To dissolve or not to dissolve June 11, 2015, 7:41 pm

To dissolve or not to dissolve

June 11, 2015, 7:41 pm 

Some people who have to go past cemeteries alone at night shout obscenities, claiming that they are not scared of evil spirits. They are the ones who fear ghosts most! Others who do not care two hoots about demons even cut catty-cornered across graveyards without making such noises. Similarly, the MPs, alarmed by the prospect of facing an election soon, put a bold face on it by demanding that Parliament be dissolved. Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa said a mouthful when he cynically observed on Wednesday that both sides of the House were afraid of elections in spite of their rhetoric.

Elections are no fun and most parliamentarians fear them. However, there are a least two politicians who really need a general election without further delay—former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

If the SLFP succeeds in dislodging the present administration and capturing power in Parliament before the next parliamentary election Rajapaksa’s prime ministerial dream will be shattered; someone else will get that post and another power centre will emerge within the SLFP as an alternative to both Rajapaksa and Sirisena. This is a worrisome proposition for anyone struggling to make a comeback after an ignominious electoral defeat. Unless Parliament is dissolved while the UNP is in power with Wickremesinghe as the PM, Rajapaksa will be without a foil to project himself as the SLFP’s saviour.

Nothing will please PM Wickremesinghe at this juncture more than the dissolution of Parliament in view of the Opposition’s no faith motion against him. It is also advantageous to the UNP to face an election without further delay because the sharp tumble of the rupee against the dollar, rising oil and other import prices etc are presages of economic trouble. But, all signs are that he will have to wait for a few more weeks.

Former President Rajapaksa has said the present government is without a mandate to rule the country. He has thus sought to call the incumbent administration’s legitimacy into question in a bid to justify his campaign against it. Interestingly, when he was in power his opponents accused him of having manipulated Parliament to muster a two-thirds majority to secure the passage of the 18th Amendment which ironically proved to be his undoing though he had not obtained a mandate for changing the Constitution.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe tells us that the Opposition (read the pro-Mahinda faction of the UPFA) cannot form a government without securing a popular mandate because it was rejected by the people at the Jan. 08 election. He says President Maithripala Sirisena obtained a mandate from the people at the Jan. 06 presidential election to appoint him PM.

The former President should explain why the SLFP decided to hand over the reins of government to the UNP. That move which UPFA heavyweight Vasudeva Nanayakkara has called a fatal mistake had Rajapaksa’s blessings. He made a virtue of necessity. Why didn’t he go flat out to prevent the UNP from grabbing power in Parliament?

President Sirisena’s manifesto did not seek a mandate to change provincial administrations. But, the UNP, which the people rejected at the last PC polls in Uva, toppled the UPFA administration and took over the Uva Provincial Council on the basis that it had mustered a majority. So, how can anyone who approves of that move argue that a popular mandate is a prerequisite for forming a new administration, be it at the periphery or at the centre?

Although Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe want an election forthwith President Sirisena has promises to keep before he dissolves Parliament. He promised in his manifesto to effect electoral reforms. He is also in cleft stick as regards the no confidence motion against the PM. He will be considered an ingrate if he does not intervene to protect the man who enabled him to realise his presidential dream. But, if he causes the no faith motion to be withdrawn or dissolves Parliament before it is taken up he will antagonise the SLFP further and drive more party members including seniors into the arms of hisbete noire, Rajapaksa. It will be interesting to see how he wriggles out of this double bind.

Jaffna unrest had political dimension too May 25, 2015, 12:00 pm

Jaffna unrest had political dimension too

May 25, 2015, 12:00 pm 

by Jehan Perera

The mob violence that suddenly burst forth in Jaffna has given rise to multiple interpretations, both in Jaffna and elsewhere. Opposition politicians have claimed that the displaced Sinhalese who have been resettled in parts of Jaffna were being targeted. Others claimed that national security had been jeopardized by the demilitarization taking place in the North and the entrusting of security measures to the police. They saw in the unrest the footprint of the Tiger seeking to stage a comeback with support from parts of the Tamil Diaspora who continue to harbor separatist ambitions. In these analyses of the happenings in Jaffna there seemed to be a certain nostalgia for a return of the old days when the former government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa ruled the North with an iron hand. But this was not the reality in the North nor the desire of the people there.

I travelled by train to Jaffna two days after the civil disturbances in Jaffna and hartals had shut down parts of the North. The day I reached Jaffna there was a court order that banned any public protests. The area close to the courts complex had been sealed off by the police. As a result television footage of that part of Jaffna would have given the impression that the city was empty and military control was high. There was a large contingent of military personnel on the streets. But they stood by, and made no attempt to interfere with the ordinary life of the people which continued in the rest of Jaffna. The general population seemed accustomed to their presence, which had become a part of the natural landscape during the previous decades.

