Ceylon Today Editorial

TEACHING THE ECJ ABOUT TERRORISTS AND IMBECILES

 25 September 2016
 

The European Union Court is either made up of nincompoops, IMBECILES, or there are men and women within it who are in the pay of the 'Tamil Diaspora' egging them on to get the LTTE out from the EU list of terrorist organizations.

The ad nauseam cry of the pro-LTTE men and women in the EU Court is that the LTTE was proscribed by the EU and listed as a terrorist organization purely on the basis of statements placed before it by the Government of Sri Lanka and on impression formed from news gathered from the media. The demand for delisting the LTTE from the EU's terrorist list is beginning to become as raucous as the cry for war crimes charges to be pressed against the government and armed forces of Sri Lanka.

Delisting will create the precedent for numerous other moves aimed at the ultimate recognition of the Tamils' 'right' to cession or at least approximating that by way of legitimizing a demand for an autonomous 'state' by way of an effectively extra-legally truncated North-East Province.

So it's time the international community told the EU to dismantle its 'learned advocates general' structure and instead set up a Court made up of intelligent instead of stupid practitioners of international law.

We say this after much deliberation because it does not take a super intellectual to define what terrorism is although the weak-in-the-mind EU Court, or at least its Advocate General Ms. Sharpston, seems to be taking ages to decide who/what constitutes a terrorist/terrorist organization.

The ECJ has said it would study the issue once again and give its final ruling in the very near future.

That makes the ECJ a dimwit organization if it needs all of 37 long years to make up its mind about who/what a terror/terrorist organization is. We believe the people at the ECJ were on this planet while the world's television services were focusing on the unprecedented wrath and terror unleashed by the LTTE... unless most of them were in sympathy with the LTTE's cause of separatism even at the end of a gun and bombs.

This is meant to be an indictment of the ECJ in the global court of human conscience. We know that with Britain's exit from the EU, Sharpston's own peculiar ten-year run at the ECJ stands in immediate peril of ending. It's a matter for thought that her run at the ECJ has been parallel to the LTTE listing on – and efforts to delist from – the EU terror list.

Ten years is a long run for a woman at the top of such an influential organization and it's a peculiar coincidence that the efforts to delist the LTTE from the EU terror list have run parallel to this period. Her being in that position is of a mammoth magnitude of importance to the LTTE and Hamas which need people in influential positions to legitimize terrorism and rubbish the naked truth.

So then, it's amazing, but not incredible, that she seeks to influence the EU Council to delist a terrorist organization and thus whitewash it. Would to God that Sharpston speaks to the victims of LTTE terror, instead of trying to run a tar brush over the truth! She'd be well advised to relinquish her post at the ECJ and seek the Tamil vote to enter the British Parliament at the next general election...but then the LTTE will lose its backing at the ECJ, would it not?

So who's a terrorist/terror organization...that's supposing that the world is full of ignoramuses as the lot at the ECJ, who seem to need to know what the definition of terrorism is.

What's an act of violence against innocent civilians, a legitimate government and society at large when that violence has as its objective the unleashing of terror of such, that it will compel a government under the endless compulsion of armed attack to agree to a bifurcation of a country and thus violate the right to total territorial integrity of its peoples. How does one define a terrorist/terror organization except by the fact that his/its actions of violence present the elements which imbue terror into a populace and State, forcing into realization an objective that traduces every facet of sovereignty, of human freedom, security of the individual and of society at large and the economy.
Come off it Ms. Sharpston! Your slip is showing.

The next stage should the EU Council act on your advice, will be the legitimization do the TGTE and a claim by it for a rightful place within the UN membership and the glorification of terrorism with a metamorphosis with the blessings of the ECJ, under you, into FREEDOM FIGHTERS and thereon to legitimize the demand for a 'self-governing autonomous, Tamil North-Eastern Province' .

Weekend Nation Editorial

Get at the root of the school issue

25 September 2016

Every parent has the desire to give his or her child the best possible education. The platform to give such primary and secondary education is the country’s school network. It is a well-known fact that there is a huge disparity between urban and rural schools when it comes to facilities for learning and sports.

The current fight by the government medical officers to get popular schools for their children is part of that issue. There is a great demand for the few well-established and popular schools both in Colombo and in provincial cities.

In a country where an organized system of education has a long history and education is widespread and sought by the majority of the people as the only means of climbing up the social ladder, competition for quality is fair and understandable.

