By M D P DISSANAYAKE

For political opponents,  if MR is no good, then GR is also no good.  GR made MR great when in power.  Now MR has made GR great. 

If the country rejects MR, it will also reject GR.  If the country rejects GR at the presidential election, then it will also reject MR at the next General Election.

It is what the Nation thinks of you, yourself alone.  The Nation has a specific feeling about MR, GR, BR, RW, MS, SP, etc. That is Not Negotiable.

In Singapore, Late Mr. Hon. Lee Kwan Yew groomed his son to Premiership.  Now Mr. LKW is no more.  Lee’s son ( Prime Minister) is being challenged by his own brother ( qualified Doctor) and has formed a new opposition political party known as Singapore Progressive Party. Tan Cheng Bock at the age of 79  is leading the new party against PAP (formed by his father LKW).  Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is 67 years of age.

In Sri Lanka, the Bandaranaike family disintegrated after parent’s death. They sold Nittambuwa properties to their servant and the servant Somawathi sold small lots to buyers through Anagi Property Sales. Loyal Somawathie for 34 years, siphoned funds off back to Chandrika and Suneththra for a kick-back.  Anura Bandaranaike was not a financial beneficiary of the deals  Singapore brothers are also fighting politically, but family property settlement is at the core of the issue.

Sajith Premadasa has no children, so there will be no fighting amongst brothers and sisters for his massive wealth.   Ranil (relatively poor) also has no children, so he is also on the same platform as Sajith. Mangala Samaraweera does not believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.  So he is not married to a woman.

Insinuations, innuendo is common in politics.  Your unknown enemy is very near you.  Your tomorrow’s enemy is today’s very close family relative or friend.  Your known enemies respect you.  But your unknown Enemy will not respect you.

Greed will overtake them.

Thankfully, the Rajapakse family is still together.  They respect their parents.  Still, there are pockets of opponents who would like to create a non-existing conflict even before the results of any Election.

මාධ්‍ය නිවේදනය සුදත් රෝහණ සභාපති නිදහස් කලා සන්ධානය

ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණේ ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකයා ලෙස ප්‍රකාශයට පත් වූ ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා වෙත නිදහස් කලා සන්ධානය දේශමාමක සියලූ‍ කලාකරුවන් වෙනුවෙන් සුභාශිංසන පළකර සිටී.

ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ යනු මේ මොහොතේ රට ඉල්ලා සිටින නායකත්වය බව ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණේ ජනාධිපති අපේක්ෂකයා ලෙස ප්‍රකාශයට පත් ව පසු එතුමා කළ කතාව මගින් නැවත තහවුරු විය.

ඵලදායී පුරවැසියෙක්, සතුටින් ජිවත්වන පවුලක්, විනයගරුක සමාජයක් හා සෞභාග්‍යවත් දේශයක් ගොඩනැගීම ස්වකිය අරමුණ බවට ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා කළ ප්‍රකාශය ගැන සමස්ත සමාජයම විශේෂ අවධානයක් යොමුකළ යුතුය. පවුල් ඒකකය පදනම් කරගනිමින් ආර්ථීක සංවර්ධනය හා සමගාමී සමාජ සංවර්ධනයක් ඇතිකිරීමේ අවශ්‍යතාව එතුමා විසින් හඳුනා ගෙන තිඛෙන බව එයින් පැහැදිලිය. කලාව ආදී සංස්කෘතික සාධක රඳා පවතින්නේත් සමස්ත සමාජයේම ස්ථාවරත්වය රඳා පවතින්නේත් සතුටින් ජිවත්වන විනයගරුක පවුල් සංස්ථාවක් මත පදනම් වූ සමාජයක ය. එය වටහාගත් නායකයකු පහළවීම පිළිබඳ කලාකරුවන් වශයෙන් අපි සැබවින්ම සතුටට පත්වන්නෙමු.

ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගේ නම ජනාධිපතිවරණ අපේක්ෂකයා ලෙස ප්‍රකාශවීමත් සමඟ ඇතැමෙක් කලබල වී සිටිති. ඒ කවුරුන්ද යන්න ජනතාව විමසිල්ලෙන් බැලිය යුතුය. මේ කලබල වී සිටින්නේ අසාර්ථක දේශපාලකයන්, විජාතික කොන්ත්‍රාත්කරුවන්, ඛෙදුම්වාදීන්, දුරාචාර චින්තකයන්, එන් ජී ඕ කුලී කාරයන්ය. ස්ථාවර ව තිබු රට අස්ථාවර කර විනාශකළේ ඔවුන්ය. නැවත රට ගොඩනැගෙන්නට වෙරදරන මොහොතේ එයට අකුල් හෙලන්නේ ඔවුන්ය.
මේ පිරිස කලබල වී සිටින්නේ ඇයි? ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා මේ රටේ ජනාධිපතිවරයා වීම නිසැක බව ඔවුන් දන්නා නිසාය. ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ වැනි දේශ ප්‍රේමයක් සහ නව දැක්මක් සහිත කාර්යශ=ර නායකයකු ගේ පාලනයක් තුළ නැවත ඛෙදුම්වාදයට, පරගැතිභාවයට, දුරාචාරවාදයට හා දුගී දුප්පත් භාවයට ඉඩක් නොමැති බව දන්නා නිසයි. ඒ නිසා මේ දේශපාලන සහරාන් ලා තමන් ගේ දේශපාලන අනාගත පැවැත්ම වෙනුවෙන් ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා ට එරෙහිව අවසන් සටනටය මේ සැරසී සිටින්නේ. ඒ බව ජනතාව වටහාගෙන සිටි.

සුදත් රෝහණ සභාපති

Dr. Sarath Obeysekera

As professionals and entrepreneurs, we expect the future president to have the qualities of what Gotabaya preaches.

Though freedom of the nation is of utmost importance, but at the end of the day, poor masses need food, shelter and also to live peacefully.

We cannot achieve that unless the whole country is put on High gear of development.

In order to achieve above, we need to be a disciplined nation which Gota is preaching

When you talk about discipline we need to make sure that discipline should start from home, family, on the road, at the workplace.

The young generation getting an education with public money should be made to understand that they have an obligation to serve the country.

Gota need to bring discipline not only in matters related to the environment but also in general behavior of the youth

Slightest miscommunication with university management they go on demonstrating and disturb day to day life of the masses

Gota need to stop this

Unbearable bureaucracy in the public sector which is an obstacle and impediment for investment should be eradicated

That means Gota need ruthless ministers and secretaries who can take decisions 

Gota needs to have a dialogue with Judiciary so that national interest is given priority when delivering judgments.

Gota need to make clergy involved only on religious matters and leave politics 

Gota need to emulate Lee Kwan Yew and be above board

People should not fear him but respect him

All bad eggs in the party should be asked to stop interfering 

If Gota can do this I will surely vote for him 

Dr. Sarath Obeysekera

ABHINAV CHANDRACHUD Courtesy The Hindu BusinessLine

The last and final amendment of Article 19(2) of the Indian Constitution, brought in to prevent the use of ballots to break away from the Union, had a specific target

In 1963, Article 19(2) of the Constitution was amended for the last and final time, and the words ‘the sovereignty and integrity of India’ were inserted in it, creating one more enumerated exception to the right to free speech. The Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Bill, 1963 (hereinafter, the ‘Bill’) was informally referred to as the ‘Anti-Secession Bill’. It was designed to prevent local political leaders in different regions within India from using the electoral process to peacefully propagate secession from the Union. In the past, the Muslim League in British India had used the electoral process to demand Partition. It was now feared that local political parties with regional, not religious, affiliations were getting elected to office on the promise that they would advocate secession for their region from India. The chief target of this constitutional amendment was the southern political party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (the ‘DMK’) in the state of Madras, which had advocated secession of parts of the south, and the creation of a separate nation state called ‘Dravida Nadu’ or ‘Tamilnad’. Calls for secession in Punjab and Nagaland also inspired the Bill. Ironically, it was enacted at a time when demands for secession had died down in the country in the wake of the Chinese aggression.

The DMK was a political party which was founded in 1949 by followers of ‘Periyar’ (meaning ‘great man’) E.V. Ramaswami Naicker. The DMK used the parliamentary process itself for articulating demands for secession. It won a few seats in the 1957 election for the Madras Legislative Assembly, and their slow success began to trouble the government.

It was not the outbreak of war with China in 1962 which precipitated the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In fact, during the war, the DMK had scaled back its demands for secession. Much prior to the war, in January 1961, the Congress party at its Bhavnagar session had set up a ‘National Integration Committee’, under the chairmanship of C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, to look into steps that could be taken for promoting national integration. Prime Minister Nehru had called a meeting of the chief ministers in August 1961, where it was recommended that advocacy of secession be made a criminal offence. In September 1961, a National Integration Conference was convened. The committee submitted its report to the prime minister on 5 November, 1962. It made only one recommendation, viz., that Article 19 be amended to prevent Indian citizens from demanding secession. The DMK was kept out of these proceedings, and was not consulted by the committee.

The debates in Parliament make it very clear that the Bill was primarily being enacted as a reaction to the DMK’s demands for secession. Law Minister A.K. Sen, who moved the Bill, said that it was the Bill’s purpose to outlaw ‘all activities of a secessionist nature, so that we may not have a repetition of what happened from 1940 in this country when the Muslim League made the partition of India . . . its main political platform and fought elections on that resulting in a disaster . . . ’. Sen informed the House that he had initially intended to speak in Hindi, but since ‘most of the challenge came from areas whose representatives might not have understood Hindi,’ he had decided to speak in English instead. ‘The immediate provocation or the immediate cause’ for the Bill, said M.S. Gurupada Swamy, ‘is obviously the activities of the DMK.’ Speaking in favour of the Bill, R.N. Reddi referred to the movement for a separate ‘Dravidnadu in the South’. Opposing the Bill in the Lok Sabha, DMK party member Nanjil Manoharan admitted that the DMK was carrying out ‘propaganda’ for ‘the formation of Dravidastan’.

Another opponent of the Bill, Narasimha Reddy, said that the Bill was being referred to in the press as the ‘anti-cession Bill’, but it was known in Madras as the ‘anti-DMK Bill’. He said that the Bill was ‘primarily intended for the suppression of the DMK organization, so some people think’. For Reddy, the Congress party was exacting its revenge against the DMK for giving it trouble in the previous elections. The debate on the Bill in the Rajya Sabha reads as though the DMK member, C.N. Annadurai, was himself on trial. Annadurai said that the Bill might have been ‘aimed at others also’, but that the newspapers and political speeches suggested that its target was only ‘the despicable DMK, not others’.

However, though the DMK in Madras State was the primary target of the Bill, the amendment was also designed to quell calls for secession in other parts of the country, particularly Nagaland and Punjab. Several members of the House referred to the situation in Nagaland as a possible justification for the Bill. Law Minister Sen expressly rejected the allegation that the DMK was the only reason that the Bill was being enacted. He said that there were others who ‘openly want secession from India and who openly preach (the) disintegration of India’. ‘One familiar example’, he said, was the ‘rebel or hostile Nagas on the eastern border’, who had not yet given up their demand for a separate nation state of Nagaland. Sen said that ‘forces of disintegration’ had taken hold in India ‘[s]tarting from the Punjab, right up to the South’. Thus, Sen referred to Madras, Nagaland and Punjab in support of the Bill.

The Bill was thought to be necessary because the words ‘security of the State’ in Article 19(2) were considered insufficient to prevent a person from using the electoral process to advocate secession peacefully. The amendment bill did not only seek to add an exception to the right to free speech. Among other changes, it also made ‘the sovereignty and integrity of India’ an enumerated exception to the rights to assembly and association contained in Articles 19(1)(b) and (c). Law Minister Sen said that ‘some of the decisions of the Supreme Court (had) made it quite clear that ‘security of the State’ is a limited expression and it does not comprehend any power to ban organizations or political activities so as to bring them within the exceptions under the article unless something more is there. The government thus appeared to be keen to ban associations which advocated secession, and the words ‘security of the State’ in Article 19(2) were thought to be insufficient for this purpose.

The amendment Bill was also symbolic. It introduced, for the first time, an oath which was now required to be taken by any person who was even merely nominated as a candidate to fill a seat for the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha or a state legislature. In other words, a person who wanted merely to contest an election for a state legislature or Parliament now had to take an oath. The Bill also amended the oaths that were required to be taken by elected members of Parliament and state legislatures. The Bill now required all these persons to swear that they would, among other things, ‘uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India’. Law Minister Sen believed that this would have ‘a salutary effect’ on elected representatives. Interestingly, even Supreme Court judges and high court judges are, following the Sixteenth Amendment, required to take an oath to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India. This presumably means that Supreme Court and high court judges are bound by their oaths to deny any person the right to peacefully propagate secession from India.

While the war with China might not have been the cause for the Bill, it certainly provided the necessary rhetoric for its enactment and created a general feeling of insecurity and paranoia which reduced opposition to it. The Bill was enacted at a time when India was under its first national emergency, when civil rights and civil liberties had been suspended. Even though the war with China had lasted between October-December 1962, the national emergency was continued from October 1962 to December 1967. As Communist Party member Bhupesh Gupta noted in the Rajya Sabha, ‘[t]oday, as we are discussing this subject [i.e., the Bill], the irony of it is that article 19 is frozen, it does not exist.’ In his speech in the Lok Sabha, Law Minister Sen referred to the ‘hard-won freedom’ which India had earned ‘at the cost of millions of patriots’ lives’ and to ‘the flag of independence which we have earned for ourselves with the blood of many a martyr’, in support of the Bill. On another occasion, Sen said that it was ‘unfortunate that at a time when we are facing the most major threat in our history since independence, we should have to contend with such activities and have to ask for powers to deal with such activities’. Surendranath Dwivedy said that there were parties in India which had ‘extra-territorial’ loyalties, an obvious reference to the Communist Party, which another member said had two factions, one loyal to Peking, the other to Moscow.

Abhinav Chandrachud practises as an advocate at the Bombay High Court

PK Balachandran Courtesy opinion bdnews24.com

What is happening in India now in regard to federalism and devolution of power to Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir (J and K) region could further dims prospects of Sri Lankan Tamils’ getting power devolution beyond what they have been given de facto under the 13th Amendment of the Sri Lankan constitution.

Through a Presidential Order on August 5, the Indian central government headed by strongman Narendra Modi, nullified Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution which had given J and K State a large degree of autonomy. The Presidential Order also divided the State of J and K into two Union territories with very much less autonomy.

This was done with three objectives in mind: to fight Pakistan-inspired terrorism and separatism in J and K; to integrate J and K with India fully, and to facilitate economic development, hitherto hampered by restrictions placed by Art 370 and Art 35A on the application of Indian laws to J and K, and on the influx of labour and capital from outside the State.

RAJAPAKSA GIVES IT AWAY

In a significant interview to the Tamil daily Virakesari last Saturday, former Sri Lankan president and head of the opposition Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Mahinda Rajapaksa said that the devolution debate in the country will have to take into account the developments in J and K.

Rajapaksa did not elaborate, but given his expressed concern about national security in the context of perceived threats from Islamic terrorism and Tamil separatism, it was clear that he approved the steps taken by the Narendra Modi regime in India.

There are two strands of opinion now. Some want a new constitution. Some want a federal arrangement. And some say that a political solution based on the 13th Amendment would suffice. But a solution should not be one that divides the country. Look at what has just happened in Kashmir. We need to take steps keeping all these in mind. We have to understand these factors while we pursue a political solution,” Rajapaksa said.

Adding weight to this contention, Rajapaksa said that the SLPP’s candidate for the December 2019 Sri Lankan presidential election would be a person who would strengthen national security”.

By Saturday it was clear that the SLPP’s presidential candidate would be Mahinda’s brother and former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, known for his no-nonsense approach to terrorism, separatism and devolution of power. He is also seen as a proponent of majoritarianism like Modi, a line favoured by Mahinda.

Gotabaya’s chances of winning have been enhanced by three factors: the Apr 21 multiple bombings carried out by Islamic zealots; the disregard shown to timely intelligence inputs from India about the attacks; and the progressive and manifest weakening of the Lankan security apparatus under the United National Party (UNP)- led government.

Given such a prospect, the UNP-led government’s bid to frame a new constitution to give greater power to the provinces in tune with the aspirations of the Tamil minority, is likely to be abandoned. In fact, it has been abandoned.

The bid to draft a new constitution had reached a final stage, but the government chickened out at the last moment because of perceived opposition both within the UNP and the opposition.

Speaking in parliament on July 26, Rajapaksa said: After holding many discussions and releasing numerous reports over a period of more than two and a half years, on Jan 1, the prime minister tabled in Parliament a document which was described as the report of the panel of experts of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly.”

Even in presenting that document to parliament, the prime minister insisted that its contents are not the views of the government but only of the panel of experts that compiled the report. Ultimately the report that was tabled in Parliament had no owner. How can a constitutional reform process succeed when nobody takes responsibility for the drafts that are tabled in parliament?”

We are resolutely opposed to the draft constitution that was presented to parliament by the Prime Minister. It would have had the effect of dividing Sri Lanka into nine semi-independent states. It contained proposals to set up nine separate police forces, and provisions that would have made it impossible for the centre to take back any powers devolved to the provincial units.”

Some say that I too spoke of ’13 Plus’ – a system of government going beyond the provisions of the 13th Amendment. I once told the then Indian Foreign Secretary that I was thinking of establishing a second chamber of Parliament made up of representatives of the provincial councils so as to get provincial leaders to participate in national affairs. It was the Indian Foreign Secretary who described my idea as 13 Plus. So it should be understood that what I meant by 13 Plus was not dividing the country into nine semi-independent units as proposed in the draft constitution that was tabled by the prime minister.”

The draft constitution that was presented to Parliament was prepared by (Tamil National Alliance) parliamentarian Sumanthiran and some NGO activists. After presenting it to Parliament, the Prime Minister repeatedly denied ownership of the document. Ultimately it appears that this government had taken the Tamil National Alliance too for a ride.

Parliamentarian Sumanthiran always drafts constitutional amendments that will lead to a separate state without the name. They have stated their views very clearly on paper.”

With Gotabaya likely to win the coming presidential election given the felt need among the majority Sinhalese for a strong and functioning government in contrast to the bumbling and directionless incumbent UNP-led regime, the chances of the minority Tamils getting power devolution beyond what is available de facto are slim indeed.

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

It has been reported in news media in Sri Lanka that Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa stated if he becomes the president of Sri Lanka from the next election, he will give all politics and political-related activities in the country to Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa and fully concentrate on the economic development, elevating the economy and national security of the country.  No presidential candidate in the past made such a strong statement or promised to separate politics from national activities and even practically activated to work the same way after the election to the presidential position. In 2015, Mr. Maithripala Sirisena showed to work the same way as a candidate of Yahapalanaya, however, after few weeks acquiring the presidentship, he also acquired the leadership of his opponent’s political party (SLFP) and stuck in a political mud puddle.  The statement of Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is a highly appreciated and respected statement compared to other presidential candidates. When compared to so-called presidential hopeful or self-proposed presidential candidates, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa demonstrated his suitability to be the president and his maturity and understanding of the major issues of Sri Lanka.

UNP and its associated parties show internal conflicts to select the candidate for the presidential election and Mr. Sajith Premadasa and Mr. Karu Jayasuriya make conflicting statements to the community, most probably they are intending to covering up the real behavior of them during past five years. There is no argument that they behaved like henchmen of Western forces despite the will of people of Sri Lanka.  It is quite clear that Mr. Sajith Premadasa has no idea about Sri Lanka’s economy, elevating the economic status and national security. Can UNP candidate separate politics from economic development and the national security if he/she becomes the president of the country? It seems that the associated parties with UNP aim at playing politics as they played after 2015 and the people of Sri Lanka don’t want such games.

