By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island

Those who pursue the higher life of wisdom, who seek to live by spiritual principles, must be prepared to be laughed at and condemned.”

• Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher (55-135 CE)

(Following is an updated version of an article published in two parts in The Island in the last week of May 2016.)

I admired Professor Carlo Fonseka as a socially committed intellectual who enhanced, with his rare intellect, the quality of his contribution to the good of the society in a multiplicity of roles he was called upon to play. Among hundreds of quotes about intellectuals I looked at in the internet, I found not a single one that says something good or positive about them. That may be because it is usually intellectuals who are quoted, and are they likely to utter something quotable about themselves. But Noam Chomsky looks askance at a certain type of intellectuals: The respected intellectuals are those who conform and serve power interests”. Carlo was not among them. To say this is a compliment that he richly deserves, for he did not follow social or political or intellectual norms unquestioningly or adapt his behavior in order to please those who exercise power. Hence the Epictetus quote above.

Professor Carlo Fonseka’s book of essays titled  ESSAYS OF A LIFETIME (S. Godage & Brothers Pvt Ltd, Colombo, 2016), which was his swan song, encapsulates his key ideas about a variety of subjects he had been creatively engaged in during a long lifetime. Of course, he probably had found different fresh insights and changed his original ideas by then, but that does not detract from their value in relation to the actual contexts of the time in which he conceived and expressed those ideas. Also, there are a few overlaps and repetitions between the essays as the author himself admits in his preface to the book. Naturally, such minor lapses are inevitable in a collection of writings by the same writer over as long a period of time as 43 years. The subjects of the essays relate to such diverse fields as science, religion, philosophy, politics, economics, arts and even travel and biography. The volume comprises selected specimens of his writings between 1971 and 2014.

I was an avid reader of his newspaper articles, texts of his speeches (whenever available,) and, on occasion, his scholarly academic papers which struck me as of general interest (to which last, though, my access was extremely limited). As a lifelong learner I drew inspiration from him, though I am from a different profession. Professor Carlo came within my student radar even before his controversial scientific investigation of the ritual of fire-walking in our country early in the 70’s decade. I still have a thin volume of 102 pages entitled Fire Walking – The Burning Facts” (December 1972) written and published by one Dr K. Indra Kumar, presumably a former student of Professor Carlo, attacking his fire-walking experiments including the famous one at Attidiya Dewale on February 8, 1971, and a copy of the 1971 issue of The Ceylon Rationalist Ambassador”, the annual journal of the Ceylon Rationalist Association, of which Carlo was a prominent member along with the likes of Abraham T.  Kovoor. For reasons I have no time or space here to squander explaining, I didn’t take Indra Kumar’s criticisms (bordering on the libelous in their vituperative trenchancy) as valid arguments against Carlo’s courageous attempt to strike a scientific blow at superstition, the bane of our society even today. But, in my silent judgement, Carlo was guilty of too much idealism in believing that most ordinary people were that rational minded. Let us consign that to the past. Reading Carlo was always an educative experience for me and I was looking forward to the day he would publish a collection of his writings like ESSAYS OF A LIFETIME. Most probably there were many other Sri Lankans who shared my sentiments in this connection.

However, universal acclamation is an unlikely reward for a socially engaged, fearlessly argumentative public figure like Carlo, despite the fact that he was selflessly dedicated to the values of humanity, fairness and truth in public affairs as well as in his professional life as a medical professor and scientific researcher. The reason for this is that, just as there were those who genuinely admired him or just tolerated him, there were  his detractors who were cynically sceptical about his good intentions, and those who felt uncomfortable about certain ideological and political positions he tried to defend in the arena of public debate as an intellectual and social activist. The thirty-four pieces of writing contained in ESSAYS OF A LIFETIME” are obviously meant to be representative of the intellectual offerings he made to the general public during well over four decades in the recent past and they may be taken to reflect some of the reasons for this mixed reception that, I think, was accorded to him by the Sri Lankan society in the sunset years of his life. Nevertheless, the well deserved celebrity status and public esteem that Carlo was actually honoured with by the vast majority of our people were least diminished by that faint suggestion of societal ambivalence towards him.

Right  from the beginning, as far as I am concerned (that is, since immediately before 1971, and extending back to my secondary school days) I was attracted by  certain admirable qualities in Carlo as a human being and as a public intellectual (I am using the latter term in the complex, highly nuanced sense most people understand it) and a man of science: these are his intellectual probity, his freedom from pedantic posing, sharpness of mind, personal humility, generosity towards others, lightheartedness and his irrepressible sense of humour, all of which enrich the essays in this selection. One of his major preoccupations in life, I think, was social development through education by banishing baleful superstition and by promoting rational scientific thinking and ethical conduct. Buddha and his teachings are frequently invoked throughout the book, which reveals an important source of his ethical principles. Carlo is deeply ethical without being ‘religious’ in the traditional sense and that is compatible with the rational Buddhist beliefs that he seems to have acquired. Apparently, he identifies these with the ethical essence of the Christian religion to which he was born.  The essay under the title The Humanity of Jesus” (pp. 216-219), which is the text of a convocation address he delivered at a school in 2006, is a case of a rational thinker demystifying Jesus of supernatural mumbo-jumbo with a view to highlighting his message of universal love that embraces the whole human family; he preached this as an extraordinarily moral human being who was subject to birth, suffering, and death like other ordinary human beings. Carlo may not have officially abandoned his birth religion (clearly, a meaningless formality he’d hardly think it necessary to perform). But he was an exemplary follower of the Buddhist teaching. 

Needless to say, Carlo regarded  ethical values as of prime importance not only in his own medical profession, but in other spheres as well, (something that is clearly evident in all the thirty-four essays that constitute the book). Incidentally, the essays are grouped into ten sections of which the first is, appropriately, Medicine (‘appropriately’ because that is his professional field with which he is most familiar). It contains six essays. The first three are almost entirely concerned with the ethical aspect of medicine, while in the other three, the ethical aspect is strongly implicit, though his main focus there is on other themes. In the grimly ironic opening essay To Err Was Fatal” (pp. 13-21), Carlo describes five errors he committed through certain lapses on his part that led to the death of his patients during  thirty-six years of clinical practice; he implies that he could have avoided those fatal errors if he had followed the Buddha’s advice to the Kalamas. Towards the end of the piece, he refers to the Buddha for the possible sources of intellectual error”, and adduces the Buddha’s famous words of wisdom to the Kalamas. Referring to himself in his characteristically humorous, self-effacing manner, he writes: ‘Although Alexander Pope did indeed famously preach that, To err is human, to forgive divine,” it will be murmured that only a fool will err fatally five times in 36 years. So the prospect must be squarely faced: this paper may embody nothing more or less than the confessions of a fool. If, however, by confessing to the world a fool could help to promote ever so slightly the ideal of error-free patient care, I believe that the fool has a scientific and ethical duty to confess.’

Carlo draws a moral (for doctors) from his analysis of his five fatal errors in the form of the following ‘Key Messages’ as he calls them:

• All doctors are fallible.
• The natural reaction of doctors to errors is to hide them or to rationalize them away.
• It is unscientific and unethical to refuse to face our errors.
• There is no cathartic ritual in our profession to expiate the sense of guilt generated by our errors.
• Since knowledge grows mainly by error recognition, facing our errors squarely is the path to medical wisdom.

(p. 20)

In another essay in the same section entitled Development of Health in Sri Lanka” (pp. 36-60), which is extracted from a 2003 issue of the Sabaragamuwa University Journal, Carlo takes a glance at our unique history of medicine inspired (as he reminds the reader) by Buddhism, according to whose teaching ‘care of the sick is a meritorious act of the highest order’. Even kings such as King Buddhadasa (362-400 CE) learned and practiced medicine. The very concept of hospitals has been found to have originated in Buddhism. At the end of the essay under the title Towards a Concept of the Ideal Doctor for Sri Lanka” (pp. 26-35), which was originally the Deshamanya Nandadasa Kodagoda Fifth Memorial Oration, 2002, Carlo articulates his thesis succinctly in these words: I conclude that the ideal doctor for Sri Lanka should be an embodiment of western medical science and Buddhist values represented by contentment over acquisitiveness; cooperation over competition; compassion over perfunctory sympathy; and altruistic service over selfish indulgence ….”. The last two essays in the Medicine section (found on pp. 61-74) are about tobacco and alcohol control. He was the founder chairman of the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol to which post he was appointed in 2007, a rare instance of the right person being put in the right place in our country.

The second group of writings is subsumed under Science and occupies more or less the same space (pp. 76-154) as that devoted to Medicine. The first item there is Fire-Walking: A Scientific Investigation”, which is a reproduction of a paper published in the Ceylon Medical Journal of June 1971. It relates to the fire-walking tests and contests I referred to above. As described in the paper, Carlo applied the usual steps of the scientific method in his attempt to prove a hypothesis he had arrived at as a scientist about the secret of certain individuals being able to walk on live embers without sustaining burns.  I think Carlo’s hypothesis is similar to or identical with the scientific explanation of the phenomenon that physicists accept today. Other essays in this section, for example, The Intrinsic Wisdom of Scientific Materialism”, Of Religious Scientists”, and Eulogy for Richard Dawkins” also embody the theme of promoting ethical values while fighting superstition.

I will not touch on all the ten sections of the book like this for fear that this article would be too long for accommodation in a newspaper column. But before concluding this piece, I must very briefly suggest something  about why I consider Carlo to be one of the few iconic national figures we should be proud to have had among us as Sri Lankans. In any country at any time the advent is usually rare of individuals born with the highest intellectual abilities, coupled with compassion for fellow humans, and a desire to serve them. Of course, there are no morally perfect human beings even among such. That is part of human nature. Carlo was arguably one of those rare individuals, impaired with his own personal limitations, no doubt, like all of us. But since the imperfectability of human nature is a common denominator, I’d like to  dwell here only on what distinguishes Carlo from the average majority of us.

Carlo told us that he was himself an early beneficiary of free education introduced a few years before independence, although he was learning in the English medium. Initially free education benefited the English medium students more than it did the poor children learning in the swabhasha (Sinhala and Tamil) mediums. This was because the English medium schools which used to charge fees before, did not have to do so after education was made free for all. We have to remember that English medium education catered only to the tiny privileged minority of the population.  The poor swabhasha students already had a sort of free education. The replacement of English with swabhasha as the medium of instruction expanded educational opportunity to embrace children from all social backgrounds. Considering the disdain in which the Sinhala medium school children were held and the insulting attitude adopted towards them by the Westernized English speaking elite at that time (about which Carlo must have known well, though absolutely no reference is made to the subject in these essays). I learnt about such discrimination many years later from our teachers, and books. His identifying of himself as a beneficiary of that epoch-making change (i.e., the introduction of free education) is unique. Most local intellectuals of his time and before his time had usually developed a pro-Western, anti-national cultural bias. Carlo was free from that, and took a serious interest in educationally modernizing our country for the benefit of all its children.

In the first entry under Education titled Reforming Education: Finishing the Unfinished Task” (originally, the script of Dr C.W.W. Kannangara Memorial Lecture – 2009) pp. 282-297, Carlo mentions his theme: I propose to suggest ways of finishing the unfinished task of reforming free education, to make it relevant for the globalized world of the 21^st century”. A major component of the recommended ‘reforming’, I think, involves the best management of the language factor in education (My caution to the reader: this has nothing to do with politics): Education must be bilingual – Sinhala or Tamil, with English. Apropos of university education in the same speech, Carlo quotes (Sinhala professor) Dr Sucharitha Gamlath from another source as having said: one who knows only Sinhala doesn’t know even Sinhala”.  In the same context Carlo refers to Dr Gamlath quoting with approval a remark that Dr N.M. Perera had made in parliament: Teaching in Sinhala is alright, but government must ensure that students acquire a sound knowledge of English”. May our country have the right people in the right positions to bring about this and other reforms recommended in Carlo’s essay just mentioned.

While being engaged in the medical field, Carlo rendered a great service as a bilingual scholar of genius. It was actually his English that first attracted me to his writings in my student days. He was an exemplary master of the English language, who was deeply read in its literature. As far as I am concerned, I look up to him, even today, for he used to model good writing in his journalistic contributions as much as in his academic writing. 

Professor Carlo’s book has essays that deal with the heroic qualities, great ideas, and admirable doings of some genuine Sri Lankan intellectuals of the past, such as left politician Dr N.M. Perera, Sinhala writer Martin Wickremasinghe, rationalist superstition-buster Dr Abraham T. Kovoor,  surgeon Dr P.R. Anthonis, and Buddhist reformer Dr A.P. de Zoysa. There is no doubt that Carlo owed his special qualities to their influence on his character.

In our (predominantly Buddhist) culture, the medical profession is the most highly honoured among mundane occupations. Buddha himself is described as a spiritual healer or physician who relieves samsaric suffering. Then there is the saying: rajakama naethnam vedakama”, which roughly means If you can’t become a king, become a physician instead”. Among ordinary people, it is taken for granted that doctors are or ought to be particularly humane, compassionate and ethically beyond  reproach. Carlo’s concept of the ideal doctor for Sri Lanka well accords with that public expectation. Carlo was not just a physician. He was a teacher of physicians.

However, when he heard some people making disparaging remarks about him, especially regarding his politics (he was a Card-Carrying Member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party), he must have found solace in the words of Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus (55-135 CE): Those who pursue the higher life of wisdom, who seek to live by spiritual principles, must be prepared to be laughed at and condemned.”

වාගිස ප්‍රනාන්දු විසිනි

මෙතෙක් කල් ලංකාවේ පැවැති මහ මැතිවරණ සහ ජනාධිපතිනරණ සදහා ඒ ඒ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ විසින් සහ ඒ  ඒ අපේක්ෂකයා විසින් රටේ ඡංදදායකයින්ට ඉදිරිපත්කලේ අදාළ මැතිවරණය ඉලක්ක කරගත් ප්‍රතිපත්ති ප්‍රකාශයක් පමණි. මැතිවරණ ජයග්‍රහනවලින් පසුව එකී ප්‍රතිපත්ති ප්‍රකාශයන් නැවතුනේ කුණු බක්කි තුලය. ඒ, ඒවා පිලිබද දේශපාලකයින්ට මෙන්ම රටේ ජනතාවටද නිනව්වක් නැති බැවිනි.

දැන් තත්වය බොහෝ දුරට වෙනස් වෙමින් පවතී. 2015දී රටේ ජනතාව බහුතරයක් ඡංදය ප්‍රකාශ කලේ එවකට පැවැති පාලනය වෙනස් කිරීමටය.වෙනස සිදුවිය නමුත් පාලකයෝ වෙනස් වූවාට ක්‍රමයේ කිසිදු වෙනසක් ඇති නොවිනි. හොරු අල්ලනවා යැයි කියමින් පැමිණි පාලකයින් අවසානයේදී හොරුන්ගේ ග්‍රහණයට නතුවූයේ ජනතා සිතුම් පැතුම් බිද දමමිනි.

ඒ නිසා දැන් පාලකයෝ වෙනුවට පාලන ක්‍රමය වෙනස් කිරීමට ඇතැමුන් පෙළගැසී සිටිති. නාගහනන්ද කොඩිතුවක්කු එහි පෙරමුණේ සිටියි. ඹහු සම්ප්‍රදායික ක්‍රමවලින් බැහැරව නව ආරකට තමන්ගේ ඡංද ව්‍යාපාරය කරගෙන යන බවද පෙනේ. ප්‍රතිිප්ති ප්‍රකාශණයක් වෙනුවට ජනරජ ව්‍යවස්ථාවක්, මෙතෙක් විවිධ ආකාරයෙන් කොල්ලකාගත් මුදල් තමන්ගේ ඡංද ව්‍යාපාරයට යෙදවීම වෙනුවට තම ඡංදදායකයින්ටත් හැකි පරිදි තමන්ගේ ඡංද ව්‍යාපාරයට මුදලින් දායකත්වය සැපයීම සදහා බැංකු ගිණුම් අංකයක් ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමත් මේ අතර සුවිශේෂී වේ. මේ සුවිශේෂි වෙනස්කම් නිසා  නාගානන්ද කොළඹ සහ තදාසන්න පෙදෙස්වල මධ්‍යම පාන්තික ජනතාවගේ  සැළකිය යුතු පිරිසකගේ ආකර්ශණය දැනටමත් දිනාගැනීමට සමත්ව ඇත.

තවද, මෙතෙක් තම ඡංද ව්‍යාපාරය තනිවම කල නාගානන්ද දැන් තවත් එවැනිම නිර්පාක්ෂික තරගකරුවෙකු වන රොහාන් පල්ලෙවත්ත හා තවත් එවැනිම වෘත්තිකයින් කීපදෙනෙක් සමග සංධානගතව ඔවුන් අතරින් වඩාත් සුදුසු පුද්ගලයෙකු තරගකිරීම සදහා එකගතාවයකටද පත්ව ඇත. මේ නයින් බලන විට මොවුන්ගේ සැබෑ වුවමනාව හුදෙක් තමන්ට බලය අත්පත් කරගැනීම නොව වසර 70කටත් වඩා පැරණි ජරාජීර්ණ පාලන ක්‍රමය වෙනස් කිරීම බව පැහැදිලිය.

මේ අතර, නාගානන්දට දේශපාලන පක්ෂයක් නැතත් රොහාන් පල්ලෙවත්තට ලියාපදිංචි දේශපාලන පක්ෂයක් ඇති බැවින් එකි සංධානයෙන් තරගකිරීමට සුදුසු යැයි තීරණය කරන පුද්ගලයාට එම දේශපාලන පක්ෂය හරහා තරග කිරීමටද හැකියාව ඇත. පල්ලෙවත්ත හෝ එම සංධානයේ සිටින වෙනත් අයකු මේ දක්වා නාගානන්දගේ මෙන් ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් හෝ අවම තරමින් ප්‍රතිපත්ති ප්‍රකාශණයක් එළිදක්වා නැති බැවින් සහ නාගානන්ද තරම්වත් ජනතාව අතරේ ප්‍රසිද්ධියක් නැති බැවින් නාගානන්දට එම සංධානයෙන් තරග කිරීමට අවස්ථාවක් ලැබීමේ වැඩි ප්‍රවණතාවයක්ද ඇත.

එමනිසා මෙතැන් සිට නාගානන්දගේ පාලන ක්‍රමය වෙනස් කිරීමේ මතවාදයට පමණක් මේ ළිපිය ලඝු කිරීමට සිදුවනු ඇත. එහිදී ඹහුගේ ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ අන්තර්ගතය ගැනත් එය සම්මත කරන ආකාරය ගැනත් සාකාච්චා කල යුතුය. ඹහු දැනට මුද්‍රණය කර බෙදා හැර ඇති ශාරාංශගත ජනරජ ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ ප්‍රමුඛත්වය දී ඇත්තේ රටේ ජනතාවගේ පරමාධිපත්‍ය බලයට, නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යයට සහ අධිකරණයේ ස්වාධීනත්වයට වේ.

