Ceylon Today Editorial

Threat To National Security

05 May 2017

Today's Joint Opposition (JO)/ Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) sponsored one day strike may be a threat to national security.

The JO/SLPP shadow leader is the SLFP/UPFA Kurunegala District MP and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

'JO'/SLFP/UPFA MP Kandy District MP Mahindananda Aluthgamage speaking to reporters on Wednesday said that their strike is to show solidarity with the GMOA who are protesting against the establishment of SAITM, a private medical college.

While the right to strike is a constitutional guarantee, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) should ensure that such a strike should not be a threat to national security.

Further, GoSL should even go to the extent of promulgating the Essential Public Services Act (EPSA) to ensure the smooth functioning of the public service, for the public good as a counter to this strike action.

The so called unions of the JO/SLPP joining in solidarity with today's token strike of the GMOA make it, ipso facto clear, that Rajapaksa and his minions want to gain political mileage.

The perverse and perverted politics that Rajapaksa and his minions practise is in no better way exposed than in their support for today's GMOA strike in protest over SAITM, because it was the Rajapaksa regime themselves who were responsible for giving the approval for the establishment of SAITM.

Gaining political mileage is a democratic right, but not at the expense of the citizens of this country.

Therefore, GoSL should not only execute the EPSA, but even go to the extent of enacting emergency laws, while placing the security forces and the police on full alert to ensure public life is not disturbed and law and order not threatened in the country.

The people of this country, elected this government to power for a certain period of time to govern and not to be governed by strikes, politically motivated, or not.

The scouts' motto 'Be Prepared,' is truer now, than ever. The JO/SLPP, together with the GMOA, may be able to play politics, but the GoSL, to its disadvantage, cannot.

What the GoSL however, has been elected to do is to govern and that entails ensuring that day to day public life goes about undisturbed, strike or no strike, and that law and order is also maintained.

Referring to politically motivated strikes, it was Rajapaksa's late leader, Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike, referring to the LSSP and her husband (SWRD), had then said, Mage swami purushayawa nomara meruwa.

What she meant was that the LSSP and its strikes 'nearly killed' her husband.

'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.'

Using legalistic measures and sometimes force, when national security is threatened by strikes and demonstrations, work.

An example of which is how the then GoSL dealt with the July 1980 strike. They sacked 40,000 striking workers, but yet went on to win the presidential election and a referendum which extended the life of the then Parliament for a further six years without having to hold an election two years later.

Then on 29 July 1987, when the SLFP-JVP inspired demonstrations against the controversial Indo-Lanka Peace Accord took place, the security forces and the police shot some 30 demonstrators near the Dehiwela Bridge and elsewhere. The demonstrators were walking towards Colombo in protest where this Accord was subsequently signed on that same day.

And a year later, that same party which was the government then, saw its presidential candidate being elected to power despite these lawful killings.

On the converse, on the eve of the parliamentary election of 1977, the government in power then, caved in to a general strike held the previous year and ended up being routed in the election that followed.

Daily News Editorial

GMOA now a JO tag

05 May 2017

So the battle lines are drawn, and, what s more, the cat is out of the bag. The Joint Opposition has decided to support the doctors strike, called for today, over the SAITM issue plus ETCA and the Trincomalee oil tank matter. Anyway, the coming together of the GMOA and JO was always on the cards from the tone and tenor of the GMOA's attacks on the government and it was only a matter of time before the marriage was official. The GMOA is making no bones of the fact that it is now a fully fledged political entity by co-opting the JO in today's strike action. Nay, it has thrown away it's fig leaf that gave it cover as an apolitical entity and has plunged headlong into the lap of Mahinda Rajapaksa.

As stated, the development was not unexpected. The doctors had all along showed what their game was and where their loyalties lay. The GMOA President too only three weeks ago went on a harangue, virulently attacking government ministers at a meeting, opposite the Fort Railway Station.

The JO stalwarts, for their part, may be keen on sustaining the momentum of what they call the largest May Day crowd in history, by joining in the doctors strike. But they will only be exposing themselves as a bunch of hypocrites (not that they are already not). The SAITM issue did not originate with the Yahapalanaya government. It was set up with the blessings of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Ditto for the private medical facility at the Kotalawela Defence Academy. The mortal fear of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa muzzled the likes of Panadenia and Naveen De Zoysa at the time. By coming out only now, with all guns blazing at the present government, the GMOA has only exposed itself to ridicule.

Things are now laid in black and white. The doctors’ Trade Union has now come out into the open to shamelessly be part and parcel of the 'Bring Back Mahinda’ project. No amount of protestations by the doctors are going to now convince the public that members of the GMOA are the do-gooder medicos and champions of the cause of the patients, they portrayed themselves to be, but the palanquin bearers of a political leader to whom they are beholden for past favours. The doctors may have very good reasons for seeing the back of the Yahapalanaya government. The drastic reduction of the prices of essential drugs by the present government has hit the doctors badly. The cash strapped drug companies will not be able to fund the foreign junkets of the doctors as in the past. They (doctors) believe that a return of Rajapaksa would restore the status quo.

