Ceylon Today Editorial

Dengue out to cull our population

21 March 2017

Every year we experience at least two dengue outbreaks. Both of which are accompanied by the monsoon rains. This year, sticking to its strict schedule has turned up again to cull our population.

Dengue cases are in record level this year during the year's first outbreak. During the first three months of this year 22,562 suspected dengue cases have been reported islandwide, while the most number of cases were reported in this current month of March where the disease reached an epidemic level. Approximately 41.52% of dengue cases were reported from the Western Province.

Last year, 2016, saw the most recorded number of cases being reported across the nation with 54,945 dengue fever cases, compared to 2015's 29,777. However, by January 2017, a record 1,311 dengue cases were reported. At this rate, 2017 might just surpass the record of last year in this epidemic.

The pattern of increasing number of dengue cases, correlated with the monsoonal rains (from May to August and November to January) has allowed the local health sector to come up with a battle plan against the disease. Accordingly, the Colombo Municipal Council's Health Department issued a notice to all hospitals and medical institutions in and around Colombo, advising them to be prepared for another dengue outbreak this month.

Minister of Health and Indigenous Medicine Rajitha Senaratne has announced a motion to increase the fine for facilitation of mosquito-breeding places in their environs up to
Rs 25,000.

Minister Senaratne had noted that the present laws should be amended to control the dengue fever spreading and decrease its incidence. More efficiently, he suggested making it a legal obligation to pay compensation to the immediate relatives of a dengue victim, by those who maintain dengue breeding sites in the area.

Extreme as it may sound, this is in fact, a rather plausible approach to creating awareness through stricter laws. Citizens who negligently maintain dengue breeding sites are currently being fined – but the fine is insignificant and therefore, can be ignored. There are many who do ignore the fine. However, once the fine system is reinforced and the fine increased, people will finally start noticing.

Similarly, the government should also take immediate steps to strengthen the dengue control programme in certain areas. Dengue, being an urban disease, is mainly contracted by citizens in city areas such as Colombo. Fumigating dengue breeding sites take place almost regularly in Colombo, but not so much outside of Colombo. Thus, measures should be taken to address this and strengthen the procedure.

Similarly, the Colombo Municipal Council has initiated a plan to identify potential dengue mosquito breeding sites in the city of Colombo. Under this Anti-Dengue Drive, red notices have already been issued to the owners of 623 residences following inspection by officials, earlier this week.

According to the Dengue Control Unit, so far 76 people have died due to dengue haemorrhagic fever this year. The Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry noted that during the last 12 months of the year 2016, 47,182 suspected dengue cases have been reported to the Epidemiology Unit from all over the island. Approximately 49.73% of dengue cases were reported from the Western Province.

The dengue outbreak is a recurring case and easy to predict. The most deadly animal in the world is the mosquito. It might seem impossible that something so miniscule can kill so many people, but it's true. According to the World Health Organization, mosquito bites result in the deaths of more than 1 million people every year – meaning that these tiny insects kill more humans than human murderers. The majority of these deaths are due to malaria, with dengue in the second position.
It is not just the authority's responsibility to prevent this insect from killing more humans. It is also our responsibility to protect ourselves as well as others.

Daily News Editorial

The great betrayal

21 March 2017

A comedy of sorts is about to being enacted in Geneva, where the self appointed guardian of Sri Lanka’s security forces, Rt. Real Admiral Ananda Weerasekera, will unfold a dossier containing material exonerating our war heroes of any wrongdoing, while likeminded colleague from the army Rt. Major General Kamal Gunaratne has scored an own goal, giving out details, liberally, of atrocities committed by the security forces during the Eelam war, in his recently released book, titled , “Road to Nandikadal”. This, at a time when the government has received much needed breathing space in the form of a two year extension to fulfill its commitments made on the UNHRC joint resolution. According to an English Weekend publication, quoting Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, the Tamil diaspora has gone into overdrive, distributing copies of the book to buttress their claim of atrocities committed by the security forces against Tamil civilians and also circulated volumes in Geneva during the UNHRC sessions. Samaraweera told journalists at his ministry last week, the 741 page volume gives explicit details of atrocities committed by the forces against Tamils in the North and the tone and tenor of the commentary of the author suggests that he took a perverse pleasure in inflicting pain on the Tamil civilians.

It goes without saying that considerable damage had been done to the military by the exposures in the book by the very people who portray themselves as protectors of the country’s war heroes, holding them sacrosanct and even accusing the government of victimizing members of forces by arraigning them for various criminal acts. What is more, the carefully thought out efforts by the government to counter the allegations made against the war heroes, has, no doubt, been blown into smithereens by the contents of this book which was launched under the stewardship of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. MR apparently had not read the contents or it would have been doubtful if he would have graced the event, if one is to go by his rhetoric, disporting himself as the champion of our security forces.

