Daily Mirror Editorial

Mother Teresa of Kolkata

05 September 2016

Mother Teresa of Calcutta also known as the “Saint of the Gutters”, was canonized Mother Teresa of Kolkata by Pope Francis yesterday (Sunday 04.08.2016). Revered by Catholics, she was a model of compassion, who brought relief to the sick and dying, opening branches of her Missionaries of Charity (MoC) Order around the world.

Mother Teresa was also a controversial figure. She held extremely conservative views on abortion, opposed it in totality and was absolutely unafraid to make her beliefs known. Her order established a hospice; centres for the blind, aged, and disabled; and a leper colony in India and branches worldwide.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mother Teresa was acclaimed for her work amongst the world’s poorest of the poor in the slums of what was known as the Black Hole of Calcutta –today known as Kolkata.
She fought against poverty, going out into filthy streets to serve the destitute, but also embraced it in her own life, giving up all material goods and physical comforts. It is said she limited herself to one spare saree. The Nobel Prize winner, had her admirers and her detractors who blamed her saying she did little to alleviate the pain of the terminally ill and did nothing to stamp out the root causes of poverty.

Among her admirers is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who described her saying: “All her life she worked to serve poorer sections of Indian society. When such a person is conferred with sainthood, it is natural for Indians to feel proud…”

Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the MoC Priest who campaigned for her sainthood said, her detractors missed the point of her mission, arguing that she had created a place to comfort people in their final days rather than establish hospitals. “We don’t have to prove that saints were perfect, because no one is perfect,” he said.

The Catholic Church posthumously confers sainthood on people considered so holy during their lives that they are now believed to be with God and can intercede with him to perform miracles. Such is the status of Mother Teresa -acclaimed for her work in the slums of the Indian city of Kolkata.

Born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, she was baptized Gonxha Bojaxhiu. In 1928, 18-year-old Agnes decided to become a nun and set off for Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin. It was there that she took the name Sister Mary Teresa.

In May 1931, she made her First Profession of Vows and was sent to Calcutta, to teach at a school run by the Loreto Sisters -teaching girls from the city’s poorest Bengali families. Sister Teresa learned to speak both Bengali and Hindi fluently as she taught geography and history and dedicated herself to alleviating the girls’ poverty through education. On May 24, 1937, she took her Final Profession of Vows to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience and took on the title of “Mother.” Thus, becoming known as Mother Teresa.

In 1946, she experienced a second calling... saying, Christ spoke to her and told her to work in the slums of Calcutta aiding the city’s poorest and sick people. Having taken a vow of obedience, she would not leave her convent without official permission. In January 1948 she finally received approval. That August, after six months of basic medical training, she entered the slums of Calcutta’s with a goal of aiding “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for,” the rest is history.

The lessons from Mother Teresa’s life are well summed up in The Washington Post’: ‘It was in her speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994 that she taught the American people, including Hillary Clinton (who was there as First Lady) about spiritual, or moral, poverty. Her speech was a shock to a complacent and prosperous country, ready to admire a woman who cared for the hungry and needy in slums, while congratulating itself that here, we manage things much better. We are, after all, a country that shows our love of neighbour by funding government programmes and social services that keep our fellow citizens decently housed and fed. Fighting material poverty is something we generally know how to do.

“But Mother Teresa gently pointed out that in our “rich” country, we suffer not from material poverty but rather from spiritual, or moral poverty. A poverty marked by the lonely elderly in nursing homes, the young people given over to drugs, and the hundreds of thousands of lives blighted by abortion (both children and their parents)’.

Ceylon Today Editorial

UN SYMBOL OF A FUMBLING FAILURE

05 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.

Daily News Editorial

Dullas in a dither

05 September 2016

Joint Opposition firebrand and ardent Rajapaksa loyalist Dullas Alahapperuma has taken up cudgels with President Maithripala Sirisena for failing to form an SLFP led government when the latter was elected President on January 8 last year. On that grounds alone the MP said President Sirisena has no right to claim leadership to the SLFP and is not qualified to call for disciplinary action against members of the JO for acting contrary to the dictates of the present party leadership.

Alahapperuma says that by making Ranil Wickremesinghe Prime Minister (after the January 8 victory), when the UNP had only 46 MPs as against 126 UPFA parliamentarians, instead of giving the premiership to an SLFPer, President Sirisena has no moral right to remain as the leader of the SLFP and demand allegiance of the JO.

Alahapperuma, in making this allegation, has lost sight of a key element that made President Sirisena act the way he did. To begin with, President Sirisena was elected with an overwhelming UNP vote. UNPers had to undergo many hardships and sacrifices in their quest of making Sirisena the President with at least two party men losing their lives. It was the UNP machinery that went full throttle to facilitate the Common Candidate's election campaign while the SLFP machinery plus state resources were used, nay abused, on behalf of Mahinda Rajapaksa, with the state media falling to the gutter in this respect.

