{"id":52247,"date":"2016-02-21T13:57:43","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T20:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52247"},"modified":"2016-02-21T13:57:43","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T20:57:43","slug":"etca-and-mandates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/02\/21\/etca-and-mandates\/","title":{"rendered":"ETCA and mandates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

February 21, 2016, 7:41 pm<\/span><\/p>\n

The Government Medical Officers\u2019 Association (GMOA) has annoyed many a government leader by opposing the controversial Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) to be signed with India. Hardly a day passes without some self-important ruling party potentate venting his spleen on doctors.<\/p>\n

Minister Lakshman Kiriella has told our sister paper, the Sunday Divaina<\/i>, that the government does not care about those who are without a popular mandate and is planning to make a public display of its strength by holding a rally next month. The previous government also resorted to such muscle flexing in a bid to frighten its opponents into submission, but could not perpetuate its hold on power.<\/p>\n

Demonstrations to be staged by government backers, blinded by party politics and intoxicated with free rotgut, won\u2019t help legitimize ETCA or any other pact inimical to the country\u2019s interests. On the other hand, the course of action the government is contemplating is tantamount to throwing down the gauntlet which its opponents are sure to pick up. Street protests have a snowballing effect and it is a mistake for any government to trigger them.<\/p>\n

The Rajapaksa government unflinchingly used a two-thirds majority it secured through a process of despicable political manoeuvring to change the Constitution. The present administration, claiming to uphold good governance, is using a similarly obtained parliamentary majority to ram ETCA down the people\u2019s throats.<\/p>\n

The present government which speaks so highly of popular mandates has within its ranks some defeated candidates appointed to Parliament against the people\u2019s will and made ministers! It is led by a bunch of politicians who grovelled before Prabhakaran, who did not have representation even in a Pradeshiya Sabha! They entered into a ceasefire agreement with the LTTE, gave it parity of status at \u2018peace talks\u2019 and recognized it as the sole representative of the Tamil people. The Sri Lanka Air Force choppers were placed at the disposal of the LTTE leaders who were also given right royal treatment at the BIA, which they had attacked. Terrorists were allowed to operate freely in the North and the East and consolidate their power in those parts of the country. Minister Kiriella, during his Opposition days, derided military action against the LTTE and went so far as to claim that any idiot could wage war. Those who had their tails between their shivering legs and granted the wishes of the LTTE sans any popular mandate are today puffing themselves up and threatening doctors and other professionals!<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the present government which accuses professional associations of engaging in politics and threatens action against them enlisted the support of trade unions including that of bus mudalalis<\/i> before the last two elections. Several trade unions threw in their lot with the so-called good governance camp and publicly campaigned against the then government. This newspaper has carried pictures of the leaders of those bootlicking trade union leaders receiving awards from Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne for services rendered to the UNP-led coalition!<\/p>\n

Trade unions have social responsibilities. The GMOA has, to its credit, courageously defended the public interest against commercial giants producing tobacco, alcohol and contaminated milk powder; it also threw its weight behind the national medicinal drug policy. It has, in the process, made very powerful enemies who are all out to destroy it with the help of some local quislings.<\/p>\n

One need not be a doctor or an engineer to realise the danger of ETCA, the signing of which will certainly sound the death knell for Sri Lanka\u2019s IT industry still in its infancy; it will prove to be the kiss of death for other sectors as well with the passage of time. Any average person with an iota of intelligence will see that ETCA is heavily loaded in favour of India. Else, New Delhi would not have evinced so keen an interest in it and pushed for inking it in such a hurry. The government says ETCA will help create employment opportunities. That may be so, but the beneficiaries won\u2019t be Sri Lankans!<\/p>\n

Politicians have no moral right to use mandates as bludgeons against professionals who defend the national interest. If the present-day doctors had dropped out of school before passing Grade Five and taken to cattle rustling, chain snatching, drug peddling, armed robbery and frauds, they would have been successful politicians today with popular mandates and instead of 22,000 physicians we would have had an equal number of political blockheads bellowing rhetoric and subjugating the national interest to their political agendas.<\/p>\n

Politicians\u2019 boastful claims of having mandates remind us of the Fuhrer. After the 1932 German election, Hitler also flaunted a popular mandate which he used to bulldoze his way through. What happened to Germany and the rest of the world thereafter because of his mandate is now history. So much for power hungry politicians and popular mandates! Champions of democracy, including trade unions, must join forces to form a countervailing force against such lunatics.<\/p>\n

The GMOA and other professional outfits opposed to ETCA deserve the unstinted backing of all right-thinking Sri Lankans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial Courtesy The Island February 21, 2016, 7:41 pm The Government Medical Officers\u2019 Association (GMOA) has annoyed many a government leader by opposing the controversial Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) to be signed with India. Hardly a day passes without some self-important ruling party potentate venting his spleen on doctors. Minister Lakshman Kiriella has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}