ලංකාවේ වත්මන් ව්‍යවස්ථාවේද මේ සියල්ල නාමමාත්‍රිකව ඇතත්, බලගැන්වීමේදී විවිධ අඩු පාඩු කම් ඇති බව සක්සුදක්සේ පැහැදිළිය. ලංකාව ඒකීය රටක් බවට මින් පිළිගෙන ඇතත්, බුදුදහමට වත්මන් ව්‍යවස්ථාවෙන් ලබා දී ඇති ප්‍රමුඛස්ථානය මේ ජනරජ ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ එළෙසින්ම සදහන් නොවීම ඇතැමුන්ට බරපතල ප්‍රශ්ණයක්ව ඇත. ඒ සම්බන්ධයෙන් වරක් ඔහුගෙන් විමසූවිට කීවේ 47 ව්‍යවස්ථාවේද එවැනි සදහනක් නොමැති බවයි. කෙසේවෙතත්, 78 ව්‍යවස්ථාවෙන් බුදු දහමට ප්‍රමුඛස්ථානයක් ලබාදී තිබියදීත් අද රටේ සිදුවෙන බෞද්ධ විරෝධී ඇතැම් දේ නිසා කලකිරීමට පත්වී සිටින ඇතැම් බෞද්ධයින් පවසන්නේ බුදුදහමට ව්‍යවස්ථාපිත ආරක්ෂාවක් ඇතත් නැතත් වැඩි වෙනසක් නැති බවකි.

ඒවාගේම රටේ ජාතික දිනය ලංකාව සැබෑ ලෙසටම දේශපාලණ හා ආර්ථික වශයෙන් නිදහස ලැබූ මැයි 22 වනදා ලෙස නම් කර ඇත. නාගානන්දගේ ව්‍යවස්ථාව සම්මත වූ දිනයේ සිටම රටේ මෙතෙක් පැවති විධායක ජනාධිපතිධුරය සහ පවත්නා පාර්ලිමෙන්තුවේ නිල කාලය අහෝසිවන අතර ජනාධිපතිවරණයෙන් පත්වූ ජනාධිපතිවරයා ඊළගට පත්වෙන රජයේ විධායක අගමැතිවරයා වන අතර එම පාර්ලිමෙන්තුවේ මංත්‍රී සංඛ්‍යාව 80කට සීමාවේ. මැතිවරනය කොට්ඨාශ මට්ටමින් සිදුවන අතර සෑම මංත්‍රීවරයෙකුටම පිළිගත් විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයක උපාධියක් හෝ ඒ හා සමාන අධ්‍යාපනික සුදුසුකමක් අනිවාර්ය වේ. ඇමතිමංඩලය 13කට සීමාවන අතර, නාමමාත්‍රික ජනාධිපතිවරයෙක් පාර්ලිමෙන්තුවේ අනුමැතියෙන් පත් කරනු ඇත.

මේ සියල්ල වසර 71ක් තට්ටුමාරු ක්‍රමයට ලංකාවේ ප්‍රධාන දේශපාලන පක්ෂ දෙකෙන් බැට කා තවමත් විදවන අතිමහත් බහුතරය වූ සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාවකට ඉතාමත් ආකර්ශණීය වනු ඇත. එමනිසා දැනටමත් සැළකිය යුතු පිරිසක් නාගානනද් වටා එක් රොක් වෙමින් පවතී. තවමත් ඉන් බහුතරය කොළඹ සහ තදාසන්න පෙදෙස්වලට සීමාවුවද, ඔහුගේ මැතිවරණ ව්‍යාපාරය ආරම්භ කිරීමත් සමගම රටේ අනෙක් පලාත්වලින්ද ජනතාව මෙකී ආකර්ශණීය ව්‍යවස්ථාව ප්‍රථම වරට ඉදිරිපත්කරනු ලබන නාගානන්ද වටා එක්වීමට ඉඩ කඩ ඇත.

දැන් අපි නාගානන්දගේ ජනරජ ව්‍යවස්ථාව සම්මතවන ආකාරය ගැන බලමු.

ඔහු ප්‍රසිද්ධියේ ප්‍රකාශ කර ඇති අන්දමට එම ව්‍යවස්ථාව සම්මත වන්නේ රටේ ජනතාවගේ කැමැත්තෙන් මිස මෙතෙක් කල් රටේ අනෙකුත් ව්‍යවස්තාවන් සම්මත වූ ආකාරයට නොවේ. එමනිසා මීළග ජනාධිපතිවරණයේදී තමන් ඡංදය ඉල්ලා සිටින්නේ ඔහුගේ ජනරජ ව්‍යවස්ථාව සම්මත කිරීමට වන හෙයින් එහිදී ඔහු ජයගතහොත්, ඔහුට පක්ෂව ලැබෙන ඡංදය මෙකී නව ව්‍යවස්ථාව සම්මත කිරීමට දෙනු ලබන ඡංදයක් සේ සළකා සම්මත කිරීම ඔහුගේ ක්‍රමයයි.

මේ ආකාරයනේ නව ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් සම්මත කල හැකි වුවහොත්, මින් ඉදිරියට පත්වෙන ඕනෑම ජනාධිපතිවරයෙකුට වසර පහෙන් පහට නව ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් සම්මත කිරීමේ හැකියාවද ලැබෙනු ඇති බව ඇතැමුන් දැනටමත් තර්ක කරති. නමුත් රටේ දැනට පවත්නා ව්‍යවස්ථාවට අනුව නව ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් සම්මත කරන්නේ නම් එය පාර්ලිමෙන්තුවේ 2/3 කින් සහ ජනමතවිචාරණයකින්ද සම්මත විට යුතුය.ඒ කෙසේ වුවද, ව්‍යවස්ථාපිත නීතියට පරිභාහිරව නව ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් සම්මත කල නොහැකියි යන මතය දරණ නීති විශාරදයින් මෙන්ම, නාගානන්දගේ ක්‍රමයට අනුව නව ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් සම්මත කල හැකි බව කියන නීති විශාරදයින් අද දක්නට ඇත.

නාගානන්දගෙන් ඇතැම් මාධ්‍ය සාකාච්චාවලදී මේ ගැන විමසුවද ඔහුගේ පිලිතුර වන්නේ ඒ සදහා පවත්නා රාමුවෙන් පිටත සිට (out of box) සිතියයුතු බව පමණි. මෙම ක්‍රමයට එරෙහිවන්නන්ගේ ප්‍රධානතම තර්කය වන්නේ නීතියේ රාමුවෙන් පිටත සිට සීතිමේ විපාක අත්වීදීමට සිදුවන්නේ ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේදී බවයි. ඔවුන් ඒ සදහා දෙනු ලබන උදාහරණය වන්නේ  ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසින් පසුගිය ඹක්තෝම්බරයේ සිදුකල පාර්ලිමෙන්තුව විසුරවා හැරීමට එරෙහිව ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය විසින් ලබාදුන් නඩු තීන්දුවයි.

මෙය තවමත් කතා බහකට පමණක් සීමාවී ඇති නිසා මේ සම්බන්ධයෙන් කොළඹ කේන්ද්‍ර කරගත් ඇතැම් පුද්ගලයින් අතර  සීමිත සංවාදයක් ගොඩනැගී ඇතත්, ඉන් එහා ගිය අධිකරනමය කටයුතුතකට කිසිවෙකු හෝ මුළ පුරා නැත. එමනිසා නාගානන්දගේ ක්‍රමය ව්‍යවස්ථානුකූළද නැද්ද යන්න දැන ගැනීම සදහා ඔහු ජනාධිපතිවරණයෙන් ජයගෙන නව ව්‍යස්ථාව සම්මත කරන තුරු සිටිය යුතු වේ.

නමුත් ඔහුගේ නව ව්‍යවස්ථාව සම්මත වීමත් සමගම වත්මන් පාර්ලිමෙන්තුව ඉබේම අහෝසිවීමට අමතරව, ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ සහ අභියාචනාධිකරණයේ විනිසුරන්ගේ ධූරයන්ද හුදෙක් කුසළතාවය මත පමණක් නැවත පත්කිරීමේ සුදුසුකමට යටත්ව අහෝසිවන බවද එකී ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ සදහන් කර ඇත.

එය මෙතෙක් ලංකාවේ සිදුනොවූ දෙයකි. මෙතෙක් ලංකාවේ බිහිවූ ඒකාධිපතියෙකු ලෙස ඇතැමුන් සැළකූ ජේ.ආර්. ජයවර්ධන පවා ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ සහ අභියාචනාධිකරණයේ විනිසුරන්ගේ ධූරයන් මෙළෙස අහෝසි කල බවක් දැනගන්නට නැත. එමනිසා, මේ සියල්ල මෙසේ සිදුවෙද්දී අපට අසන්නට ප්‍රශ්ණයක් ඇත.

එනම්, 1978දී සම්මත කරන ලද ජේ.ආර්. ගේ ව්‍යවස්ථාවද සම්මත කරන ලද්දේ එවකට පැවති 1972 ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ විධිවිධානයන්ට යටත්ව වුවද, නාගානන්දගේ නව ජනරජ ව්‍යවස්ථාව සම්මත කිරීමේදී වත්මන් වයවස්ථාවේ විධිවිධානයන් නොසළකා හැරීම ගැන තවමත් ප්‍රමාණවත් විද්වත් කතිකාවක් රට තුල නිර්මාණය වී නොමැත්තේ, පවත්නා දේශපාලන ක්‍රමය තුල නාගානන්ද වැනි දේශපාලනයට කෝඩුකාරයෙකුට ජනාධිපතිවරණයකින් ජය ගැනීම කිසිළෙසකින් හෝ පහසු නොවන බව එකී විද්වතුන් මැනවින් අවබෝධ කරගෙන ඇති නිසාද? යනුවෙනි.

ආචාර්ය ටිකිරි බණ්ඩාර ඇටිපොළ සම ලේකම් – සත්ව අවිහිංසා ජාතික එකමුතුව

මේ දිනවල කොළඹ ප්‍රදේශය මූලික කරගෙන පවත්වනු ලබන ඉස්ලාමීය බෝරා නිකායේ දැවැන්ත සමුළුවට සහභාගිවීම පිණිස ලෝකයේ විවිධ රටවල්වලින් මුස්ලිම්වරුන් විසි එක් දහසක් (21,000)  පමණට ලංකාවට පැමිණ සිටින බව ජාතික ජන මාධ්‍ය පසුගිය කාලය පුරා වාර්තා කරනු ලැබීය‍‍. කොළඹ නගරයේ විශේෂයෙන්ම කොල්ලුපිටිය සිට ගල්කිස්ස දක්වා වූ ප්‍රදේශය පුරා පවතින සංචාරක හෝටල්වල සහ විවිධ ලැගුම්හල්වල ඔවුන් නවාතැන් ගෙන සිටින බවද ජනමාධ්‍ය වාර්තා කර තිබිණි.

දින දහයක් පමණ පුරා පැවැත්වෙන මෙම සමුළුව සඳහා සහභාගිවන මුස්ලිම් ජාතික දැවැන්ත ජන සමූහයාගේ ආහාර පහසුකම් සපුරාලීම උදෙසා මුස්ලිම්වරුන්ගේ ප්‍රධානතම ආහාරයක් වන ගව මාංශ සපයාදීම වෙනුවෙන් අති විශාල ගවයින් ප්‍රමාණයක් දිනපතා එකවර ඝාතනය කිරීම සිදුකරමින් සිටින බව අපට ඉතා විශ්වාසකටයුතු ආරංචිවලින් දැනගන්නට ලැබී තිබේ. නීත්‍යානුකූල නොවන අකාරයෙන්, ගෝඝාතක පණත පවා අමු අමුවේම උල්ලංඝණය කරමින් සිදුකරන මේ මහා ගව සංහාරය පිටුපස මෙම රජයේ ප්‍රබල මුස්ලිම් ඇමතිවරු මෙන්ම කිතුණු ආගමික හා බෞද්ධාගමික සිංහල ඇමතිවරුද සිටින බව දැනගන්නට ලැබේ.

කොළඹ සහ තදාසන්න ප්‍රදේශවල නිදැල්ලේ හැසිරෙන වසු පැටවුන්, එළදෙණුන්, ගැබ්බර එළදෙණුන්, රෝගාතුර වී සිටින ගවයින් කිසිදු නීත්‍යානුකූල තත්වයකින් තොරව පොලු මුගුරු, පිහි හා දිගු අඬු වැනි ආයුධ භාවිතා කරමින් අති අමානුෂික අයුරින් දැඩි හිංසනයකට ලක්කර වෑන් හා කුඩා ලොරි රථවලට පටවාගෙන ස්ථිර ඝාතකාගාර හා තාවකාලික ඝාතකාගාර වෙත හොර රහසේම රාත්‍රී කාලයේ ප්‍රවාහනය සිදුකරන බවද පසුගිය දින කිහිපය පුරාම දැනගන්නට ලැබිණි.

ගෝ ඝාතනය සම්බන්ධයෙන් දැනට පවතින නීතිරීති නොතකමින්, සොබාදහම පවා කම්පාවන තරමේ අමානුෂික වධ හිංසාවන්ට ලක්කර සංහාරයට ලක්කරන අහිංසක ගවයින්, ගහලයන් අතින් මැරුම්කන මොහොතේ සොබාදම් වා තලයට මුසුකරන ඒ වේදනාත්මක ලතෝනිය සාපයක් වී, මෙවන් මරණීය සමුළු සඳහා අවසර ලබාදුන් පාලකයන්, ඒවාට අනුග්‍රහය ලබාදුන් හා බොර දියේ මාළු බා ගන්නා ඇතැම් ව්‍යාපාරිකයන් මෙන්ම මෙම පාපකර්ම සඳහා දායක වූ සැමට විඳවීමට සිදුවන බව සොබාදම් නියමය බව සිහිපත් කර සිටිමු.

උපුටා ගැන්ම  හිරු පුවත්

කැපවීමෙන් ක්‍රියා කළහොත් බිඳවැටී ඇති ආර්ථිකය ගොඩගත හැකි බව ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ ප්‍රමුඛ ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂයේ ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂක ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ප්‍රකාශ කළා.

ඒ, සමෘද්ධි වෘත්තිය සමිති නියෝජිත හමුවට කොළඹදී අද එක්වෙමින්.  

ඊට එක්වෙමින් අදහස් දැක්වූ ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණේ නායක විපක්ෂ නායක මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ කියා සිටියේ සමෘද්ධි සංවර්ධන නිලධාරීන්ගේ නොවිසඳුණු ගැටළු කිහිපයකට ඉදිරියේදී විසඳුම් ලබාදීමට කටයුතු කරන බවයි.

උපුටා ගැන්ම  හිරු පුවත්

මෙරටට  පැමිණ සිටින ඇමරිකානු ආරක්ෂක අංශ නිලධාරීන් පිරිසක් සම්බන්ධයෙන් ජාතික නිදහස් පෙරමුණේ නායක විමල් වීරවංශ මහතා ඊයේ විශේෂ හෙළිදරව්වක් කළා.

ඒ, හිරු ටී.වී. ඔස්සේ විකාශය වූ සලකුණ දේශපාලන වැඩසටහනට එක්වෙමින්.

උපුටා ගැන්ම  හිරු පුවත්

වෛද්‍ය සාෆි ෂිහාබ්දීන් විසින් ගැබිණි මවකට සිදුකළ බව කියන අසාධාරණයක් සම්බන්ධයෙන් පූජ්‍ය අතුරලියේ රතන හිමියන් ජාතික පොලිස් කොමිසමට අද පැමිණිලි කළා.

උන්වහන්සේ එහිදී සඳහන් කළේ ස්වාධීන කොමිෂන් සභාවක් මඟින් මෙම වෛද්‍යවරයා පිළිබඳ වහාම පරීක්ෂණයක් සිදු කළ යුතු බවයි.

2018 වර්ෂයේදී මංගලිකා ගුණසේකර නැමැති 36 හැවිරිදි ගැබිණි මවකගේ දරු ප්‍රසූතිය කුරුණෑගල ශික්ෂණ රෝහලේ වෛද්‍ය සාෆි ෂිහාබ්දීන් විසින් නිසි ආකාරයෙන් සිදු නොකිරීම හේතුවෙන් දරුවා මියගිය බව සහ එම වෛද්‍යවරයාට එල්ල වී ඇති තවත් චෝදනා සම්බන්ධයෙන් නැවතත් නිසි පරීක්ෂණයක් සිදු කරන ලෙස ඉල්ලා පූජ්‍ය අතුරලියේ රතන හිමියන් මෙම පැමිණිල්ල සිදුකළා.

උපුටා ගැන්ම  හිරු පුවත්

මුහුදු මහා විහාරය ආශ්‍රිතව සිදුවන සීග්‍ර ඉඩම් ආක්‍රමණය පිළිබදව හා එම විහාරවාසී හිමියන්ට අන්‍යාගමිකයන්ගෙන් සිදුවන හිරිහැර හිරු සී.අයි.ඒ. ඔස්සේ අප අවස්ථා කිහිපයකදීම අනාවරණය කළා.

පසුගිය පළමු වැනිදා ද මුහුදු මහා විහාරවාසී  හිමිනමකට යළිත්වරක් අන්‍ය ආගමිකයෙකු බැණ තර්ජනය කර තිබෙනවා.

නැගෙනහිර පළාතේ පොතුවිල්හි පිහිටා ඇති මුහුදු මහා විහාර භූමිය අනවසර ඉඩම් අත්පත් කර ගන්නන්ගේ ගොදුරක් බවට පත්ව ඇති බව හිරු සී.අයි.ඒ. ඔස්සේ අප වරින් වර හෙළි කළා.

එවන් පසුබිමක් තුල පසුගිය පළමුවැනිදා මුහුදු මහා විහාරවාසී පුජ්‍ය උඩලමත්තේ රතනප්‍රිය හිමියන් විහාර භූමිය සතු වාහන නැවතුම්පල රූගත කර තිබෙනවා.

එහිදී මුහුදු මහා විහාර භූමිය ඉදිරිපිට කරවල අලෙවිසැලක් පවත්වාගෙන යන අන්‍ය ජාතිකයෙකු  ඊට විරෝධය පළ කළේ රතනප්‍රිය හිමියන්ට පහර දෙන බවට ද තර්ජනය කරමින්

By C. A. Chandraprema Courtesy The Island

The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has written to the Acting Inspector General of Police Chandana Wickramaratne outlining a set of guidelines to prevent arbitrary and illegal arrests. The HRCSL has requested the Acting IGP to bring these guidelines to the attention of police personnel with strict Instructions requiring compliance. The guidelines recommended by the HRCSL are as follows:

1. Whenever an arrest is to be made there should be solid evidence to form a reasonable suspicion pursuant to proper investigations. Arrests should not be made merely on hearsay.

2. Where cultural issues are involved, such as the identification of religious symbols or identifying contents written in an alien language, proper expert opinion should be obtained.

3. Where identification of chemical substances or contents of computer files or video footage or the like are involved expert opinion should be obtained.

4. It is vital that the arrests are made not before, but after receiving credible information based on expert analysis and opinion, and on reasonable suspicion.

