Ceylon Today Editorial

UN SYMBOL OF A FUMBLING FAILURE

04 September 2016
 

What could very well turn out, in the long term, to have been a statement tantamount to political suicide was uttered by President Maithripala Sirisena when he addressed the media after talks with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday, revealing the fact that he had in one-on-one talks with Ban slammed 'Extremist political elements in the North and South' for 'exerting unfair political pressures on the government'. He had gone to the extent of literally warning Ban to watch out for those extremists.

One is of course mindful of the fact that it was those extremists who persuaded northern Tamils to vote him into power as the then ideal foil to Mahinda Rajapaksa. His statement could therefore mean that he is not going to allow himself to be goaded into 'reconciliation' actions and 'war crimes allegations' and bend over backwards to please every whim and fancy of men like Chief Minister Wigneswaran and extremist elements in the TNA who insist ad nauseam that hard core LTTE men in prison be released, that foreign judges be inducted into the reconciliation/war crimes process among other extremist demands which can only lead to Sirisena's ouster from power should he seek a second presidential term.

Ban says the UN could have saved tens of thousands of lives which, "were lost in the conflict's decisive final stage". He says in the same breath that the "decades long civil war saw terrible violence , terrorism, the use of human shields and other grievous violations of human rights".

So in what context then could the UN have saved more human lives but did not? Why content himself with speaking of the last days of the war but not on the 30 years of LTTE terrorism, egged on by today's TNA, its proxy in Parliament, which left a trail of bloodied footprints all over from north to south, east to west, wherever the TNA's champions, the Tigers, felt it good to attack mercilessly with bombs, swords and machetes...whether in a Buddhist temple, a Muslim mosque or even to the slaughter of their own people, the Hindus, who said 'no' to that swath of blood-letting they were opposed to.

Did not the UN fail then, at the start, to bring to an abrupt end the insatiable lust for Blood, not only Sinhala blood, by the LTTE that was backed by Tamil organizations raising funds in the very shadows of the UN's New York headquarters to help the LTTE continue keeping the killing fields soggy with the blood also of Muslims and whoever it was who crossed their paths?

We'd rather say to Ban, turn the light inwards, for it was you at the helm of the UN for many of those years, who kept your mouth shut and even made out verily stentorian cases against Sri Lankan army brutality and 'end phase war crimes'.

In case his memory fails him, may we remind him that had he addressed all UN rights agencies and the general assembly to the heinous deeds of the LTTE way back then, there'll be no talk today of war crime tribunals and spineless UN hacks cow-towing to mercenary elements to ingratiate themselves to the TNA/LTTE by persistently pressing the President of Sri Lanka to set up a war crimes tribunal with foreign judges on it.

Ban said: "Reconciliation may take longer than expected but that does not mean you can take forever, the families of victims cannot wait forever". nor could the slaughtered sinhalese, wait forever for an imbecilic un to act and stop that bloodletting.

Sinhalese victims of that spree of brutality were kept waiting indefinitely, for over 30 years, for the UN to act and come to their aid. But the UN and Ban were then too much, as perhaps even now are, on the side of the powerful diaspora. Wish you had gone to Jaffna 20 years ago and told off the LTTE and its cohorts in the TNA and the then TULF, to cut it out or the UN would demand an international war crimes tribunal against the Tamil leadership for promoting, aiding and abetting in the slaughter, 30 years of slaughter, of the Sinhalese.

For a man in your position it's remarkable that you've not heard the truism that reconciliation can only issue forth from understanding and mutual forgiveness...not out of war crimes tribunals aimed at proving which Tamils killed whom and which Sinhalese killed whom.

It's time to let Sri Lanka let go of the past.That's if the Tamils are genuinely interested in reconciliation.

There's not one single sign that this is the case. They're baying for blood, insatiably so, since the LTTE their heroes did not spill enough Sinhala blood.

The Nation Editorial

Protests, now a way of life

04 September 2016
 

Hardly a day goes by without some major protest somewhere over something or the other. Wednesday was exceptional – there were two protests both forcing police to use water cannons and tear gas which is perhaps the minimum force if they are to control the unruly crowds protesting these days.

