate Maithripala Sirisena was elected as President. Democracy and
elections were ‘virtues’ handed to former colonies by former colonial invaders.
Diplomacy is part and parcel of international relations and enshrined in code
of conduct via Vienna Convention/Protocols. When a candidate is voted victor in
an election it is only polite that a congratulatory message is issued even to
the most personally hated candidate. Isn’t that gentlemen’s behavior and part
and parcel of the white man’s ‘civilizing’ burden? No Western leader can boast
of getting a mandate from their voters as the one given to President Gotabaya
and it is very disappointing that Western world leaders have chosen to be
shallow in their diplomacy by not sending a customary congratulatory message.
This is how the world bodies and foreign
governments reacted to Maithripala Sirisena becoming 6th President
of Sri Lanka
United
Nations
UN
General Secretary Ban Ki Moon congratulated the Sri Lankan people
“on
the successful conclusion of the presidential election”,
UNSG praised the election commission for its “professionalism”
European
Union
EU Foreign
Affairs High Representative Federica Mogherini issuing statement
on 9th January itself declared “EU
looks forward to working with him to further develop its relations with Sri
Lanka”
Australia
Foreign
Minister Julie Bishop on 10th January 2015 congratulated Sri
Lankans on a peaceful and orderly election.
PM
Tony Abbott telephoned President Sirisena
Norway
Prime Minister Erna Solberg on 9 January 2015
congratulated the Sri Lankan people and President Sirisena, saying she looked
forward to working with the new government to “promote a peaceful, inclusive and democratic Sri Lanka”
UK
PM David Cameron on 9 January 2015 congratulated President
Sirisena and encouraging him to co-operate with UN investigation into alleged
war crimes “so that the issues of
the past can be addressed and the country can move forward to a brighter,
peaceful future where all Sri Lankans can play a role”
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond issued a statement
commending the Sri Lanka people “on
the successful completion of their elections”
USA
President Barack Obama on 9 January 2015 congratulated
“the people of Sri Lanka on the successful and peaceful conclusion”
to the election and Sirisena on his victory, saying that it was “a symbol
of hope for those who support democracy all around the world”
Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement
praising Sri Lanka people “on the successful conclusion of their elections”,
commending Rajapaksa for accepting the resulting and saying that he looked “forward to working with
President-elect Maithripala Sirisena”
Now
see the above reactions against the reactions to Gotabaya Rajapakse’s election
victory!
Gotabaya Rajapakse was announced President on
17th November 2019. But the reactions of international bodies &
governments even for diplomacy sake has been dismal.
Its 1st of December 2019 and so
far
UN
Secretary General has NOT issued a congratulatory message
EU
issued a statement
We
congratulate President Rajapaksa and look forward to working with him to uphold
Sri Lanka’s commitments to implement international conventions on fundamental
rights and to continue efforts aimed at improving governance, human rights and
reconciliation”.
USA
Embassy has issued a statement
“We
commend the Elections Commission, civil society and government authorities for
promoting a peaceful election. We are ready to continue our work with the new
President and with all the people of Sri Lanka in supporting the country’s
sovereignty through heightened good governance, expanded economic growth, the
advancement of human rights and reconciliation, and in fostering an
Indo-Pacific region where all countries can prosper.”
No
Congratulatory message from US President Trump
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated
President Rajapakse only on a tweet on 19 November 2019
U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives
Alaina B. Teplitz said,
we
look forward to working with President-elect Rajapaksa on issues of good
governance, economic growth, the advancement of human rights and reconciliation
in support of a strong, sovereign Sri Lanka.”
No
Congratulatory message from UK Prime Minister
British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Sarah
Hulton OBE, congratulated Gotabaya on his election and “the people of Sri Lanka on a more peaceful election period than
ever.” and officially visited him on 26th November 2019.
Lord
Ahmad, Minister for the Commonwealth, UN and South Asia, congratulated
Gotabaya on Twitter said he looks “forward to the UK and Sri Lanka
working together constructively as Commonwealth partners.”
No
Congratulatory message from Australian Prime Minister or Foreign Minister
Australia
welcomes the high voter turnout and historically peaceful day of polling for
#SriLanka’s Presidential Election. We look forward to building on the strong
Australia-Sri Lanka relationship,” tweeted Australian High Commissioner to Sri
Lanka David Holly.
The first countries to congratulate President
Rajapakse was India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Maldives, Singapore, Bangladesh,
Nepal, Afghanistan
Russian
President Vladimir Putin congratulating President Rajapaksa said,
it
definitely meets the fundamental interests of our people and is in line with
strengthening the regional stability and security.”
Lord Naseby PC, President of the All Party British Sri
Lanka Parliamentary Group, has extended his congratulations to the newly-elected President (20 Nov)
Issuing twitter messages is not diplomacy and following diplomatic
protocols. These are only social media platforms and not official mode of
diplomacy.
Courtesy, Respect and Professionalism are most important components of a diplomatic protocol” – Tomasz Orłowski
Nothing they do is right. Everything right
they do is wrong. What exactly is their problem? This is really puzzling to
most patriots and nationalists who are grappling to pinpoint what the root
cause of this hate ailment against Rajapakse’s by the West is in order to even
remotely consider avenues for reconciliation. Native American Indians said the
white man speaks with a forked tongue and we can see that in its diplomacy and
tools.
Are
they angry that LTTE their pet tiger was defeated?
Why should they be, LTTE was after all
murdering innocent people, terminating their lives for no reason, they made
$300m annual profits but did not spend a cent on Tamils whom they claim to
represent. Scores of Tamil low caste, poor children were turned into child
soldier depriving them their fundamental right to education and living with
their families. Right to freedom was denied by forcing people to remain
encircled in a defacto area they ruled. How can the West choose the tiger over the
innocents that they killed unless their geopolitical-military-trade mattered
more than lives of people.
Were
the successive UNHRC resolutions their punishment?
A bogus dead figure that has no names (or are
giving names of dead LTTE terrorists), no skeletons or evidence to prove is the
basis for successive resolutions claiming war crimes/genocide against Sri Lanka.
Naming terrorist dead as civilians completely ignoring how many Tamils LTTE
shot and killed while trying to flee LTTE. Refusing to even imagine how 40,000
dead bodies could have been dug and pushed into graves without US satellite
imagery seeing them or Ban Ki Moon and his foreign delegation not seeing newly
dug graves as they travelled over terrain in helicopter 3 days after LTTE
defeat. Name dead Tamil civilians not LTTE dead. Prove the Tamil civilians dead
were killed by Sri Lanka Army purposely – just don’t ridicule a national army
benchmarking against the proven crimes committed by Western troops in illegally
invaded nations.
Was
this why a totally irregular and unprecedented action was taken by UNSG?
When illegal invasions/interventions/bombings
have taken place none of which resulted in UNSG appointing panels to personally
appraise him, why did the UNSG decide to appoint a panel AFTER a conflict that
lasted 30 years ended? Why did UNSG not seek permission from UNSC or UNGA
assembly to appoint a UN panel & instead appointed a non-UN member panel
which was to only appraise him of the final months of Sri Lanka’s conflict,
which became the basis of the UNHRC’s recommendation for investigation against
Sri Lanka. We continue to question the legality of this entire process adopted
with malice against a UN member state that was suffering 30 years of terror and
did not see any assistance of the UN or West to end LTTE terror though all LTTE
fronts were operating from these Western countries inspite of the West banning
the LTTE. When UN and West know that LTTE fronts are operating from their
countries why are they not taking action against them for materially supporting
terrorists?
Is this why using UN nomenclatures Western
governments are plugging aid and assistance with demands to make legislative
changes and weaken/destabilize Sri Lanka
One good example was the GSP plus requiring
Sri Lanka to make legislative/penal code/policy changes which cannot be
reversed easily but West could with a stroke of a statement revoke GSP. Where
does that leave Sri Lanka after making the changes the West demanded? The MCC
agreement is one such ‘grant’ where drastic legislative changes have already
taken place as preconditions to giving a grant which is to be audited by US
govt and coming through a US incorporated company in Sri Lanka.