These guidelines have been issued in the context where Sri Lanka is once again faced with a major terrorist threat. The Easter Sunday bombings was the biggest single terrorist attack on civilian targets carried out in South Asia and indeed anywhere in Asia. On two occasions, since April this year, neighbouring India went into panic mode due to reports that terrorists from Sri Lanka were trying to infiltrate India by sea. Not a day goes by in this country without reports of the arrest of terrorist suspects and the discovery of weapons and explosive devices including claymore mines, yet the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has seen fit to issue instructions to the police saying that they should be in possession of solid evidence, vetted by experts, before an arrest can be made.

This should be enough to send not only the people of Sri Lanka but even our neighbouring countries into a blind panic. When there is a terrorist problem, you can’t carry out arrests in the manner recommended by the HRCSL. When Kuttamani was arrested in 1981, the Navy did not know who they had arrested. He and two other terrorists were arrested only because they had tried to flee on seeing the Navy. It was only later that the police had identified one of the arrested men as Kuttamani. In 2008, the terrorist responsible for the Piliyandala bus bombing which killed 24 and injured 40 was captured only because the police had rounded up 29 suspicious individuals and brought them to the Piliyandala police station to be questioned. So the guidelines issued by the HRCSL are plain insanity. To be able to deal with terrorism effectively, the police and armed forces should be able to carry out arrests on suspicion or even on a hunch without having to look for solid evidence or expert opinion before carrying out the arrest.

Our internal security laws have very practical provisions in this regard. Article 15(7) of the Constitution states very clearly that provisions of the fundamental rights chapter will be subject to restrictions in the interests of national security, public order and for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others. The Prevention of Terrorism Act states that a police officer not below the rank of Sub-Inspector duly authorized by his superiors may arrest any person without a warrant and enter and search any premises and stop and search any individual, vehicle, vessel, train or aircraft; and seize any document or thing. The emergency regulations promulgated under Section 5 of the Public Security Ordinance confers similar powers on the law enforcement authorities.

These are more like the powers that should be vested in the law enforcement authorities of a country beset by terrorism. The Emergency Regulations in fact even give the defence authorities the power to order the pre-emptive detention of a suspect with a view to preventing such person from acting in a manner prejudicial to national security or to the maintenance of public order. Under the Emergency Regulations, the defence authorities also have the power to restrict the movements of suspects, keep them under house arrest, demand the surrender of their passports, and even restrict a suspect’s communication with others and the propagation of his views.

Such measures are necessary in order to be able to combat terrorism successfully. There are safeguards to protect the rights of the suspects arrested as well. There are internal reporting requirements where superior offices have to be kept informed about the arrests made. Then the arresting officer has to issue a document to the next of kin of the suspect, acknowledging the fact of arrest. In cases where wrongful arrest has occurred, the aggrieved person can present his case to the HRCSL itself or avail himself of other legal remedies such as a fundamental rights case. But to make it virtually impossible to arrest a terrorist suspect by imposing unrealistic conditions on the law enforcement authorities will be a case of inviting disaster.

The HRCSL in its letter to the Acting IGP, has expressed dissatisfaction that in most instances, the police investigations are conducted after the arrest and stated that investigations including the obtaining of expert opinion should be carried out before the arrest is made. Is this a practical proposition? The terrorist suspect would have disappeared by the time the police comes to arrest him after making all the inquiries and obtaining expert opinion! The HRCSL had sent this letter to the Acting IGP on 2 July 2019 when the declaration of emergency was fully operational. This shows how out of step with the ground realities the HRCSL is. The State of Emergency was lifted only on 24 August 2019. The HRCSL recommendations to the police will vitiate the very purpose of declaring a state of emergency.

As an example of an arbitrary arrest, the HRCSL has drawn attention to the case where a British tourist, named Michelle Coleman was arrested by the police for having a tattoo of the Buddha on her arm. Ms. Coleman, and was later awarded compensation by the Supreme Court. The HRCSL is unable to see the difference between a peacetime fiasco like the arrest of a tourist over a tattoo, and the arrest of suspects who may be plotting to kill hundreds or even thousands of people in one go. In this writer’s view, there should be one retired police officer and one retired army officer sitting among the five members of the HRCSL to ensure that this body is kept aware of ground realities and to prevent them from issuing instructions that would have the ultimate effect of placing the lives of the general public at risk.

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

President Maithripala Sirisena said a person larger than Arjuna Mahendran will stand in the bond scam witness box in the coming days with the legal documents to bring back the prime suspect of the Central Bank bomb scam had been completed.

He said a certain politician said in Kuliyapitiya that the UNP made a blunder in 2015 by choosing a wrong man as the common presidential candidate but this time it would not do that mistake again and if the UNP did that blunder again the people would make them walk on the street naked.

I like to tell that man that if I did not save the country from foreign influence, the selling of national assets to foreigners and destroying the country’s dignity by sacking the Prime Minister and replacing him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, this particular man would have not had even his loin cloth,” the President said.

Addressing the SLFP’s 68th annual convention at the Sugathadasa indoor stadium, the President said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe must take the full responsibility for repeatedly postponing provincial council elections.

According to what the Supreme Court has told me it is the delay in submitting the report by the three-member review committee led by the Prime Minister is the main obstacle to conducting the PC polls. Right now, no one knows when the PC polls could be held,” he said.

The President said the elite class-led governance had destroyed the country economically, spiritually and financially.

He said neo-liberal policies had a cancerous effect on each and every sector of the country and asked the people to be vigilant and put an end to these policies and politicians if the country was to rise up and progress.

Parliamentarians are corrupt, provincial councillors are corrupt, pradeshiya sabha members are corrupt. It is extremely difficult to get the approval for a building plan without paying millions of rupees as gratification to officials and politicians. The few in the elite political class has done much harm to the country. The need of the hour is to elect humane, patriotic, educated gentlemen to political office in place of corrupt, selfish and arrogant politicians,” the President said. (Sandun Jayasekera)

Courtesy Adaderana

President Maithripala Sirisena says that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is the first respondent for preventing Provincial Council elections from being held.

The President stated this addressing the convention held to celebrate the 68th anniversary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo today (3).

Speaking at the event, President stated that the respondents of the Bond Scam must immediately resign from politics in Sri Lanka and that more information on the matter will be revealed in the coming days.

According to President Sirisena, all paperwork needed to extradite former Central bank Governor Arjun Mahendran is now complete.

He said, The files needed to bring bigger shots than Arjun Mahendran to courts as respondents of the Bond Scam have already been prepared”.

President Sirisena also commented on the inability to hold the Provincial Councils.

There won’t be a provincial council election in this country anymore. Thousands of officials receive wages. Assets and property of Provincial Councils amount to billions and trillions.

The Supreme Court informed me that the provincial Council elections cannot be held because the Prime Minister hadn’t compiled and submitted the relevant report.

Provincial Council elections are over. Cannot say when that would come again. Therefore, the first respondent is the Prime Minister,” he charged.

The President pointed out that, both the Government party and the Opposition are holding secret talks with the leaders in the North to gain votes at the next election.

Speaking further, the President said, No matter who wins the next presidential election, he will be a President who cannot do anything according to the 19th Amendment to the constitution. He won’t even have the Defense Ministry. All powers would go to the Prime Minister.

Do not forget that, according to the constitution, in 2020, the country will be handed over to the Prime Minister, not the President. Therefore, the SLFP should focus on appointing the next Prime Minister rather than the next President.”

Sirisena said that a new path for development should be selected and the people should try and understand which political structure possesses such a vision. 

He said that the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) should form a political movement free of corruption, malpractices and unethical political practices.

He called upon the people to strengthen the party structure enabling to form a SLFP Government in 2020.

President Sirisena said that we should achieve a balanced development and the development process must sustainable and an efficient.  He also said that the country must move towards a green economy and the success of countries with emerging economies based on the smart technology.

Even though whatever allegations were levelled against for the past five years of my tenure, I was committed to building a corrupt free country as well as attempted to ensure democracy,” the President said, adding the neo-liberalism concept is not suitable for the country. 

During my tenure, I was able to ensure maximum freedom and democracy in the country. As I said earlier not a single civilian was targeted by the guns of State apparatus. I am proud to state that no media institute or a house was burnt down, no journalists were threatened,” he said.

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Colombo, September 3: Kevum or Konda Kavu is mentioned in ancient Sri Lankan texts including the Ummagga Jatakaya,Saddharma RatnawaliyaandPujawaliya as a delectable sweet. It is a festival sweet especially associated with the Sinhala New Year where it is part of an array of sweetmeats and savouries.

TheDhathuwansaya, an ancient Sinhala text, mentions 18 kinds of kevum including Sedhi Kevum, Mun Kevum, Ulundu Kevum, Uthupu (shaped using a coconut shell) and Ginipu (fire kevum)

• Konda kevum hair kevumis the most common variant. It has a dark reddish colour. The dough of rice flour and kithul treacle is flavoured with salt and cardamon Konda the Sinhala word for a lock of hair, a shape the konda kevum resembles. It is shaped by hand and without a special mould.
• Naran kevum) –mandarin kevumis the size and shape of a mandarin, colored yellow with saffrom, green gram flour and scraped coconut are added to the basic kevum mix of rice flour and treacle.
• Thala kevum –sesame kevumhave sesame in the kevum dough.
• Undu kevum – dal kevumis kevum flavored with urad dal.
• Mun kevum –gram kevumadds green gram flour and saffron to the kevum mix of rice flour and treacle. The kevum are diamond shaped and yellow.

How To Make It

Lu Ingredients

• 1 kg of Rice flour
• 500 ml of Coconut Syrup (Pol paeni) or Kithul paeni
• Salt
• Oil for Frying
• Wooden stick
• some caraway seeds (maduru)

Method

.The floor must be very finely sieved.

• Put it into a ball add syrup and mix well together adding a little salt and little hot water, if the batter is too thick. If not sure of the consistency it is best to fry a Kavum and see whether it is right before adding the water.
• Keep ready a deep found-bottom pan of boiling coconut or vegetable oil.
• Pour spoonful of the batter and as it begins to fry and the centre rises pour in a little more batter into the centre and insert an ekel in the middle of the fritter, not allowing it to go through.
• Keep twisting the ekel round and round and at the same time splashing the boiling oil on the fritter using an oil spoon for the purpose.
• This is to produce the Konde (hair) Press round the base of the Konde with the spoon to get it in to the proper shape.
• The Kavum must have a nice brown colour when fried. Drain well.

(The pictures were taken by Tang Lu of the Xinhua News Agency at a leading hotel in Colombo. Editor Wu Qin)

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Colombo, September 3 (newsin.asia): Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has asked members and supporters of his party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), to form an SLFP government in 2020 when parliamentary elections are held, and added that in the next government the President will be stripped off his powers and all power will be handed over to the Prime Minister as in a parliamentary form of government.

Addressing the SLFP Convention held to mark the 68 th., anniversary of the Party at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo on Tuesday, Sirisena said that in accordance with the 19 th., constitutional amendment, the next President will be powerless. Defence Ministry too will be with the Prime Minister, he added.

Therefore, more than thinking of the next Presidential Election, the SLFP should pay attention to electing the next Prime Minister,” he urged.

Sirisena pointed out that the entire political system has become corrupt, dishonest and immoral.

Our responsibility is to build a political force which is pure, incorrupt, people-oriented and ethical to oust the current governance of the corrupt, elitist and anti-people groups,” the Lankan President said lambasting the government headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel as evident from the actions of some politicians, Sirisena said, and urged the people to properly study to understand who is the political leader suitable to lead the country.

President Sirisena spoke about the problems he had to face within the government.

I fought within the government to prevent corruption, robberies and malpractices and to safeguard the interests of the people. Bank robbers and the corrupt should leave politics. All the documents are ready for the extradition of (former Central Bank Governor) Arjuna Mahendran. Documents are also ready to punish political leaders responsible for the bank scam,” he said.

The President said it is unfortunate that the Provincial Councils have become ineffective.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is mainly responsible for preventing Provincial Council polls from being held,” the President said and pointed out that the Prime Minister failed to present the Review Committee Report for reactivation of the Provincial Councils after the Bill was defeated in Parliament.

The President said that the government and opposition leaders hold discussions with the Northern leader (former Chief Minister C.V.Wigneswaran) purely to get Tamil votes.

But nobody has a genuine plan. They are only thinking about the number of votes in the North of the country. It’s a tragedy.”

President Sirisena said that we should achieve a balanced development and the development process must be sustainable and an efficient. He also said that the country must move towards a green economy and use smart technology.

‘Even though whatever allegations were levelled against me for the past five years of my tenure, I was committed to building a corruption-free country as well as ensuring democracy’ the President.

He said the neo-liberal concept is not suitable for Sri Lanka.

During my tenure, I was able to ensure maximum freedom and democracy in the country. As I said earlier, not a single civilian was targeted by the guns of the State apparatus. I am proud to state that no media institute or a house was burnt down, no journalists were threatened,” he said.

We should create a country where every community can live in peace and harmony without any fear of intimidation. It is the duty of the citizen to build a strong force against corruption. Democracy in this country prevailed due to people’s resistance,” said the President and added, We must gather ourselves to build a broad national movement based on our indigenous values.”

SLFP Senior Vice President Nimal Siripala de Silva, Prof Rohana Lakshman Piyadasa, UPFA General Secretary Mahinda Amaraweera and SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera also addressed the gathering.

Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, former Prime Minister D M Jayaratne, Ministers, Parliamentarians, leaders of political parties, ambassadors and SLFP members and supporters were present on this occasion.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

Indian Intelligence Agency sent an alert on April 8, 2019, warning of a terror attack. Sunday Times of 21 July 2019 published the text of this alert.  The text said:

 Sri Lanka based Zahran Hashmi (sic) of National Towheed Jamaat and his associates are planning to carry out a suicide terror attack in Sri Lanka shortly. They are planning to target some important churches. It is further learned that they have conducted reconnaissance of the Indian High Commission Sri Lanka and it is one of the targets for the planned attack. The following are the likely team members of the planned terror attack,   Zahran HashIm, Jal Al Quitha,    Rilwan,    Sajid, Shahid,   Milhan and others.

It has now emerged that five of the six names listed in the Indian alert were known to the Police months before the Indian alert came. The names had emerged when the police investigated the vandalizing of Buddha statues in Mawanella in December 2018. 

On the 23^rd Of December, the day before Christmas, 4 Buddha statues were disfigured in the night. When this was attempted a second time on December 26^th the public caught one offender and handed him over to the police.  He was questioned and seven more were arrested on 27th and 28th December.  From these eight, the police were able to find out who was behind this. Two persons named Mohammad Sadik Abdul-haq and Mohammad ShaheedAbdul-haq,  known as Sajid and Saheed had carried out the Mawanella operation. Their leader was Saharan. They were planning to engage in further extremist actions. This was said by Retd Deputy IGP, Palitha SIriwardene in an interview with Chatura Alwis on the Talk with Chatura” programme   August 2019.

Kegalle police then informed IGP by letter dated 14.1.19 that this was now a matter for the CID. The CID arrived, investigated and subsequently reported to Mawanella Magistrate on March 27. 2019 that ‘the following were the leaders in the Buddha statue attack’. The names were Mohammadu Cassim Mohammadu Rilvan (NIC No: 90343264 V), Mohamed Ramiz Mohamed Sajid(NIC No: 922901414 V) and Gayathu Mohammadu Ahamed Milhan ((NIC No: 892003629 V). There were 20 other names in the report.  It is, therefore, clear that five of the six names given in the Indian alert were known to the CID weeks before the attacks.

State Intelligence Service (SIS)   had also received these names. On April 9, acting on the Indian warning, Director of the State Intelligence Service DIG Nilantha Jayawardena had sent the IGP a report. This report, a copy of which had been seen by the Sunday Times said, that the SIS had identified four persons from the six names listed by Indian intelligence. They were Zahran Hashim, Rilwan, Sajid and Milhan. The report said that these names had emerged after the Mawanella incident, where a group of Muslim extremists caused damage to Buddha statues there. (This Sunday Times essay cannot be accessed now on Google. It has been blocked)

Leading on from this, Retd Deputy IGP, Palitha SIriwardene, speaking on ‘Talk with Chatura” in August 2019 stated emphatically that there were not one but TWO instances when the Easter bomb explosion could have been averted. The first instance was in December 2018, when at Mawanella Buddha statues were damaged and defaced. SIriwardene has been in charge of Mawanella at the time.

Arrests had been made and investigations carried out, but the two key offenders, Sadik and Shahid had left Mawanella, avoiding arrest. Police could not find them. But IGP Pujitha Jayasundera had phoned Kegalle Police and told them that Azath Sally knew where the two offenders were and would hand them over to the police the next day. The police waited all day but Sally did not send the two offenders.  A phone call to Sally was not productive.

Sadik and Shahid were the masterminds in the statue attacks. If these two had been handed over, we would have interrogated them, found out who the rest were and taken them all in, said SIriwardene. Definitely we could have prevented the bomb blasts because we would have taken in all the persons who were going to carry out the blasts,” said SIriwardene. This then was the first missed opportunity to prevent the Easter bomb explosions.

A second opportunity of preventing the Easter bomb blasts presented itself soon after.  When the CID was investigating in Mawanella, a confession from the suspects sent them, on January 16, 2019, to Vanatha villu area of the Puttalam District. There, they found a terrorist operational base in a coconut estate Lactowatte, situated on the 8th Milepost, Karandipuval of Vanatha villu.

At this estate in Vanatha villu, the CID found a terrorist training camp with chemicals for making explosives and manuals on how to make the explosives. This was a huge training camp, said SIriwardene. They were making bombs e and training people there. The leaders were the same three,Saharan, Sadik and Shaheed.

On the Talk with Chatura show, SIriwardene read out from a list of items found. There were 210 kilos of nitric acid, 50 kilos of urea, and 99 detonators. There was enough to make 25 or more bombs. There were also empty cans of nitric acid, showing that they had already been used. This meant that bombs had already been prepared.  There was also a list of armaments that resembled those found in an army encampment. It was later established that the CID raid had thwarted many major plans devised by this group, 

CID had sought a court order on January 30, 2019, to prevent Saharan from leaving the country. CID has told the court in a written submission that extremists were making bombs and training people at Vanatha villu. They had given names and addresses.

The CID had sent only a small team to Vanatha villu, said SIriwardene. But this team had clearly seen the gravity of the Vanatha villu camp. CID had informed the Army intelligence division, Navy intelligence division and the State Intelligence Service, (SIS) and officers from these three agencies had also come and inspected the place. Therefore neither Army, Navy nor SIS can say that they were not warned., said SIriwardene in his interview on ‘Talk with Chatura” If the police and security forces had taken action at that point, then the Easter bomb explosions would not have taken place said SIriwardene. That was the second missed opportunity.

M.R Latiff, Senior DIG and Commandant of the Special Task Force of the Police stated before the Parliament committee investigating the bomb explosions, If the police knew that attacks were planned, we could have ‘done a lot of work’. STF is capable of tracing individuals based on the information available. That is offensive action. We would have gone for them and they would have aborted their plans. I am in doubt as to why I was not informed,” he said.