One was the protest organized by activists of the Inter University Students Federation against South Asia Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) at Malabe which according to them was a threat against free education. Other was by a group of cricket fans who failed to obtain tickets to watch the fourth ODI between Sri Lanka and Australia. The tickets had been sold over the Internet and no tickets had been available at the entrance thus frustrating those who came a long way to Dambulla from surrounding areas.

The protests are a democratic way of expressing one’s displeasure over something. But the unhealthy aspect here is they are too many and some of them obviously are over too little things, but often end up in violence. Some believe that this sudden upsurge of protests is the result of years of suppression –during the years of war and emergency there was hardly any room for such things. Now with the advent of a more democratic environment it is natural for people to protest against even a minute thing.

But the question is whether they have a right to become violent, damage public property, forcibly enter government offices or attack police officers whose duty is to control the behaviour of protestors when they exceed the legal limits of their right to protest. In other words shouldn’t all protests be peaceful?

A number of Police officers as well as protestors have been injured in the recent protests. At Dambulla alone, thirteen Police officers have been injured. All that shows the limits of peaceful protests have often been far exceeded. When such incidents are too many and cause traffic congestions and hardships to the public there could be more public antipathy against such actions than sympathy for their causes.

Unless some saner counsel prevails the natural outcome of all these could be public opposition towards organized protests leaving room for authorities to restrict some of these democratic freedoms on the ground they are often misused. Too much of anything even protests could be good for nothing particularly if they are accompanied by violence and mayhem.

Sunday Times Editorial

UN’s “hollow” ring for SDGs worldwide

04 September 2016

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday spoke in Colombo under the auspices of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) on the topic of “Sustaining Peace and Achieving Sustainable Development Goals.” He referred to the many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN, but clearly went off track to compare what happened in Sri Lanka with what happened in Rwanda –which raised some eye-brows and asked the Government to reduce its military strength in the North ; something he would dare not ask the West to do in West Asia.

Only a few weeks earlier, the Norwegian Prime Minister delivering the Lakshman Kadirgamar 2016 memorial lecture spoke on the same SDG theme. Ms. Ema Solberg referred to the importance of the 17 SDGs as the UN’s plan of action for people, peace, prosperity, partnership and the planet – the five Ps. Though Mr. Ban made no reference to areas of the SDGs in which Sri Lanka has made vast strides, Ms. Solberg praised Sri Lanka for achieving at least some of these goals. For instance, accessibility to health and education for both males and females has long been achieved in Sri Lanka. Instead, the UNSG made the startling remark that Sri Lanka needed to regain its rightful place in the region and the international community. The local media wanted to grill him on this at a media conference he held later, but his media boys called the presser off after just four questions were asked.

SDG 5 on gender equality; SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy; SDG 13 on climate change; SDG 14 on conservation of the oceans: SDG 16 on peace and justice – these are some of the UN’s priorities for a better world. These SDGs are a bi-product of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that did not meet their full potential by their target date in 2015. The SDGs now target 2030 but the UN’s call for international co-operation in achieving these goals unfortunately fall flat when bigger nations simply ignore them for their “national interest.” For example, take the rape of the marine resources in the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar by Indian fishermen. It’s a classic instance of the world community, including the UN maintaining a deafening silence when the big nations are in the wrong.

“The 17 SDGs are inter-connected and many of them require cooperation across international borders – that means we will fail or succeed together,” said the Norwegian PM, Co-chair of the UN SDGs advisory group. “In many areas, business as usual will not do,” she added for good measure and referred to her country cooperating in fisheries (SDG 14 deals with the sustainable use of marine resources).

But look at the sheer hypocrisy in international cooperation. The illegal, fishing practices (IUU) adopted by the Indians continue unabated, filling the Treasury coffers of the Tamil Nadu state Government and lining the pockets of the state’s businessmen or politicians with exports to the European Union (EU). In the meantime, the EU takes a holistic view on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) practices against Sri Lankan fishermen and red cards imports from Sri Lanka. It preaches and has its plate full at the same time.