As a result many criteria have been formulated for school admission and what is in force today are area rule which entitles children living within a certain radius from a school to be admitted and old boys union or old girls union quotas and entry through year-five competitive exam.

The stiff competition has resulted in many other ways of entry to popular schools some of which are unethical and illegal like bribery, political influence and bogus residential certificates to come within the mandatory radius from a school.

In the developed countries the facility gap among schools is not so wide and while very prestigious schools are there for the cream of the elite, most people seem to be happy with the nearest school.

If we are to bring about that kind of situation in our country, as a first step we need to provide equal facilities in schools at least for learning English language skills, information technology and science and sporting activities which are very much in demand. That seems to be the only way to reduce the undue competition which otherwise becomes worse in the future.

The country’s International schools network although much criticized by various quarters has resolved this problem to a great extent and that shows simultaneous expansion of private sector education is much needed especially in the context the State finds it difficult to allocate more resources for the education sector.

Sunday Times Editorial

Mobiles: If they are smart, be smarter

25 September 2016

For some time now, Sri Lanka’s mobile phone users have been charged for value added services that a majority of them did not knowingly subscribe for or want. It is not clear how long the scam has been going on. The service providers are vague, the regulator only just found out, and there is no evidence that anyone at ministerial level knows or cares. According to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka, the country still has no laws to tackle the issue.

On the one hand, the Government is picking pockets through the illegal Value Added Tax (charged even before the levy was approved in Parliament). Now we find telecommunication companies doing it and getting clean away, laughing all the way to the bank.

This sort of third-party billing is commonly described as “cramming”. In Sri Lanka, it occurs when mobile phone companies enter into partnerships with third parties who inveigle consumers into enlisting for services they were not even aware of, typically through the internet.

The 2015 Central Bank Annual report places mobile phone penetration at a whopping 116 percent. There are more mobile phones in Sri Lanka than there are people! Admittedly, a large number of these are traditional instruments and not smart phones that enable internet access. This would indicate that the number of mobile phone users affected by unauthorised charges for value-added services is lower than it might have been.

But the use of smart phones is growing, encouraged by service providers offering discounted phones but standing to gain from increased use of mobile applications and data. One mobile phone company is even providing smart phones on easy payment terms with a view to widening internet penetration. All this is well and good, but the regulatory and consumer protection component of exploding mobile phone usage has just not kept up. The Consumer Protection Authority is neither protecting nor has the authority, it seems.

Mobile service providers make hefty profits; a cursory glance at their annual accounts provides ample proof of that. One company has routinely made around Rs. 5-6 billion in net profit each year for the past several years. A significant area of growth is value-added services. This means that, unless the regulator steps in, more and more customers will find themselves mired in the scam. But the regulator itself is clueless. And the politicians even more.

No world peace with blood money

In New York, USA this week World leaders were welcomed by twin bomb blasts in the city (that never sleeps) bringing to them the message that all is not well with the world they govern.

And if that happened outside the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan, inside the august assembly none other than the head of the 192 member-state organisation, Ban Ki-moon let fly, rather uncharacteristically and somewhat belatedly the following words: “Present in this hall today are representatives of governments that have ignored, facilitated, funded, participated in or even planned and carried out atrocities inflicted by all sides of the Syrian conflict against Syrian civilians”.

No truer words have been uttered by the Secretary General of the UN, and sadly these scathing remarks fell short of naming – and shaming, the obvious culprits involved in the raging, virtual Armageddon in Syria. The fact that the UNSG who, in typical style of his countrymen indulges in self-criticism, blaming the world body he heads for inaction in the world’s war zones made these remarks only at the end of his second five-year term, is a shame. He could have been more assertive after his re-election as SG. One only hopes as an act of penance, he doesn’t do what many of his countrymen do and jump off the UN building, particularly if he has set his sights on being the next President of South Korea.

US President Barack Obama also hit round the podium, so to say, in his valedictory address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, accusing Russia of wanting to win back its lost Empire (a reference to arming anti-Government troops in Ukraine – but not saying that the West backed an anti-Government people’s movement to topple the former regime in Ukraine and now supports anti-Government troops in Syria). He hit out at China for wanting a market economy (capitalism) without the attendant individual liberties (democracy) and took a swipe at his own domestic political rivals. World leaders who followed him to the podium blamed everyone, but themselves, for all the world’s problems.

The fact that the world leaders had to have a summit to discuss the refugee problem caused by the wars in West Asia and the economic depravity in other parts of the world due to unequal playing fields, spoke louder of the reality that the UN which was formed in the aftermath of World War II to end all wars has succumbed to the world’s powerful arms trade. That the Generals have won over Diplomats; the Hawks over the Doves.