We think that there was the political influence which stopped the CID from proceeding further, said SIriwardene.  No one apart from the four Vanatha villu lot was arrested before the bomb blast. If you look at the file on the Mawanella detection yon can see how much has not been done, he concluded.

There was a third opportunity. Supreme Court Justice Vijith Malalgoda , Chairman  of the special committee appointed by President Maitripala Sirisena to investigate the lapses leading to the Easter  bomb explosion,, told the Parliamentary Select Committee probing the Easter attacks that State  Intelligence had received definite information on 20^th April that there was going to be a hit the next day at 10.am.  (Derana 20.8.19 at 17.13)

Malalgoda announced that state intelligence had got the whole picture by the 18^th of April.  He said, There was the bomb explosion in Kattankudy on the 16^th,    the police complaint was made on 17^th and by 6 pm on the 18th Intelligence had linked it all up. They had drawn up a list of names and all the names of the bombers were listed there he said. Malalgoda Commission had seen the list.

We now move to the next set of observations. These deal with the way investigations into Muslim extremism were successfully held back. Firstly, Kegalle police found when investigating the Buddha statue matter that there was international involvement. Mawanella seemed to be connected to a huge international destabilization movement” (vinasakaree).

Therefore, Superintendent of Police (Kegalle Division) wrote on December 28, 2018, to Director of the CID Shani Abeysekera, listing the incidents in Kegalle Division, and naming the seven suspects in custody.  This letter contained the names, addresses and all details of the persons arrested.

The statement said, According to investigations carried out it appears that an international organization is trying to create disharmony among different communities. Therefore, [we should] take the necessary steps to clarify from the International Police (Interpol) about the accuracy of the information.”

Abeysekera, replied one month later We are not in a position to obtain the support of the International Police (Interpol) as your message does not refer to a specific country, specific person and the name of the international conspiracy.” SIriwardene observed that it is precisely because they did not have the name and address of the organization, that they were asking Interpol. If they had known the name of the organization and its address, then they did not need to ask Interpol

Secondly, key offenders at Mawanella were helped to escape and were kept away from the police on two occasions. The first was at Mawanella itself. The name mentioned was Azath Sally. At Vanatha villu, too,  the  CID arrested four persons found on the estate, Abu Haniffa Mohamed Mufiz, 3rd Lane, Mannar Road, Puttalam; Amir Hamza Mohamed Hamaz, 1st Lane, Spill Road, Puttalam; Mohamed Nafiz Mohamed Nafid, 11th Cross Street, Mannar Road, Puttalam and Mohamed Nafiz Mohamed Naveeth, 11th Cross Street, Puttalam.

Two of these four were also were released. Due to political interference, it was thought, said Sunday Times.  Azath Sally had stated openly on a television programme that he got these two persons released because they were innocent. We had only started the inquiry when these two were released. How anyone could decide they were innocent, asked SIriwardene. They were released in the middle of the inquiry, where there was the opportunity to get more information and arrest more people.

 Head of CID, Shani Abeysekera also said, later, we released them because we had no evidence against them. However, he stated that the two were asked to report to the CID every last Saturday of the month.    That does not indicate innocence.

Thirdly DIG Nalaka Silva had established a Research and Analysis Unit at the Terrorism Investigation Department in February 2017. It was to monitor Buddhist and Muslim extremist groups and LTTE revival attempts. Silva had appointed an officer specifically to keep track of Zahran. In 2018, due to the efforts of DIG Silva, TID received a vehicle fitted with hi-tech surveillance equipment from the Japanese Government. We even trained some officers to use it, said, officers.

 However, DIG Silva was arrested within a few months of receiving the vehicle.  He was arrested on October   25. 2018 over an alleged assassination plot on several VIPs. CID then advised the TID not to use the surveillance vehicle. ‘We have not made use of the vehicle since then’. The arrest of DIG Silva also led to a ‘psychological setback’. Staff was called to give statements.

Fourthly, Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) had in June 2017 sought the AG’s approval to contain the threat of Muslim extremism.  TID said ‘We received a complaint from Abdul Jawad Ali Waliullah Trust on March 24, 2017, against Zahran and his group. We investigated the complaint and then referred it to the Attorney General’s Department. We wrote two letters to the Attorney General’s Department in 2017 and 2018, but we did not receive any response. The AGs Department responded on March 12, 2019. We were informed that our file should be prepared again within two months. While we were preparing the file, the Easter Attack took place.

At the Attorney Generals Department, the file on Muslim extremism had been with Deputy Solicitor General Azath Navavi. Navavi had just one junior officer, Senior State Counsel Malik Azeez? State Counsel Malik Aziz admitted that he had received a file on Zahran Hashim, in June 2017 and that he only took further action and reported back on May 21, 2019, a month after the Easter Sunday attacks.

Senior State Counsel Malik Aziz had sat on the file for nearly two years while Zahran made meticulous preparations for the operation, said, critics. He delayed the file so that the police could not ban the National Towhead Jamaath of Zahran Hashim. The Buddhist clergy lodged complaints with police headquarters. ‘Sinhale National Movement’ requested the Attorney General’s Department to conduct an inquiry against State Counsel Malik Aziz.  Ven. Magalkande Sudatta of the Sinhala Ravaya organization called for the immediate arrest of Senior State Counsel Aziz.

Lastly, there has been complicity at police stations. Justice Malalgoda said his Committee had noticed some glaring lapses. The intelligence warning of the attack at Kochchikade Church had been conveyed to the area police station, Foreshore Police Station, only after the attack. At Katana police station, the warning had been received on April 13 but the OIC pasted the message on his book only on April 20. In many police station entries had been changed and alterations made. The Malalgoda Commission had seen the alterations in the police records ‘with our own eyes’,  At Katana, according to their books 21 policemen had been detailed at Katana. But we found this was false and entered only after the attacks. 

The intelligentsia is very angry about the Easter bomb explosion, which they rightly feel could have been avoided. Twelve fundamental rights petitions in relation to the Easter Sunday terror attacks were made to the Supreme Court. These were to be heard by a bench of seven judges. This was in response to the motions filed by the Attorney General, the Bar Association and several other parties seeking a fuller bench since the petitions were of public importance.  These petitioners are pleading for an order to prosecute those directly or indirectly responsible for the Easter attacks.

A lawyer who sustained injuries from the suicide bomb on Easter Sunday at the Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo, yesterday filed a Fundamental Rights petition in the Supreme Court citing former Defence Ministry Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, IGP Pujith Jayasundara, State Intelligence Service head Nilantha Jayawardena and 40 others as respondents.

 The petitioner stated that one or all 34 respondents could be prosecuted for the commission of or, abetting to the commission of, offenses under Sections 298, 299, 112, 113 of the Penal Code. The petitioner seeks to challenge the arbitrary, illegal, unlawful, discriminatory, unreasonable and mala fide actions or inactions of one or all of the respondents, President or State which have infringed the Fundamental Rights of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 11, 12(1), 14(1)(a), and 14 (1) of the Constitution. (Continued)

KAMALIKA PIERIS

Those who planned the Easter bomb explosions used two methods of attack, suicide, and truck. The suicide attacks are well known, but not the truck attack. The truck attack was planned for Kochchikade. The van was parked in the vicinity of the St. Anthony’s Gate 04 harbour entrance. The owner of the van was identified as Mohamed Azam Mohammed Mubarak, alias ‘Abdullah’, who detonated the bomb at the Kingsbury Hotel.

The bomb in the van was a remote-controlled one laden with high amounts of explosives. The bomb was meant to go off one hour after the church blast. If the timer failed they had arranged that the bomb would explode when someone tried to open the car door. Investigators later found that the bombers had been experimenting with a timer when they exploded the bike at   Kattankudy. Fortunately, the timer failed and no one tried to open the door, said analysts. The bomb was defused by a controlled explosion.

Shamindra Ferdinando has added something new to the discussion as to why churches and hotels had been targeted.  He pointed out that there was deliberate targeting of Tamil Christians. The biggest church in Batticaloa had been selected, St Mary’s and also the Tamil service at St. Anthony’s Church, Kochchikade.  Over 60 Tamils perished in the Batticaloa and Kochchikade bombings. Over 100 received injuries.  If St. Mary’s Cathedral had been bombed many more Tamils would have perished. Shamindra also noted that the Tamil National Alliance had not shown any concern about this. TNA has not said anything about it.

In May 2019,   Parliament appointed a Special Select Committee to probe the bomb explosions that took place on April 21^st. The Committee, chaired by Deputy Speaker Ananda Kumarasiri, consisted of Rauff Hakeem, Sarath Fonseka, Ravi Karunanayake, Kavinda Jayawardana, Ashu Marasinghe, Jayampathy Wickramaratne, M.A. Sumanthiran, Nalinda Jayatissa, and Rajitha Senaratne.

This was a political committee, not a   fact-finding one. This was evident in the questions asked. This committee was set up to whitewash the explosions, not examine them, said, disgusted critics.

There was a stark contrast between the Committee and the witnesses who appeared before it. The witnesses coming before this absurd Committee were experienced professionals appearing in their official capacity. Many of them were themselves experts in investigation and interrogation. And all of them were well experienced in answering questions.  They were far more competent than the investigating committee and they knew it.

The witnesses dealt effortlessly with the clumsy questions asked by the Committee, to the delight of the watching audience. While taking care to defend their own actions the witnesses also made sure that they threw up valuable observations. They knew the public was watching. So was the media.  Newspapers and television picked up these observations and publicized them.

Archbishop of Colombo   Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, who heads the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, is today the severest critic of Yahapalana’s role in the bomb explosions. It is his flock who was affected and he is both angry and sad. He is pounding the issue. He is talking about it every day and everywhere.

The Cardinal called for a truly independent commission with full powers to probe the terror strikes. He said: “We don’t want compensation. We seek justice. Tell us the truth as to what happened and who caused the tragedy.  The probes so far launched lacked impartiality and transparency.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has repeatedly asked for an independent commission to probe the Easter bomb explosions. He wants a commission that can take legal action against persons.  ‘I wrote to the President about this but there was no favourable response,’ he said.

The Catholic Bishop Conference in Sri Lanka (CBCSL) also spoke on the matter.  Bishops of Badulla, Jaffna, Kandy, Kurunegala and the Auxiliary Bishop of Colombo,   together with Cardinal Malcolm Ranjth, issued a statement where they made an earnest appeal to the government that an impartial inquiry be held and the perpetrators brought before the law. 

 A just, fair and impartial investigation has not yet taken place, the bishops said. We observe that several committees have been established and their main focus appears to be to find out those responsible for the serious lapses in security. Even though this effort is useful, we insist that as a matter of justice, the final aim of the inquiries should be to ascertain who the perpetrators are and who aided and abetted in any way in this dastardly acts. Unfortunately, we do not see any positive signs in this direction. An independent and impartial inquiry as a matter of utmost urgency. Everyone is still in fear and there is uncertainty in the minds of the people, concluded the statement. 

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith let go at the reconsecration of Katuwapitiya Church in July 2019.  At its first mass after the bomb blast, Cardinal said many things, which were reported on television news. He said that the bomb blasts could have been avoided.  Yes definitely”. The Indian High Commission had told him that they had sent three sets of information to the government. But the government, selfish, power-hungry ignored it.

The government was passing the buck without taking the responsibility for the loss of lives and those injured and maimed,  he continued. They wish to brush all this under the carpet. They plan to set up committees and commissions and get the reports written the way they want it. 

The government is bowing to foreign powers. That is why these matters are hidden. The report of the committee appointed by the President is not accessible to the public. I was told that the Attorney General will decide what to do about the report.

This government has dismantled the intelligence agencies that were once very strong. This was done to fulfill the needs of international organizations and NGOs. When the security forces detected a training camp used by extremists at Wanatha willuwa, the extremists who were arrested were freed.

Though the government repeatedly assured that those who had been involved with the Easter Sunday attacks were either dead or apprehended, the Catholic Church wasn’t convinced. .Leaders of the country were assisting in the objectives of the foreign powers. They were acting according to the whims and fancies of external forces this is not how they should behave.

The government should immediately resign and allow those who were capable of governing the county to take over. They must hand over the government to those who can carry it out, concluded the Cardinal. We cannot trust these people.  This irresponsible, heedless set of leaders should now go home.

Pathfinder Foundation’s Milinda Moragoda has proposed that the President, the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader jointly nominate a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate into bomb explosions.

Moragoda said: “It is very apparent that our society as a whole is seeking to understand exactly what happened and heal and reach closure with these seemingly incomprehensible events. There are much resentment and frustration in society that this national tragedy has been relegated to political theatre. It is therefore of national importance that a truly bipartisan and credible investigation be carried out immediately to get to the root causes and to bring closure for the victims.

Many religious and national leaders have joined in a call led by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith for an independent and credible inquiry into the horrific terrorist attacks that took place in Sri Lanka on the 21st of April 2019. Although there have been two separate investigations initiated thus far by the President and the Parliament, these have been perceived by the public to be mere exercises in buck-passing and finger-pointing and thus lack the confidence of the country, concluded Moragoda.

Yahapalana politicians assured the public that the bomb threat is over, all have been arrested. But  Army Commander Lt. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake,    said in August 2019 that Islamic terrorists were still operating at various places in the country and the threats they posed were far from over. Some Islamic terror suspects were still at large and there were confirmed reports that they were still carrying out clandestine operations.

Derana News 19.8.19 reported that two Saharan trainees were arrested. One was 21 years, from Geli Oya. The other was a civil engineer 24 yrs from Galle. They were trained at   Saharan’s training facility at Nuwara Eliya. Another 15 members of JMI have also been arrested at Ampara.

It has now dawned on the public that the reason the army and police moved so fast, to arrest persons after the bomb explosion in April was not that they were trying to catch the culprits, as we thought, but because they alone, knew that other bomb explosions were on the way.

Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka said that although it is claimed in some quarters that terrorism has been eliminated, the problem is not over. There is a police list of 130 of which only 60 have been arrested. Saharan and Co have trained about 1000 at 17 training camps.

Yahapalana leaders do not seem to understand the gravity of this, like a crab swimming in a pot over a stove, said Fonseka.  It will take about eight years to eradicate this particular terrorism. But the government is not carrying out any specially directed program for this, he said.   He cannot see any dedicated program to eradicate the Muslim threat. (CONCLUDED)

By M D P DISSANAYAKE

A window of opportunity is open for the next generation of Nationalist Leaders to abrogate the Provincial Councils altogether in a New Constitution.   The political tussle which existed with conflicting groups of legislators virtually made the functioning of Provincial Councils defunct.

Sumanthiran’s TNA and Hakeem’s Muslim Parties have been twisting arms of the Executive President, the Executive Prime Minister with the blessings of the Speaker, which culminated over 3 years, in a political tug O war.

TNA and SLMC will now be demanding from Leading contenders for Presidency to commit for the provision of PCs, with Police and Land Powers.

Nationalist  Sinhalese, Maha Sanga, Catholic and Muslim clergy need to educate the Voters to clearly identify the profile of suitability of candidates.

Provincial Councils were an unnecessary decoration and a Superfluous Institution for Sri Lanka. Originally it was thought that PCs will solve most of the minority grievances, but the PC as a solution itself became a major problem, paving way for possible national disintegration and creating disunity amongst minorities. 

At a time UNP unofficial candidate Sajith Premadasa is committing maximum devolution of power for minorities, Nationalist Groups must now unite to scrap PCs altogether, through the mechanism of a New Constitution.  It will provide upgrading the powers of the Executive President, thus providing constitutional delegation of powers for safeguarding the Unitary Status of Sri Lanka.  Draft Constitution must be placed before the Public, in the form of seeking Referendum.

Sajith Premadasa will be a Puppet worse than Ranil. Except for his ability to built match-boxes, Sajith has no vision and will ruin the country acting in a short-sighted idiotic manner within a very short period of time. Sajith and JVP Anura Kumara are now on the same frequency, with TNA and SLMC. 

We salute the decision of the Supreme Court.

ජනමාධ්‍ය නිවේදනයයි.සංවර්ධන නිලධාරී සේවා සංගමය

සංවර්ධන නිලධාරී සේවයට අයත් ස්වදේශ කටයුතු අමාත්‍යාංශය යටතේ සේවයේ යෙදෙන සංවර්ධන නිලධාරීන් 16000 කට ආසන්න පිරිසක් සැප්. 04 දින සංවර්ධන නිලධාරී සේවා සංගමයේ වගකීම යටතේ එක්දින වැඩ වර්ජනයකට අවතීර්ණය වීමට තීරණය කර ඇත. අදාල ඉල්ලීම් එදින ලබාදීමට ආණ්ඩුව අපොහොසත් වන්නේ නම් ගම්පෙරළිය වැඩසටහනෙන් හා ග‍්‍රාම ශක්ති වැඩසටහනෙන් මෙන්ම වැඩබැලීමේ රාජකාරීවලින් ඉවත්වීමේ වෘත්තීය ක‍්‍රියාමාර්ගයක් දක්වා අවතීර්ණය වීමටද කටයුතු කරන බවද දන්වා සිටිමු.

සංවර්ධන නිලධාරී සේවය යටතේ ස්වදේශ කටයුතු අමාත්‍යාංශයට අයත් දිස්ත‍්‍රික් ලේකම් කාර්යාල 25 හා ප‍්‍රාදේශීය ලේකම් කාර්යාල 336 ක ඉහත අමාත්‍යාංශය යටතේ 16000 කට ආසන්න සංවර්ධන නිලධාරීන් පිරිසක් රාජකාරියේ යෙදෙති.

වසර 6 ක පමණ කාලයක පුරා නිර්මාණය වුනු මෙම වෘත්තීය ගැටලූවලට අමාත්‍යාංශ බලධාරීන් ඇතුලූ ආණ්ඩුවේ දේශපාලන අධිකාරියෙන් විසඳුම් ඉල්ලා සාකච්ඡා වට ගණනාවක් පැවැත්වුවද අදාල ගැටලූවලට විසඳුමක් නොලැබීම නිසා මෙම වෘත්තීය ක‍්‍රියාමාර්ගයට අවතීර්ණය වීමට සිදුව ඇත.

01. 2018 සිට ක‍්‍රියාත්මක ආණ්ඩුවේ ගම්පෙරළිය ව්‍යාපෘතිය ක‍්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමේදී එම ව්‍යාපෘති සම්බන්ධයෙන් පූර්ණකාලීන රාජකාරී වගකීම දරණ සංවර්ධන නිලධාරීන්ට අදාල ව්‍යාපෘතියෙන් වෙන්වන පරිපාලන වියදම්වලින් දීමනාවක් ලබා නොදීම.

02. 2018 සිට ක‍්‍රියාත්මක ජනාධිපති ලේකම් කාර්යාලය මගින් මෙහෙයවන ග‍්‍රාම ශක්ති වැඩසටහන වැඩසටහනට අදාල රාජකාරියේ යෙදෙන සංවර්ධන නිලධාරීන්ට ලබාදීමට පොරොන්දු වූ රු. 3000/- ක දීමනාව විධිමත්ව මේ දක්වා ලබානොදීම.