Doctors are highly regarded professionals, held in high esteem by society and looked upon by ordinary folk as gods for their life saving abilities and the healing touch. As such they should not mar this reputation by conduct that is unseemly of practitioners of a noble profession. The doctors are within their rights to fight for wrongs and injustices visited upon their profession and they can be assured the public will be behind them in their struggles. But members of the medical profession should not be seen to be getting themselves involved in political projects, especially attempts to bring defeated politicians back to power. This is exactly what the GMOA is doing today at the cost of suffering patients.

The doctors could not be unaware of the contempt in which the public at large hold our present day politicians, known for their corruption and sleaze. By supporting these politicians in the open the doctors too are bound to be held in contempt and run the risk of being painted with the same brush.

In any event the GMOA should not concern itself with issues outside the remit of medical practitioners. The doctors have now extended the scope of their demands beyond the SAITM issue to include matters such as ETCA and the Trincomalee oil tanks which are areas related to trade and economics and foreign relations. They cannot dictate what the government should do or not do and venture to teach it how the economy should be run. As educated professionals the doctors are well aware that today we live in a globalized set up with borders of nations blurred and economies integrated. Sri Lanka too is naturally drawn into this world order and we can live in isolation only at great cost to the country. Trade and economic agreements between the countries, particularly neighbours, are a natural outcome of this set up. Concerns about sovereignty or the adverse fall out to the country as a result of these agreements no doubt has to be considered and doubts cleared. But Sri Lanka cannot afford to fall behind the rest of the world as a result of parochial considerations.

The government, on its part, should not hesitate to face the strike called for today, squarely, and ensure essential services are not disrupted in anyway. If it has to take drastic measures towards this end, so be it.

The Island Editorial

An unspeakable cut

05 May 2017

 

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s security has been reduced. He says as many as 42 police personnel including an ASP (Assistant Superintendent of Police) were removed suddenly on Wednesday night. That was something to be expected of the government, troubled by the Joint Opposition’s successful May Day rally.

Opposition politicians whose rallies attract large crowds always incur the wrath of their ruling counterparts. In the 1970s, the late J. R. Jayewardene came under goon attacks carried out by the SLFP. The Old Fox, while reciting nahi verena verani ... (hatred never ceases by hatred ...) paid his rivals back in their own coin after capturing power. The culture of political harassment and violence has since taken root firmly.

The Rajapaksas are no angels. They treated some of their political opponents in the most despicable manner. They reduced former war winning Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka’s security in the presidential fray in 2010 to a bare minimum. They sought to curtail Fonseka’s movements in that shameless manner because his rallies were well attended. They did not care two hoots about the fact that the war had just ended and Fonseka ran high security risks with LTTE combatants still around. One of the ministers who vociferously called for a drastic cut in Fonseka’s security at that time is currently in the yahapalana Cabinet! Maithripala Sirisena also suffered humiliation and harassment at the hands of the Rajapaksas after his defection from the SLFP to run for President. His security was slashed. He would also have been thrown behind bars had he lost the last presidential election.

The boot is now on the other foot and it is payback time, one may say. But, that does not mean the government is justified in downsizing former President Rajapaksa’s security contingent. It secured a popular mandate by promising to usher in good governance and pave the way for a new political culture. The success of the JO’s May Day rally is indicative of the government’s failure to make good on its promises. The yahapalana leaders should have provided economic relief to the public, got corruption under the previous regime proved thoroughly and the culprits prosecuted while taking action against the racketeers within its own ranks. If they had lived up to people’s expectations, they would have been able to reduce the JO to a mere name board politically without postponing elections and reducing its rivals’ security.

Most of all, President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe are now in a position to traverse all parts of the country, especially the former war zone, without fearing suicide bombers or snipers because terrorism has been defeated. That feat would not have been possible without the unwavering political leadership President Rajapaksa provided to the country’s war on terror. Therefore, he as well as all others who were instrumental in defeating terrorism must be protected.

True, there have been no terror strikes since the conclusion of the war in 2009, but the government must not be complacent. Many ex-LTTE combatants are around and there is no guarantee that all of them have given up their macabre cause. Several of them have been arrested and remanded for trying to harm TNA MP M. A. Sumanthiran. Threats may also come from unexpected quarters. Paranoid delusions are to be avoided, but the government must not lower its guard or compromise the security of its opponents who were at the top of the LTTE hit list. The yahapalana leaders had better do so for its own sake. All it took to mark the beginning of the end of the mighty Premadasa regime was a single bullet, which felled Lalith Athulathmudali, who was addressing a political rally at Kirulapone in April 1993.

The best time to judge political leaders is not when they are ensconced in power, free from worries, but when they feel threatened and are faced with the prospect of losing power. The yahapalana leaders have laid bare their true faces once again and proved that they are ready to stoop to any level to retain their grip on power just like their predecessors.

Let the government be urged to restore Rajapaksa’s security forthwith while taking steps to ensure the safety of all wartime political and military leaders. The country owes it to them.