Pope Francis set the stage for the assembly of world leaders in New York when he said in not far away Washington DC last month while addressing the US Congress, the first time a Pope has done so, that those behind the arms market should be ashamed of themselves for bringing about the misery that exists around the world. He made it plain: “Here we have to ask ourselves; why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering to individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply money, money that is drenched in blood, often of innocent blood”.

The Pope called it “shameful” that the arms trade continues in the way it does – and he told it to US politicians who are recipients of their contributions – in an election year. The arms merchants and contractors have donated US$ 25 billion to parties and candidates in the 2013-2014 election cycle of US politics and so far in 2016 up to US$ 5.9 billion – a fraction of the profits they reap from this bloody industry.

President Obama also did make a passing reference to this arms industry and asked delegates how much financial assistance the US can give to the world at large from even a fraction of the monies it spends in its military budget in Iraq.

The talk shop that is the United Nations General Assembly will wind up next week and it will be the business of killing and maiming and the destruction of property – and refugees spilling all over as usual, thereafter. The flip-side of it all is; what if there is no United Nations to even talk – of world peace.

Sunday Observer Editorial

Pursuit of happiness

25 September 2016

‘Happiness’ is often considered a term bearing a relative value: one person’s happiness could easily be another’s suffering. At the same time, being an emotion, a ‘state of mind’, ‘happiness’ rarely gets the usage it once had in less utilitarian eras where the economy and market expansion were not considered the sole or primary drivers of social progress.

Even in Sri Lanka, now recovering after a devastating war, the more used language these days has to do with economic growth and productivity, and less with human well-being and social-communitarian integrity. ‘Bottom-lines’, profit margins and value chains dominate national discourses while culture, social standards and morality are sidelined, often seen as the idealistic dimension that is no longer a ‘real’ aspect of human fundamentals.

Indeed, a large coalition of social action groups and civil society lobbies last week led a march on ‘Temple Trees’ to hand over to the Prime Minister a memorandum demanding that the Government ensures that socio-economic rights are adequately included in the forthcoming new Constitution. Such is the concern that this aspect of social life is being de-emphasized by the dominant discourses of development and modernisation which tend to focus solely on the economy and economic productivity.

Perhaps sensitive to the aesthetics of a holistic approach to governing development and recovery, President Maithripala Sirisena last Wednesday told the United Nations’ General Assembly that “My government’s intention is to make the people of Sri Lanka one of the happiest among the world communities”.

The President, coming as he does from lowly rural farmer origins, surely knows the existential interaction between comfortable states of physical living and psychological states of mind. When the head of State goes to the biggest gathering of the world’s nations and officially declares ‘happiness’ a national goal, he is attempting to encapsulate, in a single word, the hopes and expectations of his people as a developing nation.

The President added that “For that purpose, the government is committed to strengthening freedom and democracy, while achieving economic prosperity”. In this, Mr. Sirisena is pointing out the practical steps towards such ‘happiness’, namely the combination of high standards of governance and social integrity on the one hand and, economic growth and higher income levels on the other. In doing so, the President articulates a vision that is pragmatic twice over – an integration of hard economics with an ideological and spiritual equanimity. In a country that has suffered from multiple insurgencies and even more brutal counter-insurgencies, the importance of the spiritual dimension is espoused in the ‘hearts and minds’ strategies somewhat belatedly implemented by our tireless armed forces that have long borne the weight of the task of defending the State.

President Sirisena is echoing other national societies that have previously also emphasised this dimension of human contentment in their national journeys. The founding fathers of the United States of America, for example, pointedly included the ‘pursuit of happiness’ as an ‘inalienable right’ in their Declaration of Independence in 1776. Ironically, the newly liberated Republic of Vietnam also included this phrase in its own Declaration of Independence from French colonial rule in 1945, a commitment of national leader Ho Chi Minh that only reached fulfilment in 1975 when South Vietnam was also liberated from foreign occupation with the defeat of US forces.

Most recently, in our own region of South Asia, the Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan has announced its new development goal of ‘Gross National Happiness’ (GNH), no doubt inspired by the Buddha’s own teaching ‘May all beings be happy…’. Psychological well-being is the first of nine criteria that make up the Bhutanese index of GNH.