The experience since 2015 has been shown that UNP or it supported a candidate for the presidentship could not separate the politics from the economic activities and national security. The upliftment of the economy has been a pipe dream of supporters and people voted for them in 2015 realized with a short period that they did a mistake voting to so-called Yahapalanaya.   The current behavior of much-publicized UNP choice reflects that Mr. Sajith Premadasa is in a mud puddle without understanding or practical experience in the economy and national security and foreign affairs. There is no doubt that acting like Mr. R. Premadasa means taking arms against poor youth who struggle for a life with basic needs.   Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe learned many strategic options for administration under Mr. JR Jayewardene and Mr. ACS Hameed but Mr. Sajith Premadasa did nothing and people will twice consider whether voting for Mr. Sajith Premadasa could be justified.

There are many negative points against Premadasa’s politics in Sri Lanka since the era of the last stage of Mr. Dudley Senanayake. What happened to Puravasi Peramuna established by the leadership of Mr. Premadasa and Mr. Gamini Fonseka is known to nobody.  Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa after the defeat in 2015 publicly stated that a mistake he has done during his administration was helping Mr. Sajith Premadasa’s sister, Mrs. Dulanjali Jayakody to get away from the case of printing fake money or attempting to deposit fake money to her account.  These are moral issues against the honesty of Mr. Premadasa’s family.  If these issues emerge, Mr. Sajith Premadasa cannot answer to them but Mr. Sajith Premadasa attempts to show he is a superior person by words of mouth and pointing figure to a housing scheme, which is clear to people but there is more spending for publicity than the value of houses. 

People of Sri Lanka want a concrete person with excellent ideas and practical experience for development activities and national security.  Sri Lanka doesn’t want a presidential candidate, who purely attracted popularity because of playing Cricket or acting in movies or spending money for attracting popularity. If Sri Lanka wants a Cricketer, Mr. Arjuna Ranatunga was the best person who brought the Cricket world cup defeating Australia, but he might not be the choice of UNP. Sri Lankans are highly concerned with culture and religion.  Culture means rules, regulations, laws, and procedures, etc. Any presidential candidate disrespects culture and religion he or she is not the choice of Sri Lankans and candidates from any political party must be a respected person for human values and understand the expectations of people without racial differences.  The economy is the giant challenge of Sri Lanka which has been complicated by the changes during the past five years and the economy should be able to fulfill the expectations of the young generation.

Recent speeches of Mr. Sajith Premadasa reflected that although he studied in the London School of Economics, that he does not know about Schumpeter’s idea about investments, profit, and entrepreneurship. If so, how can he bring investment to the country? Can he develop an environment in Sri Lanka to attract investments as Schumpeter explained and why didn’t he work during the past five years to attract investment without money laundering in Sri Lanka?

Sri Lanka is a small country, which is subject to global hegemony and has no power to react or respond to global hegemony.  Mr. J.R. Jayewardene said without surrendering to India he works to live under the shadow of India.  Now Sri Lanka needs to live under the shadow of India, China, and America to attract investments without constraints. The future presidents of Sri Lanka must be able to live the shadow of these powers and the next presidential candidate needs to show the skills for it.  Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa has shown his capability and people of Sri Lanka have a clear understanding of his capabilities.

To do these, politics need to be separated from economic development, elevating the economy, national security, and foreign affairs.  Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa already stated that he will do it and he will be the best choice to Sri Lanka. Politics means differences and when a person elected as the president, he or she must be a national leader working for the country without any differences.  Mr. Sirisena elected in 2015, but he could not work as a national leader and he had to work for people who supported him to be the president.

The statement of Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa confirmed that he will be a national leader, who is desperately required by the people of the country. People of the country never expect a henchman in the way that Mr. Karu Jayasuriya acted in October 2018.  Therefore, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa can understand what is needed for the people of the country.  

Courtesy Adaderana

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Presidential Candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa states that he would not allow anyone to interfere with Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

He mentioned this at the first-ever SLPP National Convention held at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium which commenced at 3 pm this afternoon (11).

At the convention, former Defense Secretary Gotabaya was named as the SLPP Candidate for the upcoming Presidential Election.

He stated that he is ready to provide leadership to overcome the challenges faced by the people in the country.

He said, I will not let anyone lay a hand on the sovereignty of my country in the future”.

The first task of their government would be to ensure the complete security of the country, stated Rajapaksa.

I will accept responsibility for your safety, and the safety of your children and your loved ones,” Gotabaya said.

Gotabya vowed that, if elected, he would prioritize the national security and the revival of the Sri Lankan economy, which has been hit by a lull in tourism after the attacks.

I pledge to create a safe and secure environment in which all Sri Lankans, irrespective of their race or religion, will be able to live in peace,”

He also said that he will build a country where women can travel anywhere without fear.

Addressing the gathering, Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that the entire election campaign should be carried out with the utmost discipline and that priority should be given to the environment.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Leader of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and Leader of the Opposition Mahinda Rajapaksa says that he does not have anything to gain through hatred.

He mentioned this at the first-ever National Convention of the SLPP which commenced at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium at 3 pm today (11).

Leader of the Opposition Mahinda Rajapaksa was appointed the Leader of SLPP at the Convention a short while ago.

Rajapaksa stated that the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was formed today as a party in which all citizens of all religions and races can stay united.

At the Convention, Mahinda Rajapaksa named former Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the Presidential Candidate of the SLPP.

Addressing the Conventions, he stated,” Whether I choose or not, he has already become your brother. I hand over my brother to you”.

He further said,” Gotabaya never asked me to make him the President. I named him to strengthen your hands, not to strengthen his.”

My first, second and third priorities are my country. It should be the same for you too, ‘Gota’”, Rajapaksa concluded.

Courtesy Adaderana

The former Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been officially announced as the Presidential Candidate of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) by party leader Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The decision was revealed at the first-ever National Convention of the SLPP held at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium.

Accordingly, Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be contesting for Presidency at the upcoming presidential election.

The currently ongoing National Convention of the SLPP is telecast live on TV Derana and Ada Derana 24.

Ada Derana

MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR, Asia regional correspondent Courtesy Nikkei Asian Review

Colombo flustered as it balances its relations with China, India, and Japan

COLOMBO — The U.S. government’s new military blueprint in the Indian Ocean is facing headwinds in Sri Lanka, a strategically located South Asian island also being courted by India, China, and Japan in a scramble for geopolitical influence.

In the crosshairs is a Status of Forces Agreement initially signed by the countries in 1995, paving the way for the U.S. military to access Sri Lanka for logistics. But Washington’s push to negotiate a new military cooperation deal under the SOFA, which lays out a raft of protections and privileges for visiting U.S. troops, has come under intense scrutiny.

It is proving an embarrassment to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who leads the pro-American wing of Sri Lanka’s deeply divided ruling coalition. He has been accused of caving to the U.S. by President Maithripala Sirisena, leading members of the business community and ultranationalists.

Even officials within Colombo’s foreign policy establishment are perturbed. They reckon closer military ties with the U.S. under the terms being negotiated will lead Sri Lanka to be “sucked into military competition” in the future.

“We cannot be seen aligned to one side of any future tensions in our region, because that will cramp our diplomatic options,” a foreign ministry official told the Nikkei Asian Review. “A nod to a SOFA with the U.S. opens the door for our other allies like China, India or even Russia to lean on Sri Lanka to sign similar deals. Do we say no to them?”

Such sentiments mark a change of tack from Sri Lanka’s appreciation of foreign military assistance during its nearly three-decade-long civil war, pitting government troops against Tamil Tiger separatists, which ended in May 2009. India, Pakistan, China and the U.S. put aside their deep differences and aided Sri Lankan troops in their final assault on the Tigers.

According to Adm. Jayanath Colombage, a former navy commander, “The most important intelligence to destroy the [arms supplying] Tamil Tiger ships came from the U.S.” Since the war ended, security ties were forged under a different beat, he said, referring to naval vessels from regional and global powers dropping anchor in Sri Lanka’s three ports.

Indian, Japanese and Chinese naval vessels top the list of nearly 500 warships that have visited over the past decade. Meanwhile, Australia, Japan, India, China and the U.S. have bolstered Sri Lanka’s naval assets by delivering patrol boats, Coast Guard cutters and frigates.

A Sri Lankan marine stands guard in front of Japanese helicopter carrier Kaga docked at Colombo port. Japan, along with India and China, have many ships going into the port.   © Reuters

But suspicion has dogged the U.S. efforts to change the ground rules of future naval visits. In some ultranationalist quarters there is fear that a new agreement will pave the way for Washington to set up military bases. Lawyers opposed to the deal have raised the alarm of U.S. troops enjoying extraterritoriality. Media commentators have questioned provisions for private military contractors from the U.S. being given diplomatic immunity.

The SOFA negotiations come in the wake of another military arrangement, the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement, which both countries signed in 2017 after the lapse of the previous ACSA, first signed in 2007. ACSA caters to naval vessels visiting Sri Lankan ports.

Iqbal Athas, a veteran defense analyst, said the ACSA deal and SOFA talks are meant to “enhance a greater American military footprint in Sri Lanka.” He added that they are striking a raw nerve with the public because contentious details were kept under wraps.

“These agreements acquired a surreptitious character, with revealing clauses smuggled through the cabinet and not openly discussed,” he said. “The new ACSA is open-ended and will go on forever, and the SOFA allows U.S. troops to carry weapons, wear uniforms and carry communication equipment when in Sri Lanka.”

Observers say that the U.S. government’s rush to seal a deal is also fueled by looming presidential election, where the coalition faces an uncertain future due to rapidly growing public discontent over its dysfunctional record.

“The intention is to get the SOFA signed before the 2019 elections,” says Bernard Goonetilleke, chairman of the Pathfinder Foundation, a Sri Lankan international affairs think tank. “It is unlikely that the U.S. will want to delay it until there is a new government in power.”

Alaina B. Teplitz, the U.S. ambassador in Sri Lanka, has upped her public diplomacy. She dismissed the charge about a planned military base and argued that Washington’s agenda was not to undermine Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

“What we would like to see is a very strong, capable and sovereign Sri Lanka, well able to defend its shores and control its waters, keep the airspace open so that all nations can transit and everybody is following the rules and norms of the international order,” she told Rupavahini, Sri Lanka’s state-owned TV broadcaster.

Her language echoes the text in the U.S. Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, a blueprint that U.S. President Donald Trump initially mentioned in 2017 and was unveiled two months ago by the U.S. Department of Defense. Built around three pillars — security, economic and governance — the Indo-Pacific strategy makes no secret that it is Washington’s response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

China’s multibillion dollar infrastructure ventures in Sri Lanka as well as the island’s geography have made Washington covetous as the U.S. tries to stretch its sphere of influence from its own West Coast to India’s. Western diplomatic sources in Colombo say China’s expanding economic stakes in Sri Lanka have also prompted Japan and Australia to step up their defense cooperation with Sri Lanka.

This geopolitical sea change does not warrant a hostile reception, said Harinda Vidanage, director of the Colombo-based Bandaranaike Center for International Studies, given the expected increase of American naval traffic in the Indian Ocean. “No Sri Lankan leader has defied U.S. interests,” he said. “We have always managed and engaged the U.S.”

“The last thing Sri Lanka needs now is to make an enemy of the U.S. — it won’t help.”

Courtesy The Straits Times

Many roots for opposition’s pick as presidential candidate: former defence secretary Gotabaya

COLOMBO • Sri Lankans, angered by the government’s inability to prevent the Easter Sunday terror attacks that killed more than 250 people, want a strongman back in power who can guarantee their safety and bring back economic growth.

Many were rooting for Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa who, despite fighting allegations of war crimes, was nominated yesterday as the opposition’s candidate for the presidential election scheduled for later this year. The Rajapaksa brothers, Gotabaya and Mahinda, were credited with bringing peace to Sri Lanka in 2009 by defeating the Tamil Tigers in a brutal end to the 26-year civil war between the Sinhalese Buddhist majority and minority Tamil groups. Mr Gotabaya was the defence secretary at the time and Mr Mahinda the nation’s president.

Mr Mahinda announced his brother’s candidacy to cheering supporters at a rally in Colombo. Earlier at the rally, he was named leader of the Sri Lanka People’s Front, under which Mr Gotabaya will contest.

“I thought of a man who is sought by the country’s history to build a future,” Mr Mahinda told the gathering. “I hand over my brother as a brother to you. He is no other, he is Gotabaya.”

Mr Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States for allegedly instigating and authorising the extrajudicial killing of a journalist and of war crimes against the Tamils during his time as defence secretary. He has denied the allegation.

A final date for the presidential election has not been decided but it must be held before Dec 9.

Sri Lanka’s Constitution is modelled on the French system of government where the president has executive powers while the prime minister heads Parliament. The current government is headed by President Maithripala Sirisena, the leader of centre-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party, while Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is from the centre-right United National Party, which has a majority in Parliament.

Mr Sirisena and Mr Wickremesinghe, who have been at loggerheads since last October, have blamed each other for ignoring warnings from India and failing to stop the Easter attacks.

Calls for a nationalist leader like Mr Gotabaya, who has strong support from within Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese Buddhist community, echo similar choices made by voters in other nations including India and Bangladesh.

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was elected for a second term in May in a landslide victory, rallied his Hindu-nationalist base and turned the campaign into a fight for national security and an aggressive stance against Pakistan.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won a third straight term in an election last December, has been criticised for suppressing dissent and jailing critics.

Reuters spoke to about 60 people, many of whom were victims of the terror attacks or affected by communal violence over the past year, and while some plan to abstain from voting, many of those who will vote say they want a more authoritarian figure.

Many Sri Lankan Catholics will not vote for Mr Sirisena if he stands, said a senior Sri Lankan priest. He is looking at Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs as an example of the kind of behaviour that is required despite evidence that it involved extrajudicial killings by police.

“A Third World country like us needs a tough leader like Duterte – he is doing whatever is needed to rid his country of evils,” said the priest, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

“Gotabaya is accused of crimes but he is tough and that is what we need right now to bring back some order,” he said.

Father Jude Chrysantha Fernando, director for social communication at the Archdiocese of Colombo, said the Church did not take political sides and would not ask people to vote for one candidate over another.

A country of 21 million, Sri Lanka has been a tinder box of sectarian and ethnic tensions, first between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist population and Tamil groups, and in recent years between the Sinhalese Buddhists and the Muslim minority.

While most Tamils are unlikely to vote for Mr Gotabaya, the Muslim community might be divided.

Mr S. H. M. Thameem, a government employee who is a Muslim, said he will vote for Mr Gotabaya because the current government has failed to deliver. “When there were anti-Muslim riots when he was the defence secretary, they were controlled within a day or two but Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have failed to control it. That adversely impacted the Muslim businesses and overall economy,” said Mr Thameem, who lives in the north-central district of Anuradhapura.

Mr J. M. Faleel, a Muslim autorickshaw driver in Colombo, feels differently. “We need a dictator, but I will not vote for Gotabaya as he is partially responsible for most of the suffering we see today,” he said, referring to anti-Muslim riots and alleged abuses against the Tamils.

The lawsuit allegations in the US might not hurt Mr Gotabaya’s chances of winning because he has the overwhelming support of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, said Mr Kusal Perera, a political columnist in Sri Lanka.

“This election will be decided by the large majority of Sinhalese Buddhists who believe they need a hardline president to put things right. The Tamils and Muslims will be left out in deciding the president,” he said.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

By Garvin Karunaratne

In the Eighties, we sacrificed the verdant Kotmale Valley for a mere 200 MW of Power. The Kotmale Dam does not provide any water for irrigation. That 200MW of power at that time when there were wind turbines that produced an easy 3 MW, could have been produced by 70 wind turbines scattered around Ramboda and the verdant Kotmale valley with its thriving agriculture and a pleasant people would have yet been there. Now there are wind turbines that produce an easy 5 MW. Fifty wind turbines could have been built with a fraction of the money spent on the Kotmale Dam. Imagine the amount of money we wasted in addition to the verdant land and the productive peasantry that was lost forever.

Then it was the Kitulgala Project which is yet being built all to make a mere 35 MW of power That power could be obtained from building ten wind turbines and it would have cost a fraction of what is being spent today.

Today it is the Sitawaka Hydro Power Project to get some 30 MW of power. It will cause immense damage at Dehiowita where land will be inundated. I do not know more of this project but this amount of power can easily be produced by building eight to ten wind turbines within the hilly areas- not at Sitawaka or Dehiowita.

It has so happened that I have lived years in the coastal towns of Hambantota and Matara as well as the hilly districts of Nuwara Eliya and Kandy and have traversed the entire island on endless circuits for over six years. I have been to Mannar and Kalpitiya, the areas that seem to have mesmerized our specialists in the Power Ministry. There is no need to get foreigners down to gauge the power of the wind that we administrators have had to contend with every day.

Why are we yet building wind turbines on the coast ignoring what all authorities in the USA, France, and Spain have been doing for several decades? They build in the mountains, never on the coast. The engineer that did the construction of the wind turbines at Hambantota had commented on one of my Papers detailing that in Sri Lanka building wind turbines is allowed only on the coast and not in the mountains! What a lot of silly people we are cannot be even imagined.

Building wind turbines is not something that cannot be done. The other day I was at Avukana and saw the hood that had been built by our engineers of the State Engineering Department. The hood is supported by long concrete beams. Get those engineers that did that and they will be able to design the structures and blades for a wind turbine in a week. Get a few 5 MW turbines airflow- that too can be done in days. Finding the sites and the construction can be done easily within three months. That was the speed at which my colleagues in the Land Development Department worked in the Fifties and Sixties. I too was involved in building very large stores and we got it done in record time. That was in the Agrarian Services

The Power Ministry need not find electricity from barges for long. Building power lines to get it from India is a far more costly and a long term plan than constructing a few hundred wind turbines. In my travels in the USA, France, and Spain I have seen wind turbines being transported and erected.  We can do it very soon at a fraction of the cost of building unnecessary projects.

My ideas in a Compendium of my Papers on Wind Power is due to be published soon.

For the moment let me quote more details from a Paper written by me last year.

Instead of developing the Kandyan Areas we are destroying existing development.
Posted on September 6th, 2018 in Lanka Web 

by Garvin Karunaratne

The Kotmale Valley was a thriving  area full of production when I worked in Nuwara Eliya in the Sixties. This valley, its luxurious vegetation and  a vibrant community that lived in plenty was sacrificed to get  200 MW of power.    The Kotmale dam does not provide any water for irrigation. Fifty Wind Turbines could have achieved that target of power, and Kotmale, its people and luxurious economy would have been spared extintion.

As I write, action in being taken to destroy miles of verdant jungle, luxurious home gardens  and a  developed tourist attraction- the rapids of the Maskeliya Oya at Kitulgala.

It is a mini Hydro Project-the Broadlands Dam, sited  about a milei above the Kitulgala Rest House. The water will be taken down in a 3 kilometer tunnel and enter a Power House that will  produce 35 MW of power. There will be two small weirs(tanks) of water.

The tunneling of the river water will change the eco system for at least 34 to 5  kilometers. Already the tunneling has caused damage to many homes and land.

Further the Maskeliya Oya at Kitulgala has 18 rapids and already it is a highly treasured tourist attraction, world wide, attracting some 100,000 tourists a year. The tunneling of water will make 13 rapids defunct. In short the tourists will not come. White water rafting is a developed , highly sought for sport and the only site for this is Kitulgala in Sri Lanka.

Compensation has been offered but the fact remains that the verdant Kitulgala Valley will be ruined- its eco sysytem will be damaged and the untold damage  in an unexpected manner like at Uma Oya in Welimada Bandarawela cannot be ruled out.. 