White
van abductions?
Was this a foreign intel-psy ops as part of
psychologically scaring people at the mention of these two words? The fanfare
over that died out with the stupid stunt played by a former Minister and a
driver! But it would be good for the West making wild allegations to be a
little responsible in their accusations by providing names and even court cases
related to such abductions. There was a period that people were abducted never
to be seen again – this was during the 1980s – where were all these human
rights angels and free media then? The leader of the JVP was toasted alive in
the Borella crematorium – where were the human rights voices?
A plethora of other mud campaigns have been
sponsored by the West against Rajapakse’s.
Thajudeen-Ekneligoda-Lasantha-recirculation
Take any foreign media release – a disclaimer
at the end will carry something or the other about abducted journalists –
murdered journalists implying that no journalist is safe in Sri Lanka. Where
were these media when Richard De Zoysa, Sagarika Gomes and a host of others
including lawyer Wijayadasa Liyanarachchi was killed? How is it that their
names never make it to international print?
Surely, the past 4 ½ years with entire
West-UN agencies backing the Wickremasinghe government the perpetrators of these
crimes should have been brought to book.
Thajudeen’s case has been blown to bits by an
OIC put in prison simply because he refused to say the crime was by Rajapakses
for which he & his family would get to live in Canada
and the PM and Lasantha’s own brother is on
record for giving the name of the perpetrator of Lasantha’s killing – all these
revelations do not point to any Rajapakse.
Human
rights/R2P-democracy-rule of law-transparency-accountability
These are all Western policy tools and are
keys used to sway allegiance
diplomatically-politically-economically-culturally-socially with last resort of
military action (R2P).
But
what is the credibility of these countries to preach?
The West carry a legacy of colonial crimes
lasting over 500 years with atrocities far atrocious than the isolated one’s
they go after – genocide, elimination of entire tribes, dividing
families/tribes by artificial boundaries, inflicting disease and starving with
intent to murder, killing elephants as a sport, hanging people while eating
breakfast, throwing indigenous babies to crocodiles as punishment for natives
not towing their line. Plundering treasures and resources of these nations. How
about accountability for these heinous crimes?
Every year, more than 30,000 people are shot,
murdered, or commit suicide using guns, and over 200,000 people are wounded in
gun-related violence in the US.
Before giving money to look after the poor in
other countries take care of the rising poor in the West as a result of failed
capitalism. Nearly 40 million people are living in poverty in America. 20% of UK people live in poverty including 8
million working-age adults. In 2017, 112.8 million people in the EU lived in households at risk of
poverty.
Racial discrimination is deeply rooted in the
US – racial equality exists only on paper. US speaks about torture – what about
the torture-interrogation methods adopted by CIA many similar to what was used
during the Inquisitions.
Dictators sponsored by West – Batista, Somoza,
Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko, Pinochet, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (the former shah of
Iran), Zia ul-Haq, Syngman Rhee, Suharto, Idi Amin.
Bombs dropped by West and collateral deaths –
as of November 2018, at least 244,000 civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan &
Pakistan have died violent deaths, this excludes Yemen, Syria, Somalia and
other countries US & NATO are daily bombing.
How can the West demand Sri Lanka to remove
military bases in its own country when US has nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad while
UK and France have military bases in 11 countries? British armed forces are already deployed in more than
80 countries. The US has 1.3 million
troops stationed around the world.
6.9million people
voted for Gotabaya Rajapaks in 2019, previously though Mahinda Rajapakse lost
elections in 2015, he too got 5.8million votes. The masses have placed
confidence in him. Far more voters go to vote in Sri Lanka than they do in the
West, so people do exercise their democratic right.
Just as they voted out a Rajapakse in 2015 they voted in a Rajapakse in 2019. So don’t cry over spoilt milk. We understand the West has invested heavily in the previous government plus much more on a coterie of dark ‘princes’ who run civil society & NGO outlets, but it may be good to assess their performance against the remunerations given and replace them – they have absolutely no credibility in society and are just good for the cocktail circles they call ‘civil society’.
Mr
Latheef Farook on the Island Newspaper – 26 Nov 2019, says, all what they
expect from the new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is to create an environment
with new overtures where they could live in peace. What the Muslims need is for
the new government to understand their plight, stop violence against them, and
attend to their grievances.”
It
was the short-sighted racist politics of the two main national parties that
forced Muslim to support when some ambitious individuals decided to exploit the
helplessness of the community by forming a separate political party.” So, this too is the fault of
the Sinhalese belonging to the two main political parties! In other words,
Muslims are mere children who have been misled by very bad Sinhalese!
Finally,
it was the arrogant dismissal of Muslims by the late President J. R.
Jayewardene when he said that Muslims could remain in the government or leave
when a delegation led by All Ceylon Muslim League leader Dr M.C.M Kaleel met
him and appealed not to allow Israelis into the country in view of their century’s
old hostility and crime records against Muslims.” There we go again and now on
an entirely different tack – Two communities that sprang from two brothers ‘one
legit and the other not’ have been fighting over a piece of desert for
millennia and suddenly this has become Sri Lanka’s problem!
In
the end, for Jayewardene’s arrogance and Indian conspiracies to divide Tamil
and Muslim communities, Sri Lankans must suffer!”
In
the aftermath of Easer Sunday bombings and killings, while Muslims were
subjected to violence, dogs were taken into mosques by soldiers wearing shoes
and hundreds of Muslims were taken into custody for no valid reason, shameless
Muslim politicians invited Maithri and Ranil for their family
functions.” After
having ‘painted’ the Easter Sunday bombings to a corner what irks the bleeding
hearts is not so much the killings, but soldiers in boots and sniffer dogs
entering suspect mosques looking terrorist paraphernalia – suicide vests,
swords, knifes, bombs and explosives and the ‘hurt’ in the Muslim community
when many Muslims were taken into custody on suspicion. How can the Good
Muslims feign innocence after a dastardly crime has been committed by their
brethren? What about the Good Muslims climbing on top of Stupas with their
shoes on and elsewhere defacing Buddhist statues? Does hurt only apply to
Muslims with special ‘hurt’ nerves that the rest of the Sri Lankans do not have
or just a case of selective amnesia?
All
what they expect from the new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is to create an
environment with new overtures where they could live in peace.They are eagerly
expecting positive signs from President Gotabaya and his government though it
includes many known for their hatred towards Muslims.”
The
writer wants positive overtures from the President. For what we may ask? For
having bombed several churches and hotels, killed and maimed hundreds of
innocents they want positive overtures! Or are they for positive overtures from
the government and if not for more of the same! May we ask what harm all
those innocent victims of the Easter Bombings have done to the Muslim community
in Sri Lanka? Has there been a single UNPROVOKED attack on the Muslims by the
Sinhala Community?
Defaced Buddha Statue in Mawanella just days prior to Easter
Sunday attacks.
Well
if the Muslims are fed up with their politicians and even their mullahs are
they not their own domestic problems? Wahabbism, Sharia, Halal, child marriages,
FMG are all their religious and domestic problems. Nobody asked them to send
their children to Madraasa Schools where foreign mullahs came and
radicalised them. All Muslim parents know what their children are being put
through. They do this wittingly with heaven and all that entails in mind. This
is how one finds in the same family, old Sufis, middle-aged Salafis and
young Wahabbis. Old Sufis of 1915 and Salafis and Wahabbis of today read from
the same holy book and act.
