Ceylon Today Editorial

Will promises also end up being axioms?

25 January 2017

That, girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,

Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

These words of Auden from the immortal 'Shield of Achilles' aptly define the rampant crime the world over, and so profuse in Sri Lanka, so very, very commonplace in fact, that they have become mere axioms to a society inured and desensitized by. This desensitizing has run deep to the extent that, the all-pervasive bribery and corruption in the country, in which the body politic is embroiled, have become the main menu on offer for a sensation hungry public and a vindictive kind of collective oppositional political persona.

One is not confronted by the voice of conscience which alone must and does have the right to be condemnatory and judgmental.

Instead, corruption has become the tool with which a politically immoral Opposition itself thrives on. The narrative is not to do with morality as in the issue concerning allegations of wrongdoing in the alleged Central Bank Bond scandal. No! It's all about you-throw-dirt-at-me-so-I-throw-dirt-at-you. It's tit-for-tat spurred by fears of imminent exposure of greater corruption indulged in by themselves and their political masters.

It's against this backdrop that we see President Sirisena saying he will appoint a Special Presidential Commission (SPC) to not only supposedly probe the entire issue – but that he will also appoint – or ask the Commission to appoint – special auditors to study the COPE Report on the alleged scam AND TAKE LEGAL ACTION BASED ON THE COPE FINDINGS.

Question arises: Did not COPE retain competent auditors to probe the two CB Bond issues which are in the eye of this storm? The Opposition claims the case filed in Court challenging the COPE Report as well as the move by the President to appoint a SPC to probe the allegations are twin diversionary tactics meant to derail the imminent debating of the alleged scam in Parliament, on the premise that the issue is now before Court. To make matters worse the Speaker, Karu Jayasuriya, goes on record as having said that the debate can go ahead as planned because Parliament has not been officially informed about the case filed in Court.

All this is happening while the country's crime rate is rising, featuring the most ghastly of crimes including a dangerous trend in gang rape, a groundswell in the most gruesome murders, corporate crimes, divorces, broken homes, an alleged role by the Police in ensuring criminals are protected from arrest and legal action, and crime in every strata of society.

That all this is happening while Sri Lanka verily bleeds profusely from multiple social ills. It's heinous that the nation has to continue being subject to this collective trauma.

The infighting in COPE itself has made one wonder whether COPE has not outlived its use-by date. The very fact that COPE has members from every political party represented in Parliament in its very composition ensures that it's politics that will determine its findings and action and not the desire to weed out corruption from society. Members of one political party pull in an opposite direction while those from another party stand opposed to transparency and meaningful legal action. No wonder then that the President has got sick and tired of COPE and has decided to take control of the issue by appointing a Special Commission to ostensibly ensure that an impartial probe backed by hard facts emerges and remains within his control to put an end to this circus.

If the findings are negative, it could mean that the President will be faced with a decision that could have negative ramifications on the unity government and lend itself to tangible socio-political instability, the nature and scope of which is difficult to predict.

The meeting between the President and Premier the other day bore fruit by way of the President's announcement that he will be appointing his Special Commission. That could mean that the Premier was at least to some measure okay with the plan which could come up with either a negative or positive result.

It goes without saying that a negative result will backfire on the UNP and the Pro-Sirisena SLFP faction at the Local Government Polls.

If the SPC's findings are not negative it will mean that the government can fight its way through this quagmire.

This week we can expect Parliament to be officially notified of the case filed against the COPE Report. Will promises also end up being axioms?

Daily News Editorial

Let MR spill the beans

25 January 2017

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has dropped a bombshell. He says he knows who killed Sunday Leader founder Editor Lasantha Wickremetunga. Not only that, he has invited the CID to question him if it wants to know who killed Lasantha. Rajapaksa’s revelation is serious indeed if not shocking. Lasantha was assassinated in January 2009, in a high security zone swarming with military personnel and in a previous editorial we made the point that no such incident could have occurred at such a guarded location unless with the full knowledge of the high ups in the defence establishment.