03. 2013 සිට මේ දක්වා පුරප්පාඩු සේවා ස්ථානවල රාජකාරි සිදුකිරීම වෙනුවෙන් සංවර්ධන නිලධාරීන්ට රාජ්‍ය සේවය අනුව හිමිවිය යුතු වැඩබැලීමේ දීමනා මේ දක්වා ලබා නොදීම.

04. 2013 සිට මේ දක්වා මාසික ගමන් වියදම් දීමනාවක් ලබා නොදීම.

05. පිළිගත හැකි සුදුසු ස්ථාන මාරු පටිපාටියක් මෙතෙක් ක‍්‍රියාත්මක නොකිරීම.

06. සංවර්ධන නිලධාරීන්ට ව්‍යවස්ථාව අනුව සංවර්ධන විෂය ඇතුලූ සුදුසු රාජකාරී සහිත රාජකාරී ලැයිස්තුවක් 2013 සිට මෙතෙක් ලබා නොදීම.

ඇතුලූ ඉල්ලීම් කිහිපයකට විසඳුම් ඉල්ලමින් සැප්. 04 එක්දින වැඩවර්ජනය හා උද්ඝෝෂණය පැවැත්වීමට තීරණය කර ඇත.

ඉහත සඳහන් අදාල ඉල්ලීම් ස්වදේශ කටයුතු අමාත්‍යාංශ විෂයභාර ගරු අමාත්‍යවරයා හා අමාත්‍යාංශ ලේකම්වරයා විසින් විසඳුම් ලබා දිය යුතුව ඇත.

කෙසේ වෙතත් සැප්. 04 දින අදාල ඉල්ලීම්වලට විසඳුම් නොලැබුනහොත් ගම්පෙරළිය, ග‍්‍රාම ශක්ති වැඩසටහන්වලින් හා වැඩබැලීමේ රාජකාරි ඇතුලූ රාජකාරිවලින් ඉවත්වීම දක්වා වෘත්තීය ක‍්‍රියාමාර්ග දැඩි කරන බවද අවධාරණය කරමු.

ස්තුතියි.

මෙයට,
චන්දන සූරියආරච්චි
ලේකම්

සම්බන්ධීකරණය – 0718 178268
Coordinating – 0718 178268

Laksiri Warnakula

I make it a point to read the ‘The Island’ (on-line edition) every day. The times I get to do that depends on my daily work-schedule that involves shift work too. But suffice it to say that I never miss the ritual, which it has been for so many years now. I start with the ‘Editorial’ and then work my way through the ‘Features and Opinion’ columns and then to politics etc. 

Now there is one topic that is often discussed and written about by the Editor himself and other concerned citizens, which pains me so much so that there was many an occasion, when I had to stop somewhere in the middle of my reading and then pause and ponder on, with a lump in my throat; the amount of scams (not forgetting the ‘Bond’ scams), crafty deals, small deals, big deals (not forgetting the ‘Mig’ deals), double deals, cheating and robbing the nation of what it had many years before and what little it has come to have now after all this abhorrent, abominable, incessant, unimaginable pillage of her resources.

The heartless robbers in the guise of administrators, managers, and politicians have been busy to such an extent that one of the ministers was heard saying recently that ‘Sri Lanka will go bankrupt if the Government fails to pay international debt repayments due in September’. I wonder why it took him so long to say that, though!

Leaving the bigger ‘billion-rupee’ deals aside since we know more or less about them, there have been lesser ‘million-rupee’ deals that could still amount to billions, if added together. And by the looks of it, there are still hundreds if not thousands belonging to that despicable creed ‘the bad and the ugly’, who are still busy doing their dirty work of stealing, in many a diverse form,  somewhere, and not some times, but all the time.

The printers have been apparently busy cooking and eating but not printing, with their canteen staff being paid more than a staggering 100 million as overtime. A band of adventurous provincial councilors accompanied by their secretaries goes on foreign trips just before the expiration of the tenure of their council, costing the nation some forty-odd millions. And a controversial transaction of more than one billion rupees involving an advance payment to purchase milch cows from Australia has been questioned by the Central Bank. Then the investigations by the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprise) on questionable power deals that have cost colossal amounts to the nation’s coffers, are underway.

The above are only a small number of examples, which is just the tip of the iceberg, I am sure, of diverse nature that speaks of the level and the magnitude of misappropriation/stealing of nation’s resources. It is downright thievery that has been rampant in the country for many years now. And no government has been able to kill the epidemic, effectively. And then come to think of it, ‘will a doctor or can a doctor treat and cure a disease, when he himself is the cause of it’.

The saddest part of this dirty spectacle is that there are also people involved, who are seemingly highly educated too.

I am now and so are many no doubt, left with feelings of despair and longing, a yearning for the return of the honest and the righteous Sri Lanka, which it was once. 

If this curse can be wiped out somehow, once and for all, starting with the public sector and the governance, the rest will fall into place soon and the much-talked-about prosperity won’t be a dream anymore.

Laksiri Warnakula

by Arihant Pawariya Courtesy Swarajya

Women against love jihad hold placards to protest against the practice and conversion in Bhopal. (Mujeeb Faruqui/Hindustan Times via Getty Images) 

Snapshot

• The Himachal government has brought in a new Freedom of Religion Act that attempts to put the brakes on large-scale conversion activities.However, a lot more can actually be done to the legislation to make it foolproof.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Himachal Pradesh passed the Freedom Of Religion Act, 2019 in the state assembly on Friday (30 August) with a thumping majority. Based on the ‘live and let live’ principle, the law is aimed at providing true religious freedom by prohibiting conversions via use of force, misrepresentation, undue influence, coercion, inducement or by any other fraudulent means including, and this is important, for the sole purpose of marriage.

For the aforementioned reasons, it is also being referred to as the anti-conversion act in popular media. Himachal Pradesh is one of the seven states in the country which have enacted such a legislation. Others who have tread this path are Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur tabled the Bill in the Assembly. In the statement of objects and reasons, he justified replacing the ‘Freedom of Religion Act, 2006’ with the new one stating that

a) it was imperative to keep up with the times as the society has undergone many transitional changes since 2006;

b) the punishments prescribed earlier weren’t sufficient to act as a deterrent;

c) marriages solemnised for the sole purpose of conversion weren’t proscribed; and

d) the organisations involved in forced conversions weren’t held responsible.

These lacunae have been corrected in the new Act.

Those found guilty can be awarded maximum jail time up to seven years. Marriages for the purpose of conversion can be declared null and void if either party complains.

Any organisation or institution found guilty of violating the Act’s provisions will be barred from receiving funding from within and outside of the country. This could prove to be the most effective tool in countering mass conversions backed by foreign money and should give sleepless nights to organisations which indulge in coerced conversion under the garb of charity or social work.

Those who want to convert willingly (and the ones who are converting them) will have to give one month’s advance notice to the District Magistrate (DM), who in turn shall order an inquiry in the meantime to make sure that the conversion is indeed voluntary.

It goes without saying that the Act will be challenged in the courts. Especially the bit about one month advance notice to the DM runs the risk of being struck down by the judiciary.

In a 2012 judgment, the Himachal Pradesh high court had declared a similar provision of the 2006 Act as ultra vires the Constitution. The court had held that a person not only has a right of conscience, the right to change his belief, but also has the right to keep his belief secret.”

Be that as it may, CM Thakur and his government deserve two cheers for enacting this legislation.

First cheer for prescribing the highest jail term (up to seven years) for forced conversions of minors and women especially through the marriage route. We have witnessed many cases where minor girls who would otherwise not be eligible for marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act or the Special Marriage Act are converted first and then married according to Sharia law (Muslim Personal Law).

This route has been made difficult now and is bound to give serious heartburn to mullahs as well as those involved in the so-called despicable ‘love Jihad’ activities.

Second cheer for looking out for non-Muslim women and ensuring for them justice in case they end up getting defrauded and converted in the name of marriage. On their complaint, such marriages can be declared null and void.

I am withholding the third cheer because the Act doesn’t go far enough and leaves a lot to be desired.

First, it should’ve declared all conversions of minors illegal and any attempts to convert them (especially via marriage) punishable by law. If you can’t vote or get married until you are 18 years of age, why should you be allowed to make as big a decision as converting to another religion — and that too without permission of a parent or guardian?

Second, merely declaring marriages conducted solely for conversion as void doesn’t do much for the women victims. Breaking up a marriage is not as easy as to stop buying from a shopkeeper who fleeces you. Separation imposes very high costs on all involved.

In inter-faith marriages, women are most likely to have already been ostracised by their family and community and so need more help.

The Act should’ve prescribed stiff punishments for those who defraud women via conversion and marriage. It failed to make any such provisions.

Moreover, the real issue is not that marriages are done for the sole purpose of conversion but that conversion is done for the sole purpose of marriage.

Outlawing the latter would mean that no non-Muslim woman would ever have to change her religion to marry a Muslim man i.e. take the Sharia route thus losing considerable number of her rights regarding inheritance, property, custody of children, alimony, etc.

Perhaps, the Himachal Pradesh government can consider complementing its ‘Freedom of Religion’ Act with a ‘Protection of Women’s Rights’ Act where all marriages between a Muslim male and non-Muslim female are declared valid only if they are solemnised using the Special Marriage Act.

Third, while the Act puts a premium on forced conversion, it rightly exempts re-conversions (converting to one’s parent religion) from its purview. But is this enough? What if someone whose forefathers were converted some generations back (either by force or inducement) and (s)he wants to go back to the religion of his/her ancestors? The government can think of exempting such re-conversions too.

To sum up, Himachal Pradesh government and CM Thakur deserve two cheers for moving in the right direction in ensuring true freedom of religion free of coercion and deceit, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

The grapevine has it that the central government is also mulling a national law outlawing forced and fraudulent religious conversions and it can come as soon as by end of this year. Even if it doesn’t, the BJP governments in other states should certainly be thinking of bringing such laws.

One hopes that they would improve on the existing legislation in seven states and fix the loopholes that have plagued them, resulting in their poor implementation.

Arihant is Senior Editor, Swarajya

lanka C news

පහල නිලයක සිටි සුදුසුකම් සහික දක්‍ෂ සේවකයෙක් තමන් එක් දුරකතන ඇමතුමකින් ඉංජිනේරුවකු ලෙස පත් කල බව ඇමති සජිත් පේ‍්‍රමදාස මහතා සදහන් කලේය.

උත්සව සභාවකදී ඇමතිවරයා මේ බව සදහන් කලේය.

lanka C news

තමන් මධ්‍යම සංස්කෘතික අරමුදලින් මුදල් ගසා කෑ බවට චෝදනා එල්ල වන බව එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයේ නියෝජ්‍ය නායක ඇමැති සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස මහතා පවසයි.

තමන් එම අරමුදල් ලබාගෙන රටපුරා වෙහෙර විහාරස්ථාන ගොඩනැගීමට කටයුතු කරන ලද බව ඔහු සඳහන් කළේ ය.

එසේ නොකළේ නම් එම මුදල ස්ථිර තැන්පතුවේ තිබියදී රුපියල බාල්දු වීම සමග බාල්දු වී යන බවද ඔහු සදහන් කලේය.

නැති වූ බව කියන සෑම මුදලක්ම මෙරට පන්සල් පද්ධතිය තුල ඇතැයිද ඇමතිවරයා එහිදී පැවසීය.

ඔහු මෙම අදහස් පල කරන ලද්දේ අම්පාර ප්‍රදේශයේ දී පැවති උත්සව සභාවක් අමතමිනි.

ඇමතිවරයා යටතේ ඇති මධ්‍යම සංස්කෘතික අරමුදල යටතේ තිබූ රුපියල් කෝටි 120 ක මුදලක් අතුරුදහන් වී ඇතැයි මෑතකදී චෝදනා එල්ල විය.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=679430355906533

GR midea

ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණේ නීතීඥ සංගමයේ සම්මේලනය අමතමින් ජනාධිපති අපේක්‍ෂක ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා විසින් සිදු කල දේශණය මෙහි දැක්වෙයි.

පසුගිය අගොස්තු මස 11 දා පැවති පක්ෂයේ මහා සම්මේලනයේදී  ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ පස්වන විධායක ජනාධිපති  මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමා විසින්  ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ ප්‍රමුඛ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ ගනනාවක මෙන්ම  ස්වාධීන සංවිධාන හා කන්ඩායම් රැසක  පොදු අරමුණ නියෝජනය කරන ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකයා වශ‍යෙන් මාව නම්කරනු ලැබීමෙන් පසු මා ප්‍රථමවරටයි නීතීඥයින් මෙතරම් විශාල සංඛ්‍යාවක් එකවර හමුවන්නේ.

අද දින ඔබ අමතා අදහස් කිහිප‍යක් ප්‍රකාශ කිරීමට මේ ලද අවස්ථාව ගැන මා ඉතාමත් සතුටු වෙනවා.

The legal profession is one of the most respected professions in the country. It is one with a very long and rich history.

Tracing its origins to ancient Greece, the legal profession developed further in ancient Rome and later proliferated throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Law, as a formally structured profession with its own training traditions and rigorous professional standards, was established in Sri Lanka in the 1830s.

It is the primary responsibility of legal professionals to study the law, practice the law, nurture the law and safeguard the law.

නීතිය යන සංකල්පය ශිෂ්ඨාචාරවත් සමාජයක අත්තිවාරම යැයි කියතොත් එය නිවැරදියි. නීතිය යන සංකල්පය ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීම සඳහා අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම අපට නීති පද්ධතියක්ද තිබිය යුතුමය.

එවැනි නීති පද්ධතියක් සමාජය තුල ගොඩනැගීම සඳහා නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍ය යන සංකල්පය නිර්මාණය කර ඇති වග අප කවුරුත් දන්නා කරුණකි. නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍ය සුරැකිය හැක්කේ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී ආණ්ඩු ක්‍රමයන් තුල සහ රාජ්‍ය බලය සීමා කරන LIMITED GOVERNMENT රාමුවක් තුල බව  කවුරුත් පිළිගන්නා කරුනක්.

එනිසා නීතියේ ආධිපත්ය සහ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය යන ඉතාමත් ස්වර්ණමය සංකල්පයන්  ජනතාවගේ සුභසිද්ධිය සහ දියුණුව සඳහා අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම ආරක්ෂා කල යුතු බව අප කවුරුත් දන්නා කරුණකි.

ලංකාව ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී රටක්.  ආසියානු මහාද්වීපයේ රටවල් අතුරින් ප්‍රථමයෙන්ම සර්වජන ඡන්ද බලය හිමි වූයේ ශ්‍රී ලාංකාවටයි.

The granting of universal franchise in Sri Lanka in 1931 under the recommendations of the Donoughmore commission took place at a time before democracy was firmly established in many of today’s developed nations.

Universal franchise has been the foundational force behind the transition from monarchical rule to democratic governance in republics throughout the world.

සර්වජන ඡන්ද බලය මගින් සිදුවන්නේ, පරමාධිපත්‍ය බලය  ජනතාව සතු වීමයි.

ජනතාවගේ පරමාධිපත්‍යය ආරක්ෂාකිරීමේදී නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යය රටකට ඉතා වැදගත් වෙනවා.

මනුෂ්‍ය සංහතිය ඔවුන්ගේ ස්වාභාවික අයිතිවාසිකම් සියල්ලක්ම අතහැර සිවිල් අයිතිවාසිකම් සමූහයක් සමග සම්බන්ධ වී ස්වෛරී රාජ්‍යක ජනතාවක් වශයෙන් ජීවත්වීමට ගිවිසාගෙන ඇත්තේ යම්කිසි වගකීම්, අයිතිවාසිකම් හා බලාපොරොත්තු ඉටු කර ගැනීම සඳහායි.

මෙම සාමාජීය ගිවිසුම් නිසි ක්‍රමවේදයක් ඔස්සේ සාධාරණ ආකාරයකට ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමේ උතරීතර වගකීම  ඉහල මට්ටමින්ම ඉෂ්ඨ කර ගැනීමට නම් අප ජීවත් වන සමාජයත් එම සමාජයේ පාලකයන් ද අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යයට ගරු කළ යුතුය.

ඔබ කවුරුත් දන්නා නීතිය පිළිබඳ  මූලික සංකල්ප කිහිපයක් මම ඔබට මතක් කරන්න කැමතියි.  පලමුව නීතිය පැහැදිලි විය යුතුය. දෙවනුව එය පහසුවෙන්ම හැදෑරීමට සහ තේරුම් ගැනීමට හැකි විය යුතුය. තුන්වනුව නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක වීමේදී එහි ප්‍රතිඵලය කිමෙක්ද යන්න සම්බන්ධයෙන් අනාවැකියක් ප්‍රකාශ කළ හැකි විය යුතුය.   සිව්වනුව ආණ්ඩු ක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව තුල විධායක, ව්‍යවස්ථාදායකය සහ අධිකරණය යන අංශ තුන තුල බලතල බෙදා හැරීමේ න්‍යායට ගරු කල යුතුයි. පස්වනුව මහජනතාව සහ රජය ආණ්ඩුක්රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ ප්‍රථිපාදන වලට ගරු කල යුතුය. හයවනුව නඩුකර හැකි ඉක්මනින් අවසන් කිරීමට සෑම ප්‍රයත්නයක්ම ගත යුතුයි. නඩුකරයන් අවම වියදමින් අවසන් කරගත හැකි පරිසරයක් ගොඩ නැගිය යුතුය. නීති පද්ධතිය දූෂනයෙන් තොර  විය යුතුය.

Although we still repose our trust in the independence of the judiciary, when looking at recent trends, we must admit to having questions about the independence of some of the other institutions and officials entrusted with upholding the rule of law.

ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය  ආරක්ෂා කිරීම සඳහායැයි  පිහිටුවා ඇති ආයතනික ව්‍යුහය ජනතාවගේ පරමාධිපත්‍ය ආරක්ෂා කිරීම වෙනුවට  දේශපාලන අවශ්‍යතා සඳහා භාවිත කිරීමට අප තවදුරටත් ඉඩ නොදිය යුතුයි. ඒ වෙනුවට ඒ ආයතන වලට සැබෑ ස්වාධීනත්වයක් ලබා දී ඒවා තව දුරටත් ශක්තිමත් කිරීම තුලින් ජනතාව සවිබල නැංවීමට ඔබේ උපදෙස් හා සහාය අපි බලාපොරොත්තු වෙනවා.

JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED  කියා ප්‍රසිද්ධ කියමනක් තිබෙනවා

අධිකරණ පද්ධතිය තුල ඇති ප්‍රමාදය අද සාමාන්‍ය ජන ජීවිතයට බලපාන විශාල ප්‍රශ්නයක්. …………..

මෙම ප්‍රමාදයන් වලක්වා ගැනීම සඳහා අවශ්‍ය යටිතල පහසුකම් ගොඩ නංවන ගමන්ම යල් පැන ගිය නීති ක්‍රියාපටිපාටි හා අනපනත් සංශෝධනය කොට අනාගතයට ගැලපෙන නීති පද්දති සකස් කර ගැනීමට ඔබ සැමගේ සහාය අනාගතයේදී අපට අවශ්‍ය වෙනවා.