For a change,
it is the Muslim Community who should make amends and make positive overtures
towards the Sinhalese and Tamils, both Buddhist and Christian who have been at
the receiving end of Islamic excesses. When there was an attack on the
Muslims in Christchurch it was the Christians, Hindus and Buddhists and the
government in power who took upon themselves the burden of the dastardly deed
by a deranged non-Muslim. The spontaneous outpouring of grief sometimes over
shadowed those of the victims! The parallels of the same has not happened in
Sri Lanka over the attacks by the Muslims. There was no admittance of ‘mia culpa’
from the Islamic Muslim brotherhood who are responsible being a highly knit and
organized community through their mosques. Instead of what happened was the
reverse. Within a week of the Easter Sunday attacks the situation reversed and
the Muslim community became the aggrieved party. Even at the Parliamentary
Select Committee the main issue was niqabs, hijabs and burqas and the slights
felt by those wearing them. This was while swords, knives, guns, explosives
were being found inside mosques and in the houses and lands surrounding.
Sri
Lanka cannot go back to before the Easter Sunday attacks as if nothing
happened. What happened on Easter Sunday was just the tip of the iceberg and
the symptoms of a greater malady that is taking place 24/7 in Sri Lanka and
elsewhere in the world. The writer’s continuing theme is about ‘innocent’ and
‘peaceful’ Muslims be allowed to live in ‘peace’ – problem is Muslim Peace
according to Sharia does not necessarily translate into peace for the rest of
the world! Just two days ago attacks that killed two innocent civilians in the
environs of the London Bridge show the savagery of the Islamic Terrorist!
The
Easter Sunday attacks brought into limelight many underlying dangerous currents
that are in motion to ‘unmake’ Sri Lanka and make it a Muslim State. All those
currents should be investigated deep into their constituent parts and agendas.
I am talking about Sharia, Halal, Encroachment on land – Willpattu and
elsewhere, outright purchase of entire streets in Capital Territory Colombo –
most government tax invested city in the country, the real estate changing
hands and the demographics are changing rapidly. Elsewhere Islamaisation, desecration
of Buddhist places of worship and of archaeological value, large scale and
unimpeded building of mosques all over Sri Lanka making us and anybody
visiting Sri Lanka wonder whether Sri Lanka is still a Buddhist Country. When a
mosque built on temple land try to outsmart Dalada Maligawa they are making a
very loud statement of their intentions. Will they allow
similar constructions in an Islamic Country?
Every
Muslim leader that had the privilege of bargaining with a ruling party, exacted
the utmost on behalf of their community, although the writer tries to show
otherwise. It is the economic war that they are waging in Sri Lanka that the
ordinary Sinhalese and Tamil must be vary of more so than the bombs!
All
that the majority Sinhala Buddhist community expects of the new President is
not to take minority Shylocks who are only interested in ‘the exact pound of
flesh’ into his confidence. They did not collect swords, knives, guns and
explosives to go hunting or fishing! Their war is multi-pronged – the womb bomb, economy bomb or the terrorist
bomb. What the non-Muslims of Sri Lanka want are not overtures but firm commitments
from the Muslims that they will not resort to downright lowly actions and violence
again; that they are mindful of the majority community, the Sinhalese their
culture and land and live peacefully under a one set of rules in one civilized
community as Sri Lankans. By all means no special status for Muslims!
Abolish the white elephant and the curse that is Provincial Councils and its root the JR/Rajiv Accord of 29th July 1987 at least now, before this Indian born Rathaksiya gobbles up the Sinhala Buddhist Nation and this whole Island in its entirety.
(Please note that this is a revised version of an article I wrote to Lankaweb on 7.6. 2018 on the same subject, updated to suit the present situation)
While congratulating again for the historic and unprecedented victory you have gained, as I predicted on the 14th Nov via my E-mail, addressed to you (Published in Lankaweb) and also while adoring all patriotic and courageous steps you have already taken within these few days like no other, such as the brief but dignified speech you made at the Election Commissioners office on the day you were declared elected as the President of this country and your historic address to the nation at the swearing in ceremony under the shadow of Ruwanweli Seya (which I have been yearning for 14 years for the Head of the State to do), the most sacred Buddhist Stupa in the world and the crest jewel of the Sinhala Nation restoring an age old tradition of ancient Sinhala Kings, the lean Cabinet of 15 Ministers, the smallest since 1956, the excellent way you have handled all Indian politicians and the Indian press on you visit just concluded and many more wise and bold decisions you have taken since you assumed Office, I am writing this note to you to earnestly request you to abolish the JR/ Rajiv Accord of 1987 and the disastrous 13th A that gave birth to Provincial Councils and many an inconsistency and historical travesties in the Island’s long and checkered history (explained in detail below), to rescue this tiny Island nation from disappearing forever from this planet earth in few years due to disintegration, disunity and infighting between Bhoomiputra Sinhalese and intruder Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups, resulting from this well designed Indian political Atom bomb called the Provincial Councils, planted to destroy this 2500-year-old Sinhala Buddhist civilization.
Colossal
wastage of Public funds with no results
Since the first elections for
Provincial Councils took place on 28 April 1988 this is how public funds have
been spent or rather wasted on their upkeep.
Sri Lanka’s Provincial Councils: Expenditure data was reported at 286,031.000 LKR mn in Dec 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 276,147.000 LKR mn for Dec 2016. Sri Lanka’s Provincial Councils: Expenditure data is updated yearly, averaging 103,769.000 LKR mn from Dec 1996 to 2017, with 22 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 286,031.000 LKR mn in 2017. So with an average of almost 104 mn, you can visualize how much national wealth has gone down the drain for the past 31 years, which is approximately 3224 mn or 3.2 Billion. What a colossal wastage and pathetic and unpardonable misuse of public funds.”
The other important aspect is much of this money has gone for unproductive items like salaries and remunerations of Politicians and public Servants, buildings, vehicles, meaningless regular and luxury tamasas in five start hotels, foreign joy trips and other activities unrelated to development. Once the Secretary of the Ministry in charge of this subject told me that only 10 % of voted funds are spent on capital work and the balance 90 % is spent for recurrent activities which do not contribute anything for development.
With all this wastage of public funds, the billion-dollar question the people of this country ask is what benefit PCC has brought to the Country since 1987. Besides the colossal financial lost to the country, the political, and administrative and institutional mess, chaos and confusion by way of duplication of institutions, an increase of an utterly unproductive and lotus-eater set of politicians, and public servants. What benefits it has brought to the country over the past 31 years. Officials, offices, and expenditure have exponentially increased in the ratio of 1 to 15 with zero output. It also has brought about a complete breakdown of the once highly efficient District Administration in this country. Thus the Provincial Councils have come to stay as a veritable Huniyama for this country’s peril.
In this backdrop, I pose the pertinent question as to why we should have Provincial Councils at all in this country; today the whole nation asks? Who asked for Provincial Councils? Was it a request by the people of this country or by some genius politicians for better governance? No one at Home asked for it. It was India who proposed it first, to appease the Tamilnadu electorate to consolidate power at Home by imposing it on the Sri Lankan President by force, almost at gunpoint, well-timed when there was an old and weak President as the Head of Government. I still remember how India invaded our air space with their war jets and dropped parippu? to the north and how arrogantly and undiplomatically their Ambassador Dixit behaved in front of the elderly Statesman JR, the Head of this country at his Ward place residence, as if Dixit was the viceroy of India conveying the message of the Indian ‘King,’ threatening a Head of a Vassal State of India of an imminent Indian invasion of the Island, if he refuses to sign the Accord.
The Accord was strategically designed by India , to divide and destabilize this country on an ethnic basis giving Tamils full power to own and rule nearly half of the country including the North and East and Central Sri Lanka (inclusive of Central, Sabaragamuwa and Uva Provinces), although India did not clearly specify these three Provinces. This was nothing but an extension of the same divide and rule policy started by the colonial British in 1832 by the creation of the Provinces in a different form. This Indian conspiracy becomes crystal clear when we analyze the following impositions India made in this country by the Rajiv/JR Accord of 29th July 1987.
