Ceylon Today Editorial

Good Day for Justice

29 September 2016

Former Editor Lasantha Wickramatunge's death brought about a new age in Sri Lankan journalism. There is no doubt about it. Writers, reporters, editors and journalists witnessed an epiphany in Wickramatunge's death and brought about the free media struggle of the country, of which we have become a part.

After seven-and-a-half-years of Wickramatunge's unsolved death, the current government has been able to successfully arrest suspects in the incident under a plausible and believable Court case. Earlier this week, remains of the slain journalist were exhumed under a Court Order to be analysed in a new post-mortem.

When Wickramatunge was murdered in 2009, the government's response was expected. With condolence messages and a shock that should have only been taken at the mere face value, the government was unable to solve the case. After two post-mortems, the government and the then authorities were unable to find the cause of death or figure out whether this was murder or not. Of course, all allegations made against the government and those who allied themselves with the government were refuted and ignored at all costs.

Wickramatunge died on 8 January 2009. Common Candidate Maithripala Sirisena was voted in as President of the country on 8 January 2015 – on Wickramatunge's sixth death anniversary. For the family of Wickramatunge, that must have been a sign of God, finally promising justice to the victimized.

Exhumation of Wickramatunge's remains was a good move – hopefully it proves to be worthwhile in the CID investigation. The last controversial exhumation was when former national ruggerite Wassim Thajudeen's body was exhumed in a complete political move, with a week for the 2015 General Election. That case is still underway and hopefully, it won't be reported in the future that Wickramatunge's remains have also been misplaced.

As journalists we can welcome this move and have the fullest expectation that this will put the perpetrators behind bars and that victims of this heinous crime will see justice. But if ever the situation turns sour just like last time, we are ready with our pens and paper to fight for what is right.

Under no circumstances should the murderers of Lasantha Wickramatunge be allowed peace of mind or a life in freedom, once they are found guilty in a Court of law. Nothing more than a death penalty is satisfactory for this crime.

When we said Wickramatunge brought about the new age of Sri Lankan journalism, we meant that he inspired many to take the mantle of a watchdog in his wake. In his death, he became a martyr – something his murderers could not predict. Among those journalists who are share hungry and fame minded, among the marketed writers and subjugated editors who are controlled by politicians, there is always a struggling writer trying to do the right thing.

The immortal words of David Bowie come to our mind: "Though nothing will drive them away, we can beat them, just for one day". Yes, one day, we might be able to overcome all atrocities, all enemies that degrade and befoul our lives, corrupt us our bodies and minds. We can redeem ourselves someday. This is what we should strive forward for and for days where others do not dictate our actions, where we do not have to live with the consequences of others' actions. We can be heroes, that way. Just for one day even.

Daily News Editorial

MR and the kalu suddhas

29 September 2016

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has called the UNP a party of the pukka sahibs kalu suddho and bemoaned the fate that has befallen the Sri Lanka Freedom Party who he said had thrown in their lot with such a party, going against the principles of the founders of the SLFP which represented the pancha maha balavegaya, in stark contrast to the highly westernized UNP which pursues the capitalist doctrine and anti-people policies.

Speaking at a temple ceremony in Yatinuwara, Rajapaksa said, as a party that rose against the oppression, the lifestyles and policies of the pukka sahibs the SLFP should be the last party to have anything to do with the UNP who has been identified with the kalu suddhas from its very inception. Rajapaksa no doubt may be harking back to the UNP of the days of the Senanayakes and Kotalawalas who no doubt were epitomes of the wealthy capitalist class whose demeanour and way of life were not much different to the colonial rulers who had only just left our shores. That is primarily the reason why SWRD Bandaranaike broke away with the UNP (so it was said), founded the SLFP and won an overwhelming mandate in 1956 to usher in his social revolution and Rajapaksa, it could be verily said, was one of the children of 56 panas haye daruwo.

This set the benchmark for all subsequent SLFP governments to ride to power exploiting the zombie like psyche of the rural, illiterate and the uninitiated electorate. Rajapaksas was no exception picking up the threads from where his predecessors left off continuing to din into the largely brainwashed electorate more of the same nationalist diet, taking the flood of the subsequent war victory at its tide.

That was of course Rajapaksa the politician. But Rajapaksa the layman was not exactly averse to savouring at least some of the aspects of the culture of the kalu suddhas he readily labeled the UNP as being, in the same way that Wimal Weerawansa who raves and rants over the designs of Uncle Sam on Sri Lanka had no misgivings of reveling in the delights of Disney Land, with spouse in tow, sometime ago.

To begin with, Mahinda Rajapaksa who was an Old Boy of Richmond, Thurstan and Nalanda had no qualms of admitting his offspring to the elite Anglicised School by the Sea. Neither did he frown upon them taking into an elitist sport such as Rugby (essentially a game of the kalu suddhas) of which later on, as President of the country, he went out of his to lend patronage, even naming a tournament after his ancestral home in the deep south, for his trio of sons to indulge in to their hearts content.