This is why the UN’s otherwise noble goals are often unachievable and of mere academic interest to countries that need its help most. These SDGs refer to children needing schools and childbirth issues, poverty and health, when countries like Syria and much of West Asia, Yemen and parts of Africa are living hells due to wars triggered by the West’s agenda. Tax havens overseas, especially in the West, allow corrupt politicians and third-world tax dodgers who have creamed the fat off their land to stack their loot in their banks and bolster their economies. The UN has been widely blamed for ‘standing and watching’, doing little or nothing while talking of MDGs and SDGs.

While Sri Lanka’s public and private sector embrace the UN’s SDGs, even the UNSG Ban-Ki moon conceded how “hollow” the UN’s grandiloquence can be when the world is at war. And of course, so too, as long as double standards of the West dominate the world order.

Whither strategic studies

While the United Nations Secretary General was speaking in Colombo on peace and the UN’s goals for a better socio-economic-political world, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was delivering the keynote address in Singapore on the Global Power Transition in the Indian Ocean organized by several think-tanks across Asia (See ST2 cover page for his speech). This was an important event organized by think-tanks from the Asia-Pacific region, co-hosted by India and Singapore with the 2017 edition to be held in Colombo.

Sirima Bandaranaike’s proposal at the UN General Assembly in 1971 was for an Indian Ocean Zone of Peace. It was an idealist proposal – an illusion. Today, India is interested in revisiting this proposal given the burgeoning Chinese naval presence in these waters and the interest shown by many competing fleets, mainly the United States and Japan. But still, there are no takers.

PM Wickremesinghe took the opportunity to outline Sri Lanka’s pivotal position in this lively Ocean and its balancing line between India, China and Western interests. In his keynote address, he called for an “Indian Ocean Order” with accepted rules to guide interactions between states and having the primary responsibility of upholding the freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean. He said it should be built on a consensual agreement with no singular state dominating.

This week, the Colombo Defence Seminar was also significant. Though the credentials of some of the foreign speakers were questionable, the topic “Soft Power and Influence on Global issues” was relevant. Soft power is the persuasive approach to international relations through economic and cultural influence. This is in vogue in world affairs where there are no wars (hard power). In November, the Galle Dialogue, an initiative of the former Defence Secretary for fostering strategic maritime partnerships will be held.

These military-strategic studies are a sine quo non for a country like Sri Lanka given our geographic location, buffeted by the ‘soft power’ of competing world powers. How the country’s leaders handle the delicate winds of change will be of the essence.

The Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) was strategized by the former Foreign Minister in whose name the former Institute of Strategic Studies was re-named after his assassination, for this very purpose. The LKIIRSS, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has however lost its way, falling way short of what was expected of it.

According to the Act that established the LKIIRSS, it was to be a multi-disciplinary research institute dedicated to the study of the strategic interests of Sri Lanka, providing information and data to the Government in relation to issues which may be required as a basis for the formulation and structuring of national policies. How much of the Prime Minister’s keynote address in Singapore had the input of the LKIIRSS? A safe guess would be, nil. Holding workshops and guest speakers or yanking foreign VIPs from the beach when on a private vacation and asking them to deliver memorial lectures is far from what the LKIIRSS is expected to do. In the meantime, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defence have set up a parallel Institute of National Security Studies. The more think-tanks the merrier one should think, but merrier for whom is the question, if it is not for the benefit of the Government and the country.

Sunday Observer Editorial

Both at 65 

04 September 2016
 

In a remarkable coincidence, President Maithripala Sirisena today celebrates his 65th birthday just two days after marking the 65th 'birthday' of the political party he heads.

While President Sirisena has made history on his own by becoming the 'common candidate' for both the country's major political parties in a presidential election, his party has also made history by dramatically and decisively contributing to this country's post-colonial revival and national consolidation.

Today, he is at the helm of this nation at a challenging time of national recovery not simply from a devastating internal war but also from the ravages of a decade of corrupt and autocratic rule that has severely undermined the entire State system.