1 The declaration of the Northern and Eastern Provinces comprising 1/ 3 the land area of the Island as the Traditional Homeland” of the Tamil People was a complete travesty of the Island’s authentic history. These two Provinces have never been a traditional Tamil land at any time of known history. On the contrary, this whole Island had been the traditional Homeland of the Sinhala people at least from 543 BC and it is a historical fact accepted by all historians, other than the Tamils and Indian politicians.
First, this Accord enabled the Tamils to claim 1/3 of the land area of the country for a mere 5 lakhs Tamils and thereby depriving any Sinhalese or Muslims being settled there while Tamils can settle down in any part of the Island
Second, giving Tamils the right to
own 1/3 of the country, 2/3 the coastal belt and nearly 3/5 of the marine territory
and its resources including the Trincommallee harbour
Thus this Accord deprived the Bhoomiputras, the Sinhalese their birthright over their Motherland, which their ancestors have protected against all foreign invasions, both Indian and European for 2500 years and enjoyed for millennia from the dawn of history. This Accord was designed by India in order to fix the last nail on the Sinhala nation, with a vicious plan to annex the Island to India in the future.
2 Made Tamil also an Official
language, nullifying Sec 18 of the Constitution of the Republic whereas even in
India Tamil is not recognized as an Official language in spite of the fact that
there are nearly 70 million Tamils there.
3 Forced to give Citizenship to all
estate Tamils of Indian origin in the Central, Sabargamauwa and Uva Provinces and
even Indians living in other parts of the country even if they are illicit
immigrants, disregarding all internationally accepted norms and our own laws on
the subject of granting citizenship to foreigners in any country.
4 imposed that the Northern and Eastern Provinces should be merged to form one Tamil Province with provision to merge two or more Provinces as one in the future.
Thus in sum the Accord completely destroyed the Independence, sovereignty, the Unitary status and the freedom of this Island Nation and its Constitution as well, within few minutes, by one man against Island wide protests organized by the Opposition and the objections by some of his own Ministers, reducing this country to a veritable vassal State of the Subcontinent without any resistance. This was a meek submission on the part of JR he committed for survival.
Therefore while taking action to abolish this
Accord, I also earnestly request you to reverse the above 4 conditions as early
as possible.
JR was forced to accept the Accord almost at gunpoint and India laid down these 4 serious conditions reducing the 1987 Constitution to mere paper scrap. Adding to this JR created PCC to all other Provinces as well accelerating the process of division and disintegration and leading to future political and administrative confusion. This Accord was signed under Island wide emergency and after confining all his MPP to a five-star Hotel having obtained their undated letters of resignation.
The implementation of this Accord, to
its logical conclusion will definitely wipe out the Sinhala Buddhist nation from
the surface of this planet in the long run. Therefore the crying need, to
abolish it immediately, with no delay.
It is in this dangerous backdrop that
I urge all patriotic people to rise against this Accord and disastrous
Provincial Councils to strengthen the President’s hands and request him to
abrogate it immediately as it constitutes the foundation for the division of
this small country in to 9 antagonistic pieces and finally falling in to the
hands of India (As you know Sir a scrambled egg can never be un-scrambled). This is exactly what the people of this
country have been agitating and demanding every government, for the past 31
years. But tragically it has not fallen on the deaf ears of our selfish and
timid politicians who have no concern for the country or the future of the
people. The SLFP under Sirimavo protested against it right from the beginning although
later it also embraced it without realizing the inherent dangers that underlies
these clauses of the Accord.
Let us abolish this PCC immediately
As such why talk of PCC elections now, instead of abolishing this national curse and disaster immediately? This is a crucial political decision long overdue that has to be taken by a patriotic statesman like you, who loves this country and its people, in order to save this country from an imminent total political, economic, social and cultural disaster in the offing. In fact, this is a priority decision that has to be taken as early as possible by your Government. The whole country wants it to go. Once the Accord is abolished, the 13th A and the PCC set up under that will also get abolished automatically. We all expected MR to do this immediately after 2009 when he had all the power including a 2/3 in Parliament. Had he done that then no one could have dared to contest it? But unfortunately, he did not do it.
Once that is done all superficial Officeholders such as the so-called 9 Governors, 9 ‘Cheap’ Ministers, 45 Provincial Ministers and all such parasitic politicians will also go home relieving the burden they have overloaded on the country. Thereafter every one of them will at least plant a manioc stem that will do some service at least to a wild boar. The professional public servants presently working in these Councils will have no problem as they could be accommodated in suitable places in the public service.
Another reason why I argue for the abolition of PCC is the need to avoid a total disaster in District Administration that will make any retrieval of governance in this country impossible. Furthermore, that will put an end to all divisive political manipulations such as federal status, self-determination, self-rule of Muslims and EELAM dreams of the Tamils. It will also save billions of rupees now being spent for the upkeep of these monkey cages and piggeries called Provincial Councils, a political appendage and a dead weight around the nation’s neck that has burdened the nation for the past 31 years and destabilized the total administration almost beyond recovery. Finally, it will also relieve us from any future subversive Indian or Arabian invasions and conspiracies hatched to divide this country on the ethnic basis with a dream of Indianization of this country or converting it to an Arab land as Hisbulla has planned in the Eastern Katthankudi area.
I call
upon all Patriotic people to make this request in one voice from the new
President to abolish these monkey cages and dens of thieves that have
exponentially increased waste and corruption and completely ruined the decent
political culture of this country for the past 31 years and multiplied
separatists tendencies and communal agitations dragging the nation to complete
disintegration on ethnic lines with no chance of redemption in future
I know it very well that no political party, even the UNP that invented it under J.R. or even those who were against them in 1987 will ask for their abolition, as they use these Councils members to net votes at all elections for their political survival. But for the general public, these Councils are an eyesore when they see the way how public funds are been wasted criminally on the upkeep of these useless lotus-eater Governors, Chief Ministers, Ministers, Members, a plethora of officials and the institutions that house them. Other than enjoying the luxuries of office, attending openings, weddings, funerals school functions like sport meets, temple functions, and various other social and private tamsas, roaming all over the world on pleasure trips and running all over the country to show their loyalty to their political masters, misusing public funds, and collecting votes and funds for their political leaders in Colombo and herding people for their meetings like Mayday rallies and propaganda meetings of their masters in Parliament who in turn ruin the whole country and throwing their weight on the innocent and helpless masses on the other hand, I ask these parasitic creatures as to what service they have done to the people of the country that pay their salaries and ill-gotten fabulous perks
Why can’t the SLPP, as a group who constitutes the majority who opposed the 13th A in 1987 at least now agitate for the abolition of this tragic national curse? The people hate this system and curse them too. Now that the SLPP already has the Local Government bodies in its hand to organize the election campaign for them at the village and the local levels there is no need for a Provincial apparatus for elections either.
Now that the country has functioned
smoothly without these parasitic and wasteful institutions, almost for the past
two years and has proved beyond all doubts their uselessness there is no
justification for their retaining. A reorganize strong District Administration
headed by professional administrators will ensure better governance as it had
been the indigenous system of administration in the past. Even the British
adopted certain aspects of this system to run the country very effectively and efficiently
for 133 years.
The Provincial Councils have already become redundant and dysfunctional. As such if he SLPP can get them abolished, its vote base will rise up exponentially at all future elections. Therefore the SLPP will not lose anything by getting them abolished. Instead, people will definitely rally round the party as a mark of appreciation and gratitude for relieving them of this 31-year curse and disaster. Furthermore, MR also can make use of this golden opportunity to punish all those ungrateful rascals and double-dealers who have betrayed him after the 2015 elections and send them permanently to the political wilderness. In this backdrop, if the SLPP does this, I can assure that the grateful masses who have suffered for the past 31 years under this curse will rally round it in a manner nobody would have ever imagined. Besides increasing its vote base it will also be doing a yeoman service by this country and the nation, for liberating this country out of this wishful Indian trap that has already done enormous political and economic damage to this country and that will definitely play the main role in dividing and destabilizing this Island nation in future if we retained them.