My Muslim colleague and I went to lunch in a Muslim "hotel" or more accurately roadside eatery located on a side road. I asked my colleague to start a conversation with a diner at the next table whom I assumed was a Muslim and who would therefore be conversant in the Tamil language, and find out what he thought of the current situation. To our surprise the person who was addressed in Tamil replied in Sinhala and said he was Sinhalese. It turned out that he was a worker at a bakery in Jaffna. He said he was from Matara, but had come to Jaffna as the price of bakery products was higher in Jaffna than in Matara, so he could make a better living here. He sold bakery products by going house to house on a motor cycle which had been made into a delivery vehicle. He said he and his friends had faced business reprisals five years ago when they first started their business venture, but now it had all settled down. He did not feel threatened.

POLICE INACTION

The mob violence in Jaffna arose after the rape and murder of a teenage girl in one of the small islands off Jaffna. The initial public anger was directed against the police who had been slow to act on the complaint of the family members of the girl. Like in the rest of the country, there is a sense of frustration within the community that too often the police do not work as quickly and efficiently as they should. In this instance, the police reaction had been to not take the complaint seriously and to be jocular and say that the girl had probably gone on a rendezvous with a boy. The family and larger community felt that if the police had acted earlier the girl’s life might have been saved. In fact it was the brother of the girl who had found her body after he had searched the area that she usually walked on her way to school.

There has been a longstanding complaint emanating from the people of Jaffna that when robberies of their homes, and rapes of their women take place, the police are inactive. While they do not accuse the police as being the culprits, they sometimes doubt whether the police is in connivance with the wrongdoers and being paid off by them, as the reasons for their inactivity. The deficiencies in the police are more aggravating to the people of the North as most of the police officers in Jaffna, and indeed the North, are Sinhalese from far away, and not Tamils from the same community. In more democratic countries like those in Europe where participatory democracy is valued, the local police are usually drawn from the community themselves and not from far away.

The civil society members I spoke to in Jaffna said that it had been civil society groups, such as the Teachers Unions and university students that had organized the shutdown of normal life for a day of protest against the failure of the law enforcement agencies to be more effective in protecting the people. However, they do not believe that these groups planned anything violent, such as the throwing of stones that damaged the courts complex and nearby commercial establishments. During the public protests a section of the crowd had turned violent and resorted to stone throwing which led to police firing tear gas and a general commotion. The civil society members I spoke to were convinced that there was a political hand behind those who acted violently, and they had their theories.

POLITICAL MOTIVES

With the President announcing that a new government will be in place by September and the indications that general elections are fast approaching, all political parties and potential candidates are busy mobilizing their forces or planning to do so. One of the interpretations in Jaffna regarding the identity of those who threw stones and behaved in a rowdy manner unbecoming of a civil society is that that they were politically organized groups with a political agenda. The allegation is that there is a section of the polity that wishes to create a general impression that the North continues to be unstable and volatile even six years after the end of the war, and therefore needs a strong hand and a powerful military machine to control it. After the events in Jaffna there were politicians with a nationalist orientation who said that the events in Jaffna demonstrate that the country needs a political leadership that will not betray the country or its armed forces whose grip over the North should not be relaxed.

Those who continue to speak and adduce arguments for a strong government and military presence in the North are challenging the most fundamental achievement of the new government led by President Maithripala Sirisena. This is the restoration of civil administration to the North and East, symbolized by the removal of the two governors of those provinces who were from military backgrounds, and replacing them with governors with purely civilian backgrounds. As a result the pervasive sense of fear and insecurity that underlay social and political life in the North of the country has been lifted. This is acknowledged and appreciated by the civil society in the North. Indeed, this fear has been lifted throughout the country, due to the restoration of the rule of law, and the banishing of the culture of white vans that took people away with impunity.

In the not so distant past, the former government dealt with civil unrest and mob action with extreme violence whether in the North or South. This was seen both in the free trade zone protest by garment factory workers and in Rathpaswella when villagers protested against the contamination of their drinking water by industrial waste. On both occasions the military was used to violently break up the protests with loss of life. However, on this occasion, the government succeeded in quelling the Jaffna unrest without resorting to violence. The government showed that it would not brook lawlessness and took about 130 persons into custody. The civil society members I met in Jaffna felt that many of those arrested were not engaging in violence and were there to protest peacefully, and hope that the courts will release them soon. They also appreciated the fact that there had been no overreaction on the part of the security forces that could have set a vicious cycle in motion.