Many of our courtrooms are in dilapidated condition today. Unless action is taken swiftly, it is likely that these buildings will be unusable in the near future. It is in this context that we hope to re-implement the programme to develop the infrastructure of the courts system which was planned by the previous Government in 2014.

The reintroduction of this infrastructure development programme will ensure that you will be able to practice your profession in all the main cities and other towns of the country with due dignity and ease.

නීතිය කඩිනමින් පසිඳලන්නට දැනට ඇති අධිකරණ හා විනිසුරුවන් ප්‍රමාණවත්ද යන්න අපට විමසා බලන්නට සිදු වෙනවා.

නීතියේ ප්‍රමාදයන් වැලක්වීමට කෙටිකාලීන මෙන්ම දීර්ඝ කාලීන විසඳුම් සොයන්නට අපට සිදු වෙනවා. ඒ අතර යටිතල පහසුකම් වැඩි දියුණු කිරීම, දේශීය හා විදේශීය පුහුණුව මෙන්ම නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට සහය වන ආයතන ප්‍රතිව්‍යුහ ගත කිරීමද ඇතුලත් වෙනවා.

අපේ රටේ සංවර්ධනයේ ඉදිරි පිම්මක් සඳහා තාක්ෂනය බහුලව භාවිතා කිරීමට අප අදහස් කරනා නිසා සිංගප්පුරුව වැනි රටවල ක්‍රියාත්මක වන ඩිජිටල් තාක්ෂණය සහිත අධිකරණත් අපට ක්‍රම ක්‍රමයෙන් හඳුන්වාදෙන්න පුළුවන්.

I know that being appointed President’s Counsel is one of the highest honours any lawyer can aspire to. Although our nations’ leaders have historically striven to safeguard the dignity of this honour, concerns have arisen regarding certain appointments made to this position in the recent past.

In the future, I look forward to seeking the advice of the Chief Justice, Attorney General, legal experts and the Bar Association in order to establish a transparent, rigid procedure to govern appointments to the position of Presidents’ Counsel.

ජනතාව අපේක්ෂා කරණ සෞභාග්‍යමත් දේශය ගොඩ නැගීමේදී  අපට ජාතික ආරක්ෂාව හා ආර්ථික සංවර්ධනය ඉතා වැදගත් වෙනවා.

ජාතික ආරක්ෂාව ගැන කතා කරනා විටත් නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යය ඉතා වැදගත් වෙනවා. එක රටක් තුල ක්‍රියාත්මක විය හැක්කේ එක නීතියක් පමනයි. නීතිය හැමට සමානව ක්‍රියාත්මක විය යුතුයි.

පුරවැසියා හැමවිටම නීතිගරුක විය යුතුයි, නමුත් පුරවැසියා නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරණ ආයතන වලට හා පුද්ගලයන්ට බය නම් එහි ගැටලුවක් තිබෙනවා. නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍ය ගැන කතා කරණා විට අපි මතක තබා ගත යුතුයි නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරණ ආයතන හා පුද්ගලයනුත් නීතියට යටයි කියනා බව. ඔවුන් සම්බන්න්දයෙනුත් නීතිය සාධාරණව ක්‍රියත්මක විය යුතුයි.

නීතිය සැමට සමානය යන උත්තරීතර සංකල්පය අභියෝගයට ලක් කරමින් රජයේ ඉහල නිලධාරීන් නීතිය නමන හැටි කියනවා පසුගිය කාලයේ ජනතාව මාධ්‍ය වලින් දුටුවා

පසුගිය පාස්කු ඉරිදා ප්‍රහාරය ගැන විශේෂ කමිටුවක් මගින් විමර්ශනයක් කරනා ලෙස අපි ඉල්ලා සිටියේ ඒ නිසායි.  එසේ නොකලහොත් යම් දේශපාලන බලවතුන් නීතියේ රැහැනින් පිට පැනිය හැකි බව අපට පෙනෙනවා.

We need the support of domestic and foreign investors to accelerate the nation’s economic development.

When investors select countries to invest in, the efficient operation of the law within the country is one of the first things they look at. They pay particular attention to the independence of the judiciary and the efficiency of the legal system. They also examine whether the laws of the nation are in consonance with international law.

Legal scholars should therefore look at improving the mechanisms available for the swift settlement of legal disputes in Sri Lanka, including such speedy and efficient measures as arbitration. Just as Singapore today has established a global reputation as a centre for arbitration, Sri Lanka too should aspire to establishing a reputation for different specialisms in the legal sphere in future.

නීතිය යනු ජීවමාන සංකල්පයක්.  මනුෂ්‍ය සමාජයේ සිදුවන වෙනස්කම් අනුව නීතියේත් වෙනස්කම් සිදු වෙනවා. ඒ නිසා  අද නූතන ලෝකයේ සංවර්ධනය වූ රටවල් නීති වෘත්තියේ තත්වය ඉහල මට්ටමකින් පවත්වාගෙන යාමට අනුගමනය කරනු ලබන එක් යාන්ත්‍රනයක් නම්  CONTINOUS LEGAL EDUCATION  යන සංකල්පයයි.  මේ සම්බන්ධයෙනුත් පහසුකම් වැඩිකරනා ආකාරය අප සාකච්චා කල යුතුයි.

ගෝලීය ආර්ථික තුල  තුල ආසියානු කලාපය බලවත් වෙමින් සිටිනා  මේ මොහොතේ අපත් ඒ ප්‍රවණතාවයෙන් උපරිම ප්‍රයෝජන ගත යුතුයි. අපනයන ආර්ථිකය ශක්තිමත් කල යුතුයි. ලෝකය සමඟ සම්බන්දීකරණයේදී අපේ සුවිශේෂී  භූගෝලීය පිහිටීමෙන් ප්‍රයෝජන ගත යුතුයි. මේ කරුණු වලදී අපට ජාත්‍යන්තර නීති රීති ගැන මනා දැනුමක් තිබිය යුතුයි.  මේ අවශ්‍යතාවය තේරුම් ගෙන අදාල ක්ෂේත්‍ර සම්බන්ධයෙන් අපේ දැනුම වර්ධනය කර ගැනීම සඳහා පියවර ගන්නා ලෙස මම ඔබෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටිනවා

කාලීන ජාතික  අවශ්‍යතාවන්ට ගැලපෙන පරිදි  ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධනය, යල්පැනගිය නීති රීති  යාවත්කාලීන කිරීම, මැතිවරණ නීතිවල වෙනස්කම් වැනි නීති ප්‍රජාවේ සහාය අවශ්‍ය කරන වැඩකටයුතු රාශියක් අප ඉදිරියේ තිබෙනවා. ඒ සඳහා ඉදිරියේදී නීති විශාරදයන්ගෙන් මෙන්ම  ඒ ඒ ක්ෂේත්‍රයන්ට අදාල විද්වතුන්ගේ සහාය ලබාගන්නට  අපි කටයුතු කරණවා.

මම ඔබට මතක් කරන්නට කැමතියි අපි නව තාක්ෂණය් භාවිතය අතින්  හැකි පමන ඉදිරියට යන්නට බලාපොරොත්තු වන බව. මෙය ඔබටත් වදගත් වෙනවා. ඊශ්රායලයේ හිටපු අග්‍ර විනිශ්චයකාර තුමෙක් වන අහරොන් බරක් මැතිතුමා පෙන්වා දී තිබෙනවා සමාජය තුල තම වෘත්තීමය වටිනාකම පවත්වාගන්නට නම් වේගයෙන් වෙනස් වන ලෝකය තුල නූතන තාක්ෂණ ප්‍රවණතාවන් හඳුනාගෙන ඒවා භාවිත කිරීමට සෑම ප්‍රයත්නයක්ම ගත යුතු බවයි.

I propose to lead a future Government that will always revere and uphold democracy, and always safeguard the rights of the public.

There is a popular false narrative about human rights violations which supposedly took place in the last stages of the war against terrorism. However, this false narrative blithely ignores the many delays in the pursuit of victory that arose from our strong commitment to protect and uphold human rights. Although it would have been possible for us to pursue a faster resolution to the war by using heavy artillery, we did not. Instead, we chose to pursue victory using only light arms, even though this resulted in thousands of war heroes sacrificing their lives.

This strategy was pursued because of the nearly 300,000 innocent Tamil civilians entrapped by the LTTE for use as a human shield during the last stages of the war. Rescuing them from danger was our primary aim. This is glibly forgotten by those who seek to attack us on the topic of human rights. So too is the fact that more than 11,000 LTTE cadres were rehabilitated and reintegrated into society in the aftermath of the war.

ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී රටක පුරවැසියෙකුගේ මූලිකම අයිතිය තමයි චන්දය දීමේ අයිතිය. අපි මේ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී අයිතිය යලි ස්ථාපිත කරනවා. සර්ව බල චන්දයට ගරු කරන , මහජන මතයට හිස නමන , නීතියේ ආධිපත්‍යය වචනයට සීමා නොවේ සැබැවින්ම ක්‍රියාත්මක වන පාලන තන්ත්‍රයක් අපි ඇති කරනවා

අපේ ව්‍යවස්තාව තුල ජනතාවගේ මූලික අයිතීන් හොඳින් ස්ථාපිත කොට තිබෙන්වා. ඒ වාගේම ජනතාවගේ වගකීමුත් පැහැදිලි කර තිබෙනවා.

සතුටින් ජිවත් වන්නට ඔබට ඇති අයිතිය අයට හිරිහැරයක් නොවනා ආකාරයට ජීවත් වන්නට සෑම පුරවැසියෙකුටම වගකීමක් තිබෙනවා.

ගුණ ගරුක , විනය ගරුක,  නීති ගරුක සමාජයක්  ගොඩ නැංවීම අද ඔබ සියලු දෙනාගේම අපේක්ෂාව වී තිබෙනවා.

ඒ සඳහා අවශ්‍යකරණ  නායකත්වය දීමට මම සූදානම්. අපේ පොදු අරමුණ ඉටුකරගැනීම සඳහා ඔබ සියලු දෙනාගේමත් සහාය  මම බලාපොරොත්තු වෙනවා

Editorial Courtesy The Island 

A government move to accelerate the Gamperaliya programme by granting more funds to the UNF MPs has irked the Joint Opposition (JO) beyond measure. That the UNF is desperate to boost its plummeting approval ratings with only a few more months to go for the presidential election is blindingly obvious.

The JO says the UNF MPs are to be given as much as Rs. 100 mn each, and their Opposition counterparts will get nothing, at all. Claiming that the government has discriminated against the Opposition MPs, the JO has threatened legal action against the Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera, who is reported to have obtained Cabinet approval for the controversial fund allocation. Whether the government will take the JO’s threat seriously and act with restraint remains to be seen.

Funds that governments have at their disposal belong to the people, and there is no provision for the disbursement thereof for political purposes. Large scale fund allocations have to be approved by Parliament. But politicians in power always find ways and means of circumventing legal barriers and utilising public funds for electioneering, etc., on the pretext of carrying out development and social welfare programmes. This has been the practice adopted by successive governments during the last several decades.

The ongoing Gamperaliya programme is part of the UNF’s unofficial election campaign, which was launched following the government’s shellacking at last year’s local government polls. Colossal amounts of funds are being used to grant loans, etc., very liberally, to the people, who are being bribed with their own money. Publicity for development projects and ceremonies to mark the launching thereof cost Citizen Perera an arm and a leg. This is the name of the game in Sri Lankan politics.

The Opposition is right in saying that the act of making funds available only for the government MPs for development activities is tantamount to discrimination against other lawmakers.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, as the declaration by the crafty Pigs, in Orwell’s Animal Farms, goes. In 2015, the present bunch of rulers promised us a utopia, but we are still living in the same old dystopia, where the tradition continues, and the ruling pigs consider themselves more equal than all others and have all the luck.

No amount of money can save a sinking government. The Rajapaksa administration spent billions of rupees to bribe the electorate, in 2014, but lost the presidential election, in Jan. 2015. The incumbent dispensation is making a similar effort to retain power at the expense of the taxpayer. But whether it will succeed in its endeavour is in doubt. What it is experiencing at present can be described as the political version of the dengue shock.

Before making the public shell out any more funds for the Gamperaliya project, the government ought to review its progress and inform the taxpayers what they have got in return for their money and whether the money so far allocated for that programme has been properly utilised. Development projects are characterised by corruption, and the people have a right to know how their money is being spent.

Accountability is sadly lacking on the part of the government, which has failed to be different from its predecessors in spite of its rhetoric, if the serious financial irregularities in some of its programmes are anything to go by. The scheme of importing high-yielding milch cows from Australia is a case in point. Many of the cows already brought down are sick and pose a danger to other bovines. Worse, the government has paid the Australian company concerned billions of rupees for more cows, none of which have arrived! Where has the money gone? Has part of it found its way back into the deep pockets of some yahapalana politicians?

The government has also, in response to a query in Parliament, asked for six months to count the number of vehicles its ministers are using. One may ask whether the public can expect a government which is not capable of counting a few hundred vehicles to account for their funds.

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island

The SLPP and the SLFP have reached a consensus on three crucial issues including the limit on the number of Cabinet ministers in keeping with the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

The 19th Amendment, enacted in early 2015, has restricted the Cabinet to 30 unless Parliament ratifies the formation of a national government.

SLPP Chairman Prof. G.L. Peiris, in a brief interview with The Island, said that a consensus had been reached on the need for a new electoral system in respect of Local Government, Provincial Councils and parliamentary elections, the restriction of the Cabinet to 30 regardless of whatever form of administration and the allocation of ministries in a sensible and meaningful manner.

Referring to the allocation of ministries, the former External Affairs Minister said that the next government wouldn’t under any circumstances align highways portfolio with higher education or seek to bring Lotteries Board under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On the eve of the SLFP Convention, Prof. Peiris emphasised the pivotal importance of the two parties finalising an agreement as soon as possible. Responding to another query, Prof. Peiris, who led the SLPP delegation, in his capacity as its Chairman, appreciated the contribution made by members of both delegations. SLPP strategist and former SLFP National Organiser Basil Rajapaksa participated in the most recent discussion.

Asked whether he was hopeful of the SLFP pledging its support to SLPP presidential nominee wartime Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa though the party appeared to be divided over the issue with two UPFA National List members, S. B. Dissanayake and Dilan Perera switching allegiance to the SLPP recently, Prof. Peiris explained the gradual progress made by the two parties in spite of some difficulties. “Discussions are taking place at three levels between SLPP and SLFP delegations, SLPP Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Maithripala Sirisena and the SLFP and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Former President Rajapaksa and SLFP leader Sirisena’s one-on-one at the latter’s Paget road residence and SLFP delegation meeting Gotabaya Rajapaksa at his Pangiriwatte Mawatha, Mirihana residence was quite fruitful.”

Prof. Peiris said that their primary objective was to bring all those opposed to the UNP under one banner. Asked whether he was confident the SLFP support could be secured, Prof. Peiris said that there couldn’t be any other option not only for the SLFP but any other party opposed to the UNP. The outcome of the last Local Government polls in Feb 2018 proved beyond doubt the SLPP was the dominant political party though it came to being only in mid-2015, Prof Peiris pointed out. The 2019 presidential election would demonstrate how the SLFP transformed the political landscape, Prof. Peiris said. Having comfortably won the Local Government polls over a year back, the SLFP was now poised to win both presidential and parliamentary polls.

Referring to the last round of talks between the SLPP and the SLFP, Prof. Peiris quoted Basil Rajapaksa as having raised what the objective of a particular party, in this case, the SLFP would be in respect of the forthcoming presidential election. Would it be to help someone or defeat another? Prof. Peiris quoted the former Economic Affairs Minister as having said.

There had been five rounds of talks with the SLFP so far leading to consensus on altogether about nearly two dozen matters, Prof. Peiris said, asserting that as far as he was aware there couldn’t be absolutely any difficulty in reaching a final agreement on cooperation.

Acknowledging that it would be the prerogative of the SLFP to decide on a future course of action, the former minister, who held vital portfolios in successive PA, UNP and UPFA governments, asserted that the majority of SLFP/UPFA lawmakers and the vast majority of those who exercised their franchise in support of the SLFP/UPFA at the last Local Government were now firmly back the SLPP. In the wake of war winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa taking SLPP membership, the electorate clearly understood which way the wind was blowing. Whatever the agendas various political parties pursued, no one would want to team up with those accused of robbing the Central Bank twice since the last presidential election, Prof. Peiris asserted. How could anyone possibly have those accused of complicity in Easter Sunday attacks on Sinhala and Tamil communities on their stage? Prof. Peiris asked.

The electorate would be certainly wary of those combining forces with people under a cloud over the Easter Sunday attacks, the former law professor said, ruling out an understanding whatsoever with Easter Sunday suspects.

The SLPP Chairman said that the party sought a long term working relationship with the SLFP to ensure continuity in the Rajapaksa administration. The yahapalana arrangement collapsed not only because a section of the UNP robbed the Central Bank, but the coalition lacked a proper working arrangement, he said.

Commenting on President Sirisena and SLPP leader Rajapaksa meeting, Prof. Peiris said that in a discussion of that nature confidentially was of pivotal importance. Prof. Peiris described the meeting cordial and constructive.

The former top academic appreciated SLFP delegation involved in talks with the SLPP also meeting presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Dismissing UNP assertions that Gotabaya Rajapaksa lacked political experience therefore was not suitable for presidency; Prof. Peiris said the UNP owed an explanation as to why they fielded General Sarath Fonseka at the 2010 presidential.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in his capacity as the Defence Secretary and Secretary, Urban Development proved beyond doubt what he was capable of, Prof. Peiris said. On the other hand, the UNP couldn’t even agree on its presidential candidate and was struggling to cope up with growing differences among members of the parliamentary group, Prof. Peiris said.

Responding to recent criticism directed at the SLPP and the threat to take disciplinary action against lawmakers, S.B. Dissanayake and Dilan Perera over them switching allegiance to the SLPP, Prof. Peiris said that it couldn’t be an issue against the backdrop of over two-thirds of UPFA parliamentarians working with the Joint Opposition/SLPP. Prof. Peiris alleged that a section of the SLFP widely believed to be aligned with the UNP was pursuing a hostile line, the SLPP Chairman alleged. Prof. Peiris recalled how they refrained from voting against a No Confidence Motion (NCM) moved against PM Wickremesinghe in April 2018.

The SLPP Chairman said that those fearful of the presidential election would try to put off much delayed Elpitiya Pradeshiya Sabha election till the presidential poll was held. The PS poll would give all political parties in the presidential fray a chance to test their strength, Prof. Peiris said.

Courtesy The Straits Times

COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka will request the extradition of an ex-central bank chief in relation to a US$74 million (S$103 million) insider trading scam, the attorney-general said Monday (Sept 2), months after Colombo accused Singapore of sheltering him.

Arjuna Mahendran, a Singapore national of Sri Lankan origin, was accused in 2015 of passing sensitive information to his bond-dealer son-in-law to make millions in undue profits.

“Documents amounting to 21,000 pages were submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence today to be lodged with Singapore,” the attorney-general’s spokeswoman Nishara Jayaratne said.