At the same, he must lead his own political party away from a state of internal decay caused by that same dynamic of corruption and autocracy. Today, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party holds its national convention in Kurunegala facing huge challenges of internal bickering and some resistance to his leadership of the party.

The SLFP, today, must deal with the threat of a split, something that is not new to the party, just as much as many other national political parties, in this country and the world over, have experienced similar challenges. But despite all its own experiences of racism, nepotism and authoritarianism, the party has retained its basic democratic spirit as demonstrated by Mr. Sirisena himself in answering a question at a presidential news media briefing last Friday.

Asked as to whether his leadership position was secure in the context of the intense divisions and rivalries within his party, Mr. Sirisena pointed out that the leadership position in question was that of a political party and was not his personal property.

Thus, it was not for him to decide or to declare the legitimacy of his chairmanship of the party but, rather, that was in the hands of the party membership and collective leadership. Whether he means it or not (and this country has known many pretenders), at least Mr. Sirisena was sensitive enough and careful enough to answer in the spirit of democracy and collective decision-making.

These are important markers that indicate that the democratic pulse beats in the political culture within his party - to which he is also sensitive. This remarkable resilience of democracy can be seen in many facets of Sri Lankan social and political life despite the long decades of ethnic violence, communal rivalry, ethno-nationalist intolerance, authoritarianism, nepotism and war.

The party today looks to the future with some uncertainty given the severity of the winds of internal disruption. However, as the President himself pointed out at that same media briefing, such disruptions are part of politics and in the life of many political parties and movements.

Both the UNP and SLFP have previously experienced inner party dissent and even actual splits, only to recover - sometimes with those same rebels re-entering the party to contribute to its political success.

Mr. Sirisena is now part of the 'old guard' of his party, a member of a generation that has succeeded the original leadership. In addition to the problems of internal dissension, the SLFP leadership faces the challenge to build a new generation of party leaders from the grassroots upwards. As the son of a farmer and, a farmer himself in his youth, Mr. Sirisena knows better than those politicians born at higher social levels, the essence and motif of the 'grassroots'.

And the 'grassroots' in Sri Lanka, today, are social layers that are on the move - leaping upwards in social mobility thanks to the modern social welfare structures of free education, free health and many other social-democratic facilities such as the security of employment.

Both major political parties - the SLFP and its progenitor, the UNP - have contributed differently to this social development. It is the UNP that has made the most decisive contribution in terms of strategy for economic development.

It is the SLFP that has led the way in social and cultural empowerment of the people. And other parties - of the Left and of the ethnic minorities - have also made their respective contributions in terms of social justice and minority rights.

At a time when the Constitution is (again) under discussion, political parties have additional burdens to bear in facilitating the maximum participation of the citizenry in an inclusive process of political deliberation and consensus-building.

Impressively, the National Unity government has set in motion one of the most participatory processes in constitution-making this land has experienced. Thousands of inspired and interested groups of citizens have made submissions on diverse aspects of the new State they wish to see built on this soil - a soil fertile but also blood-soaked.

It is to be hoped that Mr. Sirisena and his party colleagues will lead their party through the tumult and debate of the convention towards a new beginning: for their political organisation and for the country.

The United National Party will shortly hold its own convention - also in these same epoch-making circumstances of constitution-formation and national recovery. While, at this particular historical juncture the 'Grand Old Party' of Sri Lanka does not face the same internal challenges that the SLFP faces, the UNP has done so in the past.

The GOP will be watching events in Kurunegala not just to ensure that its key coalition partner remains strong but also to learn the future direction, new capacities and, most importantly, the internal management skills that, hopefully, will see the SLFP transcend current leadership battles and nurture a future leadership.

The citizens will wish both Mr. Sirisena and his party well as they look to the future.