I know the Kitulgala area well having worked  as the Additional Government Agent at Kegalla and earlier as an Assistant Commissioner in Agrarian Services. I have walked through the area and can imagine the damage..  I can state that the Kitulgala Valley is having verdant forest and home gardens that will be sacrificed. White water rafting was not developed as a tourist attraction when I worked there in  the Sixties. The people have developed tourism and it is a shame to sacrifice the tourism  that has already been built up. I am certain that we attract youngsters world wide- even from the USA to Kitulgala for Water rafting..

 As far as the production of electricity is concerned i can state without any reservation that  that the proposed 35 MW of power can easily be produced by constructing 10 wind turbines. The wind turbines can be sited in Kitulgala itself and constructing 10 wind turbines can be done at a fraction of the cost of  $ 85 million. 

It is perhaps a travesty of our fate that our Power Ministry does not believe in wind power that can easily be harnessed . Costs of wind power are only 5 US cents a kilowatt in the USA. At most our cost will be Rs 10 a kw  which is a third of today’s cost.

There is said to be a loan from China. No foreign funds are required for wind turbines. It is only  the turbine mechanism that has  to be imported. The rest is built locally. The turbine mechanism  is not that costly.

Perhaps it is our fate that makes us destroy what development  we do have, specially in the Kandyan Areas. Then it was Kotmale. Now it is Kitulgala.

Let Kitulgala be spared the devastation that happened to Kotmale

Garvin Karunaratme

2/9/2018

Sugath Samarasinghe

The Tamil Net recently carried a news item to the following effect concerning a statement reported to have made to Tamil net by Mr. Mano Ganesan, our Minister of Reconciliation.

The SL Archaeology Department is the evil of all heritage related tensions in the North and East, and thirty-two Sinhala only experts currently advise it. This ‘Sinhala’ Archaeology must be reconfigured, said SL Minister of ‘National Integration’ and Hindu Religious Affairs Mr. Mano Ganesan, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet on Monday. The conservation of the protected sites in the North-East, including the ancient traces of the Tamil Buddhist heritage, must be carried out with the advice of Tamil historians. Mr. Ganesan said he would be moving a cabinet paper to this effect. At least five Tamil experts must be assigned the specific task, he said. Ganesan also warned Tamils against falling prey to the heinous designs of the anti-Muslim extremist monks who want to set the Tamils against the Tamil-speaking Muslims.

Can archaeology be ‘reconfigured’? one might ask. As far as we know, archaeology can only preserve, conserve already existing ancient ruins and whatever lies under the earth undiscovered. That is how the lost city of Pompeii or Mayan civilization of South America, Pyramids of Egypt, Greece and Rome were rediscovered. So were the ruined cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Nobody ‘reconfigured’ them as far as we know, nor can anyone legitimately do that. History is history, period. Only new discoveries can throw any new light on it.

The latest effort to ‘reconfigure’ history when  the Mannar Mass grave was dug open ended with egg on the face of all interested parties in the North and elsewhere and also the likes of the National Reconciliation Minster Mano Ganesan who anticipated to support the bogus claims of ‘genocide’ by the Armed Forces. The DNA tests done in the US showed that the skeletons found were over 500 years old confirming the contrary theory that they were probably the victims of genocide of the Catholic Malabars of Mannar allegedly by Sankili. No wonder that people like Ganesan are angry with the Archaeology Department who professionally did the excavation.          

Can anybody in sane mind say: The SL Archaeology Department is the evil of all heritage related tensions in the North and East,”?  Is the fact that Sri Maha Bodhi sapling from India was brought to Jambukolapattana of the Northern Peninsula recorded in the Mahavansa be disputed when all the rest of the story is corroborated by physical evidence? Has the Archaeological Department concocted when the Gold Plate of Wallipuram was unearthed there? It said that a representative of King Vasabha reigned there on his behalf. When the archaeologists discovered an inscription in Kayts Island written in Tamil for the benefit of the visiting foreign traders on customs regulations, was it a fabrication? One could go on and on, but why go that far? The majority of the people living in the Jaffana Peninsula were called Malabars until Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam who was Director of the Census and Statistics Department named them as ‘Ceylon Tamil’ in his census report of 1911. There is of course the writings of British writers such as Emerson Tenant and others who describe the state of affairs and other artifacts found in the Northern Province which may not to the liking of the likes of Mano Ganesan and the ‘Tamil Historians’ who are looking to ‘configure’ history to fit their present day ideology which is communal. I believe there are many like them who are laboring to give a Tamil twist to the history of India too.

Then there is the very transparent Tamil place names still found in Jaffna Peninsula like Walikaamam, Chunnakam etc. which are obviously corruption of original Sinhala village names. So what is the ‘transfiguration’ that can be done? Mr. Ganesan’s anger appears to be that such stand out instances could not be wiped out, to be consistent with the fictious history developed by Tamil Historians. The Archeological Department of this country is one of the oldest Departments established by early British Archaeologists like H.C.P Bell, H.W Codrington and later continued in the same tradition by eminent local scholars like Prof. Paranavithana, Dr, C.E. Godakumbure and Prof Deraniyagala and currently Prof. Raj Somadeva who are internationally accepted.  Thus, this Department had been established quite long before the present Tamil project ever started. As the world knows the discipline of archaeology is an empirical study corroborated by epigraphical and other recorded evidence, now further supported by DNA. Hence, where is the room for reconfiguration by anybody?

Any one in sane mind would expect a Minister for National Integration and Reconciliation to be a man who is impartial. Can this man be seen as an impartial judging by what he has told an avowed Eelaam website? The very purpose of reconciliation is to bring about some kind of consensus and tolerance among disagreeing parties most of whom are wrought with emotion. This has to be done with a lot of sensitivity and understanding. It is natural that all parties involved have sensitive issues and grievances perceived or real. This Minister by his brash utterance seem to think that only the Minorities have grievances. What about the grievances of the Majority? They have many issues like the illegal encroachments by other communities in places like at Muhudu Maha viharaya in the Eastern Province, Kurugala in Sabaragamuwa and Gurukanda Viharaya in the North which are all lawfully pronounced by the Archaeological Department to name a few. The latest is the resistance confronted by this Department in Kinniya hot water ponds by parties led by politicians and other extremists who lay claims to a latter day built kovil on an archeologically declared cite. And they call from housetops the lack of Rule of Law in the country!          

The grievance of the majority community is that the minorities could shamelessly engage in provocative activities at will. One of the latest being the damages caused to Buddha statues in Mawanella. The majority Sinhalese are not allowed to conserve any ancient places of worship in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, though they have not objected to Hindu and Muslim places of worship in other provinces. In fact, the Secretary, Ministry of Muslim affairs has recently claimed that there are some sixty odd unauthorized mosques in the country already. It is common knowledge that ‘church planting’ as a policy is carried out throughout the country at will, by Christian Evangelical Movements. When these activities are resisted there are cries of lack of religious tolerance in this country, raised even in international publications. The assumption of the minorities and the likes of Mano Ganesan that they are able to engage in such patent communal activities, that they are entitles to do so since they are minorities, but the majority community is not entitled to lodge their protests. Such provocative activities are taken as given but the impression seems to that the majority has no right to be provoked. It is this type of provocative activities that lead to the eruption of communal and religious conflicts in this country. If one is unable to grasp this reality or is not willing to understand this reality, one does not qualify to be a Minister of national Integration. So under such a dispensation communal and religious tensions will continue in this country since such a minister or a twisted policy will lack credibility of all parties. Therefore, whoever becomes a Minister of Reconciliation has to be a man of broad vision who can maintain a delicate balance between the competing interests among all communities. This certainly a challenging task that cannot be expected from its present incumbent. So we will never have communal harmony in this country in the near future. Fork it is common knowledge that if you work a sum in the wrong way, you always get a wrong answer.               Sugath Samarasinghe

Ada Derana

Ada Derana

ආචාර්ය වරුණ චන්ද්‍රකීර්ති

1982 අවුරුද්දේ පවත්වපු ජනාධිපතිවරණයෙන් පස්සෙත් අපි හැංගිලා හිටියාට රටේ එහෙමකට කලබලයක් ඇති වුනේ නෑ. දිනලා හිටපු අය ම දිනපු හින්දා එහෙම වෙන්න ඇති. ඉතින් දිනපු අයට උණ වැඩිවෙන්න තරම් හේතුවක් ඇතිවෙච්ච නැති එකත් අපිට හිතාගන්න පුළුවන්. අතරින් පතර උෂ්ණය වැඩිවෙච්ච අය හිටියත් දවසක් දෙකක් යද්දි ඒ අයගේ උණත් බැහැලා යන්න ඇති.

ඒ වෙද්දි තාත්තාව වලපනෙන් කුරුණෑගලට මාරු කරලා එවලා අවුරුදු පහක් විතර ගතවෙලා තිබුණා. කිසිම නෑදෑයෙක් ළඟපාතක හිටියේ නෑ. අම්මාගේ නෑදෑයෝ හිටියේ නුවර, හඟුරන්කෙත පැත්තේ. තාත්තාගේ නෑදෑයෝ හිටියේ වලපනේ. කිරිඳිවැල වායගොල්ලේ හිටිය නැන්දා විතරයි කිට්ටුව පාතක හිටියේ. ඒත් මැටියගනේ ඉඳලා වායගොල්ලට කොච්චර නම් දුර ද? එහෙට යන්න බස් තුනක යන්න ඕන. අම්මායි තාත්තායි මේ ප්‍රශ්නය ගැන හිත හිතා හිටිය බව පැහැදිළියි.

මැටියගනේ ඉඩම ගත්තාට පස්සේ ඒකට එන පාරත් අසල්වැසියෝ වහපු හින්දා මේ එපාවීම තව තවත් දළු දාන්න ඇති. ඉතින් නුවර පදිංචියට යන්න ඕන කියලා අම්මායි තාත්තායි තීරණය කරලා තිබුණා. අයියාවයි මාවයි නුවර සෙන්ට් පෝල් එකට දාන්න කියලා තාත්තා ලක ලෑස්තිවුනා. තමන්ට පේරාදෙණියේ සරසවි උයන ඉස්කෝලෙට මාරුවක් හදාගන්න පුළුවන් බවකුත් තාත්තා අපිට කිව්වා. ඉතින් පේරාදෙණිය පැත්තේ ඉඩමක් බලන්නත් තාත්තා ගියා. ඒත් අධිබල විදුලි රැහැන් කීපයක් හින්දා ඒ වැඩේ වැළකුනා.

ඒක මෙහෙම සිද්ධියක්. පදිංචියට ගන්න කියලා හිතාගෙන තාත්තා බලපු ඉඩමට උඩින් අධිබල විදුලි රැහැන් පද්ධතියක් ඇදලා තිබුණා. ඒ හින්දා ඒ ඉඩමේ කෙහෙල් ගහක් ඇරෙන්න වෙන ගහක් කොළක් හදන්න අවසරයක් තිබුණේ නෑ. අම්මා ඒ වැඩේට එකඟවුනේ නෑ. අම්මා ගස් හදන්න කැමැති කෙනෙක්. මේ වැඩේට ඕන කරන හොඳ අත්ගුණේකුත් අම්මාට තිබුණා. මටත් ඒ ලෙඩේ තියෙනවා. ඇත්තෙන් ම මට හැදිලා තිබුණේ ඊටත් වඩා දරුණු ලෙඩක්. මම හදලා ලොකු මහත් කරපු ගහක් මොකක් හරි ඕනකමක් හින්දාවත් කපනවාට මම විරුද්ධ වුනා. ඉතින් මේ කාරණය මුල් කරගෙන මම නිතර නිතර ම තාත්තාත් එක්ක යම් යම් ආරවුල් පවා ඇති කරගත්තා.

කොහොම කොහොම හරි නුවර පදිංචියට යන වැඩේ අත ඇරලා දාන්න තාත්තායි අම්මායි තීරණය කළා. තාත්තාගේ ඉස්කෝලේ ගුරුවරුත් මේ වැඩේට උල්පන්දම් දෙන්න ඇති. ඉතින් අපි තවදුරටත් හත්කෝරළයේ මිනිස්සු බවට පත්වෙන්න පටන් ගත්තා. වලපනේ ඉපැදුනත්, කතා කරද්දි තවමත් යන්ට, එන්ට” කියලා කිව්වත්, තාමත් යකඩෝ” කියලා කියන්න බැරිවුනත් අපිට පුරුදුවෙලා තියෙන්නේ හත්කෝරළේ ගති පැවතුම්. අපි පුංචි කාලේ ම හත්කෝරළේට වැටිච්ච ගිරව් පැටව්. ඉතින් අපි හැදිලා තියෙන්නේ හත්කෝරළේ විදිහට. ඒ හින්දා අපි හත්කෝරළේ මිනිස්සු” කියලා මම අදටත් කියන්නේ හරි ම ආඩම්බරේකින්.

හත්කෝරළේ බින්න බහින්න ඕන කියන අවසාන තීරණයත් ගත්තාට පස්සේ ඊ ළඟට කරන්න ඕනවෙච්ච මූලික ම වැඩේ තමයි පිළිවෙළකට ගේ හදාගන්න එක. ඒ වෙද්දි අපි හදාගෙන තිබුණේ කාමර දෙකක ගෙයක්. සාලයක්, ආලින්දයක්, කෑම කාමරයක් වගේ මොකක්වත් ඒ ගෙදර තිබුණේ නෑ. පිටිපස්සට වෙන්න පුංචියට කුස්සියක් නම් හදලා තිබුණා. ඊට පස්සේ ගෙදර ඉස්සරහයි පස්සයි මාරු කළා. මුලින් ගේ මූණ දාලා තිබුණේ නැගෙනහිර පැත්තට. ඒත් ඊට පස්සේ ඒක බටහිර පැත්තට මාරු කළා. ඉතින් මේ හින්දා ගෙදර පිටිපස්ස පැත්ත බවට නැගෙනහිර පත්වුනා. ඒ පැත්තෙන් පිළිවෙළකට ගල් බැඳලා කුස්සියකුත් තව කාමරයකුත් හැදුවා. ඒක හදන්න ඕන ගඩොල් කැපුවේ අයියයි, ජයන්තයි, මමයි. ඒ දෙක හැදුවේ තිබුණු ගෙට අඩි දහයක් දොළහක් ඈත් කරලා. ඔය අල්ලපනල්ලේ ගේ පිටිපස්සේ පලේ යටට වෙන්න කණු දෙකක් හිටවලා, වරිච්චි බැඳලා, කටුමැටි ගහපු පුංචි කාමරයක් හදන්න අයියයි, ජයන්තයි, මමයි පටන්ගත්තා.

ඒ මොන විදිහට කෑලි ඇමිණුවත් අපිට ඕන කරන ගෙදර හදාගන්න අපිට පුළුවන් වුනේ නෑ. ඒ වෙද්දිත් තිබුණේ පොල් අතු බැඳපු පොඩි ගෙවල් කෑලි දෙකක්. මේ ගැන අම්මා සෑහීමකට පත්වුනේ නෑ. විදුහල්පති ශ්‍රේණියක රස්සාව කළාට දේශපාලන පලිගැනීම් හින්දා තාත්තාට උසස්වීම් ලැබුණේ නෑ. ඉතින් මේ හැම දෙයක් ම අපිට ඕන ඕන විදිහට කරගන්න අවශ්‍ය ආර්ථික ශක්තිය තාත්තාට තිබුණේ නැති එක පුදුමයට කාරණයක් නෙවෙයි.

අමතරව යමක් කමක් හොයාගන්න වැඩේට අම්මා කැපවෙලා හිටියා. වත්තේ පිටියේ එළවළු වවන එක, කෝපි – ගම්මිරිස් හිටවන එක අම්මා කරගෙන ගියා. තාත්තා ලොකුවට බුලත් පාත්ති දෙකකුත් හැදුවා. බුලත් හැදිල්ල බොහොම පරිස්සමින් කරන්න ඕන වැඩක්. ඔළුවේ තෙල් ගාගෙන බුලත් කොටුවට යන්න බෑ. එහෙම වුනොත් බුලත් වගාව විනාශ වෙයි කියන කතාව ඒ ගැන දන්න කියන අය අම්මාටයි තාත්තාටයි කියලා තිබුණා. බුලත්වලට හැම දා ම හොඳට වතුර දාන්න ඕන.

මේ වැඩේ ගැන වැඩි විස්තර කියන්න කලින් තව සිද්දියක් කියන්න ඕන. ඒ ගැන කියන්න අමතක වුනා. 1982 අවුරුද්දේ මහ නියගයක් ඇතිවුනා. ඒ මහා නියගයට අපේ වත්තේ තිබුණු ළිඳ පතුලට ම හිඳුණා. අනුන්ගේ ළිංවලට ගිහිල්ලා වතුර ගේන්න පවා අපිට සිද්දවුනා. ඉතින් හැම දේකට ම කලින් කරගන්න ඕන වෙලා තිබුණේ අලුතින් ළිඳක් කපාගන්න එක. පරණ ළිඳ තිබුණේ ගෙදරින් දකුණු පැත්තට වෙන්න.

අලුතින් ළිඳක් කපාගන්න ඕන කියලා තීරණය කරලා ටික දවසකට පස්සේ, වතුර තියෙන තැන් බලන්න පුළුවන් වයසක මනුස්සයෙක්ව තාත්තා එක් කරගෙන ආවා. ඒ මනුස්සයාගේ වයස අවුරුදු හැත්තෑවකට කිට්ටු ඇති කියලා තමයි මම හිතන්නේ. හරි ම මිටි මනුස්සයෙක්. උසින් අඩි හතර හමාරක් විතර ඇති. පිටිපස්සෙන් සරම තරමක් උස්සගෙන මේ මනුස්සයා වත්ත පුරා ම ඇවිද්දා. හැබැයි ඒ මනුස්සයා වැඩි හරියක් බැලුවේ බිම නෙවෙයි – උඩ. මේකත් මහ අමුතු වැඩක් කියලා හිත හිතා අපි ඒ මනුස්සයා පස්සෙන් ගියා. අන්තිමේ දී වත්තේ එක තැනක නැවතිච්ච ඒ මනුස්සයා අතේ තිබුණු කෝටුව එක තැනක ඇන්නා. මහත්තයා, මෙන්න මෙතන ළිඳ කපන්න” කියලා ඒ මනුස්සයා තාත්තාට කිව්වා.

ඒක මහ වේලිලා කරවෙලා ගිය තැනක්. එහෙම තැනක ළිඳක් කපන්න කියන්නේ ඒ මනුස්සයාට ඔල්මාදේ හින්දා කියලා තමයි අපිට හිතුණේ. ඒත් ඒ මනුස්සයා කියපු දේ අහලා ඒ කියපු තැන ම ළිඳ කපන්න ඕන කියලා තාත්තා තීරණය කළා. ළිඳ කැපුවේ අපි අපිමයි. අඩි දහයක් විතර විෂ්කම්භය තියෙන්න තමයි ළිඳ කැපුවේ. අඩි දෙකක් තුනක් ළිඳ කැපුවාට පස්සේ පස් උඩට ගන්න වැඩේට දබරයක් දාන්න ඕන. ඒ වැඩේ කරලා දුන්නේ දන්න අඳුනන අහල පහල කට්ටිය. කරු දෙකක් තියෙන කණු දෙකක් අඩි තුනක් විතර උසට හිටවලා ඒක උඩින් පුවක් කඳක් දාලා තමයි දබරයක් හදන්නේ. පුවක් කොටේ දෙපැත්තට අත් දෙකක් හයි කරනවා. එකකට එකක් විරුද්ධ පැත්තට හයි කරන ඒ අත් දෙක කරකවන්නේ බයිසිකලේ පැඩල් එක කරකවනවා වගේ. පුවක් ක‍ඳේ රවුම් කිහිපයක් වෙන්න කඹයක් පටලවනවා. ඒ කඹය දෙපැත්තට ම බාල්දි දෙකක් ගැට ගහනවා. පස් පුරවපු බාල්දිය යට ඉඳලා උඩට එද්දි හිස් බාල්දිය උඩ ඉඳලා යටට යනවා.