After decades of physical suffering and psychological trauma due to the internal war, parallel with the birth pangs of marked-led economic development, the people of Sri Lanka have begun to enjoy two positive outcomes of this experience: political and social stability and middle income country status. Sri Lankans today can go beyond basic survival exercises - whether the bomb shelter or food stamps - and take up a broader range of pursuits in their lives.

What President Sirisena is pointing out to the world is the importance of these larger dimensions of social life that must be held together firmly with other practicalities such as economic growth. With the country led by a national coalition that combines the two traditional parties of government, there is no better moment than today for the orienting of the nation on the path to holistic fulfilment.

Sunday Island Editorial

Challenges confronting tea

25 September 2016

Lankans are generally aware that the tea industry is in deep trouble with both production and earnings falling. The Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) which run most of the large estates taken over by the government under the land reforms are carrying huge losses and facing wage demands from their workers. The cost of production has been running way above auction prices particularly in the larger estates carrying high overheads. For many years now smallholders, particularly in the low country, have outstripped production in RPC estates. While these holdings and some 50-acre proprietary properties continue to do a little better than break even, profitability is much lower than what it has been for some years. The government has been subsidizing smallholders for low green leaf prices and the head of the Planters Association recently went on record complaining of unequal treatment of RPCs. Given the state of government finances, hopes of the estate sector being similarly compensated for low prices must remain no more than a pipe dream.

While we keep boasting that Ceylon tea is the best in the world, production in our plantations fall well below what is achieved by our competitors both in India and Africa as well as the lesser producers elsewhere. Our workers are also better paid than their counterparts in other countries adding to the woes of plantation owners. No doubt our tea retains its reputation for quality as evidenced by the fact that auction prices in Colombo are higher than those at other sales centers. But this is scant consolation at this time when producers are in the red. While smallholders mostly use their own and family labor, the big estates are confronted with labor shortages. Given that wages particularly in the construction industry is way above what obtains in the plantations, male workers seize available opportunities. A large number of estate women have opted for domestic service, both at home and abroad. This is less demanding than plucking tea in the heat of the blazing sun or in rainy conditions. Earnings too are better especially when employer- provided food and accommodation is factored into the equation. The result is that many estates find it difficult to get their crops in and other field work done. The problem has been compounded by the recent ban on the import of glyphosate, a weedicide widely used by tea plantations.

Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake is acutely aware of the problems confronting the tea industry and has been speaking out on the subject recently. A few days ago he indicated that he was hopeful about getting the glyphosate ban relaxed so that tea estates can continue cheaper chemical weeding without resorting to manual forms of weed control for which there is no labor in any event. But given what proponents of the ban such as the influential Athureliye Rathana Thero of the JHU have said subsequent to the minister’s statement, whether he will succeed in these efforts is an open question.

The issue is emotive in the context of the kidney disease that has taken many lives in the North Central Province being believed by some to be the result of pollution of ground water by toxic chemicals. It is not only tea growers who use glyphosate. Paddy farmers also use this chemical for weed control. A possible via media that Minister Dissanayake seems hopeful about navigating is to restrict imports for the tea sector only. Inevitably questions will be raised about leakages. Given past experience these will never be wholly plugged.

What is the way out of the impasse confronting Sri Lanka’s plantation industry? The days when the economy was totally dependant on the tea-rubber-coconut tripod are long gone. As is well known, both garments and expatriate worker remittances have years ago overtaken the contribution made by tea to foreign exchange earnings. There were times when prices were so poor that rubber smallholders stopped tapping their trees. Rubber too has been bedeviled by low prices in recent times. While we are still some distance away from stopping plucking our tea due to the current woes of the industry, there is no way in which RPCs are going to be able to meet the current wage demands. They have been talking about productivity linked wages which the unions have rejected. Some estates have in a small way attempted to apportion extents of estate land among workers who are required to look after and harvest the crop from such parcels and deliver the leaf to the factory. They will be paid no wages but will be paid for the leaf they bring in at going prices. It has been claimed that both productivity of the land and earnings of workers have improved under this method. But whether this can be worked on a large scale and if both parties will cooperate to set up a new model remains to be seen.

New and innovative methods will have to be devised and implemented to meet the almost insurmountable challenges confronting the tea industry. Tea earnings up to August this year have been the lowest since 2007 and production has hit a seven-year low. There are a few bright spots including increased exports to China, Germany and the US and some slight upward price movements. But these hardly cause a dent in the overall problem and with the best will in the world a cash-strapped government will not be able to throw a lifeline to tea growers. The industry will have to fend for itself and all stakeholders must put their best foot forward to do so. Cooperation rather than confrontation must be the buzz word.