Sunday Island Editorial

Ban Ki-moon, SLFP & corruption

04 September 2016

President Maithripala Sirisena’s meeting on Friday with media people including editors and publishers as well as the heads of the electronic media revealed an aspect of his political sagacity as well as the willingness to candidly respond to the questions that were thrown at him. It is hard to fault his logic that had Mahinda Rajapaksa won the third term he had sought and Prabakharan survived the military defeat of the LTTE and found refuge abroad, it would have been difficult to come to grips with post-war issues that are now being resolved, albeit slowly. There is no doubt that there are extremists across the spectrum delighting in throwing obstacles in the way of the reasonable settlement of the various issues that abound. This is true of both the Sinhala and Tamil sides and it is inevitable that in a democracy such as ours, with those in office striving to hold on to power and the opposition seeking to dislodge them that such contests will abound. Churchill certainly said a mouthful when he declared that "democracy is the worst form of government - except for the others."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s short visit went off without any hiccups. This was predictable as the Sirisena – Wickremesinghe government has mended most of the foreign relations fences that its predecessor had broken. The Western nations are no longer as antagonistic to Sri Lanka as they once were; indeed they are largely supportive and that must necessarily reflect in the UN’s general attitude towards Sri Lanka. At his press conference last week, the president offered the opinion that the former president called the 2015 election two years before it was due as he feared the repercussions of the burgeoning debt crisis and the looming human rights issue at UNHRC further down the road in his second term. He had hoped that with an unprecedented third term under his belt, he would be better able to cope with these. In the event he lost the election and the new regime has inherited those problems. It is certainly doing much better on the human rights front than its predecessor, its task made easier by reduced external pressure, though there does not appear to be any progress in reducing the national debt.

President Sirisena remarked on Ban’s smiling countenance throughout his visit and also revealed that he and his visitor had a short one-on-one session after the official talks. Ban had not made any demands or imposed any timeframes for the achievement of desired objectives. He had seen Sri Lanka he had visited several times as a representative of the Seoul government before he assumed high UN office as a ‘green’ country with a beautiful coastline and had remarked that his own country did not have much political agitation once it had achieved its developed status. He did not see why this should not hold true for Sri Lanka as well. This is a viewpoint that most would agree with. Although we have now attained middle income status in the world order, with the resultant disadvantage of not qualifying for concessional multilateral assistance, there are pockets of extreme poverty in many parts of the country including the capital city. It is to be hoped that the president’s announcement that top priority would be given in 2017 to banishing poverty and its implementation will succeed. There have been many poverty alleviation schemes in the past – Janasaviya, Samurdhi, Divineguma etc. but how well they had been targeted is an open question. Unfortunately many really needy people do not benefit while those who do not qualify draw the benefits.

The president also appeared confident that he would be able to bring the SLFP’s 65th anniversary celebrations at Kurunegala today to a successful conclusion. The popular perception is that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa commands more support in the SLFP than President Sirisena who has used his presidential powers to persuade many senior SLFPers to abandon Rajapaksa and come under his wing. He had offices to offer those who would have otherwise been in the wilderness and even National List places in Parliament to those who were defeated at the last election. In its May report, the Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reforms said that those who presented their views before the committee were extremely critical of the appointment of candidates who had not been elected to parliament being appointed to the legislature through the National List. But no outright recommendation to abolish the list had been made although some members had felt it was not necessary with others of the view that the number of such appointments be reduced and no candidates on any other list be accommodated in the National List.

The indictment of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, three former navy commanders and Avant Garde bosses have raised hopes that more high profile corruption cases will be soon brought before the courts. There has been public dissatisfaction about the slowness of the process and there was pressure on investigators to demonstrate some big ‘catches’. Indictments can be served and accused hauled before the courts but question remains of whether evidence that would meet the test of exacting judicial standards is available. Unfortunately there is insufficient public perception that corruption eventually costs the taxpayer. A supplier who pays a bribe to get a contract will always quote a price sufficient to recover his ‘investment.’ This will eventually fall on the taxpayer who has to pick up the tab.

Given Sri Lanka’s geographical location, the military’s holding of firepower necessitated by the war and trained retired and serving personnel made the provision of sea marshal services to international shipping a natural business to enter in the context of mounting piracy. The navy as well as some other private companies did the job first and made some modest profits before Avant Garde was given a monopoly in partnership with a state-owned company. It did incredibly well making super profits. Whether the navy could not have done that job by itself is something to think about.