ටික දවසක් යද්දි බාප්පාත් ආවා. අහල පහල අයත් උදව් කරන්න පටන්ගත්තා. අඩි හයක් හතක් යටට කපද්දි මඩ මතුවෙන්න ගත්තා. ඒක මහා ආශ්චර්යයක් වගේ වැඩක්. ඒ වගේ මහ ඉඩැල්ලක ඒ වෙන දේ දැකලා අපි හැමෝම පුදුම වුනා. ඉතින් ඊට පස්සේ අපි ළිඳ කැපුවේ තවත් අඩි තුනක් විතරයි. ළිඳ බදින්න ඕන ගල් කඩලා ගෙනාවේ විජේසේකර මහත්තයලාගේ වත්තෙන්. ඉතින් විෂ්කම්භය අඩි අටක් විතර වෙච්ච, ගැඹුර අඩි දහයක් විතර වෙච්ච හොඳින් වතුර තියෙන ළිඳක් අපිට ලැබුණා!

වතුර තියෙන තැන අර මනුස්සයා හොයාගත්තේ ගස්වල කොළ දිහා බලලා තමයි කියලා අපි නිගමනය කළා. දැන් කාලේ ඉන්න අපේ විද්‍යාඥයෙක්ට” ඒ ගැන යමක් කියන්න පුළුවන්. ඒ මොකක් වුනත් අපි ඉතාමත් වාසනාවන්ත බව ඒ ළිඳ හදාගත්තාට පස්සේ අපිට තේරුණා. වතුර තියෙනවා නම් මොනවා ද කරන්න බැරි?

දැන් ආයෙත් බුලත් හදපු කතාව කියන්නම්. අලුත් ළිඳ කැපුවේ ගෙදර ඉඳලා මීටර් විස්සක් විතර දුරින්. ගෙදර ඉඳලා ඒ ළිඳට යන පාරේ වම් පැත්තේ තමයි බුලත් පාත්ති දෙක තිබුණේ. ඒ විතරක් නෙවෙයි. එළවළු පවා වගා කරලා තිබුණේ ඒ පැත්තේ. බුලත් පාත්තිවලට වතුර දාන්නේ කළවලින්. කට පුංචි ඒ කළ තරමක් උසයි. ළිඳ ළඟ තියලා ඒවාට වතුර පුරවන වැඩේ හරි පරිස්සමට කරන්න ඕන. කළේ ඇඳවෙලා තියෙන හින්දා ඕනෑවට එපාවට ඒවාට වතුර පුරවන්න බෑ. එහෙම කළොත් වතුර අහක යනවා. වතුර නාස්ති කරන එක මහ පව්කාර වැඩක් කියලා තමයි තාත්තා නිතර ම අපිට කිව්වේ.

ඉතින් අපි හැම දා ම හවස හයට විතර වතුර ඇදලා බුලත් පාත්තිවලටයි එළවළු පාත්තිවලටයි දාන්න පටන් ගන්නවා. පොළොවේ රස්නේ තියෙද්දි වතුර දාන්න හොඳ නෑ කියලා තමයි කිව්වේ. ඊට පස්සේ තමයි අපි නාන්නේ. හැබැයි අම්මා නාන්න යන්නේ අපිට රෑට කෑමත් බෙදලා දීලා ඉවරවෙලා. නෑවට පස්සේ තෙත මාත්තු කරලා ඔළුවේ තුවායක් බැඳගන්නවා මිසක් අම්මා කොණ්ඩේ හරියට වේලගන්නේ නෑ. එහෙම කළාම නාපු එකෙන් වැඩක් නෑ කියලා තමයි අම්මා කිව්වේ. ඒත් දැන් කාලේ ඉන්න ගෑණු කට්ටිය රෑ වෙලා නාන්නේ නැත්තේ කොණ්ඩේ වේලෙන්නේ නෑ කියලා හිතාගෙන.

මහ රෑ නාන වැඩේ අපිටත් පුරුදුවෙලා. හැම දා ම හැම වැඩක් ම ඉවරකරලා තමයි දැන් මමත් නාගන්නේ. මටත් අම්මාගේ ලෙඩ ඒ විදිහට ම බෝවෙලා. ඊට කලින් නාලා වැඩක් නෑ කියලා තමයි මටත් හිතෙන්නේ. ඒත් බාගෙට බාගයක් කෙස් හැලිලා තියෙන මට නම් වේලන්න තරම් ක‍ොණ්ඩයක් නෑ. ඒක වෙනම කතාවක්.

සති දෙකකට වතාවක් නාරම්මල පොළට තමයි තාත්තා බුලත් ගෙනියන්නේ. නාරම්මල පොළ තියෙන්නේ ඉරිදාට. බුලත් පොළ පටන්ගන්නේ හද්දා පාන්දර. ඉතින් බුලත් තට්ටුව බයිසිකලේ බැඳගෙන තාත්තා පාරට යනවා. ඊට පස්සේ නාරම්මලට ඒක ගෙනියන්නේ පත්තර ලොරියේ පටවගෙන. උදේ හතර හමාර විතර වෙද්දි ජයමහ සර්ලාගේ කඩේ ළඟට පත්තර ලොරිය එනවා. ඉරිදා උදේ පාන්දර ම පොළට යන්න ඕන හින්දා සෙනසුරාදා රැ වෙද්දි බුලත් අහුරලා තට්ටුව බැඳලා තියන්න ඕන. ඒක කරන්න නම් බුලත් කඩන වැඩේ පටන්ගන්න ඕන බ්‍රහස්පතින්දා. බ්‍රහස්පතින්දා, සිකුරාදා කඩන බුලත් ඊට පස්සේ තෝරනවා. පීදිච්ච කොළ, කඳ කොළ, කෙටි කොළ කියන විදිහට තමයි බුලත් තෝරන්නේ. ඊට පස්සේ ඒවා විස්ස විස්ස එකට අමුණන්න ඕන. විස්සේ මිටි දෙකක් එක බුලත් අතයි.

ඒ දවස්වල ළමයි ටියුෂන් ගියේ නෑනේ. ඉතින් මේ වගේ වැඩ කරන්න ඕන තරම් වෙලාව අපිට තිබුණා. ඉස්කෝලේ පොත්වල තියෙන පුංචි පුංචි දේවල් ඉගෙනගන්න ටියුෂන් යන්නේ ඇයි කියන එක නම් මට අදටවත් තේරෙන්නේ නෑ. ඔය ඉස්කෝල පොත්වල තියෙන බහුභූතවලට අමතරව තව කොච්චරක් නම් දේවල් මේ ලෝකේ ඉගෙනගන්න තියෙනවා ද? ඒත් සානුවක්, නිම්නයක් කියලා කියන්නේ මොකක්ද කියන එකවත් ටියුෂන් නොගිහින් තේරුම්ගන්න බැරි තරමට අපේ ළමයි ‍මොට්ට වෙලා කියලා හිතෙද්දි නම් හිතට මහා දුකක් ඇතිවෙනව‍ා. ඇත්තට ම අපිට මොකක්ද මේ වෙලා තියෙන්නේ?

අපි දැන් ඒක ගැන වදවෙන්න ඕන නෑ. දැන් ආයෙත් අපේ ගෙදර ආර්ථික යුද්ධය ගැන කතාව කියන්නම්.

කලින් ලිපියකිනුත් කියලා තියෙන විදිහට ඒ කාලේ අපේ අම්මා හැම දා ම වගේ පොල් අතු වියනවා. අපිත් ඒ වැඩේට හවුල් වෙනවා. වත්ත පුරා ම වැටිලා තියෙන පොල් අතු එකතු කරලා, ඒවායේ පිත්තයි අග්ගිස්සයි කපලා තමයි පතහට දාන්න ඕන. පතහට දාලා දවසක් දෙකක් පෙඟිච්ච පොල් අතු තමයි වියන්න ගන්නේ. අම්මත් එක්ක හරි හරියට පොල් අතු වියන්න අපිටත් පුළුවන්. ඒ කාලේ මඩකලපුව පැත්තේ ඉඳලා එන ලොරිවලට තමයි පොල් අතු විකුණන්නේ. ගමේ පොල් අතු එකතු කරන මිනිස්සු ඒවා පාර අයිනට ගෙනියනවා. ඊට පස්සේ ඒවා ලොරිවලට විකුණනවා. ඉතින් මේ සෙල්ලමින් අපේ ගෙදෙට්ටත් කීයක් හරි හම්බවෙනවා.

මේ වැඩවලට අමතරව හරක් හදන වැඩෙත්, කුකුල්ලු හදන වැඩෙත් අම්මා කළා. මුලින් හිටියේ රතුපාට වැස්සියෙක්. අපි ඌට කිව්වේ රත්ති කියලා. ඌ ටිකක් සැරයි. ඒත් අපිට කවදාවත් කිසිම අරියාදුවක් කළේ නෑ. පස්සේ සුද්දියකුත් ගෙනාවා. කල් ගතවෙද්දි වයසට ගිය සුද්දි බිම වැටිලා තුවාලයක් හදාගත්තා. අපි අහල පහල අයත් එක්ක එකතුවෙලා අට්ටාලයක් හදලා ඌව හිටවලා තිබ්බා. උගේ තුවාලෙට නිතර නිතර ම බෙහෙත් දැම්මේ මම.

ඒ දවස්වල අපේ වත්තේ පොල් කඩන්න එන්නේ වීරේ හිටපු පීතර මාමා. උණ ලී පහක් හයක් කරේ තියාගෙන තමයි පීතර මාමා එන්නේ. ඒ උණ ලී එක එක දිගට හදාගත්ත ඒවා. උස අඩු පොල් ගස්වලට කෙටි ඒවා. උස පොල් ගස්වලට දිග ඒවා. ඒත් උස ම උස පොල් ගහකුත් අපේ ළිඳ පැත්තට වෙන්න මිදුල අයිනේ තිබුණා. එක පොල් ගහක් වෙනුවෙන් දිග උණ ලීයක් ඇරගෙන එන එක කරන්න පුළුවන් වැඩක් නෙවෙයි. ඉතින් පීතර මාමා ඒ ගහේ පොල් කඩන්නේ නෑ. මම තමයි ඒ පොල් ගහට නැගලා පොල් කඩන්නේ. වළලු දාගෙන ගස් නගින්න මට බෑ. ඒ හින්දා මම ඒ ගහට නැග්ගේ බඩ උල උලා මහ අමාරුවෙන්. ආපහු පහළට බැස්සාම බඩ පතුරු ගිහිල්ලා. ඒත් ඒ ගැන මට වගේ වගක් නෑ.

සුද්දිට හැදිලා තිබුණු තුවාලේ ඇතුළේ පනුවොත් බෝවෙලා හිටියා. හිමින් හිමින් උන් අයින් කරන එක මහ අමාරු වැඩක්. මේක පීතර මාමා දැක්කා. මේකට කරන්න වැඩක් තියෙනවා කියලා පීතර මාමා කිව්වා. එහෙම කියලා පීතර මාමා අබ ටිකක් අම්මාගෙන් ඉල්ලගත්තා. ඊට පස්සේ ඒ අබ ටික අතේ තියාගෙන මතුරන්න පටන්ගත්තා. ටික වෙලාවක් යද්දි මහ පුදුමාකාර දෙයක් වෙන්න පටන්ගත්තේ. ඒ අබවලින් දුම් පිටවෙනවා. අබ ඇට ටික පොරිවෙලා. ඒ එක්ක ම  සුද්දිගේ තුවාලේ හිටිය පනුවෝ මැරි මැරී එළියට වැටෙනවා!

දැන් කාලේ ඉන්න දියුණු මිනිස්සු මේ කතා පිළිගන්න එකක් නෑ. ඒකට කමක් නෑ. අපි එච්චර දියුණු මිනිස්සු නෙවෙයිනේ. තවත් මේ වගේ මිථ්‍යා කතා” සෑහෙන ප්‍රමාණයක් කියන්න තියෙනවා. ඉඩ ලැබෙන විදිහට ඒ වැඩේ ඉදිරි ලිපියකින් කරන්නම්.

කොහොම වුනත් සුද්දි වැඩි කාලයක් ජීවත්වුනේ නෑ. ඒක සෑහෙන්න දුක් සහගත සමුගැනීමක්. ගෙදර හදන වැස්සියෙක් අපිට දෙන්නේ කිරි විතරක් නම් නෙවෙයි. ගොමත් දෙනවා. ඒ කාලේ අපි ගොම පාවිච්චි කළේ එළවළු පාත්තිවලට, බුලත් පාත්තිවලට, මල් පාත්තිවලට දාන්න විතරක් නෙවෙයි. ගෙදර බිම ගාන්නත් කුල්ලේ ගාන්නත් ගොම ඕනවුනා. පොහොර කවරයකට හරි තාච්චියකට හරි අතෙන් අහුලලා ගොම එකතු කරන එක කාටත් හුරු පුරුදු සාමාන්‍ය වැඩක්. මුල් කාලේ කුල්ලේ ගොම ගෑවත් පස්සේ පස්සේ ඒ වැඩේට අඹරපු ගොරක මද ගන්න අම්මා පුරුදුවුනා. දැන් අපේ ගෙවල්වල බිමට සිමෙන්ති දාලා, ටයිල් අල්ලලා තිබුණාට අදටත් අපේ ගම්වල මිනිස්සු උයන්නේ දර ලිපේ. ඉතින් ඒ දර ලිපට ගොම මැටි ගාන එක අදටත් අමුතු දෙයක් නෙවෙයි.

වැස්සි පැටියෙක් දැම්මාට පස්සේ ලැබෙන්නේ පුදුමාකාර අත්දැකීමක්. මුල් දවසේ හරි අමාරුවෙන් නැගිටලා වැස්සි වටේ කැරකෙන පැටියා දවස් කීපයක් යද්දි නටන්න පටන් ගන්නවා. වහු පැටියෙක්ගේ ලස්සන ම මොකක්ද කියලා දන්නවා ද? ඒ තමයි උගේ ඇස් දෙක. පුංචි වහු පැටියෙක්ගේ ඇස්වල පුදුමාකාර ලස්සනක් තියෙන්නේ. ටික දවසක් යද්දි උන් අපේ ම යාළුවෝ බවට පත්වෙනවා. කිරි බීලා ඉවරවෙලා වලිගය උස්සගෙන වත්ත පුරා ම දුවන වහු පැටියෙක්ගේ දඟකාරකම දිහා බලාගෙන ඉන්න එක හරි ම අපූරු වැඩක්. උන් පුංචි ම පුංචි ඒ කාලේට අපිට උන්ව උස්සන්නත් පුළුවන්. ඉතින් අද උස්සන වහු පැටියෙක්ව හෙට උස්සන්න බැරිකමක් නෑනේ. ඉතින් මේ විදිහට හිතුවාම ඒකා මහ ලොකු හරක් තඩියෙක් වුනාට පස්සෙත් අපිට උස්සන්න පුළුවන් වෙන්න ඕන. අපි ඒ දවස්වල මේ වගේ විකාර කතා කිය කියා විනෝද වෙනවා.

අපේ ගෙවල්වල වැස්සියෝ හැදුවාට ගොන්නු හැදුවේ නෑ. ඉතින් වැස්සියෙක්ට පට්ටි දාන්න නම් ඒකට ගැලපෙන වස්සෙක් කාගෙන් හරි ඉල්ලගන්න ඕන. පස්සේ පස්සේ කෘෂිකර්ම මහත්තයා ඇවිල්ලා වැස්සියන්ට කෘතිම සිංචනය කරන්න පටන්ගත්තා. ඒ වෙද්දි නවයේ පංතියේ විතර හිටිය අපිට මේ දේවල් තේරෙනවා. ඒ කාලේ වෙද්දි නිතර නිතර ම වැල් දොඩම් මල් පරාගණය කරන එකත් අපි කරනවා. අපි ඒ වැඩේට ගන්නේ පාවිච්චි කරලා අයින් කරපු දත් බුරුසුවක්. හැබැයි ඒ දවස්වල දත් බුරුසුවක් හොයාගන්න එකත් සෙල්ලම් වැඩක් නෙවෙයි. උදේ පාන්දරට පොල් හනස්සක් ලිපේ දාලා ඒකේ අඟුරු ලුණු වතුර දාපු පොල් කට්ටකට කඩලා ඒවායින් තමයි අපි දත් මැද්දේ. ඒ වැඩේ හුඟක් වෙලාවට අපි කළේ ඇඟිල්ලෙන්. පැරකුම්බා, දන්ත මුක්ත වගේ දත් කුඩු වර්ග” ගෙනැල්ලා දත් මදින වෙලාවලුත් තිබුණා.

කුකුල්ලු හැදුවේ බිත්තර ගන්න. මගුලාගම ඉඳිද්දි නම් පොල් අතුවලින් වට කරපු ලොකු කුකුල් කොටුවක් අපිට තිබුණා. ඒත් මැටියගනේ කුකුල්ලු හැදුණේ නිදැල්ලේ. ඒත් රෑට උන්ව උඩකට යවන්න ඕන. එහෙම නැතිනම් කලවැද්දෝ ඇවිල්ලා උන්ට වැඩේ දෙනවා. ඉතින් පොල් ගස් දෙකක් අතර කටු කම්බිවලින් ලොකු කුකුල් කූඩුවක් එල්ලලා තිබුණා. ඒක තිබුණේ පොළොව මට්ටමට අඩි පහළොවක් විතර උඩින්. හවස හය හමාර විතර වෙද්දි කූඩු, කූඩු” කියලා කෑගැහුවාම කුකුල්ලු ඉගිල්ලිලා ඒ කූඩුවට යනවා. ඊට පස්සේ ඒකේ දොරට ගැට ගහලා තියෙන ලණුවකින් ඇදලා අපි ඒ කූඩුව වහනවා. උදේට දොර ඇරියාව උන් පහළට එනවා.

තල කොළවලින් තේ පෙට්ටි හදන වැඩක් දඹදෙණිය සංවර්ධන පදනම පටන් ඇරගෙන තිබුණා. අම්මා ඒ වැඩේටත් අත ගැහුවා. පදනමට ගිහිල්ලා ගේන තල කොළවලින් තේ පෙට්ටි වියලා ආපහු පදනමට ම දෙන්න පුළුවන්. එහෙම නැති නම්, තමන් ම තල අතු හොයාගෙන, කොළ ඉරලා තම්බලා ඒ වැඩේට ගන්නත් පුළුවන්. මේ හැම වැඩක් ම අම්මා කළා.

ඔය අස්සේ තාත්තා පුංචි පුංචි බිස්නස් වැඩවලටත් අත ගහලා තිබුණා. ආපස්සට හැරිලා ඒ ගැන හිතුවාම ඒවා මොන තරම් පුංචි වැඩ ද කියලා දැන් අපිට හිතෙනවා. ඒ විදිහට කරපු එක වැඩක් තමයි කුරුණෑගල යන්තම්පලාව පැත්තේ කඩේකින් පොල් ටොපි ගෙනැල්ලා ඉස්කෝලේ කැන්ටිමට දාන එක. ගමන් මහන්සියවත් ඒ වැඩෙන් ලැබුණා ද කියන එක අපි දන්නේ නෑ. කිරිඳිවැල නැන්දායි මාමායි කළේ පොළවල්වල රෙදි විකුණන එක. ගම්පොළ පැත්තෙන් තේ කොළ ගෙනැල්ලා සති අන්තයට යක්කල, කිරිඳිවැල පැත්තේ පොළවල්වල විකුණන්නත් තාත්තා පටන් ගත්තා. ඒ වැඩේට තාත්තා අපිවත් එක් කරගෙන යනවා. පොළේ දී සද්දෙන් කෑ ගහලා මිනිස්සුන්ට කතාකරන්න කීවාට මම නම් කවදාවත් ඒ වැඩේ කරන්නේ නෑ. මට ඕන වෙලා තිබුණේ පොළට වෙලා මිනිස්සු කරන කියන දේවල් දිහා බලාගෙන ඉන්න.