Monk says President has wronged unlike any of his predecessors May 19, 2015, 9:40 pm

Monk says President has wronged unlike any of his predecessors

May 19, 2015, 9:40 pm 

By Dasun Edirisinghe

President Maithripala Sirisena was the only man who abused executive powers unlike former Presidents after 1977, Prof. Induragare Dammarathana Thera said.

He said President Sirisena had appointed UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe Prime Minister even though the latter did not have a majority in Parliament and removed Chief Justice Mohan Pieris arbitrarily. Those acts amounted to a gross abuse of the executive powers, the Thera stressed.

Prof. Dammarathana Thera made the observation addressing a seminar titled ‘Mahinda Nethi Rata’ (The country without Mahinda) at the Minuwangoda YMBA Hall on Monday.

"Late Presidents J. R. Jayewardene, R. Premadasa, D. B. Wijethunga and former Presidents Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa did not appoint a Prime Minister in that manner," he said, adding that President Sirisena had also appointed a new chief justice after removing her predecessor.

"People did not vote for President Sirisena to change the government," Prof. Dammarathana Thera said, adding that all those acts had been carried out at the behest of some foreign powers.

The Thera said as a result of such actions, the country had become unstable.

General Secretary of the Patriotic Bhiikhu Front Ven. Bengamuwe Nalaka Thera said that the present government was working overtime to tarnish those who worked tirelessly to preserve Sinhala Buddhist Culture and they were labelled racists.

HRC takes up alleged abduction case involving minister’s son May 12, 2015, 8:16 pm

HRC takes up alleged abduction case involving minister’s son

May 12, 2015, 8:16 pm 

By Ifham Nizam

The Human Rights Commission will take up the alleged abduction of a girl by  Minister Rajitha Senratne’s son, Eksath.

Recently, UNICEF Representative in Sri Lanka, Una McCauley urged State Minister of Child Affairs Rosy Senanayake to help resolve the conflict allowing the girl to be handed over to her parents to pursue her secondary education.

Ministry officials told The Island that on March 16, 2015 the girl’s father had contacted the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) and requested that the Ministry arrange a meeting with his daughter.

"We arranged that meeting at the Child Ministry on March 23 but the girl’s parents refused to turn up, saying that they had in the meantime initiated a habeas corpus action in the High Court of Colombo and their lawyers had advised them that meeting their daughter before the court date might jeopardise their case," they said.

The girl had however gone to the Ministry on March 23 and the NCPA police recorded a statement from her; she said she had left her parent’s house out of her own volition.

On March 22 the girl’s father lodged a complaint against Minister Rajitha Senaratne with the NCPA.

"We have referred that complaint to the Attorney General for advice and will take further action once we receive that advice. While we await the Attorney General’s advice we ask the two families to put aside whatever differences they might have and act in a responsible manner in the best interests of the child,"  a Ministry official added.

a waste of time again-Govt. to go ahead with Uma Oya Project April 6, 2015,

Govt. to go ahead with Uma Oya Project

April 6, 2015, 12:00 pm 

By Ifham Nizam

The government would proceed with the temporarily halted controversial Uma Oya Multipurpose Project, a senior engineer said.

A ministry official said that they had taken all preventive measures to mitigate environmental impact. There was however no way the government could stop the progress of the scheme because it was categorised as one of Ceylon Electricity Board’s long term projects.

The official added that those projects could not be simply stopped due to demands of the nongovernmental organisations with vested interests.

The project would involve the construction of two reservoirs on tributaries of the Uma Oya River and one tunnel on the river itself to divert water to a powerhouse further downstream, an engineer said.

CEB engineers said that the project would generate 90MW of electricity and irrigate 5,000 hectares.

Owing to such reasons, some officials have pointed out the danger of ending up with a poor quality end product. However, others said that local engineers would look into all aspects.

Sri Lanka Nature Forum, Director, Sajeewa Chamikara alleged that launching a project without a proper plan or a feasibility study or an environmental impact assessment or any sort of permission from any relevant government agencies would set a very bad precedent.

The Sri Lanka Nature Forum, a leading critic of the project conservation was preparing to launch a formal campaign against it, he said.

However, the government would go ahead with the project for its irrigation and power generation benefits, others are more cautious and warn that the Uma Oya Watershed cannot sustain such a large water diversion project.

