{"id":89277,"date":"2019-05-24T22:58:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T04:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=89277"},"modified":"2019-05-24T05:51:56","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T12:51:56","slug":"imagine-if-we-had-the-new-constitution-in-place-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/24\/imagine-if-we-had-the-new-constitution-in-place-now\/","title":{"rendered":"IMAGINE IF WE HAD THE NEW CONSTITUTION IN PLACE NOW!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gamini Gunawardane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

The other day at a meeting held at the\nBMICH after the April 21st<\/sup> disaster, MP Sumanthiran, it was reported\nin \u2018The Island\u2019, had asserted something to the effect that the carnage in\nquestion was again a symptom of non-addressing of the grievances of the\nminorities and that the minorities would not agree to live as one nations in\nthis country unless treated as equal citizens. This he had said to the lusty\napprobation of the invited audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe what Mr. Sumanthiran is\nlamenting and is aggrieved and frustrated here in other words with, is the\nnon-passage of their proposed new constitution in Parliament so far. The\nintended implication is that if it was, the minorities could agree to live here\nas equal citizens under the present situation. \nAnd the problem would not have arisen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us for a moment imagine that the new\nConstitution was in place by now. It would mean the coming to be of 9\nindependent Provincial Governments with a nominal, non-executive President and\nwith 9 Chief Ministers and governors appointed in consultation with the\nrespective Chief Ministers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now let us imagine if the 21\/4 carnage\noccurred under these circumstances. (As Malcom Ranjith Cardinal had pointed\nout, this carnage had been carried out by a local Muslim extremist group\ninspired by the ISIS. rather than due to any minority grievance).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the TID officers of Police HQ. wanted\nto walk into the Dematagoda nerve centre of NTJ, They couldn\u2019t do that like the\nway they did, almost within an hour. They would first have had to obtain the\npermission of Mr. Asath Sally the Governor Western province, having placed\nbefore him the available information or, grounds for their reasonable\nsuspicion. Needless to say if that was done, there would have been no explosion\nin the house, killing the inmates and the children. It would have saved the\nlives of the 3 police officers and resulted in no recovery of any incriminating\nevidence. Isn\u2019t that a good result ensuring tolerance \u2013 live and let live\npolicy of the central government?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the next thing that happened two days\nlater was that the STF and the Army raided successfully 3 safe houses of NTJ in\nSammanathurai, Sainthamaranthu and Kattanakudy with success. If it was under\nthe new constitution, whose prior permission would they have had to obtain?\nFrom none other than the Governor EP, Mr. M.L.M. Hisbulla himself ! If they did,\nno deaths would have occurred. No evidence recovered. It would have been a case\nof unnecessary instance of harassment of the innocent minority group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next thing that we heard was that the\nArmy and Police had subjected the Kilinocchi University to a thorough search.\nUnder the new Constitution, they would have had to obtain the permission of Dr.\nRaghavan, having convinced him of the reasons for their suspicion or\ninformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just the other day we read that Kurunegala\nPolice had come all the way to Rajagiriya and had arrested a Hansard Department\nstaffer of the Parliament and that he was a resident of Alawathugoda in Kandy\nDistrict and he was concerned with activities of the NTJ in Akurana Katugastota\nPolice area. Under the new Constitution, Asath Sally would have asked, How\ndare you  ? , so would the Governor of\nthe Central Province. They would have taken the police officers before the\nConstitutional Court for violation of the Constitution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would have been the lunatic state of\naffairs if the new constitution would have been passed in Parliament to please\nthe UNHRC\u2019S 30\/1 Resolution, and the likes of Sumanthiran and others who had\napplauded him at the BMICH. Does this not lay bare the fact that the purpose of\nthe proposers of the new Constriction was meant to destroy the law enforcement mechanism\nand governance of this country? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for whose benefit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Gamini Gunawardane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The other day at a meeting held at the BMICH after the April 21st disaster, MP Sumanthiran, it was reported in \u2018The Island\u2019, had asserted something to the effect that the carnage in question was again a symptom of non-addressing of the grievances of the minorities and that the minorities would not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89277","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=89277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}