මේ එක වැඩක්වත් දුකක් කියලා අපි හිතුවේ නෑ. අපි ඒ හැම වැඩක් ම කළේ හරි ම විනෝදෙන්. ඒ දේවල් ඇතුළේ ගැබ්වෙලා තියෙන විනෝද වෙන්න පුළුවන් පැත්ත දන්නේ නැති මිනිස්සුන්ට ඒවා තේරෙන්නේ නෑ. ඒ විතරක් නෙවෙයි. ඒ වැඩ කරලා ඉගෙනගත්ත දේවල් මොන තරම් ලොකු පොතක් කියෙව්වත් දැනගන්න බෑ. අකුරු තියෙන පොත්වල තියෙන්නේ ඒ අකුරුවලින් කොටුවෙච්ච පුංචි ම පුංචි දැනුමක්. ඒත් අකුරු නැති පොත්වල තියෙන දේවල් මෙච්චරයි කියලා මේ ලියන අකුරුවලින් කියන්නත් බෑ. ඒකට කරන්න දෙයක් නෑ.

(කතාවේ ඉතිරි හරිය පස්සේ කියන්නම්)

ආචාර්ය වරුණ චන්ද්‍රකීර්ති

By Rohana R. Wasala

(‘Hamartia’ is the fatal flaw that leads to the downfall of the tragic hero in classical Greek Tragedy; it is Greek for ‘missing the mark’.)

The artificially sensationalised controversy within the UNP ranks about the authenticity of the party deputy leader Sajith Premadasa’s educational qualifications in the evening twilight of its barely legitimate rule is a strangely anticlimactic, but justly retributive, reversal of its unbroken mudslinging campaign against the Rajaksas whose democratic return to power they have been determined to forestall by hook or by crook. The controversial 19th Amendment was primarily intended to keep them out of power for the foreseeable future. The calling into question of Sajith Premadasa’s academic attainments is actually much ado about nothing provoked by the heated leadership tussle between two camps within the party, the reactionary jaded old guard clinging to its hereditary ‘ownership’ of the party and the not so progressive ‘Young Turks’ (though they hardly have any passionate intention to bring about revolutionary change that would qualify them for that honourable title) trying to make it less inimical to the rising nationalist spirit of the electorate. But it promoted pro-Premadasa propaganda as a negative marketing strategy by giving him a little boost to his presidential nomination bid.

As a nonpartisan patriotic Sri Lankan, I believe that Sajith Premadasa has a historic role to play at this, the most crucial, a moment in national politics since independence, although he is not personally equipped for that role yet. Until he is able to execute that role successfully, his attempts, if he finds a chance to make them, at winning the executive presidency or executive premiership will be in vain, and his hopes will remain mere dreams. Though eventually, Premadasa could have an enviable future, right now, it is doubtful if he should even dream of it. However, he should not feel demoralized or distracted by his intra-party rival’s/rivals’ canard that he doesn’t even have the GCE OL qualification meant to disorient him, because none other leaders in the UNP could offer a credible challenge to him. Having said that, I need to add that I, for one, do not for a moment think that either he or any other candidate nominated by the UNP or by an alliance led by the UNP will stand a chance of defeating Gotabhaya Rajapaksa or any other nominee proposed as an alternative candidate by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the unlikely event of GR is not nominated as a result of the malicious myth propagated by detractors that he would be unpopular among Tamil and Muslim minority voters. 

Though a good formal education is a valuable asset for a presidential aspirant to possess, one could perform successfully as a prime minister or a president without having high educational qualifications to flaunt, as D.S. Senanayake, Sirima Bandaranaike, and his own father Ranasinghe Premadasa demonstrated in the past. Sajith apparently does have adequate educational qualifications. Whether he has them or not is not important. He cannot be unaware of the important complementary role he has to play in the immediately emerging transitional context to ensure the survival of Sri Lanka as a single independent sovereign state that is a safe home for all the communities. The geopolitical vulnerability of Sri Lanka’s geographical location is a formidable challenge to face, but a sovereign nation has no alternative but to fight to survive. In that context, the role that history is assigning him is different from that of serving as the next executive president or premier, for which, in any case, he is not at all likely to be elected. To assume the role that is actually awaiting him, he needs to subject himself to a complete personality transformation, in addition  to modernizing his party’s fossilized political ideology so as to make it more pro-Sri Lanka and less pro-West, and more nationalistic (in the positive sense that the term is invested within the current Sri Lankan political context), and less communalistic and less pre judgemental towards the majority Sinhalese community; the UNP must give up its traditional complacency about the Sinhalese majority and it stop taking the Sinhalese Buddhists for granted, which they have done since independence.

As to Sajith P’s educational qualifications, the controversy is ill-founded. It used to be an established tradition (I don’t know if this is the case now) that British schools and universities admit the offspring of powerful political leaders of the countries they earlier dominated as an imperial power. The purpose of this was obvious:  it was to perpetuate their cultural and political influence in those countries through them. Sajith may not have got his local GCE OL qualification, but is sure to have got its equivalent in Britain. He may have also followed his university education at the prestigious London School of Economics with the same aplomb he seems to have displayed at the public school level there (he was a class monitor at school, captained a school cricket team, etc.); it may also be true that he was actually taken ill about the time the final exams were held at the university. UK universities do not penalise their satisfactorily well-performing undergraduate students by refusing to award them degrees for succumbing to ill health at the time of the final exams. They award them ‘aegrotat’ degrees when the students fail to sit the exams due to illness. The meaning of aegrotat (Latin, literally, ‘He is ill’), according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is:

1. a medical certificate testifying that a student is unable to attend lectures or examinations as a result of illness

2.the unclassified university degree granted to a candidate who is prevented by illness from attending examinations 

It is awarded to a student who has been recognized as a potentially successful candidate on the assumption that s/he would have passed the exam if s/he had not fallen ill. So, Sajith P’s aegrotat degree is not actually a disqualification for him, though it is hardly a qualification either. The fact that he doesn’t demonstrate any deep knowledge about economics or politics or any high level of intellectual ability in his speeches or in his general performance as a presumably ambitious politician is a different matter, though it is not a non-negative reflection on him. Unfortunately, however, of late, he has begun to impress this fact on his captive audiences with every appearance he makes, and every speech he delivers, which means that his chances of eventually making it in politics at least in the future are receding, not exactly a prospect to be cherished.

But he need not worry if he is able to take notice and adopt remedial measures in order to avoid being overtaken by a younger and wiser person in the party. Sajith Premadasa is the son of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa who genuinely cared for the poor and did much to ease their lot within the framework of the open market economic model that his former leader and predecessor J.R. Jayawardane had brought in. But Sajith P is not cut from the same cloth as his father. The late R. Premadasa came from an underprivileged social background and had great empathy with the people of that class. He was not my ideal political leader, and I detested some features of his rule when he was in power. Yet he was a politician with certain good leadership qualities: He had a distinct vision; he followed a disciplined lifestyle dictated by his commitment to work; he was a good communicator and was outspoken about what he believed in; he inspired trust in his leadership and self-confidence among his followers; he had an instinctive knack for finding and employing persons with talent to work for him even among trusted followers of his political opponents; he demanded and got the best out of state functionaries serving under him, and personally enforced discipline among them; he didn’t waver in his decision making, although some of his decisions had disastrous consequences including his own assassination (which showed that he was not without naivety, nevertheless); and he was a creative person and even wrote a novel, which was later turned into a film. He brought his literary creativity to statecraft in the form of  his innovative practical solutions to crucial problems such as implementing a new housing scheme for the poor, trying to prevent level crossing accidents by installing low cost bamboo gates as an ad hoc measure, or devising ways to take development to the villages, and so on. He had to do these things within the broadly Colombo-centred neo-liberal economic model favoured and followed by the capitalist UNP.

Incidentally, more than a decade later, a much younger and more refined and more humane Mahinda Rajapaksa showed that he too possessed those leadership qualities plus a graceful generous nature and applied them more benignly and more successfully under worse constraints than the senior Premadasa faced. But naivety was a common factor between them: it cost Premadasa his life, and the other his presidency. Since J.R. Jayawardane was a decent party leader, Premadasa rose to the top in the UNP more smoothly than Rajapaksa did in the SLFP under the begrudging and bitchy Chandrika Bandaranaike. It was reported that when Sajith Premadasa met Mahinda Rajapaksa at a personally oppressive moment for him in the UNP, during the pre-2015 Rajapaksa government, he advised him to be patient and bide his time in the party, without getting frustrated for he had his future there. Rajapaksa used to stress the importance of the UNP being there as one of the two main national parties, along with the SLFP which he led. The historic role that I am suggesting for Sajith Premadasa is to do with the preservation of the UNP as one of the two main parties in a successful two-party system (the other being the newly emergent SLPP in place of the virtually obsolete SLFP under Sirisena), where bipartisan compromise, necessitated by national interest, obviates too much dependence on communalist minority parties for the purpose of forming a stable government (the ground reality is that these communalist parties now do not represent the vast majority of the ordinary members of the Tamil and Muslim minority communities, who are now with the Sinhalese majority).

The success of Ranasinghe Premadasa’s programs was constrained, among other things, by corruption, which of course, has bedeviled more or less all the governments to date, particularly since 1978. Introducing the free-market economic model in that year, President J. R. Jayawardane of the UNP, declared Let the robber barons come”, cynically warning or just predicting that the new economic system would allow businesses to resort to unscrupulous methods to increase profits. Since any government’s development activities are inevitably connected with these, opportunities for corruption in ‘high places’ are galore. Yet, Jayawardane saw advantages in his new economic model for Sri Lanka that, he thought, overshadowed the possibility of the governments having to succumb to the pressures applied on them by the ruthless business class to serve its own interests at the cost of national interest (something that is being experienced at its worst by Sri Lankans today under the current regime, its latest politics and economy-related imports being international crooks to run important financial institutions, foreign interference in internal affairs, terrorism and garbage).  

In addition to this inherent corruptibility of the system he participated in ushering in and later inherited, the senior Premadasa had to beat innumerable odds to meet the challenges from the elitist class, which was the immediate successor to the departing British colonials, that sponsored the UNP. In his undeclared struggle against the elite, he turned his lower-class origin to a strength, rather than a disadvantage (He used to say that poverty was actually a strength because it gave the poor the passion and the courage to fight to escape their helpless situation).

It has become a popular blame game ploy used against those who are set to rescue the nation-state from further destabilization and destruction that is being adopted by the JVP and and a handful of recent upstarts like lawyer Nagananda for their own purposes to attribute the country’s current politically and economically ruinous situation and its strategically exaggerated developmental backwardness over the past seventy years of independence to a single alleged cause: the unstoppable corruption and general depravity of all the politicians who have been ruling, generally, as members of the two main parties the UNP and the SLFP taking turns. (Significantly, they avoid talking about the much more important causes of Sri Lanka’s worsening fate such as the thirty-year civil war, brazen foreign interference in its internal affairs, and the related, recently introduced Wahhabist terrorism.) This indiscriminate attack on all past politicians and all the current 225 MPs seems to be gospel truth for the least informed members of the millennial generation (18 – 40-year-olds), but it is a fallacious argument thought up and peddled by the JVP for over fifty years now (Lalkantha, JVP’s politburo member and well-known trade union leader, publicly admitted the hollowness of that argument recently); the same specious reasoning has been picked up by a few others equally innocent of a general knowledge about how parliamentary democracy has malfunctioned, particularly after the 1956 watershed, much much more due to other potent factors including the communalism of  some minority politicians than to corruption, which itself remains uncontrollable, at least partly, as a result of minority politicians having the upper hand in parliament. All genuine attempts made by consecutive governments for the restoration of full national independence in terms of governance, economic development, cultural resurgence, education through the medium of native languages, and so on, with a view to creating a truly egalitarian society where all communities are treated without discrimination of any form,have always met with limited success due to the few powerful communalists among minority politicians failing to cooperate; often they have exploited the competition between the two main national parties, the UNP, and the SLFP to dictate policies in parochial communalistic, rather than, national interest. The virulence of minoritarianism in parliament is such that, assisted by other factors, it has indirectly reduced the SLFP to a mere wraithlike rump already, and it is leading the UNP (government) around by the nose. This reflects the parlous state of parliamentary democracy in Sri Lanka today, which has left the vast non-communalist minded ordinary citizens that form at least 95% of the population virtually silenced and leaderless. The few communalists there are rule the roost.

It is up to the two main parties to put an end to this anomaly immediately and to reverse the catastrophic course that Sri Lanka is being forced to take. Of these the almost dead SLFP (hence described as ‘wraithlike’ above) seems to have no future unless integrated into the newly formed SLPP, which now represents the ‘left of center’ alternative to the ‘rightist’ UNP in the roughly two-party system that has evolved. A good feature for democracy in this setup is that there are no significant differences between their political ideologies except for the UNP’s Westward leaning neoliberal economic policies and the SLPP’s, as can be presumed, relatively independent nationalist stance in that respect. At this critical hour, considering the ground realities, the SLPP, but not the UNP, is capable of producing the national leader the country needs and this candidate is going to be officially announced today, August 11, 2019, and he is most probably going to be Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Since Sri Lankans are not mad enough to undergo the Yahapalana experience a second-time Sajith Premadasa or any other UNP candidate will not be a formidable opponent to Gotabhaya (or his, at the moment, unlikely substitute). The election bid of every possible UNP candidate will be inevitably undermined by the stigma of their association with the destructive Yahapalanaya.

Meanwhile, the UNP sorely needs a leader like the late Premadasa for its survival, but Sajith is not capable of filling that vacancy, primarily because he lacks the leadership qualities that his father possessed. This is because, instead of trying to appeal to the people as a capable leader of the same mould as his father, he tries to impress them, mistaking them for a captive electorate mesmerized by the personal charisma that he imagines he has, by his haughtiness of manner, lack of empathy with others, and his apparent superiority complex. Sajith’s public persona since the death of his father has betrayed these personality deficits. Such a person is not fit to lead a political party, much less the country. However, ordinary people have usually remained ignorant of these things and been prepared to be hoodwinked. That is the nature of popular democracy. At least, this was the case until January 2015. But four and a half years of Yahapalanaya must have knocked some sense into their heads by now. 

However, I for one, think that Sajith P need not depend on his father’s name or fame alone to play the role that he is destined to play, as it were, and he’d better not dream of becoming president overnight. There is something more important for him to do before that. It is up to him to correctly assess his importance or rather his current unimportance actually, to begin with; then, he needs to understand what that role is (as hinted at above), and play it to the best of his ability, for his own good, and his party’s, and most importantly, for the good of the country. As a well-wisher, I think that he must bide his time until he is able to claw his way up to the top of the party and mark time until the SLPP restores the country to normality over the next few years.

These are the writer’s subjective personal opinions offered for critical reception for what they worth with malice to none, but with love to all Sri Lankans, who are patiently waiting for a democratic reversal of the catastrophic results of the foreign engineered regime change conspiracy of 2015. 

By M D P DISSANAYAKE

Today a political newcomer known as Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna is celebrating the announcement of its Presidential candidate.  This event will be celebrated throughout the country by the voluntary participation of its supporters by offering traditional sweets and milk rice. The public anticipation is overwhelming to witness its hero none other than President Mahinda Rajapakse.

The masses who voted for a Change 4 years ago have experienced the Change with disgust.  The masses have witnessed the outright sale of assets of mother Lanka to foreign vested interests.   The masses have witnessed the mastermind money laundering at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, by courtesy of Minister in charge of CBSL, viz. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe.

Today the nation once again live in fear.  The so-called government teams which came to power to bring about Reconciliation, are deeply divided.  It’s own hand-picked, head hunted President is no longer in talking terms” with the Prime Minister.  The Prime Minister is openly challenged by his own Party deputy.  Ministers of Cabinet are attacking each other.  Even after 4 years, the Government still recruiting Cabinet Ministers, Deputies and Governors.   

The anticipation of average Sri Lankan for a bright future for them and their families posing a formidable challenge and pressure for the future leaders.   Masses wait for a clear policy and policy implementation outcomes from the new team. There will be no honeymoon.  We need to stop building any more new temples, churches, mosques. We need to build mutual understanding among all communities.

Tomorrow’s event should give a clear direction for unifying the disintegrated land and nation. It needs to implement new projects that will increase the revenue earning capacity of mother Lanka.  To enhance investor confidence, a rigid but transparent Corporate Governance Regime must be established.  Having learned bitter lessons of the current Constitution, Sri Lankans hope for a new Draft Constitution, that will provide:

·        guarantee the unitary status,

·        pride of place for Buddhism and Sinhala   Language,

·        protection of minority rights,

·        right of every citizen to live in any part of the island,   

·        take-over national assets sold to foreigners and prohibit the future sale of national assets;

·        mandatory annual declaration of assets, liabilities and pecuniary interests of key personnel and their families to the Inland Revenue Office making it an Annual Public Document,

·        Ensure uniformity in Law and Order regardless of ethnicity.

·        Create a Special Fund Cash Reserve equal to 5% of Net National Income annually. The  Reserve must be protected by Statute and prevent any movement of funds without the 2/3 majority of Parliament and Referendum.  This will enhance and stabilise the Exchange Rate of Sri Lankan currency, ensuring an increase of investor confidence and Foreign Direct Investment over a period of time.

මාධ්‍ය නිවේදනයයි,ආචාර්ය ටිකිරි බණ්ඩාර ඇටිපොළ සම ලේකම් – සත්ව අවිහිංසා ජාතික එකමුතුව

සෑම වසරක් පාසාම, ගවයින් ඇතුළු තවත් අහිංසක සතුන්ගේ ජිවිත අමු අමුවේම බිලිගන්නා තිරස්චීන ආගමික උත්සවයක් ‍අද හෙටම එළඹෙන්නට නියමිතය. දහස් ගණන් සතුන්ගේ ජිවිත බිලිගනිමින්, එම සතුන්ගේ රුධිරයෙන් තම දෑත් හා නිවෙස් සෝදාදමන මෙම දිනය ගවයින් ඇතුළු ලක්ෂ සංඛ්‍යාත හා ලොව පුරා කෝටි සංඛ්‍යාත සතුන්ගේ දුක් වේදනා ගුවනට මුසුවන ඛේදනීය දිනයකි. කාර්මික යුගයේ උච්ච ස්ථානයක සිටින යුගයක පවා තවමත් මෙවැනි ගෝත්‍රික සිරිත් විරිත් වලින් ඈත් නොවී ඒවා බදාගෙන ඉන්නා, සොබාදහමත් කම්පා කරවන, නොදියුණු ආගමික සංස්කෘතීන් තවමත් සමාජය තුළ ඉතිරිව තිබීම ඉතාම කණගාටුදායකය.