Rajapaksa was the commander-in-chief and his brother Gotabhaya the Defence Secretary. They certainly would, at least, have had an inkling of what indeed happened on that fateful day. Rajapaksa, one may recall, told the elder brother of the slain journalist at a media gathering at Temple Trees, shortly after the assassination, that if he (the brother) was able to provide any information on the identity of the assassin, he (Rajapaksa) would do the needful. This, after Lasantha’s elder brother directly inquired from Rajapaksa on the progress of the investigation. In other words, the former President, as implied, was not aware of anyone connected to the assassination. Hence, his request for information in this regard.

Now, a full eight years after the incident, Rajapaksa is confessing that he knew who was behind the assassination, and, not only that, is asking the CID to obtain all the details from him. In other words, the former President had been sitting tight on all the information pertaining to those behind the assassination for eight long years and is only now prepared to spill the beans.

Why didn’t he go to the CID at the time and expose the identity of those behind the killing? After all Lasantha was said to have been a good friend of his. Hasn’t the former President, by his silence on the matter, set himself up as an accessory to murder?

The CID now has the opportunity to question the former President following the latter’s invitation to be questioned. As the former head of state, the evidence of Rajapaksa has necessarily got to carry a lot of weight. It also has to be noted that Rajapaksa maintained a stoic silence all these years even when suspects connected to the assassination were being questioned. He did not drop the bombshell, as he has done today, at the time. Had he done so the investigation would have been long concluded and the culprits brought to book.

It must be said that the whole affair came to the fore with the grilling of former Army Commander Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka. Is Rajapaksa’s display of alacrity to name the assassin at this stage anything to do with revenge, jealousy or personal animosity? If not, why bring the matter up at this stage? Whoever was responsible, it was the bounden duty of Rajapaksa to come out with identity of the individuals responsible for the foul deed at the time. What made Rajapaksa come out of the woodwork now with his precious information, knowing his credibility is bound to be put to the test?

Be that as it may, with Rajapaksa now coming out with this explosive revelation, the law enforcement authorities should not lose time in getting to the bottom of the whole affair. The slain journalist’s wife, soon after the new government took office, wrote a letter to those who mattered to reopen the investigation that had been stalled. The journalist fraternity too is clamouring to speed up investigations, not only into the Lasantha assassination, but all members of the fourth estate who went the same way as Lasantha.

The Yahapalanaya government promised an end to the culture of impunity, that was the hallmark of the Rajapaksa regime. The dark pall that hung over the journalist tribe has been lifted over the last two years, although some media institutions have taken the liberty of criticising the government with impunity. They don’t have to fear white vans anymore.

Lasantha, no doubt, was a controversial scribe and in certain instances crossed that red line that got under the skins of both the Chandrika and Mahinda regimes. But by no stretch of the imagination can one justify the fate that ultimately visited the Sunday Leader editor and there can be no justification for what in the end befell Lasantha, whatever flaws he may have had, professionally speaking.

This foul murder even brought Sri Lanka under the international microscope and served to alienate the countries of the civilized world from Sri Lanka. It is time that the Lasantha murder stop being made a political football by interested parties and that the whole matter be gone into in depth before the real culprits, both who committed the actual crime and those who masterminded it, brought to justice. This, while dousing the anguish of the Wickremetunga family, would no doubt be justice done to all journalists who went the same route as Lasantha and a victory for those scribes who were subjected to state sponsored violence.

The Island Editorial

Bond scams: Words, words, words!

25 January 2017

 

We usually hear a cacophony of croaks near the Diayawanna Oya. At the end of the day, all shouting, abuse and barbs which pass for parliamentary debates leave the public none the wiser. The right of the national legislature to discuss matters it thinks to be important cannot be questioned. But, we are afraid, most such debates are tantamount to an utter waste of public funds utilised to keep the House open on sitting days. Some of the ruling coalition pundits keep arguing that it is advisable to close down the loss-incurring national carrier than to keep it afloat. One wonders whether the same is true of many other state institutions.