It cannot be a coincidence that the Tamil National Alliance has stepped up its call for a hybrid court, inclusive of foreign judges, to try our war heroes, now that the contents of the book has become public. It also cannot be a coincidence that TNA, and Opposition Leader, R. Sampanthan has claimed that over 150,000 Tamils were killed during the war and nearly 50% of the Tamil population fled the country during the three decades conflict, addressing a function in New Delhi last week. One also recalls TNA MP P. Sumanthiran insisting on a hybrid court, on the grounds that justice will not be served to the Tamils under Sri Lanka’s courts, following the verdict of a Sinhala speaking jury exonerating the accused in the Raviraj murder. Now the contents of the Rtd. Major General’s book may come like manna from heaven to Sumanthiran, and the more militant Tamil politicians such as Sivajilingam, to press their claims for a hybrid court. The book may also go onto buttress their long held claim that over 40,000 Tamils civilians perished during the war at the hands of the security forces.

One also cannot help coming to the conclusion that the Rtd. Major General’s book has not served the cause of the war heroes, whom the author is so passionate about. Nay, the conclusion will be inescapable that the allegations against the so called war heroes, now being held for various criminal acts, are indeed not without foundation. Hence, Rt. Major General Kapila Gunaratne has dealt a double whammy on the security forces, while trying to garnish his book with explicit details he would have been well advised to have left out.

The Rtd. Major General’s revelations have certainly upset the apple cart for the Joint Opposition, which have been defending the record of the security forces with a vengeance and accused the Yahapalanaya Government of engaging in a witch-hunt of the country’s war heroes at the behest of the West and the Tamil Diaspora. Now, one of their own agents has handed over the necessary evidence on a platter to the enemies of the state. Besides, as a head of a military unit during the war years, in the eyes of the international community, there would be no reason to doubt the Rtd. Major General Gunaratne’s claims. The damage has been done and no amount of rhetoric from the Joint Opposition could reverse the thinking planted in the minds of the interested parties that the forces had indeed committed atrocities against civilians.

The government, for its part, should take measures to scrutinize books written on the war. We are not aware if there is an appointed authority to inspect the contents of books, like the Public Performance Board for films. We are also not aware if “Road to Nandikadal” was subjected to vetting. More books on the war are in the pipeline. It would be prudent if these books are not released willy nilly but subject to close scrutiny, even though, it must be said, that the horse has already bolted.

The Island Editorial

Geneva bungling

21 March 2017

 

A determined effort is being made in some quarters to dupe the public into believing that the 2015 UNHRC Resolution on Sri Lanka, co-sponsored by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe regime, does not call for a hybrid war crimes tribunal. This claim, based on some perverted logic, does not stand up to scrutiny.

The aforesaid UNHRC resolution welcomes the GoSL ‘proposal to establish a judicial mechanism with a special counsel to investigate allegations of violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law ….’ It hastens to add that it ‘affirms the importance of participation in a Sri Lankan judicial mechanism, including the special counsel’s office, of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers and authorized prosecutors and investigators’.

A local judicial mechanism with foreign judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers and investigators is a hybrid tribunal in all but name! Now that the government has co-sponsored the resolution there is no way it can dissociate itself therefrom. It is lucky that its western masters have leapt to its defence, demonstrating, in the process, once again, that the UNHRC resolutions are based on the interests of strategic alliances rather than the human rights concerns of member states.

The US and its western allies have also done themselves a big favour by granting Sri Lanka two more years to fulfil its Geneva commitments. For, a turn of the screw in Geneva at this juncture will leave the pro-western yahapalana administration with no alternative but to undertake a course of action which will be its undoing. Needless to say that it will be plain political suicide for the Sirisena-Wickremesighe government, sinking in a politico-economic mire of its own making and fearing elections, to set up a war crimes tribunal, domestic or otherwise.

Given the extent of Chinese expansionism and the prospect of the Indian Ocean going the same way as the South China Sea as a result, the western powers are trying to shore up the yahapalana government, which they helped form, to retain their hold on this part of the world. Americans are now conducting joint military exercises with their Sri Lankan counterparts, accused of war crimes, in the strategically important Hambantota, which is being turned into a China town. Western powers won’t loosen their purse strings easily—in fact, they themselves are in dire financial straits—to help the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government, but they can use their international clout to give it a brief respite in Geneva, where they use human rights as an instrument to further their geo-political interests.

The Rajapaksa government blundered by taking on the US; it thought its Medamulana tactics (read hurling abuse with patriotic outpourings thrown in for good measure) would help tackle the US. One of its big guns went so far as to stage a fast in front of the UN office in Colombo in a bid to frighten the world body into submission!

Diplomacy should be the most important attribute of those who rule a smaller nation. A pesky Rajapaksa government unnecessarily antagonised the world powers after winning the war, and its successor has mistaken bootlicking for diplomacy. It looks as if the leaders of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government waited at the BIA to carry the bags of visiting western diplomats. Cringe levels are palpable in diplomatic circles when the yahapalana grandees toss protocol to the wind and give bear hugs etc., to foreign dignitaries, leaving the latter red faced. Diplomacy does not consist in either kicking or licking, so to speak. It is a difficult art to be mastered. We, however, are not without veteran diplomats, who can be of some help to the unsophisticated politicians who have messed up the country’s foreign policy.

Let the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe regime, which is becoming increasingly dependent on western backing for survival, be forewarned that it ought to tread cautiously lest it should face the same fate as the man who sold his soul to the devil.