She said Mahendran had been indicted in June for causing losses of more than US$11 million to the state.

Mahendran and his son-in-law are accused of manipulating bond auctions in 2015 and 2016.

He was named a key suspect in the scam in February last year and fled abroad, failing to appear in court to respond to charges.

A damning presidential report into the scandal also accused Mahendran of insider trading and recommended the state recover its losses from the pair.

Keep up with the latest in the region with the ST Asian Insider newsletter, delivered to your inbox every weekday

The country’s central bank has launched a forensic audit to determine whether there was further insider trading during Mahendran’s tenure between January 2015 and June 2016.

Mahendran is believed to be in Singapore and in March, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena accused the island state’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of sheltering him.

But Singapore insisted that Colombo’s request to send back Mahendran was incomplete.

Sri Lanka’s chief prosecutor said authorities had by Monday completed the legal requirements to formally lodge an extradition request with Singapore.

The allegations deepened acrimony between Sirisena and his coalition partner Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who handpicked Mahendran to head the central bank.

W.K. Prasad Manju Courtesy Ceylon Today

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has decided to strip certain Ministers of their portfolios, for openly backing the prospective candidature of UNP Deputy Leader and Minster Sajith Premadasa, while amending the portfolios of a few other Ministers, informed political sources said.

The sources said Wickremesinghe had informed the President in writing yesterday (30), that the Ministry of Petroleum Resources Development, hitherto under Minister Kabir Hashim, be handed over to Minister Lakshman Kiriella.

Furthermore, Wickremesinghe has reportedly informed the President that the subjects and institutions coming under the purview of a few other Ministers, who are both openly and covertly supporting Premadasa, be changed immediately and handed over to others.

Sources added that relevant requests will also be submitted to the President by the Premier shortly and noted that the President is yet to respond positively to the said requests.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Supreme Court has informed the President that the Provincial Council elections cannot be held under the previous election system or the Provincial Councils (Amendment) Act.

Issuing a statement, Secretary to the President Udaya Seneviratne said the five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had unanimously agreed on the verdict.

The Supreme Court has informed the President that the election cannot be held under the Provincial Council (Amendment) Act since the President does not have the authority to declare the boundaries set out in the report handed over to the Minister by the Delimitation Committee.

President Maithripala Sirisena submitting a reference application, seeking the opinion of the Supreme Court on holding the Provincial Council election without the Report on Delimitation of Electorates.

The reference application was taken up before a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court consisting of Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya and Justices Buwaneka Aluwihare, Sisira de Abrew, Prasanna Jayewardene and Vijith Malalgoda on August 23.

උපුටා ගැන්ම  හිරු පුවත්

කිසිදු අන්තවාදයකට හිස එසවීමට ඉඩ නොදී ජාතික ආරක්ෂාව තහවුරු කරන බව ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂයේ ජනාධිපති ධුර අපේක්ෂක, හිටපු ආරක්ෂක ලේකම් ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ පවසනවා.

කොළඹ ප්‍රදර්ශන හා සම්මේලන මධ්‍යස්ථානයේ අද පෙරවරුවේ පැවති ප්‍රගතිශීලි වෘත්තීය සමිති ජාතික මහා සම්මේලනය අමතමින් ඔහු මේ බව ප්‍රකාශ කළා.  එම අවස්ථාවට විපක්ෂ නායක මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ ඇතුළු පිරිසක් ද එක්ව සිටියා.

මේ අතර, ජා-ඇල – මාඑළිය ජෝන් පාවුළු මධ්‍යස්ථානයේ පැවති ආචාර්ය කුරුකුලසූරිය පියතුමාගේ පූජකවරයේ 57 වැනි සැමරුමට ද විපක්ෂ නායක මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ ඊයේ පස්වරුවේ එක් වුණා

උපුටා ගැන්ම  හිරු පුවත්

පක්ෂ 2ක අතර පැවති සාකච්ඡාවලින් පසු ශ්‍රී නිදහස් පක්ෂ මහ ලේකම් දයාසිරි ජයසේකර මහතා පිටතට පැමිණ ප්‍රකාශ කරන්නේ වෙනත් කාරණා බවට ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණ චෝදනා කරනවා.

අද පැවති ප්‍රවෘත්ති සාකච්ඡාවකදී පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී රෝහිත අබේගුණවර්ධන මහතා මේ බව සඳහන් කළා.

ඊට මහාචාර්ය ජී.එල්.පීරිස් මහතා ද සහභාගී වුණා.

C. Wijeyawickrema

A news item that Tissa Vithrana (TV) has been appointed by SLPP as coordinator for Tamil affairs, took my mind back to the days of the majority and minority reports of the infamous APRC chaired by LSSP’s TV. His majority report was signed by members including a husband and wife team! TV even suggested to have a Tamil policeman in Sinhala villages to protect Tamil families. Following NM, his maternal uncle, who went to the Dalada Maligava with jasmine flowers in 1964, TV also carried a tray of flowers to DM, as if he had become a converted or tempered old Marxist. This was the time that TV agreed not to have administrative divisions based on language or religion.

There are so many past federalist supporters within the SLPP such as G.L. Peiris, Dilan Perera, Dullus A. I hope they no longer support 13-A which is federal as the Supreme Court has concluded.

I wrote two essays about the APRC then but could not locate them on the Internet. From what I could remember APRC majority report of TV was as bad or even worse than the Jayampathy- Sumanthiran-Lal Wijenayaka draft constitution of 2018.

Fortunately, I was able to dig another essay that I wrote in 2007 as an e-mail, and I think it will be useful to SLPP leaders and TV to remind them their past before their present reincarnation,

Subject: A Critique of the Vitharana Proposal

A Critique of the Vitharana Proposal

In the essay given below C. Wijeyawickrema, also known as Chand Wije (CW), gives a critique of the views of Minister Tissa Vitharana , Chairman of the APRC (q.v. = see glossary. While his basic criticism of Vitharana’s views is correct he combines this analysis with several of his pet ideas which are questiionable. The problem is to separate the two. I note that CW’s essay has not received much comment from the ‘Patriots’ even though it has been repeated.  But then there is very little sensible comment coming from the Patriots.

CW shows that Vitarana’s policy gives a one-way trip to Federalism even if he does not actually use the F-word. There are two amendments to be made to this. Firstly it will not stop at Federalism and sooner than later it will lead to full separation which is the ultimate goal not only of the LTTE but also of the non-LTTE Tamils. Secondly the views advanced by Vitharana are not his own but those contained in the Mahinda Chintanaya (q.v.). This so-called ‘Chintanaya’ gave the monstrous formula of “maximum devolution within a unitary state”. The plain fact is the devolution (q.v.) is incompatible with a unitary state, so we are dealing with a basic contradiction in terms. CW is correct in pointing out that the Indian system will work in India but not in SL. His Himalaya-Pidurutalagala analogy is quite appropriate.

The APRC or APC was simply set up to find a formula that will satisfy (a) the international community and (b) the Tamils who are a minority, and (c) those cowardly Sinhelas who think that they can get out of the current mess by giving the Tamils a bit of the cake but not the whole. These are not considerations that should determine the search for a optimal system of Government for any country. The APRC has not been able to find a solution that satisfies the Mahinda Chintanaya  as no such solution exists. So far we have had the Majority Report, which is presumably supported by Vitharana, and the Minority Report supported by some nationalists. They differ only in one particular, viz. whether the North and the East should be amalgamated in one Provincial Council or not. But both are wrong (see ACSLU Blogs ID 6.1 and 6.2). No wonder GOSL is afraid to adopt any of these versions, or an alternative to them,  and keeps on advancing the date they are supposed to announce their decision. CW calls Vitharana “an anti-Mahinda Chinthanaya agent”. He is in fact a trusted agent of MahindaR. How could be have become the chairman of the APRC is he is not approved by the largest party in the Parliament. I regard him as a stalking horse for MahindaR.

CW seems to think that the APRC should produce a grand plan for the development of the country. This is the responsibility of the ruling Party and GOSL, but we know that they are not doing this. What they do is to build grand projects (with money begged or burrowed) such as the airport at Weerawila, the cricket stadiums in Hambantota, Mihinair airline, etc. all meant to perpetuate the Mahinda dynasty rather than the develop the country in the most efficient way. What the APRC is entrusted to do is the produce a plan for devolution of power while maintaining the facade of a unitary state, and this is the impossible thing they are trying to do. This too should be the responsibility of GOSL if they do what is expected of them rather than shift the responsibility to others.

Having given credit to CW where credit is due some comments are necessary on some of his other ideas and how his pet theories square up with the Vitharana phenomenon.

• The Kalusuddas. Tissa Vitharana is the very opposite of the typical Kalusudda much vilified by CW. He is usually clad in the spotless white attire called the National Dress (or “kapati suit”), carries trays of flowers to the Asgiriya and Malwatta Temples, wears the regulation pirit nool around his wrist, speaks in spotless Hela-bhasa, hails from the rural areas and has set foot in a kamatha, etc. So he is the opposite of what you would expect a Kalusudda to be. Also Kalusuddas are strongly attached to the unitary state that the British left as their dowry to the newly reborn nation, but Vitharana has moved away from them. So in the light of Vitharana CW may have to amend this theory of the Colombo-based 200 Kalusudda families. The real danger to the nation now comes from the ultra-nationalist Vitharana-types.
• Parity of Status. CW debunks the ‘parity of status’ doctrine relating to use of language blithely forgetting that the much proclaimed ‘Sinhala Only’ has been abandoned in favour of the current ‘Tri-Lingual Policy’. From public documents to name boards all three languages are used, and this is just what the old parity of status position was. Today only the Tar Brush Brigade (q.v.) is trying to rub out Tamilicized names in the North and East, but it is getting the cold shoulder from the MahindaR GOSL. CW is better adviced to find out why Sinhala Only failed after it did so much damage to the nation.  At the same time CW speaks of the country being “language blind” but what he means by this I do not know.
• Marxism. CW seems to think that Vitharana and the JVP are true Marxists. There is a great difference between what Marx was writing about and what V. & JVP are doing. These ‘Maxists’ are closer to Pol Pot than to enlightened views of Marx and Engels.
• The “U” Formula. CW cites the shelter given to Catholics who were persecuted by the Dutch in the Kandyan Kingdom, and the cohabitation of various ethnic groups that allowed in the Kandyan Kingdom. This is the counterpart of the modern notion of Multiculturalism in the classical Sinhala tradition. However with the neo-Sinhalas this tradition too was to some extent corrupted. It was Konappu Bandara (q.v.) who introduced Christian culture to the Udarata and the shelter given to Catholic priests stems from this and not from the ancient classical tradition of the Sinhalese.
• The ‘Upatissa Damanaya’. This is a rather confusing section. You cannot use Buddhist methods on Prabhakaran or TNA. There are situation where Buddhist methods work and situations where they do not work. Even though the Buddha told the Maghadha King that the Vajjians will not be defeated if they stick to their republican constitution in the event they were actually defeated by Ajatasatru. What we need today is Ajatasatru’s methods in tackling Prabhakaran and the TNA. The Mahinda Chintanaya has nothing to do with Classical Sinhala values. It is a typical deception that arises directly out of neo-Sinhala attitudes. It will fail as other neo-Sinhala strategies which have brought woe to the Sinhalas.
• Agrarian Socialism. CW with his faulty river basins theory has always advocated an agrarian solution for Sri Lanka. The fact is that agriculture alone, with an emphasis on tank irrigation cannot sustain SL’s burgeoning population. Some people are hoping for the discovery of oil. This is the “manna from heaven” mentality. Others are tryting to sent more SL workers to clean Muslim toilets in the Middle East (and those of emerging countries in the SE Asia). These are the only avenues available if you try to rely mainly on the kamatha as CW has advocated. The alternative of creating a highly educated workforce (as India is trying to do) has been hindered by the ‘Sinhala Only’ education system introduced by the Hela revolution.
• Move the Capital to the Vanni. This is CW’s crazy solution which I have criticised earlier. What he does not realize is that if GOSL proceeds the way it has been going the LTTE may win and SL will really be ruled from the Vanni.

There are many other points in CW’s long post that I can comment on, but I think I have said enough to sample the positive as well as the negative points in it. I do appreciate his putting out his ideas at a reasonable length. This compares with the attitude of many in this forum who are good at hurling abuse but cannot deal with new and unfamiliar ideas.

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Vitharana Proposal and the Separatist Paradigm (1918-2007)

by C. Wijeyawickrema

(I heard that a letter to the Island editor on April 25th 1997 ended the then “Package deals” of law professor G. L. Peiris. I write this letter praying for an end to the APRC proposal of minister Vitharana.)

Marxism and Malwatta

After two atapirikara-carrying trips to Malwatta and Asgiriya temples, minister Vitharana, Chairman, APRC, has given an outline of his “power sharing mechanism” to a Daily News reporter (Daily News, 3/30/2007). He had also spoken before the OPA on 3/27/2007, especially on the devolution of water resources. The general secretary of LSSP visiting Malwatta and Asgiriya is different from Anandasangaree or Karuna going there. As part of their overall plan of peace and good governance, British governors used the two Kandy Mahanayakes as cultural relicts. It was a strategy similar to them accepting and promoting the caste system despite their Christian religious beliefs. In the case of monarchy in London it has functioned as a symbol of unity.

With no disrespect to the Venerable Mahanayake Theros, it must be said that the revival and protection of the Buddhist way of life under an all-out assault on it after 1815 and 1818 was carried out by coastal monks such as Walane Sidhdhartha, Waskaduwe Subhuthi, Migettuwatte Gunananda and Hikkaduwe Sumangala. Like in India or more recently in South Korea Buddhism would have wiped out from Ceylon if not for the Sanga society in which Vidyalankara monks played a key role. The JHU and for example, Ven. Ellawala Medhananda is the latest link of this chain via the late Ven. Soma. Thus, if APRC chairman had an urge to obtain Buddhist views on his plan he has one in Colombo free of travel time. A trip to Kandy should not look like the trip JRJ and RP made to the first wedding of Prince Charles.

In any case minister V’s words do not give the impression that he had listened to the advice given to him by the Malwatte Mahanayake Thero. This advice was reported in detail in the Island newspaper on March 9, 2007. It also appears that minister V ignores public comments such as “Federalism and marriage” (12/12/2005, 1/11/2006), “you cannot legislate against geography” (Island, 2/22/2006), “Federal Marriages and water wars” (www.defence.lk, 8/31/2006), “Language-blind regional development units” (Island, 10/25/2006), “Anandasangaree and God Vishnu” (Island, 1/3/2007) and “A letter to a Tamil friend after 40 years!” (1/25/2007). This is no surprise as APRC has even ignored 800 or so proposals it obtained by invitation from “Janayas.”

Parity of status- history repeats

During the period 1935-1964 Marxists preached two things: bangawewa (destroy) and sama thana. JVP copied this later in 1971 and 1988. Sama thana did more psychological damage as villagers could not comprehend that the golden brains could possibly go wrong. Facing generations of discrimination under the colonial rule, and never treating Tamils or Muslims as second-class people, they could not think of any justification that in their locality or region where 99.9% spoke Sinhala why Tamil should be equally used (recognized). LSSP and CP never understood that providing equality of opportunity is different from parity of status. JRJ’s Imbulgoda march was against a Tamil Federal scheme. But villagers were confused as to why Marxists became an appendage to the Tamil state party of Chelvanayagam. With stories such as Marxists shouted at Sir D.B. calling him an abittaya (because he grew up in a temple atmosphere as child) and they called King Dutugemunu a gadol modaya (fool of bricks) Marxists became an engine on logs (kota uda).

With only an appointed, not voter elected position, minister V is repeating history. He has taken upon his soldiers the baggage abandoned by G. L. Peiris. In Buddhism no two persons are equal, and therefore, providing equality of opportunity to its people by a government which came as a western democratic principle had no conflict within Buddhist society. Aspirations of individual Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim, not the aspirations of IC, Tony Blair, the American ambassador or Prabakaran that minister V should talk about. For that he does not have to resurrect the Neelan-GL package.

Ven. Kalukondayawe Pannasekera Thero and suriya mal viyaparaya

Ven. K started a village development and crime eradication movement in the 1940s with Justice Akbar, ASP Osmond de Silva and Tamils. Ven. K faced all kinds of obstructions from the colonial government and the CCS crowd. At that time LSSP was also engaged in Malaria control work and suriya mal selling. If Marxists were not blinded by the dogmas of Trotsky and Stalin they could have become little Ho Chi Mings in Ceylon where nationalism and socialism (not Marxism) worked hand in hand. Instead uncles of minister V became alienated from the villagers like water and oil. What V is doing today will make him an anti-Mahinda Chinthanaya agent within the government.

F=U formula

If the Chairman of APRC thinks that “the words federal and unitary have lost their meanings over the passage of time,” then we need God Vishnu’s help to help him. This is a lesson at grade 9 level Civics. The self-appointed jack-of-all-trades Carlo Fonseka has recently pointed out at a book launching why devolution (F not U) is needed for social order on the basis of his analysis of Buddhism’s three “kilesas” (lobha-dosa-moha)” (Island, 3/25/2007). Carlo is a fellow Marxist for a quick lesson only a phone call away. There is also a book by the law professor Lakshman Marasinghe (the evolution of constitutional governance in Sri Lanka, 2006).

Did minister V explain his F=U formula to the Mahanayakes? “F” is a political marriage contract in modern politics. “U” on the other hand is Buddhist politics such as the King allowing persecuted coastal Catholics or Muslims to live in his kingdom or temple priests in remote areas giving food and lodging to Christian priests from Colombo or Galle who went on head hunting trips. Could V think of any example from anywhere in the world where Sinhala, Tamil, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim people cohabitate and live in harmony despite an active separatist agitation since 1923? It was the Colombo ruling families who ruined this harmony after 1931.

An “F” marriage cannot work when one of the partners has a paramour. The IC solution to Sri Lanka is unique in that two parties living in one house is asked to go to two houses for the happiness of both. Unfortunately, a marriage cannot be saved that way. This is why even Lakshman Kadiragamar was wrong in proposing an “F” solution. An “F” solution based on language differences (as in India since 1956) is a slippery path with no end in sight. Indian “F” model is the best example. Indian army is fighting against separatism all over India.

An “F” creates two or more units which have some powers that cannot be taken back from them permanently forever. The egg is scrambled. As the asymmetrical package dealer G. L. Peiris once confessed, the F is a risky path, once taken the egg cannot be unscrambled. F is like a roach motel, you see the roach entering but no return back. Unlike the notorious CFA 2002 or the merger, F is a one-way path.

Upatissa damanaya

Why did APRC ignore 800 or so people’s proposals? What is the reason for a hurried solution? Where is the home-grown solution? Does minister V believe in Buddhist economics discussed in Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful (1973) or in Buddhist politics? One example was Buddha’s advice to Ajathashatru, the king of Magadha, when the latter had a war plan to capture the Lichchavi kingdom of Koshala. It was Buddhist democracy in 500 B.C. After all the reasonableness doctrine, compromise in modern democracy is the Middle Path in Buddhism. Why cannot V use either the Nalagiri or Angulimala damanaya in dealing with Tony Blair, TNA or Prabakaran?