I can assure you that the abolition of the
Provincial Council curse and its umbilical code, the Rajiv/JR Accord will not
be second to liberating the country from the LTTE in 2009 and it could be even
a bigger achievement of higher historical significance. It will definitely go down in history as
another historic landmark in the Rajapaksa legend.
India also cannot contest the abolition
of the JR/Rajiv Accord as it had already been unilaterally broken by India at
the very early stages, by not complying with its obligations. As such it has
ceased to have any legal validity as an international agreement signed between
two countries
Finally I also suggest you seek a mandate from the people at the next election for the abolition of these two items and other vital issues like the repealing of the 19th A and revising the electoral system by removing the preferential voting, District representative system, removing the crazy National List and reducing the number of MPP in Parliament to a meaningful level, say about 150, and laying down qualifications for politicians like minimum education, character, assets and residence within the electorate etc. so that returning to the democratic practice of electing their representatives and just governance is restored once again in this Island nation.
When
R Premadasa was killed Paskaralingam, his master, servant and agent and the
Balasingham spy, left Sri Lanka the next day to join his tiger crowd in
Australia. While everybody is talking about the CB robber Mahendran, Ranil got
down Paskaralingam in 2015 and kept him as his advisor unknown to the country.
If Sajith won Paskaran would have continued with double blessings of Ranil and
Sajith.
Does
anybody know whereabouts of this genius Paskaralingam?
Readers
could understand what a dangerous man this P had been from a previous message
appeared on the Lankaweb website linked below.
shows
how the ICC has ignored all European or Western human rights abuses in
conflicts such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq or human rights abuses by
Western client states.
The
Africa Research Centre published Justice Denied: The Reality of the
International Criminal Court, a 610-page study of the International Criminal
Court by Dr David Hoile in 2014.
The
study has 27 chapters: The International Criminal Court; A European Court; The
Court and the Security Council; The United States and the Court; The Court and
Non-Governmental Organisations; A Glaring Democratic Deficit; Judges elected by
vote-trading; The Office of the Prosecutor; Avoiding the Crime of Aggression;
Granting immunity, entrenching impunity; The European Guantánamo Bay?; Inaction
over Iraq; An Afghan casestudy; The International Criminal Court and Africa;
The fiction of self-referral”; The fiction of deterrence; The fiction of a
victims’ court; The Court and Uganda; The Democratic Republic of the Congo; The
Court and the Central African Republic; The Court and Sudan; The Court and
Kenya; The Court and the Ivory Coast; The Court and Libya; The Court and Mali;
European Double Standards; A Way Forward; as well as a videography,
bibliography and 2,075 footnotes.
Justice
Denied: The Reality of the International Criminal Court finds the ICC,
established in 2002 by the Rome Statute, to be unfit for purpose. The ICC’s
claims to international jurisdiction and judicial independence are
institutionally flawed and the Court’s reputation has been irretrievably
damaged by its racism, blatant double-standards, hypocrisy, corruption and
serious judicial irregularities.
The
study demonstrates that while the ICC presents itself as the world’s court this
is not the case. Its members represent just over one quarter of the world’s
population: China, Russia, the United States, India, Pakistan and Indonesia are
just some of the many countries that have remained outside of the Court’s
jurisdiction. The author points out that a court is only as credible as its
independence. Far from being an independent and impartial court, the ICC’s own
statute grants special prosecutorial” rights of referral and deferral to the
Security Council – by default its five permanent members (three of which are
not even ICC members).
Political
interference in the legal process was thus made part of the Court’s founding
terms of reference. The Court is also inextricably tied to the European Union
which provides over 60 percent of its funding. The EU is additionally guilty of
blatant political and economic blackmail in tying aid for developing countries
to ICC membership. The expression, He who pays the piper calls the tune”,
could not be more appropriate.
Justice
Denied: The Reality of the International Criminal Court shows how the ICC has
ignored all European or Western human rights abuses in conflicts such as those
in Afghanistan and Iraq or human rights abuses by Western client states. As one
example, in Afghanistan, an ICC member state, alleged war crimes by ICC member
states such as the slaughter of 120 civilians in Kunduz in September 2009,
directed by a German army colonel in flagrant violation of NATO standing
orders, have been ignored by the ICC and the German state. Rather than
prosecuting the colonel, Berlin promoted him to general. Instead of impartially
enforcing the Rome Statute, the Europeans have chosen to focus the Court
exclusively on Africa.
The
ICC is self- evidently a racist court, in that it treats one race of people
differently to all others. Despite having received almost 9,000 formal
complaints about alleged crimes in at least 139 countries, the ICC has chosen
to indict 36 black Africans in eight African countries. Given Africa’s previous
traumatic experience with the very same colonial powers that now in effect
direct the ICC, this is an alarming déjà vu for those who live on the
continent. The ICC has emerged very much as an instrument of European foreign
policy and its actions are increasingly being seen as recolonisation by
spurious legal diktat.
The
book also documents how the United States, on the other hand, has forcefully
pointed out that the ICC is a kangaroo court, a travesty of justice open to
political influence and that no American citizen will ever come before it while
at the same time demanding that black Africans appear before the ICC when it
suits American foreign policy.
Justice
Denied: The Reality of the International Criminal Court shows how the Court’s
proceedings thus far have often been questionable where not simply farcical.
Its judges – some of whom have never been lawyers, let alone judges – are the
result of grubbily corrupt vote-trading amongst member states. Far from
securing the best legal minds in the world this produces mediocrity. At least
one elected judge” had neither law degree nor legal experience but her country
had contributed handsomely to the ICC budget.
The
Court has produced witnesses who recanted their testimony the moment they got
into the witness box, admitting that they were coached by non-governmental
organisations as to what false statements to make. Dozens of other witnesses”
have similarly disavowed their evidence”. And then there has also been the ICC
chief prosecutor who was not only seemingly unaware of the legal concept of
presumption of innocence but also threatened to criminalise third-parties who
might argue a presumption of innocence on the part of those indicted – and as
yet unconvicted – by the Court. A clearer case of Alice in Wonderland justice,
along the lines of sentence first, verdict afterwards”, is difficult to find.
There
have been numerous prosecutorial decisions which should have ended any fair
trial because they would have compromised the integrity of any legal process.
The ICC’s first trial proceeded erratically because of crass prosecutorial
misconduct and judicial decisions to add new charges half-way through
proceedings, a move that was subsequently overturned. Simply put, the Court and
the prosecutor have been making things up as they go along. The ICC claims to
be economical” and to bring swift justice”, yet it has consumed more than a billion
Euros and still has not even fully completed its first case, the deeply flawed
trial of Thomas Lubanga. Despite being held in ICC custody since 2006, as of
May 2014 the appeal stage of Lubanga’s case had not yet been concluded.
The
ICC claims to be victim-centred yet Human Rights Watch has publicly criticised
the ICC’s ambivalence towards victim communities. The ICC claims to be fighting
impunity, yet it has granted de jure immunity to the United States and afforded
de facto immunity and impunity to NATO member states and several serial abusers
of human rights who happen to be friends of the European Union and United
States.
Justice
Denied: The Reality of the International Criminal Court also shows that far
from deterring conflict, as it claims, the ICC’s double-standards and autistic
legal blundering in Africa has derailed delicate peace processes across the
continent – thereby prolonging devastating civil wars. The court is responsible
for the death, injury and displacement of many thousands of Africans. The ICC’s
involvement in Uganda, for example, destroyed peace talks in that country,
intensifying the conflict which then spread into three neighbouring countries.
The study concludes that the ICC is an inept, corrupt, political court that
does not have Africa’s welfare at heart, only the furtherance of Western, and
especially European, foreign policy and its own bureaucratic imperative – to
exist, to employ more Europeans and North Americans and where possible to
continue to increase its budget – all at the expense of African lives.
