Sunday Island Editorial

Avant Garde controversy becomes nuttier & fruitier

Saturday 07th November 2015

 

The Avant Garde controversy becomes nuttier and fruitier by the day and the public is now treated to various faction of the government blasting each other in public notwithstanding pious professions of collective cabinet responsibility. Purists will insist that who lawyer ministers tendered legal advice to, and presumably charged fat fees from, before assuming office is nobody’s business but that of counsel and client. But even the politically faithful cannot reasonably condone ministers using their official positions in the interest of their fee paying clients of the recent past. Minister Marapona, a former Attorney General in practice in the private bar post-retirement, had admitted in a parliamentary speech that he had been consulted on the Avant Garde matter. Commonsense dictates that in this context it would have been best if he kept his opinion to himself on whether the incumbent Attorney General was right or wrong in his view that there was not enough evidence to take the Avant Garde hierarchy to court.

But the die is now cast and there are many politicians grouped under the yahapalana banner baying for the blood of Marapona, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe and Home Minister Vajira Abeywardena whose names have all been mentioned in connection with the controversy. We do not know whether Rajapakshe, had also been consulted by Avant Garde; but if he was, it would be unfair to say he had been "bribed" by that company. Like any lawyer tendering professional advice, he may have been paid a fee. A bribe is an entirely different matter akin to a motorist slipping a 100-rupee note (probably a thousand today) to a traffic cop who had stopped him for crashing a red light or paying a customs officer for passing papers he’s sitting on. Loose canons like Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka are not choosy about the words they use in public speeches and he had understandably provoked Rajapakshe into summoning a news conference where the minister had talked about the funds he raised for Fonseka to run for president 2010 and even the 25 national dresses he had got stitched for Fonseka’s political wardrobe! He has also said that a rupees 500 million law suit will be filed and Fonseka had typically responded by saying that he’s paid a pension of Rs. 50,000 monthly and he hasn’t got that kind of money to pay.

Whether this implies an admission by the former army commander that he’s not likely to successfully defend a defamation action against him, we do not know. He may even choose not to contest any such case. It is interesting to see what will happen if Rajapakshe is serious about taking Fonseka to court and suing him for a sum he does not have. Given that a rupees 500 million award in any defamation action has never been made by any court in this country, it is unlikely that any such award will be made and that figure will most likely be confined to a letter of demand as they are in all such similar matters. Even if a substantial award (much less than Rs. 500 million) is made, whether Rajapakshe will chase the field marshal all the way and strip him even of those national dresses he gifted him remains to be seen. Fonseka does not visualize returning to jail, it seems, and is on record saying that Rajapakshe will have to accommodate him in his home and feed him. Oldsters may remember that in the colonial days, if the creditor over a civil debt wanted the debtor jailed, he had to pay for it. The taxpayer was not going to foot the bill! All these exchanges, of course, is good copy for the media which is lapping it up for the entertainment of its viewers and readers who no doubt regard the dramatis personae of this soap opera to be a bunch of clowns.

But Avant Garde remains a serious business about which the majority of the public have only a hazy idea. It’s all got to do with the menace of piracy that had in recent years reached alarming proportions necessitating the deployment of armed sea marshals on ships plying international maritime routes as a deterrent to pirates. Sri Lanka, being proximate to many such busy routes and possessing the armory it had to equip itself to fight the LTTE for nearly three decades, found herself well placed to use both trained men and material at her command to provide the necessary services for which international shipping lines were making attractive payments. Initially the navy provided these services and the profits earned were utilized for the welfare of its personnel. Later Avant Garde was set up and the company took the business to new heights, hiring retired servicemen at attractive salaries to serve as sea marshals armed with state-owned weapons for which payment was made judging by information now in the public domain.

The question may be asked why this task did not continue in the hands of the Sri Lanka Navy and the profits accrue to the taxpayer. After all it was he who paid for the arms procured to fight the war and for the training of the servicemen who fought it; so the return on any investment made thereon was rightly his. It may well be countered that it needed private sector enterprise and management to drive the business, because that’s what it is, to the heights that had been achieved. The Lankan public, well aware of the fate of most of our state owned enterprises, may well buy that argument. There seems to have been an element of patronage extended to the company by those in a position to help it along but that may be hard to prove to standards demanded by courts. The whole business has now assumed the proportions of a major crisis for the government with allegations flying and a special cabinet meeting to discuss the matter scheduled for tomorrow. The opposition – such as it is – seems to be backing the pro Avant Garde forces on the battle lines. However that be, there is promise of some pre-budget excitement in the coming days.