Yesterday, there was a difference, though. Parliament was debating the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the Central Bank bond scams and several members, all from the Opposition, for once, managed to infuse some sense into the debate. They deserve praise though it is doubtful whether the ordinary people had the time to watch the whole debate live on TV and were able to draw rational conclusions without being swayed by partisan politics.

The yahapalana bigwigs got caught once again with their pants and sarongs down. They, true to form, tried to defend the indefensible. They were exposed for their favourite pickpocket ruse as it were. Pickpockets place their confederates strategically along possible escape routes so that in case of a botched attempt followed by a pursuit their friends could join the pursuers in catching them and then craftily remove them to safety on the pretext of making a citizen’s arrest. This is the method the UNP has adopted to save the bond thieves.

The UNP first appointed a committee consisting of its lawyers and had the then Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran exonerated from wrongdoing. It succeeded in enlisting President Maithripala Sirisena’s support to dissolve Parliament in 2015 before the presentation of the COPE report, which would have had a devastating impact on its parliamentary polls campaign. Having committed that cardinal political sin, the President is now duty bound to ensure that the bond scams will be properly probed by the presidential commission he is going to appoint.

The UNP also made no bones about its determined bid to sabotage the COPE probe under the present Parliament into the bond thefts. Its members went so far as to abuse Central Bank officials and even the Auditor General verbally in a threatening manner in a bid to suppress evidence against Mahendran et al. Having failed to derail the parliamentary watchdog committee process, it sought to weaken the COPE report by inserting footnotes into it. The UNP succeeded in preventing its leader being named in the report thanks to its rapport with the new JVP. Unable to open an escape route for bond thieves through Parliament the UNP is now trying to open one via Hulftsdorp with the help of malleable state prosecutors, police high-ups and judicial officers.

Only the naïve may have expected the UNP or the Opposition to come out with anything different in yesterday’s debate. Chief Government Whip Lakshman Kirielle did his damnedest to have the House believe that a botched attempt by a group of some civil society activists to move the Supreme Court against Mahendran et al was sufficient proof that there had been no bond scams! The case, which was too weak, was dismissed on different grounds. Interestingly, the government has sacked the Lanka Coal Company Chairman Maithri Gunaratne, who demanded that a questionable coal tender be scrapped as the Supreme Court had said the deal which had shaken its conscience could be cancelled.

The previous government took the masses for asses and thought anything coated with its brand of patriotism could be rammed down their throats. The incumbent dispensation apparently thinks people are goats and koskola (jak leaves) mixed with a little bit of yahapalanaya can be shoved down their throats. Reflected in the UNP’s arguments yesterday in defence of the bond thieves was this mindset.

The Joint Opposition (JO) can certainly do much more than it is doing at present to crank up pressure on the government to stop giving kid glove treatment to the bond thieves who are going places. Intriguingly, while claiming that it will topple the government before the end of the current year it baulks at flogging the bond issue hard enough to mobilise the people against the government. The bond scams have adversely impacted on about six million workers in the private sector dependent on the EPF, which has suffered a huge loss due to the bond thefts. The JO ought to explain why it has stopped short of taking to the streets on the crucial issue.

Meanwhile, the only way to bring the bond thieves to justice is to conduct a thorough presidential probe into the COPE findings and prepare a solid case against them. Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said yesterday that President Sirisena was exploring ways and means of recovering the public funds stolen by the bond thieves. The President will have to find out the provenance of the funds these crooks have invested locally and whether part of them has been utilised to pollute the media through investments therein. The President alone has the powers to get to the bottom of it. It is hoped that he will have a thorough probe conducted into the bond scams, bring the culprits to justice and, thereby, live up to people’s expectations.

One more thing: let the President and his government be urged to dissolve the FCID, the CID and the CIABOC for their failure to arrest the bond thieves. They have forfeited their right to be taken seriously and maintained with public funds. Those responsible for the biggest ever bank robbery are still free. As it is popularly said in this country, of what use is a sword which is not available for war?