Dr
David Hoile
About
the Author Dr David Hoile is an African scholar and public affairs consultant
specialising in African affairs. He is the author of The International Criminal
Court: Europe’s Guantánamo Bay? (2010), Darfur: The Road to Peace (2008),
Images of Sudan: Case Studies in Propaganda and Misinformation (2003), Farce
Majeure: The Clinton Administration’s Sudan Policy 1993-2000 (2000),
Mozambique, Resistance and Freedom: A Case for Reassessment (1994), and
Mozambique: A Nation in Crisis (1989). He is also the editor of Mozambique:
1962-1993 – A Political Chronology (1994) and The Search for Peace in the Sudan:
A Chronology of the Sudanese Peace Process 1989- 2001 (2002). He has commented
on public policy issues on CNN, BBC News 24 and TV News, BBC radio, France 24,
Al-Jazeera English and Arabic, Chinese Central TV, Press TV, Al-Arabiya and the
Islam Channel. The author can be contacted by email at justicedenied2014@gmail.com.
The Presidential election of 2019 was a landmark
election. It was the first time that a Presidential candidate had won on a Sinhala
vote alone. There hadn’t been a previous instance of a Sri Lankan leader
declaring that his victory at national election was due to the votes of the
Sinhala majority, said observers.
I
knew that it was possible to emerge victorious with the sole backing of the
Sinhala community,” said President Gotabaya after the election. I
knew from the beginning that the majority Sinhala community would be the
decisive factor in this victory.”
It was observed, however, that earlier, at the
2010 Presidential election Mahinda Rajapaksa
had also shown that it was possible to
win on the strength of the Sinhala majority vote. In the 2010 election Sarath Fonseka got the
Tamil and Muslim votes, but Mahinda Rajapaksa defeated Sarath Fonseka by over
1.8 million votes.
The popular
notion is that President Gotabaya won exclusively with a Sinhala Buddhist vote.
That is not correct. The election was won jointly, by the Sinhala Buddhists and
Sinhala Catholics. The entire Catholic
coastal belt (except for Negombo and Wattala) voted overwhelmingly for
Gotabaya, pointed out Fr Vimal Tirimanne.
The support of
the Sinhala Catholics definitely helped to give Gotabaya a good majority. It must also be emphasized
that Catholic politicians, such as Sudarshani Fernandopulle, worked hard to
ensure his victory. They appeared on the election platform with him. This
election has shown, therefore that a combination of Sinhala Buddhist and Sinhala Catholic votes can win an
election comfortably.
Until
2019, it was held that that a candidate could not win the Presidency without
the Tamil and Muslim vote. At a conference in Cologne, In November2005
the Tamil delegates had told Kusal Perera
‘We decide the results, not the south. The
minorities held the Sinhalese in contempt, observed Chandraprema. The minorities
knew they could always win against the divided Sinhalese. The 2015 Presidential election confirmed this.
President Sirisena lost in the Sinhala districts. He won because of the overwhelming majorities received from
the north and east. Maitripala Sirisena won
because the majority of the minority and a minority of the majority voted for
him, said critics.
Gotabaya
Rajapaksa’s election has challenged the notion that a candidate could not win
the Presidency without the Tamil and Muslim vote. The myth that
no candidate could win without the support of the Tamil and Muslim political
parties, has been exploded, said analysts.
The 2019
Presidential election showed that a presidential election could be comfortably
won without support of minorities provided the Sinhalese voted in a single
group. Up to now, there was no strong united Sinhala vote. The Sinhala vote
was divided between the SLFP, UNP, JVP and left parties. This time, the Sinhala voter rallied round
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, magnificently and
voted for the Pohottuwa. The Tamil Separatist Movement can no longer dictate at
elections, said analysts.
There was a sizeable ‘minority’ vote going to
Sajit Premadasa in 2019 too. The TNA, SLMC (Sri Lanka Muslim Congress) and the
ACMC (All Ceylon Makkal Congress) delivered the entire northern and almost all eastern polling divisions to
Sajith Premadasa. The South infuriated by the
alleged UNP-TNA deal, voted heavily against Sajith Premadasa. The Sinhala vote was so large that the
significant gains in Jaffna, Vanni, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Digamadulla
electoral districts were wiped out in the final count.
The minorities could always pull off another
2015 style coup in the next election by ganging up behind a Sinhala leader who
was willing to do their bidding, but that would then lead to another 2019 type
of election, observed Chandraprema. After 2015, voters will now always be
vigilant at every election.
Tamil and
Muslim voters have been voting for their candidates and for Tamil separatism at
every election. No criticism has been made about a ‘communal vote’ then .But
after the 2019 elections, where Sinhalese voted en masse, critics complained
about a ‘communal vote’.
The recent
presidential election is a clear indication of the fact that voting has taken
place based on communal lines, said Jayatissa de Costa. Especially after 1977
it is very evident that Sri Lankans cast their vote based on ethnicity and this
must be stopped. Sri Lanka’s voting
trend based on ethnic lines is not a good thing for the country as a whole, he
concluded.
Those supporting
the Tamil Separatist Movement have made
strong comments about the 2019 election. In what many have noted to be a
disturbing trend, the North and East voted overwhelmingly for Premadasa, they
said. That was expected, but what was not expected was the scale of his victory
in these districts, they continued.
Premadasa
polled over 80 per cent of the vote in the Jaffna and Vanni districts and over
70 per cent in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts and over 60 per cent in
Digamadulla. Its magnitude has been an
eye-opener they said.
The Tamils vote in 2019 was ‘worse’ than in
2015, they continued. In 2015 Mahinda Rajapaksa, in 2015, received 20% of the
Northern vote, 26% of the Eastern ballot, and 24% from the N&E vote. Maitripala Sirisena, who received 72% in
2019. Gotabaya Rajapaksa received only 8% of the Northern vote, 24% of the
Eastern ballot, and 18% of the total N&E vote.
The low scores for Gotabaya Rajapaksa compared
to Mahinda Rajapaksa are not surprising. Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been depicted
for the last few years as the person who unleashed the army on the ‘innocent
Tamil people’. Mahinda Rajapaksa on the
other hand, went around saying that the war was not against the Tamil people.
The voting pattern is not as bad as it looks.
The North and east had the lowest voter turnout. Voter turn out in Jaffna was 68.43%, in Vanni
76.59%, Puttalam 76.53%, and Trincomalee 78.75%. In contrast, Hambantota had 87.40 % voting.
The population density in the North is also low.
There is also the question of the so called
powerful Tamil Diaspora living abroad, who, we are told were very active
against Sri Lanka in the west. They did not come to vote at this very critical
election. That is because such a
grouping does not exist. The majority of the Tamils in the west do not wish to get entangled in the Tamil
politics of Sri Lanka. They are not interested and they avoid the separatist
groups. The Tamil separatist organizations in the west are hired groups. They
are of poor quality. The Tamil representatives appearing at the Human Rights
Council, Geneva are proof of this. They look and behave like thugs.
The
Tamil vote for the defeated Sajith Premadasa has been interpreted as a great victory
for Tamil Separatism. The Tamil National Alliance requested the people to vote
for Sajith Premadasa and for his symbol the Swan, said Leader of the Tamil National Alliance R.
Sampanthan .Accepting our request and
rejecting the call to boycott or to vote for a Tamil candidate and by voting
for Sajith Premadasa the Tamil people have sent a clear message to the leaders
of our country and to the international community, that the Tamil people are
firm in achieving their rights, within a united, undivided, indivisible country.
On behalf of the Tamil National Alliance, I
wish to take this opportunity to thank the Tamil people who followed our advice
and voted for Sajith Premadasa and his symbol of the swan. I also urge that
this unity must be preserved and continued said Sampanthan.