තම දරුවන්, බිරිඳ, ඥාතීන් ඉදිරියේ ඔවුන් බලා සිටියදීම ගෘහ මූලිකයා ගේ සියතින් අහිංසක සතුන්ගේ ගෙල සිඳ දමයි. මෙම කෲර දර්ශනය සහ සතුන්ගේ රුධිරය ගලායන අයුරු දකින දරුවන්ගේ මනසට ඇතිකරන බලපෑම නම් ම්ලේච්ඡත්වය සහ කෲරත්වය මිස වෙනකක් නොවේ. අනේකවිධ වධ හිංසාකර පසුව බෙලි කැපී, ප‍්‍රාණය නිරුද්ධ වන තෙක් වේදනාවෙන් දඟලන සතුන් දෙස බලාසිටීම මෙන්ම තම දෑත් හා නිවෙස් රුධිරයෙන් දෝවනය කිරීම වැනි දෑ මිලේච්ඡත්වය මිස අන්කවරක්දැයි විමසිය යුතුව තිබේ. පුරාතනයේ පටන් උතුම් සංස්කෘතික ගුණාංගවලින් හෙබි මෙම පින්බිම තුළ මෙවන් ම්ලේච්ඡ ආගමික චාරිත‍්‍ර හෝ සංස්කෘතියක කොටස් ඔවුන්ගේ උතුම් සංස්කෘතියක් ලෙස, දේශපාලනික උවමනාවම මත අප පිළිගත යුතුදැයි ප්‍රශ්ණ කළ යුතුය. ලක්ෂ සංඛ්‍යාත සතුන්ගේ ජිවිත බිලිගන්නා මෙවැනි ආගම් හා ඔවුන්ගේ උත්සව කොතෙක් දුරට ශිෂ්ට සම්පන්නද? සාදාචාරාත්මකද? මිනිසත්කමට ඔබිනවාදැයි බුද්ධිමත් ඔබ සිතා බලන්න.

එබැවින්, ඉදිරි දින දෙක තුන, විශේෂයෙන්ම ගව සම්පතට ඉතා අනතුරුදායක කාලයකි. ගවයින් හොරකම් කිරීම, වෙනත් ක්‍ර‍මවලින් පැහැර ගැනීම, නීති විරෝධී ලෙස ප‍්‍රවාහනය කිරීම හා සගවා ගැනීමට ඉඩඇති කාලයකි. ගෙවීගිය දින කිහිපයේත් වැඩුණු ගවයන් මෙන්ම, වසු පැටවුන් හොරකම් කිරීම් පිළිබඳව දසතින් පුවත් වාර්තා විය.

එම නිසා ඉදිරි දින දෙක තුන තුළ තම නිවෙස් වල, ගව පට්ටිවල, තම ගම්බිම් වල නිදැල්ලේ සැරිසරන ගවයින් හා එළුවන්ගේ ජිවිත ආරක්ෂා කර ගැනීම සඳහා දැඩි අවධානය යොමු කරන ලෙසත්, අහිංසක සතුන්ගේ ජිවිත හානිය වළක්වා ගැනීම සඳහාත් ගතහැකි සෑම පියවරක්ම ගන්නා ලෙසත්, සත්ව අවිහිංසා ජාතික එකමුතුව ආචාරධර්ම හා ශිෂ්ටත්වය අගයන රටවැසියන්ගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටී.

ආචාර්ය ටිකිරි බණ්ඩාර ඇටිපොළසම ලේකම් – සත්ව අවිහිංසා ජාතික එකමුතුව

වාගිස ප්‍රනාන්දු.

මෑතකදී, ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ නලින්ද ජයතිස්ස මංත්‍රීවරයා ලංකාවේ පලවෙන එක්තරා ජාතික පුවත්පතකට පවසා තිබුනේ කුරුඳු, ගම්මිරිස්, ගොරකා, කරුංකා, කරාබුනැටි ආදී භෝගවල මිළ බරපතළ කඩාවැටීමක් තිබෙනබවත් ඒනිසා ගොවියාට සාධාරණ මිලක් නොලැබෙන්නේ බවත්ය. තවදුරටත් අදහස් පළකරමින් මංත්‍රීවරයා පවසා ඇත්තේ පසුගිය කාලයේ ලංකාවේ වසරකට ගම්මිරිස් මෙට්රික් ටොන් 2800 ක් නිෂ්පාදනය කරන විට මෙට්රික් ටොන් 14000 ක් අපනයනය කර ඇති බවකි. තවද, ප‍්‍රතිඅපනයනය නිසා අපේ අපනයනයන් ක්‍රමයෙන් අඩුවූ බවත් විශේෂයෙන්ම වියට්නාමයෙන් ආනයනය කරන ගම්මිරිස් දේශීය ගම්මිරිස්වලට කලවම් කිරීම නිසා ගුණාත්මකභාවය අඩුවී ඇති බවත්ය.

නලින්ද ජයතිස්ස මංත්‍රීවරයා මේ කතා කරන්නේ තමන්ගේ බත්කන කටින්ද එසේත් නොමැතිනම් තමන්ගේ සිරුරේ ඇති වෙනත් අප්‍රකට අවයවයකින්ද යන්න මුළින්ම ඇසිය යුතු ප්‍රශ්ණයකි.

ගම්මිරිස් ඇතුළු ලංකාවේ කුළුබඩු සදහා මෑත යුගයේ අවම ඉල්ලුමක් මෙන්ම ඒවායේ මිළ පහත වැටීමට මූලික හේතුවක් වූයේ ප්‍රතිඅපනයනයයි. රටතුල කුළුබඩු නිශ්පාදනය වන ප්‍රමාණයට වඩා වැඩි ප්‍රමාණයක් විදේශ රටවලට මෑත කාලයේදී අපනයනය කිරීමට හැකිවූයේ මේ කූඨ ප්‍රතිඅපනයනය ක්‍රියාවලිය හේතුවෙනි. ඒ බව ලංකාවට මුළින්ම අනතුරු ඇගවුයේ අපේ අසල්වැසියාවන ඉන්දියාවෙනි.

මේ අතර ප්‍රධාන තැනක් ගන්නේ වියට්නාමයෙන් මෙරටට ගම්මරිස් ආනයනය කර ඒවා නැවත ලංකාවේ ගම්මිරිස් ලෙස හුවා දක්වමින් ප්‍රතිඅපනයනය කිරීමයි. මේ මගින් ලංකාවේ කුළුබඩු ව්‍යාපාරයට සිදුවූ හානිය ඉතා බරපතලය.

විදෙස් රටවල ගුණාත්මකබවෙන් අඩු කුළුබඩු ලංකාවේ කුළුබඩු ලෙස හුවා දක්වමින් අපනයන කිරීම නිසා, විදේශිකයින් අතර ලංකාවේ කුළුබඩුවල ගුණාත්මක තත්වය පිළිබදව මේ දක්වා තිබූ විශ්වාසය බිද වැටීම සහ මෙකී කූඨ ප්‍රතිඅපනයන ක්‍රියාවලිය නිසා ලංකාවේ නිශ්පාදනය කරන සැබෑ දේශීය කුළුබඩුවල මිළ සීඝ්‍රෙයන් පහත බැසීම ඉන් ප්‍රධාන තැනක් ගනී.

තත්වය මෙසේ තිබියදී ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ නාමල් කරුණාරත්ණ හිටපු පාර්ලිමෙන්තු මංත්‍රීවරයා ගම්මිරිස් මිළ පහත වැටීම වැලැක්වීම සදහා රජය මැදිහත්විය යුතු බව පවසමින් රටේ ගම්මිරිස් වගාකරන ගොවි මහතුන් සමග සහන ඉල්ලා මහ මග උද්ඝෝෂණ කලේ වරක් දෙවරක්ද නොවේ. ගම්මිරිස්වල මිළ පහත වැටීමට රජය වගකිව යුතු බව පැවසූවද ගම්මිරිස්වල මිළ මේ අයුරින් පහත වැටීමට සත්‍ය හේතුව ව්‍යාපාරිකයින් කීපදෙනෙකු විසින් කරගෙන යනු ලබන ගම්මිරිස් ප්‍රතිඅපනයනය බව හෙළි නොකිරීමට නාමල් කරුණාරත්න බෙහෙවින් පරිස්සම් විය.

අපනයන සංවර්ධන මංඩලය සහ රේගුවද එපමණටම මෙකී කූඨ ප්‍රතිඅපනයේ යෙදී සිටි අපනයනයකරුවන්ද මේ තත්වයට වගකිව යුතු නොවේද? ලංකාවේ සැබෑ නිශ්පාදන ධාරිතාවයන් නොදැන සිටීම සහ වාර්ශික නිශ්පාදනයට වඩා වැඩි ප්‍රමාණයක් අපනයනය කරන බව නොදැන සිටීම මත අපනයන සංවර්ධණ මංඩලය සහ රේගුවද, විදෙස් රටවල නිශ්පාදනයන් ලංකාවේ නිශ්පාදන ලෙසින් ප්‍රතිඅපනයනය කිරීම මගින් ලංකාවේ සැබෑ දේශීය නිශ්පාදනවලට සහ එකී නිශ්පාදනකරුවන්ට වර්තමානයේදී අත්කරදී ඇති ශෝචනීය ඉරණම මත මෙකී ප්‍රතිඅපනයනයකරුවන්ද මේ තත්වයට ප්‍රධාන වශයෙන් වගකිවයුතු නොවේද?

දේශීය ගම්මිරිස්වල මිළ පහත වැටීමේ සත්‍ය හේතුව කරළියට පැමිනෙන්නේ පසුගිය පාස්කු ඉරිදා එල්ල කෙරුනු අමානුශික බෝම්බ ප්‍රහාරයෙන් පසුවය.

පසුගිය පාස්තු ඉරිදා ප්‍රහාරයෙන් පසුව දෙමටගොඩදී අත්අඩංගුවට පත් ඊබ්‍රාහීම් ප්‍රසිද්ධ කුළුබඩු අපනයනයකරුවෙක් මෙන්ම 2015 ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුනේ ජාතික ලැයිස්තුවේ සිටි පුද්ගලයෙක්ද වේ. මුලදී ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ වත්මන් ප්‍රධාන ලේකම් ටිල්වින් සිල්වා විසින් ඊබ්‍රාහිම් තම පාක්ෂිකයෙකු නොවන බවට කීමට අසාර්ථක උත්සාහයක් දැරුවද, පසුව විජිත හේරත් මංත්‍රීවරයා ඊබ්‍රාහීම් තම පාක්ෂිකයෙකු වුවත් ඔහුගේ පුතුන් දෙදෙනාගේ ත්‍රස්තවාදී ක්‍රියාවන් සම්බන්ධයෙන් ඊබ්‍රාහීම් නොදැන සිටින්නට ඇතැයි තමන් තවමත් විශ්වාස කරන බව පාර්ලිමෙන්තුවේදී ප්‍රකාශ කරන ලදී.

මේ අතර, ඊබ්‍රාහිම් කුළුබඩු අපනයනකරුවෙකු පමණක් නොව වියට්නාමයෙන් ගම්මිරිස් ගෙන්වා ඒවා ලංකාවේ ගම්මිරිස්වලට කලවම් කර ලංකාවේ ගම්මිරිස් ලෙසට ප්‍රතිඅපනයනය කල කූඨ ව්‍යාපාරිකයින් අතරින් ප්‍රමුඛයෙකු ලෙසද කරුනු අනාවරණය විය.

ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ සාමාජිකයෙකු ලෙස නලින්ද ජයතිස්ස මංත්‍රීවරයා මේ සියල්ල නොදැන සිටියා යැයි අපට විශ්වාස කල නොහැක.නලින්ද ජයතිස්ස මංත්‍රීවරයා ඇත්ත දැන දැනත් කුළුබඩු නිශ්පාදනවලට වර්තමානයේදී අත්වී ඇති ශෝචනීය ඉරණම ගැන තවදුරටත් කිඹුළ් කදුළු හෙළමින් මේ අයුරින් අදහස් පලකරන්නේ තමන්ගේ බත් කන කටින්ද එසේත් නොමැතිනම් තමන්ගේ සිරුරේ ඇති වෙනත් අප්‍රකට අවයවයකින්ද යනුවෙන් අප මුළදීම ප්‍රශ්ණකර සිටියේ මේනිසාවෙනි.

Laksiri Warnakula

He was clad in the national dress, an immaculate white that contrasted well with somewhat dark and enclosed surroundings. He was stocky, yet lean enough. He was not tall, yet not short either.

He was standing on the podium addressing a distinguished gathering of foreign and local dignitaries. With confidence and composure, he was speaking to his audience through an interpreter in his mother tongue. Little those listeners knew that if he chose to, he could with equal eloquence have given the speech in English too. Yet he was proud of his heritage, language, his country. He was not a man, who had given himself and sheepishly surrendered to an inferiority complex of any kind.

He stood erect, shook hands with that firm grip, which conveyed to the other that he was sincere yet firm in conviction of what he believed was fair and right. He without words could convey to all around him, that behind those smiling, charming eyes and frequent nodding lay a mind belonging to an iron man, a no-nonsense man, a man of action, yet someone, who always opted for fair play.

He never travelled in half-a-mile long motorcades with armed escorts dressed in camouflaged fatigues on vehicles with lights flashing and horns blaring.  Neither did he allow his ministers to do that. They, only a two dozen with impeccable credentials, whose thinking often resonated in perfect harmony with that of their leader, didn’t want it anyway.

He never treated his land of birth as his own. He wouldn’t sell it to the aliens in bits and pieces and wouldn’t lease parts and patches of that pristine soil to them in the name of ‘development’, which he always maintained as nothing but grand theft.

His kith and kin hardly got any mention anywhere, let alone in our more-than-curious media. They were just ordinary citizens not above or below the average, minding their own business.

He knew his limitations. He sought advice, when he felt the need from his team of honest, capable men and women of knowledge and moral standing. And he never felt small about it.

His aversion to self-aggrandizement was more than obvious. He never sought cheap popularity. He didn’t want to see pictures of him and his ministers displayed in government offices. He was a man, who could instantly recognise slavish obedience, servility and undue veneration, the signature qualities of greedy, incapable, incompetent, spineless yes-men/women, whom he despised intensely. He respected the opinions of the others, listened to them carefully before arriving at a solution.

And he didn’t fear the strikes and the unions. He always resorted to solution through discussion and negotiation. Yet when their actions and demands became unreasonable and unacceptable and were going to affect the greater good of the nation, he acted firmly, swiftly with corrective action without an iota of fear.

He faced his opposition with courage, emboldened by conviction and fact. And he was not afraid of criticism and was unshakable in what he believed was right.

Above all he was not a fake. He was an honest man, who was not power-hungry and he did not seek power for powers’ sake. He loved his country. And then he was still much more.

Then I woke up. The other day I started to read a book after my lunch. It was about an extraordinary man. Then came the snooze. And almost a similar figure to the man in the book took the centre stage of my mind while, I was basking in the comfort of my little siesta. Probably because of the story about the man that I was reading in the book was playing at the back of my mind. 

I kept thinking, now both my mind and eyes wide awake. When are we going to see a man/woman at the helm of our motherland, who could be like the one that I saw in my snooze or someone, who could at least come close, to that figure?

Will it be never?

Laksiri Warnakula

Ada Derana

KAMALIKA PIERIS

 ELECTRICITY   (   MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA PERIOD)

President Mahinda Rajapaksa, when he assumed office on November 2005, immediately commenced the implementation of the 300MW Kerawalapitiya Combined Cycle Power Plant in early January 2006. This added 200MW to the system by 2008. That helped to avoid the massive power shortage and power cuts envisaged in 2008. A further 100MW from the same Plant was added to the system in 2009, which enabled the Government to confidently go ahead with electrifying the entire country from the then existing electrification level of about 60%.

The 900 MW Norochcholai Coal Power Plant too was cleared for implementation in three stages in early January 2006, and its Phase 1 added 300MW to the system in July 2011, this avoiding the electricity shortage expected in 2011.

Further electricity shortages were expected to occur in 2014 due to the rapid electrification program of the entire country, and the Government’s aim to provide electricity to all on a 24x7basis. Therefore, Phases 2 and 3 of the Norochcholai Coal Power Project were accelerated, adding 300MW in May 2014 and another 300 MW in October 2014. Another 600 MW Super Coal Power Plant was also planned from 2013 onwards, with construction to commence around 2016 as a further strategy to ensure continuous power beyond 2025. That project was to be carried out with a loan from Japan. The massive Wind Energy Park Project in Mannar, which would generate375 MW, was also finalised and ready for tendering with ADB loans.

Construction on the Sampur Coal Power Plant was to commence by the second quarter of 2015. JICA had already commenced a feasibility study to establish such a Plant in Sampur, in close proximity to the CEB/NTPC Plant location, in order to rationalize the transmission of power from both plants.

By the end of 2014, there were also several major Hydro Power generating projects in progress. They were the 120 MW from the Uma-Oya Hydro Power Project-commenced 2011 and completed 80%. The 40 MW from the Broadland Hydro Power Project-commenced 2013, and completed 40%. The 25 MW from the Moragahakanda Hydro Project-commenced in 2013 and completed 70%. In addition, 35 MW from the Moragolla Hydro Power Project, 25 MW from the Seethawaka Hydro Power Project.

The Government was also planning to implement”Pump-storage” Hydro generation projects in due course in order to increase the peak generation capacity of several hydro generation power plants. Towards that end, a detailed feasibility study was also carried out in 2013 with support from the Government of Japan.  

A further 150 MW through the Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project, 375MW through several mini-hydro Projects, 100MW through two Solar Power Energy Parks in Hambantota, 98 MW through wind-driven Power Plants in Puttalam, and 23 MW through Biomass projects, were added to the National Grid. A further 30 MW was added as a result of consumers generating their own electricity through roof-top solar panels installed at their residences, factories, hotels, etc. which was encouraged through a “net metering facility” that was introduced in September 2008. Through these measures, the Government was able to honour its solemn promise to local and foreign investors that Sri Lanka will never experience power shortages again.

Two privately owned very high cost “emergency power” plants, Aggreko (25 MW) and Coolair (15 MW) had been in operation in Jaffna since 1996, with annual generation agreements being renewed each year, to provide electricity to Jaffna, due to the break-down of the main transmission network from Vavuniya.  However, immediately after the war ended, the Government re-connected Jaffna to the National Grid and the two “emergency power” plants were terminated. Whilst doing so, the Government augmented the power needs in the North by commissioning CEB’s own25MW Thermal Power Plant in Jaffna in December 2012.

Out of eight Thermal Power Purchase Agreements, four Agreements which ended between November 2005 and December 2014 were not renewed as it was the Government’s intention not to purchase costly Thermal Power from Private Power Producers. Accordingly, not a single unit of Thermal “emergency power” was procured during the period of November 2005 to December 2014.

By implementing the above strategies and projects in a timely and scientific manner, the Rajapaksa Government was able to prevent power cuts and ensure continuous power in the country. It was also able to reduce the Consumer Electricity Tariff by a significant 25% with effect from the time of the addition of Norochcholai Phase 3, namely October 2014. The electricity requirements in keeping with the power demand trends from 2018 to 2025 were also anticipated well in time.

ELECTRICITY   (   YAHAPALANA PERIOD)

Yahapalana Government could have easily commenced physical construction work on the 500MW Sampur CEB/NTPC Coal Power Plant by mid-2015 if it had diligently followed the on-going process. If it had done so, the Sampur Coal Power Plant would have been ready to commence generation by end of 2018. However, the new Government summarily canceled the Project in early 2015.

Analysts looked back and saw a link between this and the actions of earlier governments. They said that governments that came before Rajapaksa had also done the same thing. In 1992, the President had instructed CEB to refrain from proceeding with the Mawella coal-fired power plant”. A committee called the “Power Committee” was sitting at that time, chaired by the Secretary to the Treasury. So, the President decides, not the engineers said, analysts.

In 2002 Japan was told by the Prime Minister that the government has decided to cancel the Norochcholai coal power plant.” This time the committee behind it was called the “Energy Supply Committee”. So the PM decides, not the engineers.

The same individuals who sat had in various dubious committees outside the Ministry of Power and Energy in 1992 and 2002    stepped in again in 2016 dictate to the Ministry on how to run the electricity supply system. This time the committee was called the “Cabinet Committee on Economic Management”, continued the analysts.

in 2016, the Prime Minister appointed yet another a “committee” and all its members, except one, had no experience, at all, in the subject of electrical power systems, and the committee report came out precisely as expected “build gas power plants, bury Sampur”.

