Ceylon Today Editorial

Need for a new Constitution

24 April 2017

Lanka Sama Samaja Party Leader Prof. Tissa Vitharana has emphasized the need of going for a new Constitution with the abolition of the Executive Presidency.

Being a reputed academic and always having sensible views acceptable to the right thinking citizens of the country, veteran Leftist politician Prof. Tissa Vitharana making a brief press comment despite being a member of the Joint Opposition (JO) has pointed out the necessity of bringing out a new Constitution with the abolition of the Executive Presidency.

The need of abolishing the Executive Presidency and the introduction of a new Constitution revamping a healthy Parliamentary system was felt long ago. The first Executive President J. R. Jayewardene's introductory comment of the Executive Presidency saying that he could do everything except to change a man into a woman and a woman into a man had highlighted the 'iron fist' nature of the Executive Presidency in the island and how far it has been executed from its inception ridiculing the refined Parliamentary system which had existed prior to 1978.

Prof. Tissa Vitharana as the Head of the All-Party Representatives Committee (APRC) in the previous regime had submitted the Committee's report after three years of extensive interactive sessions with various political parties in 2009.

The APRC report presented by Prof. Vitharana with several progressive suggestions was also considered as a basis for a new Constitution. However, the APRC report was also shelved without any positive outcome in the manner various reports of several other Commissions and Committees were shelved.

The LSSP Leader has mentioned that he would meet President Maithripala Sirisena and emphasize the necessity of abolition of the Executive Presidency, introducing a new electoral system and devolution of power.

Despite being a member of the JO, Prof. Vitharana has expressed his views in a sensible manner in contrast to the Joint Opposition rejecting the new Constitution.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party in the National Unity Government is of the view that reforms could be brought to the existing Constitution instead of bringing a new Constitution.

However, the United National Party, Tamil National Alliance and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress are for a new Constitution and they believe that through the new Constitution a stable solution could be reached for the ethnic question in the country.

In the past three decades when the civil strife was there, there were several new developments occurring in the political scene with the emergence of new political parties. Changes also occurred in the electoral system with the Provincial Council system coming into existence in the country.

So, with the new developments in the political scene in the island, bringing out a progressive and a constructive new Constitution is inevitable.

As the country's sovereignty and integrity were threatened to a great extent in the past, the present National Unity Government which is formed with the alliance of two major political parties with their past experience and with the lessons learnt during the turbulent periods should now get into action with their new-found unity to bring out a new Constitution.

As the Chairman of the APRC a few years ago, Prof. Tissa Vitharana was in a better position to read the pulse of various political forces and their expectations.

Unlike in the past the sovereignty of the island also faces challenges in various forms from external political elements.

Despite bringing an end to terrorism which had led to a three decades of war with untold misery, peace and reconciliation, is yet to be stabilized for the prosperous future of the country.

Therefore, as it has been emphasized by the LSSP think tank Prof. Tissa Vitharana, abolition of the Executive Presidency with a new Constitution could only ensure the stability of the country with peace and prosperity in the future.

Daily News Editorial

MR’s excuse

24 April 2017

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is finding ways to wriggle himself out of responsibility for not finding a solution to the garbage problem that came to a head on New Year’s day when the Meethotamulla trash mountain collapsed killing over 30 persons and displacing hundreds of families. All this, while he is holding onto a tenuous claim that it was all set for the garbage to be disposed at a site in Puttalam and that money too had been allocated in the 2015 budget for the purpose. What is more, he says his brother, former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, had it all cut and dried and that it was only a matter of time for the problem to be solved, when the regime changed. Rajapaksa also got some moral support from an unlikely quarter to back his claim when Minister Champika Ranawaka happened to endorse Gota’s plan, although Deputy Speaker Thilanga Sumathipala had earlier gone onto explain the unfeasibility of the Gota project.

This is why one is at a loss to understand the latest explanation of Mahinda Rajapaksa for not implementing the project. Speaking to reporters at Anuradhapura, after attending to religious observances, the former President said that the garbage problem could not be solved during his tenure since he had to fight the terrorist war. This, after claiming that Gota had a plan. Surely the former President could well have given priority to this matter. It was not as if the war held back projects, both development and infrastructure. The Expressway projects were implemented well after the war.

True, development took a backseat, somewhat, due to all governments, which faced the war, having to pump ill affordable resources to defeat terrorism. But to say that all important projects had to be abandoned due to the war is furthest from the truth. Sri Lanka could not have moved forward to reach middle income status if governments sat back and did nothing, with the excuse that they had to put all its eggs in the war basket. Rajapaksa, himself, did not let the grass grow under his feet just because there was a war raging but plunged into projects that however turned out to be white elephants, squandering billions of rupees. A fraction of this would have sufficed to solve the garbage problem. The Mattala Airport, Hambantota port, the Nelumpokuna theatre, the Sooriyawewa Mahinda Rajapksa stadium etc. all came to be realised long after the end of the war in 2009. To say now that the garbage problem could not be solved due the war is but a clear attempt to hoodwink the people amidst public anger against both the present and past rulers for neglecting this issue.