Sampanthan urged President Gotabaya to
“respect the very substantial democratic verdict of the Tamil people of
the North and East.”The people belonging to all Administrative and
Electoral districts in the North and the East have very largely voted for
Sajith Premadasa who in his Election Manifesto outlined certain features
pertaining to the resolution of the longstanding national question.
Presidential election 2019
The above map of the 2019 Presidential
election shows significant new trends. It shows that there is a strong
separatist movement along the coast line. But there are significant breaks in
this. In Puttalam
electoral district, Chilaw, Wennappuwa, Naththandiya and Anamaduwa were won by Gotabaya.
Wennappuwa electorate extends to the sea.
On the opposite side, on the eastern shore, Gotabaya Rajapaksa won Seruwila due to the
Sinhala population there. Sainthamarathu also voted
for Gotabaya. Seruwila and Sainthamarathu extend to the sea. It is now possible to recommend that the
Eastern Province be eliminated. The three Eastern divisions should be absorbed
into the North Central Province and Uva Province.
NOTE In this
series, I have used ‘President Gotabaya’
where relevant, ‘Gotabaya’ and
‘Gotabaya Rajapaksa’ for events before Gotabaya Rajapaksa became president. Former President
Mahinda Rajapaksa is referred to as ‘Mahinda Rajapaksa’ throughout. (Concluded)
It has been two weeks since Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected to Office. As hoped by those who voted for him, steps could be seen to be taken to change the prevailing political culture.
One of GR’s first directives to State institutions was to replace the usual gallery of photos that consist of the Head of State and the subject Minister with only the State emblem.
Road signs are to include only the name of the road and not any names of the politicians. He went on to appoint the smallest Cabinet since 1956.
His entire government is a 51% reduction from the previous Yahapalana Government.
That is, from 108 ministers, deputy and state ministers, the number has come down to 53. His words to his ministers were to treat the appointment as a responsibility and not a privilege.
Appointing Board members to State Institutions is no longer the prerogative of the minister, for the names need to be approved by a central committee. His entourage on his first visit to India consisted less than 10 members and not a single family member accompanied him.
Colombo is visibly getting cleaner. These are obviously very simple tweaks, but the perception created has been very positive.
However, not everyone is impressed with his decision to reduce his vehicle convoy from over ten plus an ambulance to just two vehicles. For so long, VIP transfers, where the escorts push fellow travellers out of the way, even in heavy traffic, had annoyed commuters to no end.
Yet, when GR chose to sit in traffic with the rest of his citizens, people were not amused. Most feel he is taking an unnecessary risk.
Many feel that persons like the former President Maithripala Sirisena or Ranil Wickremesinghe did not have a security threat to warrant the kind of security detail or vehicle convoy that the VIP transfers of the previous governments did.
Had Sajith Premadasa become the President, he too would not have had a security threat is the opinion of many. The reason being, these politicians are much in alignment with the Western agenda – wittingly or otherwise.
GR on the other hand is expected to go against the very grain of this Western agenda. He has proven himself to be a man of iron clad will and not one who could be browbeaten into agreeing to anything out of line.
US State Secretary Mike Pompeo expressly stated that US expects any future Government of Sri Lanka in power too to honour all agreements entered into with the US.
Despite this statement, GR has unequivocally pronounced that he will review all agreements entered by the Yahapalana Government, including the controversial MCCC. He went to the extent of giving a written assurance that he will not proceed with the MCCC in its current standing.
In that context, his decision to reduce his security detail has not been well taken. Unlike any other Presidential Election, this one garnered a lot of attention from voters as many felt the sovereignty of the country was about to be compromised.
Sri Lankan expatriates came in large numbers, as never before, to cast their vote.
Even monks in meditation monestries came out to vote. GR’s supporters thus do not see him as just the President of the country, but the man who had come to save the country.
It has been repeatedly said during the presidential campaign that if he failed to secure the presidency, the country would not get another opportunity to stand up for itself.
The Easter Sunday Massacres were a cruel emphasis of a country that was fast peddling backwards. Yet, it was not the point that people decided that GR would be the better alternative to the Yahapalana Government.
People’s discontent was visible as far back as in early 2018. It was then, when the much delayed Local Government elections were finally held that all partners of the Yahapalana Government got its warning that marching orders are not far behind.
Apparently, the UNP had had a review as to analyse reasons for their failure. However, for reasons best known to them, they decided not to heed the facts and take the necessary corrective measures.
Mangala Samaraweera, who was an absolutely heartless Finance Minister, particularly seemed hell-bent on continuing to humiliate the Sinhalese and especially the Buddhists.
On the whole, he seemed to have placed a very low value on human life for he thought USD 480 million that was promised with the MCCC justified the tragedy.
Taken as a package, the Yahapalana Government strives to create a weak centralised government whilst making the provinces very powerful entities.
In effect, they were trying to discount the years of misery and terror people put up with to safeguard the unitary status of the country.
It became apparent to people that the Yahapalana Government was trying to give the separatists what was not possible through terrorism by tweaking the Constitution.
The fact that the Yahapalana Government could not prove any of their allegations against the Rajapaksa Administration also proved that the allegations did not have any basis.
Instead, these were fabrications designed to splinter the trust people had in that political leadership became clear. The Yahapalana Government also could not prove the allegations against the military – especially against the military intelligence.
It was in such a background that Professor Thenuwara promised to deal with the ‘ranawirugaaya’ after the Yahapalana presidential candidate secures the presidency. This sinister promise vaporised any doubt one may have had of the stand the Yahapalana Government had of our war heroes and of our National Security.
Before, people were uncomfortable with the countless arrests and detentions of our military, not to mention the summing of military leaders to be questioned for hours by the CID. Afterwards, people became positively angry. Fear of losing our country was the root of that fear.
Therefore, to those who voted for GR, he is not just the holder of a position, but the hero who had once more come to save the country from extremists and separatists.
In his hands people have placed the future of their children. The stakes he is thus holding are too great for him to take a chance.
In that sense, whether GR should worry his citizens is questionable. Being a pragmatic man, he may not identify a justification to warrant a large vehicle convoy or to zoom past through the traffic. Yet, people are worried and it might be a good idea for him to assuage that worry.
On the other hand, his clear message is that Colombo is safe. This may be just the message that people really need to believe for the country is yet to fully recover from the Easter Sunday Massacres. People are still not sure whether the coast is really clear of extremists.
His confidence will help people get their lives back on track, which is essential if to attract investors and kick-start the economy. This however, must be really pushing the intelligence units to the limit.
Especially after five years of being treated as Cinderella, whether the intelligence units overnight can outperform any mischief maker is the question. Therefore as citizens, we could also try to do our part.
One thing we should avoid is taking pictures of him in traffic and posting in social media. The other thing would be to keep our own eyes and ears sharp and help the authorities to protect our President.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa says he will revoke the 19th Amendment to the Constitution if he receives a two-thirds parliamentary majority on it.
The President mentioned this in an interview done with the ‘The Hindu’ during his official tour of India, his first trip as the President.
When asked if he planned to move to a more parliamentary system as envisaged by the 19th Amendment passed by his predecessor, the President said that while the transfer of powers was to be discussed”, the 19th Amendment itself had proved to be a failure”, and should be scrapped.
He said: The 19th amendment (passed in 2015) is a failure and if we get 2/3rds majority in parliament we will drop it from the constitution.”
Speaking on terrorism, the President said that IS [Islamic State] is a global threat and that India and other countries have more information on this threat than Sri Lanka.
President Rajapaksa stated that he hoped for more cooperation with India on national security issues, particularly on terrorism. As a part of his government’s focus on security issues, the President said that he was reversing the Sirisena government’s moves to curtail the powers of the military.
When the journalist inquired President Rajapaksa whether he promises devolution of the 13th amendment on rights for the Tamil majority areas, the President stated while the 13th amendment is part of the constitution and is functional he cannot implement some areas of it such as control of police powers.