Does Alahapperuma expect President Sirisena to overlook all the insults,vilification, slander and calumny unleashed against him and forget that it was the SLFP machinery that went all out to ensure his doom and without so much as a by your leave invite an SLFPer to be the Prime Minister under his Presidency? Besides, Alahapperuma cannot be unaware of the public agreement entered into by the Common Candidate with the UNP leader, after the former walked out of the government, to pick up gauntlet. Alahapperuma also cannot be unaware that it was a hostile parliament filled with Rajapaksa loyalists that the new President would have had to contend with, with then Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne himself having campaigned vigorously towards the victory of MR. The General Election was months away and President Sirisena rightly believed that parliament packed with Pro Rajapaksa elements would have done everything possible to undermine his position. It was due to the change of guard in the Prime Minister position that parliament was able to pass the 19th Amendment, with even MP Dullas Alahapperuma “aye” ing, to limit Presidential powers. It was difficult to assume, given the sate of play at the time, if parliament would have been able to muster the required two thirds majority, given Rajapaksa's still undiminished Presidential ambitions .

Alahapperuma also claims that the only thing preventing the JO extending its cooperation to the President was the tie up with the UNP and its policies which are alien to the SLFP. However Alahapperuma in a different avatar was not averse to remaining in a government which embraced UNP policies in toto. Nay even going one better. One recalls former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's famous words in this regard. Said CBK in the first flush of her victory in 1994. “I was once a good socialist and now I will be a good capitalist”. One also recalls Alahapperuma who was then a Deputy Minister, in a speech made in Parliament, whining that the government who signaled to the Left was now turning Right vamata signal dala dakunata yanawa. However, this ardent socialist, who now accuses this government of following the much despised UNP right wing capitalist policies and cites this as the main reason for opposing the Unity Government, did not think of quitting parliament at the time nor make a strong statement registering his protest to the CBK government, besides that one feeble effort in parliament.

Alahapperuma, in his blind loyalty to Mahinda Rajapaksa, has also hit on the bizaire. Referring to the protest by some Tamils in Malaysia at Rajapaksa's presence in that country and the alleged threats in social media by the same group, calling for Rajapaksa's head for liquidating Prabhakaran, the Matara District MP has likened this to a fatwa issued against Rajapaksa and castigated the government for exposing MR to the LTTE by “downgrading” the latter's security that comprise only a few ralahamy's (Police Constables), instead of the military security.

Alahapperuma, as well as the general public, is well aware that Rajapaksa’s security detail comprise handpicked STF commandos trained in VIP security, far from the ralahamys he refers to, for public consumption. Besides, the LTTE is done and dusted, according to the former President, and one can only assume that the Tiger threat is a thing of the past. In that context, the so called threat by the Tamils in Malaysia is just that, a threat, like any other threat issued by politicians, doctors, Trade Unions in this country. The former President is offered the best protection in this country. If people like Dullas Alahapperuma thinks his leader is exposed to the LTTE threat while abroad the best advise is to stay put.

The Island Editorial

Moment of truth for JVP

05 September 2016

 

The ruling pigs—in the Orwellian sense—under any government are more equal than other animals in kapati suit in this country. They enjoy legal impunity.

The present administration consists of self-proclaimed messiahs who secured a popular mandate to savour power again by promising to eliminate bribery and corruption and restore the rule of law and democracy among other things. But, the special police units and the obnoxiously politicised CID are not called in to probe the corrupt deals of the government grandees close to the powers that be. Instead, committees of pro-government elements are appointed to investigate allegations against them. Committees for government crooks and Gestapo for their Opposition counterparts!

When the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), under the chairmanship of JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti, undertook to probe the bond scams involving the then Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran it was thought that the watch dog committee would get to the bottom of it. But, sadly, the government is making a despicable attempt to muddy the water and frighten the officials who have the courage to reveal the truth into submission. We are informed that it has decided to prevent the independent Central Bank officials from being summoned before the COPE again to clear the air vis-à-vis attempts at obfuscation; only the newly appointed incumbent CB Governor, who is not quite au fait with how the bond heist, as it were, was carried out, will be summoned hereafter, we are told. This is tantamount to the suppression of evidence!

Speaker Karu Jayasuriya is reported to have said he would open COPE proceedings to the media. If that pledge is honoured the press should be able to hear not only the CB Governor’s version of the bond scam at issue but also the testimonies of other officials who have said and are willing to say again what the government does not want to hear. Besides, the onus is on the Speaker to ensure that the officials who testify before the COPE are not insulted by its members. When the then Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake had to suffer indignities at the hands of some arrogant UPFA members of the Parliamentary Select Committee which prepared the grounds for her ‘impeachment’ the UNP raised hell—and rightly so. Regrettably, those who pretended to be great democrats at that time are resorting to the same despicable strong arm tactics today to cover up a mega racket.

As for the bond scams the COPE is only scratching the surface of the problem. There is evidence that many questionable bond deals have been carried out since this government came to power promising good governance last year. Strangely, the Joint Opposition (JO) does not flog this issue the way it should. It is running around like a headless chicken instead of educating the public on the corrupt practices of the present government. It has also failed to remain argus-eyed to prevent Bills inimical to the national interest being brought in and call for judicial review thereof. JO members are only adept at staging what may be described as kindergarten protests in the well of Parliament and dog and pony shows elsewhere.

It is popularly believed that one can cleanse oneself of all the sins committed throughout one’s life by worshiping at the Kelaniya temple once. Similarly, the Rathu Sahodarayas will be able to absolve themselves of all their political sins, which have been dogging them for decades, if they defy political pressure from the highest echelons of government in probing the bond scams.

A rare opportunity has presented itself for the JVP to shore up its crumbling image and regain lost ground. It must ensure that the racketeers who caused a loss of billions of rupees to the state coffers through bond rackets won’t go scot free. Will it take the tide at the flood or let its political voyage be bound in shallows and miseries?