Rajapaksa the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist, untainted by the influence of the pukka sahibs also had no hesitation in looking the other way when his offspring took to the speed track, and what is more, stage night races in close proximity to the Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy in defiance of the advise of the chief prelates. The former President to whom anything western was anathema also had no compunction in meeting former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the latter’s holiday retreat and also being the chief guest at his (Rajapaksa's) son’s naval passing out parade at Dartmount, an event replete with colonial trappings so repugnant to Rajapaksa’s indigenous tastes.

One also recalls the former President's aborted bid to deliver a lecture at the Oxford Union, of course at the invitation of the world renowned university. Why undertake such a venture at the very institution that produced a long line of Sri Lankan leaders from the UNP which he described as kalu suddhas. True, his own founder leader S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, was also a product of Oxford and so was Felix. But can MR honestly say that they did not have the attributes and lead lifestyles of the kalu suddhas, he so abhors?

It is time the former President sheds his hypocrisy and admit to himself that he was not honest when he labeled the UNP kalu suddhas while leading a similar lifestyle or at least following in the same vein, out of the public eye. The UNP had won landslide electoral victories despite such labels being attached to the Grand Old Party.

True, the UNP had this handicap of being identified as a party catering only to the privileged class in the past. But it has long shed this veneer. The party had undergone significant reforms, especially under the late President Premadasa that has made it a truly people oriented entity today. The UNP under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has a wide acceptance among the larger electorate which may be a worrisome prospect for Mahinda Rajapaksa. The former President has already lost the minority vote by his rabid nationalist stance and now stands to lose the not inconsiderable vote of the English educated minority through his kalu suddha remark.

The Island Editorial

Beggars’ at-home

29 September 2016

President Maithripala Sirisena has become a spoilsport of sorts for some politicians. Troubled by colossal amounts of public funds being spent on politicians’ foreign junkets, he has ordered that the Central Provincial (CP) Council members’ tour of Russia scheduled for mid October be cancelled forthwith. He has asked CP Governor Niluka Ekanayake to explain why councillors are allowed to see the world without his permission in this manner.

The Provincial Council system has been a massive drain on state resources with their recurrent expenditure accounting for almost all their revenue plus financial allocations from the government. It serves only the purpose of politicians whose progeny use it as a training ground and a stepping stone to Parliament.

We at present have 380 sitting provincial councillors in addition to 225 parliamentarians and 4,414 local government members. These numbers are bound to increase owing to electoral reforms.

Travel is said to broaden mind. If so, how come our politicians are so narrow-minded? Their foreign junkets cannot be justified on any grounds. They never learn from their hosts how to tackle problems this country is faced with. We have so many politicians visiting Singapore, but they haven’t cared to learn how the city state handles its municipal waste, which is detoxified and used to reclaim land from the sea. Here, we see many a mountain of garbage, which is a monument to the crass stupidity of globe-trotting politicians and officials.

The government is reportedly planning to set up an office for ethics and morality. We don’t question the wisdom of those behind this project. Suffice it to say that ethics and morality cannot be brought about by government fiat. However, there is no harm in providing some entertainment, through such projects, to the public in these difficult times. What the country is badly in need of is a Ministry of Crabs, as it were, in that government leaders are like crabs which urge their offspring to walk straight while they themselves are moving sideways.

Will the public be told how many foreign trips the President, the Prime Minister and Cabinet ministers have been on since the change of government last year? Most of them, we believe, have been more overseas, pressing flesh with powerful leaders, than here. These tours only help boost their elephantine egos. As we keep saying in these columns, at the rate they are junketing at the expense of the hapless taxpayer they, while going out of the BIA, must be knocking against themselves returning from overseas.

Politicians, at all three levels of government, are having a whale of a time with public funds. This, they are doing while asking Citizen Perera to tighten his belt for the sake of the country. Shame on them!

ETCA: To ink or not to ink

Minister of Commerce and Industry of India Nirmala Sitharaman has, at a media briefing in Colombo, sought to allay fears in the minds of concerned Sri Lankans about the controversial Indo-Lanka Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA). She has said the pact won’t be signed in a hurry and Sri Lanka will benefit therefrom in that it will be able to tap the huge Indian market.

However, the question is whether the discerning Sri Lankans, especially local professionals, will buy into the visiting Indian minister’s claims. Once bitten, twice shy, as they say. Going by the chaos the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord has plunged this country into one may be justified in looking askance at the ETCA, which the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government is going hell for leather to ink.

Gift bearing Greeks may be more trustworthy, in the eyes of Sri Lankans, than Indian diplomats and politicians undertaking to solve this country’s problems. For, their solutions are usually far worse than the problems. The provincial council system is a case in point.

The day may not be far off when the Modi jackets some politicians here put themselves in, to curry favour with New Delhi, in a desperate bid to effect last year’s regime change will turn out to be straitjackets. They will find themselves in the same predicament as the person who sold his soul to the devil.

Diplomats and politicians of powerful nations dealing with smaller countries, where resistance emerges to their schemes, act like the ancient mounted Parthian archers who would pretend to flee from battle and then suddenly turn around at full gallop and shoot at the pursuing enemies and have the last laugh. So, the opponent of ETCA had better brace for Parthian tactics.