However, President Rajapaksa said he is willing to discuss alternatives to this.
Further, promising to be ‘frank’ and ‘upfront’ to avoid the misunderstandings of the past between New Delhi and Colombo, President Rajapaksa said that India and other countries in the region must invest more in Sri Lanka if they want to provide an alternative to Chinese investment.
He also assured India that on the ‘main issues’ of Sri Lankan ties with China and Pakistan, there would be no problem ‘that creates suspicions amongst Indian authorities’.
Full text of the interview
How do you hope to take India-Sri Lanka ties to a higher level”, as you said here in New Delhi, and what are the priority areas?
Even during [former President] Mahinda Rajapaksa’s time we had very close relations with New Delhi, and then at the end (2014-15), it suddenly went down. And even if with the Sirisena government, they started with a very good relationship, but it ended with a lot of frustration. I would like to be consistent. I am usually very frank, so I hope to tell New Delhi honestly if I can’t do something; and if I can, then do it soon and not drag out commitments. We were successful during the previous government because we had a separate mechanism, the Troika (a 3-man coordination team) with New Delhi. We needed that mechanism because the conflict was on, and we were able to solve sensitive problems because of the close links.
Will you bring in the same mechanism for coordination again?
Well, at that time there was a necessity because of the conflict, but now I don’t think it is necessary, as we can work through the Foreign Ministries. If we are upfront and work genuinely, we will not have issues. I think the main issues India could have with us would be on [our relations] with China or Pakistan, but if we don’t do anything that creates suspicions amongst Indian authorities, there will not be any problem.
On development cooperation with Delhi, for which PM Modi announced an additional $400 million, will you honor the MoU signed by former PM Ranil Wickremesinghe on projects like the Trincomalee oil farms and Port development projects?
There are certain projects where we have to change certain modalities, and we discussed it during this visit. I haven’t studied all the projects in detail yet, but I will promise that we will expedite all the projects that are important to Sri Lanka.
You have said publicly you will renegotiate the Hambantota port agreement with China, which India was concerned about. Along with that is the future of Mattala airport, which India has shown an interest in. Now that you are in power, what will you do?
I believe that the Sri Lankan government must have control of all strategically important projects like Hambantota. After all, these are not like a hotel or a terminal, but to give control of a port or an airport or our harbors is different. With our control, they can do anything, but these 99-year lease agreements [that the previous government signed] will have an impact on our future. The next generation will curse our generation for giving away precious assets otherwise. That is why our party protested these decisions.
But the reason the lease had to be given was because of the debts incurred by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa…
No, that is wrong. It is also wrong to say there was a debt trap. In fact, during our time the ports authority paid back the first installment [to Chinese banks]. The Sirisena government, on the other hand, got more money as loans and just spent it. If they were worried about the debts piling up why didn’t they first service the debt, rather than give away sovereignty?
India has also had issues with Sri Lanka’s defense cooperation China in the past, especially over the docking of Chinese submarines, when you were Defence Secretary. In 2017, you said, India had a bee in its bonnet” on the issue. Will you be more sensitive to those concerns this time around as President?
We were sensitive to too, but the submarine issue was a simple issue overlooked by officials at the time. Warships were visiting Sri Lanka regularly, and all ships that were part of the naval piracy task force for the Arabian Sea, including Russian ships had docked there. When the Chinese asked for the submarines to be docked, officials considered it a normal port call and approved it. Former NSA Shiv Shankar Menon has written in his book that Gotabaya gave his word that he would not do anything counter to India, and he kept his word”, so I was genuinely sensitive.
You mentioned India’s suspicions of the past, those include differences over China, and the Tamil issue, but also your allegation that Indian agencies conspired for regime change against your brother. Can your government turn the page on these past suspicions?
I am sure [we can turn the page]. We did hear about agencies conspiring, including the US, for regime change. Some of their suspicions were due to our ties with China, but that was a misunderstanding. We had a purely commercial agreement with China. I want to tell India, Japan, Singapore and Australia, and other countries to also come and invest in us. They should tell their companies to invest in Sri Lanka and help us grow, because if they do not, then not only Sri Lanka, but countries all over Asia will have the same [problem]. The Chinese will take the Belt and Road Initiative all over unless other countries provide an alternative.
What kind of cooperation on terrorism do you foresee now with India?
The threat in Sri Lanka has now changed: unlike the LTTE which was a specific threat to Sri Lanka, IS [Islamic State] is a global threat posed by terrorists across the world. India and other countries have more information on this threat than us. The previous government didn’t give much priority to security and intelligence issues. During our time, military intelligence was always the most important organization, but the last government took their [oversight] away from the military. We have now reversed that. We also hope to upgrade our intelligence as it was earlier geared towards only LTTE threats, not the IS, and we need help from India and others on this as well as on technological cooperation.
Your focus on national security also raises fears about human rights violations of the past, about disappearances and the White Vans”, as well as worries about violence against journalists in particular. Will you give assurances that those will not return?
Those are bogus allegations, and certainly, nothing of the sort was done by me. Post-2009, we had tried to study the allegations, but it is difficult. We were not responsible, and even though we did ask the CID (Criminal Investigation Department) to investigate the charges, but they didn’t have any evidence. If it was easy, why didn’t the [Sirisena] government pursue these charges? The fact is we were strict about journalists during the war, but not in peacetime. Remember, MR’s government didn’t start the war, we finished the war. Why aren’t previous Presidents being asked about these allegations?
Last week, after Dr. Jaishankar’s visit to Colombo the Indian government issued a statement urging justice and equality for Tamils. What is your reaction?
My approach, as I told the Foreign Minister, is that it is more important to give the [Tamils] development, and better living. In terms of freedoms, and political rights there are already provisions in the constitution. But I am clear that we have to find ways to directly benefit people there through jobs, and promoting fisheries and agriculture. We can discuss political issues, but for 70 odd years, successive leaders have promised one single thing: devolution, devolution, devolution. But ultimately nothing happened. I also believe that you can’t do anything against the wishes and feelings of the majority community. Anyone who is promising something against the majority’s will is untrue. No Sinhala will say, don’t develop the area, or don’t give jobs, but political issues are different. I would say, judge me by my record on development [of North & East] after five years.
Are you promising talks on devolution or the 13th amendment on rights for the Tamil majority areas?
Look, the 13th amendment is part of the constitution and is functional, except for some areas like control of police powers, which we can’t implement. I am willing to discuss alternatives to that.
In the past as defense secretary, you led Sri Lankan forces to victory, but amidst allegations of human rights abuse, and you were accused of declining to take forward the internationally-mandated truth and reconciliation process. What would you like your legacy to be at the end of five years?
Those allegations are wrong. In peacetimes, my engagement was even more than during the war to try and work on these issues. I did demining, I worked on resettlement and rehabilitation and development, and I got all militia to disarm. Without me, there would not have been provincial council elections, which our government conducted for the first time in the North and the East. We ensured the elections were free and fair; we didn’t try to manipulate them or bring in a candidate of our choice. The international community did not recognize these things, even the Tamil politicians did not recognize these things which led to a [better situation in the North & East].
Your elder brother Mahinda is now Prime Minister, while another brother Chamal is a minister. How will the relationship with your brothers work now, and will there be a transfer of power towards a more parliamentary system as under the 19th amendment?
The 19th amendment (passed in 2015) is a failure and if we get 2/3rds majority in parliament we will drop it from the constitution. The only way you can even make the 19th amendment work is with two brothers (laughs) [at the top]. For a country to be governed successfully, you need stability. This was not the case during the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government, where they were fighting all the time and there was no development. Without stability, investors won’t come.
Is it true you are called the Terminator in the family?
(Laughs) That is not true. I am the most innocent person in our family, since my childhood. When I joined the army, my family said Mahinda should have joined the army, and I should have joined politics.