Rajapaksa would do well to own up to this lapse, as even the Prime Minister has acknowledged that the present government should have given priority to the matter at the very outset of its tenure. It is obvious that Rajapaksa and the Joint Opposition is hell bent on cashing in on the Meethotamulla tragedy for political gain, in the process blinding itself to their own role in the tragedy. It has now transpired that leaders of the community living beneath the Meethotamulla garbage mountain were bribed by a politician who was very close to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who held sway in Kolonnawa at the time, to abstain from protesting against the dumping of garbage. Not only that, this politician also lavished his largesse in setting up sport clubs and other facilities for youth in the area in order to buy their silence while the garbage trucks kept roaring into Meethotamulla. Joint Opposition stalwart Dinesh Gunawardena who was Urban Development Minister at the time and who is today shouting himself hoarse on the tragedy should not have been unaware of what was going on. Instead of heaping blame on the government JO members should extend their support to the President and Prime Minister to find ways to overcome the problem. Having parliament debates is not going to help, but can only exacerbate the public anger towards politicians of all hues.

A bull in a china shop

While President Maithripala Sirisena has declared garbage disposal an essential service there is at least one member of the Joint Opposition who is hell bent on acting in defiance of this order. Prasanna Ranatunga is his name. Television showed the burly MP in the forefront of a mass protest to prevent garbage trucks arriving in the Dompe area. Not only that, Ranatunga was behaving in a violent manner threatening the truck drivers using foul language. Later, speaking at a meeting to commemorate his late father Reggie Ranatunga, the Gampaha District parliamentarian was raving and ranting at the police telling the crowd the next time the police arrive they should get together and assault the men in khaki and he would take the lead in this endeavour. This, while a gazette is out under the President’s hand to arrest those disrupting garbage disposal. What is more, it is also a direct challenge to the IGP.

The Island Editorial

When yahapalanaya rots and stinks

24 April 2017

 

Those who voted for the incumbent administration may not have expected others’ garbage to be shoved down their throats––so to speak––in this savage manner. They were promised the sun and the moon, but, today, they have their villages being turned into stinking rubbish dumps. Their protests are violently crushed. The much-touted yahapalanaya has become kunu (rubbish) palanaya!

The Rajapaksa government had villagers who protested against a factory polluting their wells attacked by the army in Rathupaswala. The present government, which exploited such incidents to capture power, has taken a leaf out of its predecessor’s book in tackling public protests. The yahapalana leaders are apparently busy setting up a police state.

Most of those currently at the levers of power have a history of groveling before terrorists in spite of the latter’s heinous crimes against civilians such as massacres and destroying public property worth billions of US dollars, including more than a dozen state-owned aircraft. The Sri Lanka Air Force choppers were placed at the disposal of senior terrorist leader, who were also treated to BBQ dinners at the very airport they had attacked. The terrorists enjoyed the freedom to urinate and defecate near army bunkers to humiliate soldiers in the name of a ceasefire and ‘peace talks’. But, today, the yahapalana leaders who had their tails between their trembling legs then are resorting to force to disperse civilians who stage non-violent protests against garbage dumping. They are treating civilians like terrorists.

President Maithripala Sirisena, as the Minister of Environment, cannot be unaware that Muthurajawela is a green lung and bird sanctuary, but he has no qualms about allowing garbage to be dumped there. Religious dignitaries and community leaders have sought to knock some sense into the government leaders, but in vain. The same goes for Karadiyana, a village, located on the banks of the picturesque Bolgoda Lake. The huge landfill there cannot take anymore rubbish and people are right in demanding that the government refrain from making an already bad problem worse.

The yahapalana leaders never hesitate to order police to attack protesters who demand redress to their legitimate grievances. As for shifting Colombo’s waste to suburbs, Justitia has got stuck neck deep in a garbage heap; the government has sought to justify its strong-arm tactics with the help of a court order. A wrong does not become a right simply because politicians get it sanctioned judicially. The 18th Amendment also passed muster with the apex court, didn’t it? But, it dealt a severe blow to the democratic rights of the people and was thankfully done away with by the present government. Hence, there is no way the self-appointed champions of good governance can justify the use of court orders to crush protests against garbage dumping! They have only made a mockery of their much-advertised commitment to yahapalanaya.

Some so-called local officials have made a shameless attempt to make light of a severe warning a group of Japanese experts has issued as regards the high methane levels in the Meethotamulla garbage dump. The government had better take all precautions to ensure the safety of the military personnel at Meethotamulla without exposing them to danger in peacetime. There is the possibility of the rubbish heap exploding due to methane, according to the Japanese experts. Their warning must be heeded.

The question is what the thousands of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) workers, paid with public funds, are doing while the military personnel are risking their lives at Meethotamulla. The CMC pays private companies for garbage disposal while the politically appointed municipal labourers idle.

The government has, through its dependence of police brutality to crush anti-garbage dumping protests, demonstrated that it does not intend to hold local government polls in the foreseeable future. Else, it would not have antagonised people in this manner. However, it must stop using force to crush people’s protests; it has to invite protesters, who are decent men and women, explain to them how it intends to solve the garbage problem and obtain their consent for temporary measures to keep the city and its suburbs clean. There is no other way.