The decision to cancel the Sampur power plant, in 2016 was a decision to kill, and not to develop, the electricity sector. Even a decision to kill a project would have been compensated, at least partially, if Yahapalana had swiftly commenced a gas import terminal and gas-fired power plant, but they did not do that either, said an irate expert.

What would it have cost to resettle the people of Sampur in good alternative homes and lands, asked critics.  Calculate on the basis of 1000 families, though the estimate given was 825 families in June 2015. If it takes Rs 2 million per family to relocate to new lands (including homes, schools, health, and transport), 1000 families will require Rs 2 billion. That’s two orders of magnitude less than Rs.213 billion. Even if the cost per family was five times higher, comparatively the total it is still tiny said, one critic. “The additional cost which has to be incurred between 2019 and 2024 to provide oil-fired power due to the absence of Sampur coal power is $1.271 billion (Rs 213 billion).

The Government, during its first 100 days, decided to retire most independent power producer (IPP) power plants, resulting in the loss of medium-term power plants. It then also decided to stop the Sampur coal power plant. As such, both short-term and medium-term power plants were lost to us,” CEBEU said. We have been pushed into a situation where only the purchase of costly emergency power can end the crisis.

Experts complain that no major power project has been commissioned since Norochcholai in May 2006. A tender floated in 2016 to construct a power plant has still not been awarded. As of May 2019, it is being shuffled around between various authorities. The delay is supposedly due to various Ministers jockeying for different investors based on who is prepared to pay the highest commission.’

CEB had incurred a loss of over 80 billion in 2018 and it would continue to hemorrhaging money for the next six to seven years unless a major low-cost power plant was set up, they said in February 2019. ‘After the Norochcholai Power Plant was built in 2014, the generation cost of one unit of electricity dropped to Rs. 15.07 and the government was able to reduce the electricity bill by 25%. However, since then no low-cost thermal power plants had been added to the system, though each year the demand went up by 200 MW. The cost of one unit of electricity had gone up to Rs 21.32 in 2017 and the CEB had lost Rs 45 billion that year.

Then came the good news. In May 2019 it was reported that at last sanity has prevailed. Cabinet approved the construction of three coal power plants.  They gave the approval to construct two 300 Mw coal power plants at Foul Point, Trincomalee, and another 300 Mw coal power plant at Norochcholai.

CEB VS PUCSL

THE Ceylon Electricity Board  (CEB) controls the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity on the island. It is, therefore, a very powerful organization. It is also a technically very competent body,  well trained in electricity generation.

An official recalled that in 1980, Dr. P. N. Fernando, Electrical Engineer, Ceylon Electricity Board went to the World Bank to run the Wien Automatic System Planning a computerized generation planning program developed by IAEA, then available on the WB mainframe computer. On his return, he set up the Generation Branch in CEB and trained other engineers.

Since then CEB engineers have very efficiently carried out Generation Planning, taking into consideration, the local, international and global requirements, and the need to run as a viable commercial venture, with the least inconvenience to consumers.   There is no other competent body to dictate terms to highly qualified electrical engineers in this field in the CEB,  officials declared.

However, a monster organization in the name of PUCSL had been set up to question the experts of the CEB, and alter or delete some items from the Least Cost, Long term Generation Plan.  There is a suspicion as to whether the PUCSL  was set up to sabotage CEB proposals, to create a power crisis so that private suppliers can benefit. PUCSL has interfered to the extent of calling for consultancy for the removal of electric posts. CEB must be taken out of PUCSL control. It is high time the government seriously thinks of abrogating the Act which gave birth to this monstrous PUCSL organization, said, critics.

The CEB was managed efficiently, prior to coming under PUCSL and there was a time when the Treasury insisted that the CEB invest in Treasury bonds rather than elsewhere. That was due to mutual understanding and directives given by the Ministry for Power and Energy and CEB, guided by a knowledgeable Minister and Secretary to the Ministry. The  Chief Electrical Engineer post at Ministry should be re-introduced, with extra powers, engaging a very knowledgeable senior electrical engineer to oversee, instruct and guide the CEB.

No one is  more competent to formulate an energy generation plan than the Generation Plan Engineers of the CEB and its outstanding energy experts, taking into consideration the country’s needs, global requirements, its own working of the institution to run at a profit at the same time conscious  of pricing to ease the burden on consumers, concluded critics.

In July 2019 the media reported that there is a cabinet paper to amend Sri Lanka’s Electricity Act to remove powers from PUCSL and to take the same to the Ministry of Power and Energy. This will result in major manipulation of powers and will lead to more emergency power purchasing from private parties, no transparency, no monitoring from third parties on the power purchase, power agreements and tariff of consumers which involves billions in public money, said critics. This will lead to tariff increase of the electricity consumers as well as establish the CEB as a loss-making entity for the next decade, said critics.

POWER CUTS

The power crisis in Sri Lanka had been looming for a considerable period, said analysts. Engineers had warned power cuts were inevitable by March or April 2019. This idiotic government was warned about this calamity by the CEB, the CEB Engineers Union, the Institution of Engineers and independent consultants, critics said. Power crises will happen for the next five to six years, warned the CEB Engineers’ Union (CEBEU) in 2019.

Several factors have contributed to the present power crisis. This was mainly due to the non-implementation of several critical power projects,  Norochcholai Coal Power Plant (since 1990),Kerawalapitiya Combined Cycle Power Plant (since 1990), Trincomalee Coal Power Plant (since 1985)and Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Plant (since 1990) said one critic. At least 150mw of power should be added to the national grid every year. There has been no major plant since 2014. CEB   blamed the PUCSL for not approving the CEB’s Least Cost Long-Term Generation Expansion Plan.

The power crisis was due to several factors, agreed on a second critic. Firstly, the undue long delay in selecting an investor to build the 300 MW combined cycle power plant at Kerawalapitiya, for which proposals were invited in November 2016. Secondly, the undue long delay of over 10 years for finalizing the plans to build the coal power plant at Sampur, Thirdly, the cancellation of the BOO project inviting proposals in November 2006 to build 4×300 MW coal power plants on the Southern coast during 2012 – 2020, Fourthly, the cancellation of the BOO project to build a 1200 MW LNG power plant at Hambantota, initially with 300 MW capacity, when it was about to commence work in 2015.

Engineers warned in April 2019 that the power situation was extremely volatile. The supply of electricity after the national holidays hinges only on a perfect scenario” where all power plants work smoothly, emergency power is connected promptly and the expected monsoons arrive on time,” warned the President of the Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers Union. In the event of an unfortunate breakdown in Norochcholai, power cuts would become inevitable, he said.

Engineers in charge of managing power supply wrote to the CEB’s Board of Directors on March 6 saying power cuts will have to be introduced to balance the grid. The General Manager notified the Ministry on March 18 that the utility planned to curtail electricity. He attached the proposed power cut schedule with the letter. But the Ministry did not grant permission, the CEBEU alleged.

The CEB repeatedly notified Power and Energy Minister that the situation was gradually deteriorating. Once the reservoirs are drained, we can’t refill them unlike fuel tanks,” the GM pointed out. We forecast this from October. And we gradually came to a situation where supply capacity was not enough to meet demand.”The CEB is now being accused of illegally imposing power cuts without prior notice but the Ministry must take the blame for refusing to give permission despite warnings being conveyed well in advance.”

Energy sector sources said there was another development that worsened the crisis. The reservoirs did, indeed, have water,” said one expert. But in December, the CEB carried out a planned shutdown of the Lakvijaya coal power plant’s third unit for an overhaul and they couldn’t get it running till February. What was meant to last one month went on for two-and-half months. They drew down on the reservoirs to plug the gap.”

The CEB was then compelled to introduce power cuts without notice to prevent the grid from crashing. If the system cannot meet the demand, it will go for automatic shutdown in six steps,” officials said. Whether the PUCSL or anybody else says we can’t have power cuts, the system will trigger a natural death. We are preventing it by shedding some excess power. The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka, the regulator,  took the CEB to court for implementing power cuts without prior notice or approval.

Engineers had recommended the extension of agreements with retired IPPs like ACE Power Embilipitiya and Asia Power in Sapugaskanda. The CEBEU opposed emergency power on principle” but there was now no other way to stave off electricity interruptions. This crisis could have been avoided if we started private generation in January 2019,” but there were objections to this. Everyone started shouting that there was enough water in the reservoirs and that CEB was trying to get private power from friends and colleagues, experts said.

Emergency power purchases have been criticized. The actual cost of oil power-based electricity can be as high as 43 Rs/kWh and yet the government adds more emergency power plants to the system. “In 2019, the CEB purchased 670 megawatts of emergency power an increase from 158 megawatts in 2018. The number was 100 megawatts in 2016. The CEB, once a profit-making entity has now become a loss-making entity due to this private power purchase.

In March 2019 the media reported that people are left without electricity for three to four hours at times. In April 2019, the media reported that the majority of electricity consumers were confounded by the manner and timings of the power cuts. As they were unpredictable, it left them unable to plan their daily routines or work. Some consumers spoke of how they had no power cuts at all while others said they experienced more than other areas, even as long as four hours. And the most common allegation was that areas with VIP residences were not having their electricity curtailed.

The power cuts are organized by feeder”..Where there are multiple feeders”, say 10 to 20 feeders for a particular time slot, there is no need to shed all the feeders at the same time,”  CEB said. This is why some power cuts have been of varying lengths; and why some areas don’t have interruptions even when they are scheduled and others have cuts without forewarning.

In April media reported that with less than five days left for the Sinhala and Tamil New year, power cuts have affected all sectors including the business community. They have made day-to-day lives of people difficult as even simple errands are routinely put off. Shopping plans are delayed, service providers are failing to meet deadlines and normal life is disrupted.

In some areas, the public cannot take phone calls are fiber-optic lines are inoperable during power outages. Communication centers and shops that sell printouts, image scanning, telephone and Wi-Fi services are suffering. People with various ailments are affected as some pharmacies are closed during power interruptions with air-conditioners not functioning. Many medicines need to be stored in cool conditions with less humidity.

Vehicle repair shops and service stations can’t function as electric hydraulic lifts, pressurized water guns and pumps don’t function. These garages, therefore, have to halt certain services for hours. Rice mill owners, grinding mills and those who store fresh milk and frozen products including fish have been badly hit.

Eateries, restaurants, and bakeries were suffering not only because customers had to bear the dark and the heat. Their electric ovens, refrigerators, cool rooms, as well as food heaters, were of several hours a day. The water sumps at construction sites as well as high rise buildings were affected. Apartments on the highest floors were the worst hit. The phone and computer repair shops were also complaining. Though Colombo city did not experience power cuts until last week, the situation changed this week with the CEB curtailing power in selected areas. It attributed this to the worsening power situation”.

A small-time printing press owner said his printing press was off for over three hours a day now. Why can’t the government at least provide power during the week prior to Sinhala and Tamil New Year?” he asked. This is the time we get work to print banners, notices, cards, and calendars for New Year.” He traveled to Colombo to get work done for clients as he had to meet deadlines. Loss of business has made it difficult for him to pay New Year salary advances to the five employees at the press.

A three-member ministerial committee headed by Power and Energy Minister Ravi Karunanayake with Highways Minister Kabir Hashim and Non-Cabinet Economic Reforms and Public Distribution Minister Harsha de Silva was  tasked to make urgent recommendations to end the power crisis .in April 2019 it was reported that  alterations have been made to its report by a senior official of the Ministry of Power and Energy. The committee’s original report had been tippexed and the additions included.

 This has triggered questions on whether the alterations were intended to promote certain business interests under the cover of the power crisis. For example, the committee had specifically recommended the purchase of 200MW  of power for six months from a private supplier operating a barge-mounted plant. The ministry official had added other barge-mounted power projects. Another was the inclusion of two different contracts to different companies for LNG projects — a subject that did not come before the Committee. Though the recommendations were intended to be for a short-term period, the official changed it. It is not clear whether the official included these changes on his own or at the insistence of political leaders. At least, one committee member had refused to sign the report, forcing the Ministry official to revert to the original recommendations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The country is persistently short of solid, baseload generating capacity, said an engineer. Not a single large power plant has entered the construction stage since 2012 since CEB began work on generator number 3 at Norochcholai, the country’s only coal-fired power plant. It is now five years since Norochcholai was completed, and none of the new larger power plants in the long-term plan has reached anywhere near the foundation stage. Wind, solar, biomass, or similar power plants can supplement, but they cannot substitute the crying need for solid baseload, lower-cost electricity generating capacity.

If the Government wants to listen to the professional point of view, here is the solution:

 Step 1: Appoint a task force with full powers (no politicians, no committees or anyone linked to various committees), to build 1000 Megawatt in Trincomalee, expandable to 2000 MW. Target date to produce electricity: 500 Megawatt in 2023, 500 Megawatt in 2024 

Step 2: Appoint a task force with full powers (no politicians or anyone linked to any of the committees), to build one LNG terminal.Target date to get gas into the country: 2022. Have all the planned gas-fired power plants (existing and new) ready to run by 2022 on gas. Establish a Gas Authority and a Gas Industry Act, to ensure respectable investors come in, not the dubious contractors presently hovering around various politicians.

Step 3: Get more wind and solar power plants into the grid, on the basis of competitive bidding, fix limits to what can be absorbed into the grid. A solid power generating system, not a shaky one as we have, is required to absorb smaller hydro, wind, solar and biomass, to cope with shaky resources like wind and sunshine. ( CONTINUED)

KAMALIKA PIERIS

GAS TERMINALS (1)

The electricity generation is moving in the direction the saboteurs wanted it to, towards oil, announced a critic in March 2019. Yahapalana government favors gas terminals. The share of electricity produced from oil reached a 20-year low of 18%, in 2015, and now it has risen back to 34% by 2017, and will surely exceed 50% by 2020.

The retired oil power plants are been revived. Companies are writing reports on how one oil power plant is more expensive than the other. The PUCSL is not approving contracts as regards oil power plants. There are accusations and counter-accusations against oil power plants. In the end, it is oil and more oil, he exclaimed.  Gas costs more than coal and renewables.

India so far has only four gas terminals; three of them hardly used, owing to the higher costs of gas compared with coal and renewables. However, politicians in tiny Sri Lanka are toying with nine gas terminal proposals.

Are we really building a gas terminal asked one critic.  The number of gas terminals being contemplated by various arms and individuals of the government is nine, but none has reached the construction phase. All proposals and their hidden sponsors within various government committees try to evade the competitive bidding process. The spoils too attractive to share. One LNG power plant was to come up by 2021 but the government hasn’t even called for tenders for the second power plant.

One advertisement for an LNG terminal said that the government had got a proposal for an LNG terminal, and anyone could match that could send counterproposals within five weeks. The terminal is at least a 300-million-dollar investment. Surely, no company of repute would even attempt to send a counter-proposal to finance and build a 300-million-dollar asset in five weeks. Even a building contractor takes two weeks to send his pricing to build a 10-million-rupee house! Here, we have a government that has received a proposal from an interested party, which was not solicited (meaning there was no tender process in the first place) now trying to rush the proposal through by inviting counter-proposals in five weeks so that there will be no counter-proposals.

One investor had submitted a proposal to build an LNG receiving terminal at the Hambantota Port along with a 1200 MW natural gas-fired power plant in the Port premises, which has been accepted by the SLPA.  He had submitted a proposal in response to a call for proposals published in the press by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) for setting up business ventures at Hambantota Port.

After evaluating the proposals and short-listing them, which took about one and a half years, the said proposal was recommended to the Cabinet by the then Minister of Ports and Shipping in March 2014 and was taken up at the Cabinet meeting in April. The Cabinet memorandum has recommended the construction of a 1200 MW of LNG power plants phased out over a period of eight years, subject to the investor entering into a Joint Venture Company (JVC) with the CEB and BOI and 10% shares issued to the Treasury. The power purchase agreement was to be entered by CEB with the JVC.

The investor gave the assurance that he could supply uninterrupted power as required and build an LNG terminal hub, which meant the re-exporting of LNG as well as extending its use in other sectors locally in transport. The Investor agreed to form a JVC as suggested and the SLPA agreed to lease out the necessary extent of land within the Port premises to set up the LNG storage tanks and the power plant.

Cabinet approved the project and Secretary to the Ministry of Ports & Shipping SLPA wrote to him, releasing 30 ha of land within the Port premises requesting him to take necessary follow up action. The Investor commenced preliminaries such as getting the environment impact assessment report prepared. Then to his surprise, he received a copy of a letter dated June 2016, from the Chairman of SLPA, addressed to the Secretary to the President, informing him that the project had been disallowed by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) at a meeting in May. The reason given was that the CCEM had decided to put on hold all the projects planned under the RFPs because the government had decided to hand over the Hambantota Port to the Chinese.

Had the project not been aborted by the government, it would have commenced in mid-2016 after completing the EIA within one year. With the fuel being natural gas, there would not have been any pollution unlike in the case of a coal-fired power plant, and the location has already been set up, EIA approval would not have taken much time. With the construction of the plant to be undertaken by the investor, there would not have been any ministry tender procedures which could have delayed the process. The time span could have been further reduced if the proposal had not been referred to the Cabinet twice.

If this project was not canceled, the first phase of simple cycle operation generating 200 MW of power could have been completed by the end of 2017 and the balance work generating an additional 100 MW of power generation by the end of 2018, generating a total of 300 MW of clean power in 2019 at a cost of LKR 12.25 a unit (@ LKR 175 per USD). There wouldn’t be any external costs as there is no pollution caused by natural gas. This proposed LNG-operated power plant, expected to generate about 2000 GWh annually, would have greatly helped CEB, helping it save around LKR 15 Billion annually? This is the loss to the country by canceling the proposed LNG project, concluded critics.

GAS TERMINALS (2)

In February 2019 Cabinet of Ministers has appointed a committee to look into the government decision to award a tender to a Sri Lankan-Chinese joint venture for the construction of a 300 MW LNG power plant at Kerawalapitiya. The appointment of the committee will further delay the construction of the LNG power plant, which should have been operational by now, said critics. This power plant should have been up and running by 2019.

The tender opening was in January 2017 and the contract was to be awarded later that year, but due to a tug of war between Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) affiliated LTL Holdings and China’s Golden Concord Holdings with its local partner WindForce and RenewGen caused the tender process to be delayed.

The country will lose Rs. 90 billion within the next 20 years if the government awarded the construction for the construction of a 300 MW LNG power plant at Kerawalapitiya to any company other than Lanka Transformers Ltd (LTL),  said the LTL unions, addressing the Presidential Commission of Inquiry investigating corruption in the current administration.

LTL was one of the main contenders for the construction of the plant. LTL had been recommended by the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) on the power plant on four separate occasions. However, various parties with vested interests had attempted to ensure that they didn’t get the contract.

“In November 2016, the tender was called for the construction of the power plant and we submitted our bid on April 21, 2017. It was a two-envelope system, where technical and financial bids are submitted separately and the financial bids of those who have been successful in their technical bids are opened. On June 06, 2017, the TEC decided that financial bids of six companies should be opened, but the Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee only opened the bid of one Company, Samsung C & T. But because they had not submitted a hard copy of an important document their financial bid was rejected.

“At a meeting held on June 13, 2017, Secretary to the Ministry of Power, had told Chairperson of LTL, to withdraw the LTL’s bid. It raised suspicions that there would be deliberate attempts to scuttle their bid. “We had the least cost––the price of a unit of power was Rs. 14.98. The second best price by WindForce was Rs. 15.97. The TEC approved our bid and sent us some details for us to clarify. On November 22, 2017, we provided the necessary information. The Ministry obtained a letter from the Ministry of Finance stating that the equipment LTL wanted to import was not exempt from VAT. LTL again inquired about this from the Finance Ministry as the VAT Act had not been amended.