The Mahinda Chintanaya is nothing but an application of our 2500-year old traditions of living in harmony with other human beings (be they Helanic or Roman or Muslim traders, Tamil invaders or plantation coolies, Malay soldiers or Portuguese who came with Bible and sword, Burghers and NGO evangelists) which got twisted in the hands of Colombo black whites (since 1833) and Marxist preachers (since 1935). APRC or its expert committees do not have people who read the Ummagga Jathakaya as high school students.

White man’s burden (1905-2007)

Why is minister V in a hurry? Is it because more and more time means less and less time for the Prabakaran episode? The IC does not want a total removal of the cancer of terrorism. They want a second Vadamarachchi in 2007. They want him in a three-piece suit flanked by his western-educated children. Why? Is there any connection to the theory of the White man’s burden of 1905? Is there any influence from White evangelism of Blair or Bush as outlined by the Polish Pope John Paul II when he visited India in 1999 (evangelization of Asia)? Pope’s propaganda cabinet minister with a giant budget was located in Ratnapura. Or was it the “clash of civilization” thesis of the Harvard professor Huntington (1993)? Balkanization of Sri Lanka is a short cut to India. The world federation of Tamils wants a separate state, and Tamil Nad opposes Hindia’s intrusions. In the Trincomalee harbor even the nuclear submarines could hide in deep under sea troughs as revealed by the former CCS officer Neville Jayaweera who is now running a Christian communications network from England. So, there is great temptation all around that probably escapes from minister V’s radar screen.

“India is a myth” – Indian National Congress (1885)

What does V know about the separatist paradigm in Tamil Nad and Sri Lanka? It began in Tamil Nad in 1917 and one year later in 1918 it came to Ceylon. In India the colonial master openly promoted separatism stating, “India is a myth.” They promoted a Pakistan. In Tamil Nad separatism grew to the extent that even the Ramayanaya story was changed stating Ravana was a Tamil king who fought against the evil doers of Rama and Seetha (Adam and Eve?)! Prabakaran is thus a Ravana prince more than a new Chola king with a cyanide pill. In the past it was Sivaji Ganeshan or MG Ramachandran (born in Kandy) who acted as Ravana in popular Tamil Nad movies. A former SP of NP recently noted how Jaffna Tamil boys went in the morning by boats to Tamil Nad to see the opening shows and return home in the night!

Minority-majority complex

Despite the total silence of Colombo NGO peace mudalalis with western Ph.D.s and the Marga Institute, not to produce “papers” on the impact of the Tamil Nad separatist agenda on Sri Lanka, from 1917 to 2007, there had been a continuous flowing of two parallel streams of separatism poisoning each other. Thus in 1949 SJV Chelvanayagam benefited from Tamil Nad’s “Dravidasthan movement.” In the late 1950s it was the “anti-Hindi movement.” When separatism was proscribed by the 1963 constitutional amendment, it came to the Kandyan areas in lock stock and barrel as DMK threat and a Kallathoni problem (Tennakoon Vimalananda, Dravida Munethra Kasagam Movement and the future of the Sinhalayas, Anula Press, Colombo, 1970). In the 1980s separatism went back to India, officially, with MGR and Indira Gandhi sponsoring it with surface to air missiles. After the murder of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 there was a setback, but in an era of coalition governments in Delhi, Tamil Nad voting block has become more powerful than the power of Delhi to use or abuse the presidential rule in order to discipline unruly regional politicians (Article 356).

Tamil Nadu time bomb

Tamil Nad is in such volatile state that Delhi is now surviving by capitalizing the rival demands of its present or former chief ministers to arrest the other or to impose the presidential rule. At least two major caste groups are demanding two separate states within Tamil Nad. It is only a matter of time a future Prabakaran takes control of Tamil Nad politics which is driven by sex scandals and family affairs. The common criminal Veerappan incident (Saradeal or Robinson Crusoe) demonstrated how easily and quickly separatist sentiments could be utilized to overthrow the corrupt and inefficient political establishment in Tamil Nad. The Janatha Party leader Subramaniumswamy’s recent book (Sri Lanka in crisis: India’s options, 2006; (Island, 3/21/2007) should be an eye-opener to minister V.

Himalaya and Pidurutlagala

Does V provide an adequate mechanism to prevent secessionist attempts under the geopolitical conditions mentioned above? He says there are two safeguards: (1) the president can deploy the army and (2) he can dissolve the province and take over the administration. Minister V must be kidding. Even under the 13th amendment which is not and F but U condition according to V or Carlo Fonseka or another law professor Lakshman Marasinghe (Daily Mirror, 3/9/2007), the chief minister Vartharaja declared UDI and fled to India. Where would be the IC if it happens again? Once minister V allowed the province to do everything it needed to be on the separatist path, the province will appeal to IC for help or justice. It will say the president is not allocating sufficient amount of water from the Mahaveli River and the IC and UNO will intervene. As Marx said people also suffer from the dead.

In the case of India each state is a small fraction of the goliath. This is why comparing Indian F and its article 356 with a Sri Lanka F is like comparing the Himalayas with Pidurutalagala because both are mountains. Minister V has to be more careful than Anandasangaree.

Traditional Tamil homeland – cart before the horse (1976-2007)

Does V reject the proposition that there is a traditional Tamil homeland in the Eastern Province? Is he willing to make that rejection the foundation stone of his proposal? V should not first get his scheme approved and say that the issue of re-merger will be discussed later. Re-merger means acceptance of a homeland. Homeland theory is a colonial western idea. This was what the Neelan-GL package wanted. Neelan went even further and refused to accept the Pondicherry sub-model of the Indian “F” model because the homeland would then look like a moth-eaten patch of land with Muslim and Sinhala “Pondicherry units”. V will be putting the cart before the horse if he does not clearly understand this issue. If V’s constitution is silent on homelands now and if later it comes up making a giant N-E unit, then the Trincomalee state will be as big as the Colombo state. With Malayanadu in between Colombo army will be no match to Trinco power. This is not a daydream of a Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinist. V does not have to believe what the retired geography professor G. H. Peiris wrote in his book (2006). He could read what the Scotsman Paul Harris has written on the subjects of Malayandu youth unrest and Oluvil Muslim radicals. If V accepts FP, TULF, TNA and Anandasangaree versions of a homeland then V cannot stop homelands for Muslims, Indian Tamils or Christians in Negombo. He will get an “F” grade from the IC crowd.

Discrimination against the majority (1505-1931)

V says there are about 27 other countries which have veered away from U status towards F states to prevent separation. Without a list of these countries one cannot comment on this point. In the Fiji Islands or in Malaysia there were attempts of separation. In the Fiji case the army arrested the Indian-backed prime minister for anti-national work against the native Fijians. In Sri Lanka Tamils and Muslims enjoy more rights than anywhere else in the world. In Colombo the richest are the Tamils and Muslims. Thus, when Karuna says in 2007 or when the JVP said in 1971 or 1988 “give us what Colombo gets” (kolambata kiri apita kakiri -Youth Commission Report, March, 1990, p. xvii)) there is/was no ethnic discrimination. Instead, the truth is that the Colombo class has been controlling 95% of people, which became worse under the globalization game and the 1978 Dharmista samajaya gimmick.

Section 29(4) of the Soulbury Constitution did not allow the removal of five centuries of discrimination against the majority community which is allowed and implemented in other countries that faced similar situations of the majority was the victim. The Shia majority in Iraq complain that the Sunni minority mistreated and killed them. South Africa had the same problem. In Russia the party members were the minority who exploited the majority citizens.

Macaulay’s grandchildren (1840s)

V says “if the minorities don’t get the power they need, the only solution is separation.” Can V say that the majority got the power? Who got power after 1931 or after 1833? A group of white-kissing Colombo families who used Buddhist masks after 1931 got power. A group of Colombo Tamils who used the language card to prevent the poor Tamil learn Sinhala but gave Sinhala private tuition to their children got power. The question is, will this Colombo control change under V’s proposal? Rather than re-inventing the Neelan-GL package, V should ask a set of new questions. He has become a prisoner in trying to provide new answers to his old questions. Does he know that by sheer mismanagement the Colombo black whites ruined the country?

(a) they destroyed the structural democracy of the island since the early 1960s, after the 1962 Coup (the separation of powers doctrine started in 1802 when North was the governor and the rule of law);
(b) JRJ killed territorial democracy after 1978 with a “bahubootha Vyavastava,” an electoral system that robbed people of their representative democracy, and by demolishing the VC-TC local government system;
(c) In the 1980s village level civil administration was politicalized by increasing the number of GSN units from 4,000 to a mind-boggling 14,006 (each GSN unit has a GSN, Samurdhi Niladharee and a mid-wife);
(d) A corruption trinity of AGA-local MP-NGO agent (Colombo peace mudalalis or evangelists) now runs the show. Each AGA unit (there are 319 of them) has between 100-150 officers excluding teachers;
(e) the gap between Colombo and villages increased under globalization and free trade;
(f) the divide between Colombo rich and village poor widened after 1978;
(g) Vakarai IDP welfare money stolen by corrupt officers!

Do we need a hurried devolution package, based on the same Neelan-GL formula? Or should we take a holistic approach to handle our antho-jata-bahi-jatas meta-problems? The V proposal in its present form will deliver an “F” to a group of Tamil politicians but will not solve the mismanagement problems of the average person, Sinhala or Tamil. This is the aspiration issue that V should think of. Not the aspirations of IC or Tony Blair.

In India under the language-based state reorganization, a new tier of local/regional politician class developed who began to challenge the Delhi political class. That brought an end to the Congress Party control and created a sick Delhi center dependent on over 20 coalition partners. Indian poverty is still a major problem and politicians at all levels are thriving. Is this not what is happening in Sri Lanka after 1978? Macaulay’s grandchildren from all former colonies flooded UN jobs just as white mayors in USA left the major cities leaving them for black or Hispanic minorities. For an outsider, minorities are mayors in all major US cities! Who are the children going to the future world leaders’ summit in USA (Daily News, 7/23/2006)? How many Sri Lankan village boys got scholarships to Harvard or Oxford? Just see how Sri Lanka’s Sixth Great Force (janitors and housemaids in Arab countries) is treated by its Colombo ruling families? This is what minister V should consider as top priority not a Prabakaran solution within 60 days.

Colebrook (1832) and Dixit (1987)

V says Province is the devolution unit. Does he not accept that PC is a white elephant, and unwanted burden on people and the economy? Is there any scientific, ecological, social or economic justification for this unit other than Rajiv Gandhi and Dixit forcing it on JRJ, Sri Lanka’s kaputu bo tree? V is taking the path of least resistance to achieve his goal of paving the way for a Tamil homeland. Why did Colebrook divide the island into five?

Ayub Khan’s plan of October 26, 1959

V has proposed a 100-family Jana Sabha (JS) unit (ward) below Gam Sabha (GS). From GS comes Pradeshiya Sabha (PS). A GS will according to V cover about 2/3 of one GSN unit. This is similar to what Ayub Khan proposed for Pakistan which was similar to the Soviet people’s councils (Pakistan: old country/new nation, Ian Stephens, Pelican, 1964, p. 314). The Ayub plan became too good to be true and never implemented. He was talking of “basic democracies” with units of 800-1000 people. Instead of his own plan, if V decides to read the valuable document of the Local Government Reforms Commission (Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1999, the Abhayewardhana report) he would become an expert in grass-roots politics. A.T. Ariayaratne’s 1988 book, “The Power Pyramid and the Dharmic Cycle” also gives a plan of action. Another source is Arjuna Hulugalla of the CIMOGG who writes regularly with a unit plan leading to a District administration.

Trinity of gama-vawa -dagaba

V has a golden opportunity to link the Gama Naguma project just inaugurated under the Mahinda Chinthanaya with his mission as Chairman of APRC, if he comes out of his parity of status prison. Tamils have a homeland in Tamil Nad. Muslims have Mecca and a billion muslims. Christians have Pope. Sinhala people and Sinhala Buddhist have this tiny island, 15 million and the ocean. Trostsky or Vishaka Kumari Jayawardena did not know this. The 2500-year old civilization of Sri Lanka should really be a UNECO heritage site. Just think of the biso kotuwa or the Dambulla hydraulic lamp? Rather than running with ghosts of SJV Chelvanayagam or GG Ponnambalam, minister V should think of using his Marxist energy to empower the Tamils, Sinhala and Muslim comrades at the trinity level. Because, the dagaba was kovil, mosque or church at the grass roots level. Let aspirations grow at the family and village level. Do not promote language-based separation. Instead create language-blind developmental units. If in a given village the majority happens to be Tamil let them work on their aspirations from house-hold level upward to VC level. Several VCs can go to District level. Imposing a Provincial level unit on them by a Colombo group is not suitable in Sri Lankan case as there is the fear and danger of separation.

Make a trip to New Zealand

Because our trinity is tank-centered it fits very well with the modern concept of river basin-based administrative units. New Zealand, a tiny country like ours is using this concept. The geographer Maddumabandara has produced a river basin-based administrative system for Sri Lanka that V should get his APRC and the expert lawyers to study. Because, one cannot legislate against geography law in books cannot become law in action if APRC chairman acts like a Colebrook in 2007.

Move the capital city to Raja Rata

While developing the Southern Province the APRC should think about moving the administrative capital to a location within the triangle of Anuradhapura-Vavuniya-Trincomalee on a 20-year plan. Let Tamil farmers in Jaffna meet with Sinhala farmers in Hambantota by linking that capital with Hambantota along the Mahaveli River with a railway line and a highway. By moving the science and integration ministries to Raja Rata ASAP the Marxists ministers could win the hearts and minds of the janayas. This is what an APRC should really be engaged in rather than re-dusting the old documents in Colombo houses.

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එමීරයේ ජයන්ත

එක්සත් එමීර් රාජ්‍යයේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා තානාපති පසුගිය සදුදා උදේ පාන්දරම නිල නිවසේ සිට අබුඩාබි උසාවියට පැමිණියේ තම ලොක්කන්ගේ උපදෙස් මතය. විදේශයක සිටින ශ්‍රී ලංකා රාජතාන්ත්‍රික දූත මණ්‌ඩලයක්‌ විසින් එකී දූත මණ්‌ඩල කාර්යාලයෙහි දූත මණ්‌ඩල ප්‍රධානියාගේ නිවසෙහි සහ දූත මණ්‌ඩලයේ ප්‍රධානියාගේ නිල රථයේ ඉදිරියෙහි ජාතික ධජය ප්‍රදර්ශනය කරනු ලබන්නේ දූත මෙහෙය කරන රටෙහි පවත්නා කොන්දේසිවලට අනුවය. සාමාන්‍යයෙන් තානාපති යනෙන විට තම රටේ ධජය එම වාහනයේ සවිකොටගෙන යා යුතුය. එසේම විදේශ රාජ්‍ය දූත සේවය හඟවන DPL ලකුණ තම නිල රථයේ පසුපස අලවාගෙන මාවතට අවතීර්ණ වීම සිරිතකි. එම ලකුණු දෙක හඳුනා ගත්තෝද ආරක්ෂක අංශද එබඳු විදේශ දූත සේවා නිලධාරින්ට යම් ප්‍රමුඛතාවක් ලබා දෙයි.

පසුගිය දින ශ්‍රී ලංකා ධජය සවිකොට තිබුණු වැඩබලන තානාපතිගේ බෙන්ස් රථය අබුඩාබි කලීෆා නගර උසාවි සංකිර්ණයට ඇතුල් වුයේ තවත් DPL ලකුණ වාහනයක් ද පිරිවරාගෙන දෙවැනි වරටය.

සාමාන්‍යයෙන් විදේශීය රාජ්‍ය තානාපතිවරයකු යම් කිසි රටක අධිකරණවලට වලට සහභාගී වීමක් සිදුනොවන අතර තානාපති තනතුරට නඩු පැවරීමක් සිදු නොවන්නේය. එබැවින් උසාවිය විසින් තමන්ව හෝ තම රාජ්‍යය වෙත කිසිදු කැදවීමක් නොකරන අවස්ථාවක, එරටේ විදේශ කටයුතු අමාත්‍යාංශයේ හෝ අධිකරණ කටයුතු අමත්‍යාංශයේ ලිඛිත අවසරයක් හෝ නොමැතිව තානාපති ලෙබ්බේ තම සේවකයින් පිරිවරාගෙන උසාවි පැමිණියේ මන්දැයි අධිකරණයේ නිලධාරීන් විමතිය පළකර සිටියේය. පාස්කු ඉරිදා ත්‍රස්ත ප්‍රහාරයේ මහමොලකරු වන සහරාන් හෂීම්ගේ උපන්ගම වූ කල්මුණේ ප්‍රදේශයේම උපන්ගම වූ මෙම තානාපතිවරයාට අදාල නඩු ශාලාවට ඇතුල්වීමට අවසර නොදීමෙන් කුපිත වී තම පරිවර්තකයාට දොස් කියමින් පැය 5 කට වැඩි කාලයක්‌ උසාවි කොරිඩෝවේ වතුර බෝතලයක් අතේ තබාගෙන ඇවිද ඇවිද සිටිනවා දකින ලදී.

එක්සත් අරාබි එමීර් රාජ්‍යයේ ශ්‍රී ලාංකිකයින් දෙලක්ෂ තිස්දහසක් ආසන්න පිරිසක් සේවය කරන අතර එහි බහුතරය ගෘහසේවිකාවන් වන්නේය. එසේ නමුත් එහි ලාංකිකයන්ගේ ප්‍රශ්නවලට උදව්වක් හෝ නිසියාකාරව පිළිතුරක් හෝ මෙම තානාපතිවරයාගෙන් නොලැබෙන බව රහසක් නොවන්නේය. එක්සත් එමීර් රාජ්‍යයේ සිරගෙවල් වල අසරණවී දුක්විඳින අපේ ලාංකිකයන් වෙනුවෙන් කිසිදු අවස්ථාවක එරට උසාවියට හෝ හිරගෙදරට යාමට අකමැති අබුඩාබි ශ්‍රී ලංකා තානාපතිගේ රාජකාරියට අයත් නොවන මෙම රාජකාරිය කුමක්ද? එය කාගේ නියෝගයක් ද? කෙසේ නමුත් දෙරටේ රාජ්‍යතාන්ත්‍රික සම්ප්‍රදායන් කඩකරමින් හොරෙන් උසාවියට ඇතුල් වී එහි පැය ගණන් රස්තියාදු වෙමින් මෙසේ ඔට්ටු වෙන්නේ ජනාධිපත්වරණයට පෙර හිටපු ශ්‍රී ලංකා තානාපති උදයංග වීරතුංග ලංකාවට කුදලාගෙන ඒ මටයි. එසේ නමුත් උදයංග වීරතුංග තවදුරටත් එම නඩුවට පෙනීසිටිය යුතු බැවින් ලංකාවට පිටුවහල් කිරීමට නොහැකි වීම හේතුවෙන් සහරාන්ගේ ගමේ තනාපති ලෙබ්බේ වෙනුවට නව තානාපතිවරයකු ජනාධිපති මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන විසින් පත්කර ඇත.