Water from Uma Oya will be diverted to irrigate agricultural areas near the Mahaweli River. With the construction of the Uma Oya project, yet more water would be diverted from the river. After the construction of the reservoirs and the tunnel, people living upstream of the planned tunnel are likely to suffer from water shortages, environmentalists warn.

Officials say even without the dam, the water level of the Uma Oya River had dropped drastically during the dry season, environmentalists said. After the construction of the dam, the diversion of water from the river during dry season months would drastically reduce the water available for drinking and irrigating the fields. The project would not be able to generate any electricity during the months of December-April, due to the lack of water in the river, they said.

Siltation is another problem that the project is bound to face, according to experts. The Rantembe reservoir in the Uma Oya Watershed has silted up in a very short time and lost much of its generation capacity.

More elected SLFPers to defy party ban and attend rally in Ratnapura March 25, 2015, 10:27 pm

 

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More elected SLFPers to defy party ban and attend rally in Ratnapura

March 25, 2015, 10:27 pm 

By Dasun Edirisinghe

More than 20 SLFP Parliamentarians would attend the third rally demanding that former President Rajapaksa be made the UPFA prime ministerial candidate, under the theme, ‘The country is in danger and prepare to face the challenge!’ organised by UPFA allies MEP, NFF, DLF and Pivithuru Hela Urumaya at the Ratnapura Sivali grounds today, UPFA Ratnapura District MP Ranjith Zoysa said yesterday.

Zoysa flanked by Ratnapura District MP Janaka Wakkumbura, Colombo District MP Gamini Lokuge, Polonnaruwa District MP Roshan Ranasinghe and several other provincial council and local government members representing the Ratnapura District , said they would definitely bring back former President Mahinda Rajapska at the next general election as the prime ministerial candidate of the UPFA.

The main purpose of today’s rally was to demand that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa be nominated as Prime Ministerial candidate of the UPFA at the forthcoming general election.

MEP Dinesh Gunawardena MP, National Freedom Front Leader Wimal Weerawansa MP, Democratic Left Front leader Vasudeva Nanayakkara MP and Pivithuru Hela Urumaya Leader Western Provincial Councillor Udaya Gammanpila will address the rally.

Organisers expect tens of thousands of people who voted for former President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the January 08 presidential election to attend the rally today.

The first in the series of rallies was held on Feb. 18 at Nugegoda and second was at Kandy on March 06.

The SLFP Central Committee has banned its elected members from attending rallies organised by other parties in the alliance, but Kandy District MP Dilum Amunugama, Kurunegala District MP Salinda Dissanayake, 86 UPFA Provincial Councilors and local government members attended the Kandy rally defying the ban.

It said that arrangements had been made to live stream the rally at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=61DNW8gtBuc and https:www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2jHaiMsE5o.

New drug policy fails to pass muster with ACMOA March 5, 2015, 8:18 pm

New drug policy fails to pass muster with ACMOA

March 5, 2015, 8:18 pm 

by Don Asoka Wijewardena

All Ceylon Medical Officers’ Association (ACMOA) General Secretary Dr. Jayantha Bandara yesterday rejected the 102-page the new National Medicinal Drugs and Cosmetic Devices Regulatory Act as not being consistent with the original Prof. Senaka Bibile National Drug Policy.

Dr. Bandara pointed out that Prof. Bibile had never recommended the involvement of the private sector in importing drugs. But, the new Bill had granted 50 per cent of drug import facility to the private sector to exploit the people. The government was responsible for importing the balance. The new Bill had been introduced to satisfy the drug companies, he alleged.

The ACMOA said Prof. Bibile had categorically stated that before importing drugs a complete situational analysis should be done on the sales, marketing strategies, quantities to be imported and the kinds of drugs. Because at the moment more than 10,000 kinds of drugs were imported both by the government and the private sector.

Prof. Bibile had recommended importing only 300 kinds of drugs. But the new Bill was at variance with the original Bibile policy. The government had allowed the private sector to continue to exploit hapless people because there was no mechanism to control the prices of drugs. Any private sector company could import one kind of drug at Rs. 10 and sell at Rs.100, because there was no government authority to check whether the same kinds of drugs were being sold at fair prices or not. It was also the responsibility of the government to open new drug manufacturing facilities to expand the production capacities locally. But, the new policy did not contain such ventures at all, he said. 

Dr. Bandara said the ACMOA was of the view that there must be provision for the preparation of a situational analysis before importing drugs, introducing a price control formula, establishing a state-of-the-art National Drug Quality Assurance Laboratory, reducing the privileges granted to the private sector to import drugs at their whims and fancies, undertaking the responsibility of importing, distributing, assuring the quality of drugs and developing effective marketing strategies.