We were informed that such concessions had been suspended from November 2016. But still, even if we added VAT our price was 80 cents lower than the second closest bidder’s. The TEC considered that and recommended that be consulted to see if we were ready to provide a unit of power at the same price, even without the VAT exemption. We agreed. So far we have been chosen by TEC on four separate occasions but the Ministry of Power hasn’t even given us an appointment.”

SOLAR POWER (1)

In April 2019, Solar Industries Association (SIA)   presented their ‘Least cost long term solar PV generation plan 2019 – 2025’   The electricity demand for 2019 was estimated to be about 16 000 gigawatt-hours with a 5% annual demand growth, around 800 gigawatt-hours, in the coming years, the SIA said. The Minister of Power says that we have a gap of around 700 megawatts daily.

The CEB has no plan to meet this increase .and it is unlikely that a large power plan will come up until 2025. The only plan they have is to purchase emergency power as a stop-gap measure. This will be a massive financial cost to the CEB and the people. The estimated cost of purchasing emergency power in 2019 alone is estimated to be Rs. 101 and the accumulated cost over the next seven years would be Rs. 1187 billion, most of which will be paid for fuel imports.

Sri Lanka could have saved up to Rs. 266 billion between 2019 and 2025 if it had met the electricity demand that increased by around 800 Gigawatt hours annually by using solar power, SIA  said. The process of constructing large fossil fuel power plants was long, but solar power units could be established very quickly. Unlike highly polluting private power plants running on diesel and furnace oil, solar power causes no pollution at all.

SIA said that Sri Lanka lost Rs. 1 billion a day due to the four-hour power cut. Things would have been much more difficult if not for the 230 megawatts of power added to the grid by solar power units in the last four years. If the 230 megawatts weren’t there the power cuts would have started on February 2019.

The Solar industry proposes that the government purchase that power at Rs. 23.10 per unit with battery storage and rooftop conversions at Rs. 22. Battery storage would resolve one of the most popular criticisms against solar, i.e. that it can’t be stored. “This will have zero investment cost to the government and solar power can be connected to the national grid within six months.  Awarding these contracts to local entrepreneurs will prevent heavy foreign currency outflows, generate a large number of jobs and create a positive effect on the economy,” Fernando said.

SIA said that there were over 650 applications for generating 1,500 megawatts of electricity using solar power, piled up at the Sustainable Energy Authority since 2016. If those applications had been processed Sri Lanka would not have been undergoing any electricity shortages and there would have been no need for the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) to purchase emergency power at a high cost.

SOLAR POWER (2)

The Solar Industry Association expressed its dissatisfaction in June 2019 over the sudden decision taken by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Ministry of Power and Energy to stop the installation of country’s future solar power projects that could add 200 MW to the national grid other than small size solar power projects.

Surya Bala Sangramaya program was launched in 2016 with the sole objective of producing energy using solar power and over 17,000 solar power installations have so far been successfully carried out in all parts of the country. The program has been a resounding success with over 17,000 installations and a combined energy capacity of nearly 200 MW added to the national grid.

The decision, taken to stop the installation of solar power projects will also lead to the complete destruction of the solar industry in Sri Lanka. In June 2019, Solar Industry Association (SIA) alleges that the ‘Surya Bala Sangraamaya’ program, is on the verge of collapse and it will also lead to the loss of over 10,000 employment opportunities.

SOLAR POWER (3)

On 28 May 2019, CEB had stopped accepting applications for solar power projects over 50 kW in size.”They informed us that Net Metering Systems (carry forward of excess energy produced by solar projects in homes) and Net Accounting Systems (sale of extra energy produced by solar projects in homes to the CEB) will be canceled. Meanwhile, Net Plus Tariffs (CEB buys all energy produced by solar projects) are to be drastically reduced rendering the scheme commercially unviable.”These steps would lead to the collapse of the solar industry in Sri Lanka. When the solar power industry collapses, the CEB would have to purchase more power from private thermal power producers at higher prices.

However, In July 2019, Power, Energy, and Business Development Minister Ravi Karunanayake announced that the government is calling for tenders to build 90 Solar Power Plants with a capacity of 1 MW each. Already 76 projects have been awarded procurement approval under this program. Questioned as to why there was no standardization applied to imports of solar panels, he replied The reason why we have not introduced specific standardization to solar panels is that if we do so, some businessmen may accuse us of favoring one country over the other. So we have given the consumers the power to choose their preferred equipment. This is more or less why we have not implemented an official standardization,” he explained.    End of  Pt 11 ( continued)

Meera Srinivasan Courtesy The Hindu

The former President’s reaction is among the first from Sri Lankan political leaders after New Delhi ended Jammu & Kashmir’s special status.

Commenting on the prospects for power devolution to Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils, Leader of Opposition and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has made a reference to the current situation in Kashmir.”

Leading Sri Lankan Tamil daily Virakesari on Saturday published a wide-ranging interview with Mr. Rajapaksa. To a question on his future plans for evolving a political solution to the island’s long-pending Tamil question, Mr. Rajapakasa is quoted as saying: There are two strands of opinion now. Some want a new constitution. Some want a federal arrangement. And some say that a political solution based on the 13th Amendment would suffice. But a solution should not be one that divides the country. Look at what has just happened in Kashmir. We need to take steps keeping all these in mind. We have to understand these factors while we pursue a political solution.”

His reaction is among the first from Sri Lankan political leaders after New Delhi ended Jammu & Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories. Earlier, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe called it India’s internal matter” in a tweet, in which he said Ladakh would become the first Indian state with a Buddhist-majority” — a claim that was subsequently challenged on social media, for its factual accuracy.

Mr. Rajapaksa’s interview, appearing on the eve of the scheduled announcement of the presidential candidate to be fielded by the political front backing him, gives a glimpse into the leader’s thinking, in the run-up to the presidential polls to be held before the end of the year.

Noting that he had five candidates, Mr. Rajapaksa said in the interview: Tomorrow I will name the best of them, the one who will strengthen national security.”

While his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a powerful war-time defence secretary, is widely expected to be named presidential candidate on Sunday, Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa will take over the leadership of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or People’s Front) officially, after being its de facto leader for nearly three years since it was launched as a platform backing him.

Amid much speculation and questions, especially over Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s renunciation of his U.S. citizenship — Sri Lankan laws prohibit dual citizens from contesting — minority Tamil and Muslim parties are closely following developments. Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is accused of committing war crimes and was also linked to hard-line Sinhala Buddhist groups known for inciting violence targeting the Muslims. He has denied the allegations.

To Virakesari’s question on the minorities’ discomfort with Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s candidature, the Leader of Opposition said: I don’t think there is truth in that. In reality, further to the [19th] constitutional amendment, the Prime Minister has more powers. I am the Prime Ministerial candidate [general elections are due next year], so we have to work together.”

On his views of LTTE chief Prabakaran, in the context of the Easter terror attacks in April, Mr. Rajapaksa said: He had an objective, he had direction and discipline. The path Prabakaran took was wrong, but there was discipline and restraint in his actions. He would strike when he wanted to and choose not to at other times. But the Easter attacks were not like that. They [terrorists] could attack at any time, and they are even willing to die for that.”

R BHAGWAN SINGH Courtesy DECCAN CHRONICLE.

Gotabaya is not a bad man as they (opposition) project, he is a man of action and he is not of many words, operates quietly.

 Mahinda Rajapaksa (Photo: AP)

In an exclusive interview to R. Bhagwan Singh just an hour before his scheduled meeting with the leaders of Opposition alliance late Saturday evening at his residence in Colombo, where he was expected to break his silence on the Presidential candidate for his Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)-means Sri Lanka Peoples’ Front-former President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa insists the fears in India about him being pro-China are unfounded” and he is the best friend India can ever have in Sri Lanka”. Asked to comment on the Kashmir developments, he said the two nuclear powers should sit down and talk, aided by a third party both would trust, such as the Secretary General of the United Nations. Excerpts from the interview:

Q Everyone seems to know who your candidate is; they are saying it will be your brother and former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa taking on SLFP’s nominee in the Presidential election in November? And you have gone on record saying you would be the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka when PM election are held next year?

Mahinda Rajapaksa: (laughs) Yes and No. We have not decided yet (on Gotabaya being the candidate), but the people have decided I think (that it should be Gotabaya).

Q There were allegations from the Opposition side even last time that you are heading a dynastic rule with you as the President and your brothers in powerful positions in the government. And people appeared to have agreed with that when the results came and you lost. Won’t that happen again now?

MR: Those charges are political and not real. The talk of dynastic rule is not relevant anymore since the people want it for their own sake. They want safety, security. They want development, they want jobs. We will deliver that. Gotabaya is not a bad man as they (opposition) project, he is a man of action and he is not of many words, operates quietly. With him as the President and I, being the elder political leader with vast experience as the Prime Minister, we can together deliver to the people what they badly need now. And people are aware of that. Now there is no law & order, no democracy, no elections to provincial councils despite the 13th Amendment. The present government had been only busy indulging in persecution and prosecution, and taking revenge of people associated with my government. Delhi knows that we will deliver security and development to Sri Lanka and also ensure good relations with India.

Q And that attack on Muslims that they attributed to Gotabaya?

MR: That was a lie spread by them. They would go and attack Muslim villages and say loudly, ‘Vote for Rajapaksa’, so the blame would be on us. It was an organised planned campaign against us. But now the Muslim people know who was really responsible, they are intelligent and educated.

Q That there have been war crime charges against Mr Gotabaya..

MR: They were all political (charges). If the TNA could back Fonseka who actually led the war and Tamil people then accepted the TNA, why will they not support us now, seeing the manner in which the TNA failed them.

Q So you are confident the minorities will vote for you?

MR: Yes. Even the Tamil people are seeing what happened. At least the Muslim ministers in the Cabinet are doing something but the TNA MPs are doing nothing for people; they are only taking care of themselves. The Chief Minister in the Northern Province (former Supreme Court judge CV Vigneswaran) at least opposes the government whereas the TNA MPs and leaders like Sampanthan and Sumanthiran, are supporting the government but they are not getting anything for the people. They are getting for themselves. When we come to power, I will ensure the Tamils have a settlement acceptable to all within two years.

Q How are your equations with the Narendra Modi Government, because I remember in 2015 you were very unhappy and even blamed Indian RAW for causing your defeat in the Presidential election?

MR: Past is past. We have forgotten it. Now we understand each other better than ever before. India understands that only we can deliver security and development in Sri Lanka whereas the present dispensation is ridden with conflict between President Maithripala and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe which was one of the reasons why the Easter blasts happened. I went to meet him (Modi) in May. In the past (2015), they were worried because two (Chinese) submarines came here (Colombo port) and went back. But now what has happened? They have come and they have stayed. They are very much here all the time since Hambantotta port has been sold to the Chinese, who have been given many other assets and projects, such as 200-year-lease for the Colombo Port City, and so on. They (Chinese) are permanently here now.

Q Will you be able to change this situation if you come to power, to change the ratio of Chinese presence compared to Indian projects here?

MR: We have to negotiate these things; when you sign agreement with another country we are bound by that. But India can step up (involvement, investment), such as the airports at Palaly and Mattala, and the petroleum tanks in Trincomallee. Our policy is that we are against privatisation.

Q Do you concede that India is a critically important ally to you, particularly after the Easter bombings? India had sent your government alerts but they went ignored?

MR: For Sri Lanka, India is the closest neighbour and their influence is very much felt here. And as far as I am concerned, India’s best friend will be Mahinda Rajapaksa. And yes, India alerted us about the bombing danger but
that went unheeded because they (President Maithripala and PM Ranil) were fighting among themselves. A country cannot be run effectively by two power-centres.

Q How do you look at the situation in Kashmir, and the action taken by the Modi government?

MR: What was done there was an internal matter of India, no? But still, I would say that being nuclear powers and neighbours, they (India and Pakistan) could sit together and talk. Perhaps a third party trusted by both could bring them both to the table, someone like the UN Secretary General.

Raul Dancel  Philippines Correspondent In Manila Courtesy The Straits Times

Philippine security officials said yesterday they were checking reports that at least two Sri Lankans had slipped into the country to train local militants on bomb-making, even as one of them claimed a family feud had led to false accusations against her.

Mr Rommel Banlaoi, head of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, told The Sunday Times that one of the Sri Lankans, Ms Victoria Sophia Sto Domingo, had met agents from the National Bureau of Investigation “to deny everything”.

But the military’s spokesman, Brigadier-General Edgard Arevalo, said security officials were still trying to verify the information.

Pending that, the case remains under investigation.

“The information immediately available are reports coming from media. We already have some information that we are checking with another agency,” he added.

Mr Banlaoi said Ms Sto Domingo had met government agents and had issued an affidavit saying that she, her fiance Mark Kevin Samhoon and her mother Anarkalie Dulara Palliyaguruge were being framed by an estranged relative over a grudge.

In the affidavit, a copy of which was obtained by The Sunday Times, Ms Sto Domingo said the kin had told the Philippine Bureau of Immigration that the three of them had ties to the National Thowheed Jama’ath, the terrorist group accused of carrying out the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka in April that killed at least 250 people.

Acting on that tip, the bureau issued advisories to airport officials flagging Ms Sto Domingo and Mr Samhoon as “suicide bombers”, and Ms Palliyaguruge as their “financier”. The advisories stated that Ms Sto Domingo arrived in the Philippines in November last year.

In an e-mail to The Sunday Times, Ms Sto Domingo said the false accusations were “a form of harassment towards me, my mother and my fiance due to a family feud”.

She said she has been estranged from the relative since 2002.

“This is not the first time he has harassed or caused trouble in our lives using social media to bully me and my family,” she added.

She clarified that she went to the Philippines to give birth, and Mr Samhoon, whose mother was said to be a Filipino maid in Dubai, is still in Sri Lanka and has never been to the Philippines.

She also denied claims that she was involved in the suicide attack in January on a Roman Catholic cathedral in Sulu province. The attack killed 23 people and wounded at least 100.

In her affidavit, Ms Sto Domingo said she and Mr Samhoon are “born-again Christians”, and her mother is Buddhist. “None of us have any connections with any terrorist group or terrorist activity.”

Online news site BenarNews, citing military sources, had reported that two Sri Lankans were with a faction of Filipino militants on the main island of Luzon, purportedly planning to attack churches.

Pro-ISIS extremists from abroad had reportedly been sneaking into the Philippines to help militants mount attacks in densely populated cities far from their strongholds in the war-torn southern island of Mindanao.

Courtesy London South East

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lankans, angered by the government’s inability to prevent the Easter Sunday terror attacks that killed more than 250 people, want a strongman back in power who can guarantee their safety and bring back economic growth.

Many are rooting for Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who despite fighting allegations of war crimes, is expected to be announced as the presidential candidate of the opposition nationalist Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party, as early as Sunday.

The Rajapaksa brothers, Gotabaya and Mahinda, were credited with bringing peace to Sri Lanka in 2009 by defeating the Tamil Tigers in a brutal end to the 26-year-long civil war between the Sinhalese Buddhist majority and minority Tamil groups. Gotabaya was the defence secretary at the time and Mahinda the nation’s president.

“The people have requested a leader who can ensure their security,” Basil Rajapaksa, founder of the SLPP and youngest brother of Gotabaya and Mahinda told reporters on Thursday.

Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States for instigating and authorising the extrajudicial killing of a journalist and of war crimes against the Tamils during his time as defence secretary.

He has denied the allegations and said the lawsuits, brought by torture survivors and the daughter of the slain journalist, were timed to thwart his possible presidential run. A final date for the presidential elections has not been decided but must be held before Dec 9.

IGNORED WARNINGS

Sri Lanka’s constitution is modelled on the French system of government where the president has executive powers while the prime minister heads the parliament.

The current government is headed by President Maithripala Sirisena, the leader of centre-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) while Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is from the centre-right United National Party (UNP), which has a majority in the parliament.

Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, who have been at loggerheads since last October, have blamed one another for ignoring warnings from India and failing to stop the attacks. Calls for a nationalist leader like Gotabaya, who has strong support from within Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese Buddhist community, echo similar choices made by voters in other Asian nations including India and Bangladesh.

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was elected for a second term in May in a landslide victory, rallied his Hindu nationalist base and turned the campaign into a fight for national security and an aggressive stance against Pakistan.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won a third straight term in an election last December, has been criticised for suppressing dissent and jailing critics.

ECHOES OF DUTERTE

Reuters spoke to about 60 people, many of whom were victims of the terror attacks or affected by communal violence over the past year, and while some plan to abstain from voting, many of those who will vote say they want a more authoritarian figure.

Many Sri Lankan Catholics will not vote for Sirisena if he stands, said a senior Sri Lankan priest.

He is looking at Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs as an example of the kind of behaviour that is required despite evidence that it involved extrajudicial killings by police.

“A third world country like us needs a tough leader like Duterte – he is doing whatever is needed to rid his country of evils,” said the priest who did not wanted to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

“Gotabaya is accused of crimes but he is tough and that is what we need right now to bring back some order,” he said.

The Catholic Church did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

MINORITIES DIVIDED

A country of 21 million, Sri Lanka has been a tinder box of sectarian and ethnic tensions, first between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist population and Tamil groups, and in recent years between the Sinhalese Buddhists and the Muslim minority.

While most Tamils are unlikely to vote for Gotabaya, the Muslim community may be divided.

S.H.M. Thameem, a government employee who is a Muslim, said he will vote for Gotabaya because the current government has failed to deliver.

“When there were anti-Muslim riots when he was the defence secretary, they were controlled within a day or two but Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have failed to control it. That adversely impacted the Muslim businesses and overall economy,” said Thameem who lives in the north-central district of Anuradhapura.

J.M. Faleel, a Muslim autorickshaw driver in Colombo feels differently.

“We need a dictator, but I will not vote for Gotabaya as he is partially responsible for most of the suffering we see today,” said Faleel, referring to anti-Muslim riots and alleged abuses against the Tamils.

Keheliya Rambukwella, a spokesman for SLPP, said Gotabaya was out of the country when the worst violence against Muslims took place.

“But still he was able to prevent it within a day. This government could not control the spreading of anti-Muslim riots for a week last,” he told Reuters.

The lawsuit allegations in the United States may not hurt Gotabaya’s chances of winning because he has the overwhelming support of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, said Kusal Perera, a political columnist in Sri Lanka.

“This election will be decided by the large majority of Sinhalese Buddhists who believe they need a hardline president to put things right. The Tamils and Muslims will be left out in deciding the president,” said Perera.

Courtesy Adaderana

An article published by the Singaporean media outlet, The Strait Times, said yesterday (09) that at least two terrorists from Sri Lanka have allegedly sneaked into the Philippines to train local militants on making bombs and attacking churches and other soft targets north of the country. 

It is alleged that the two terrorists, who had links to the National Thowheed Jama’ath (NTJ), sneaked into the Philippines with a third terrorist acting as a financier.

The article went on to provide the names of the alleged suspects and quoted the spokesperson of the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, Salvador Panelo, as saying that the security forces in Luzon were on high alert to thwart such attacks.

It, however, transpires that the report is baseless putting the name persons at a severe disadvantage also making a resounding case for a crackdown on fake news.

Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, the Co-Author of Three Pillars of Radicalization: Needs, Narratives and Networks, speaking to Ada Derana, said the article in question has no basis and that the two individuals mentioned there are victims of fake news.

He stated that the government of the Philippines has verified that this article is fake. It is highly likely that the Philippines would issue in this regard in the coming days, he added.

Prof. Gunaratna highlighted the importance of the Sri Lankan government making an announcement stating that these two individuals are not linked to terrorism.

The government must take measures to introduce legislation to counter fake news while emphasizing on the importance of responsible reporting.