Sunday Observer Editorial

A clear verdict for Democracy

The Supreme Court judgment last week on the dissolution of Parliament is a vindication of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s actions. The Court verdict made it clear that President Rajapaksa had acted within the confines of the Constitution in dissolving Parliament after it had run its course for four and a half years.

The Apex Court had also in principle accepted the argument that a ‘dead’ Parliament cannot be recalled back to life. In the backdrop of the massive mandate given to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on November 16, 2019, it is clear that the ‘old’ Parliament had clearly lost its mandate to govern. Recalling it would have made a mockery of that popular mandate given to President Rajapaksa.

While there indeed are provisions to recall a dissolved Parliament in the Constitution, the qualifying factor is a dire emergency. Since the Coronavirus was controlled to a great extent within our borders, there was no such emergency to justify recalling the old Parliament. While it is true that Parliament has power and control over State finances, the President has the authority to use funds from the Consolidated Fund until such time an election is held. In fact, just last week, the President allocated Rs. 1 trillion for various services and development projects from the Fund.

But a country cannot go on forever without an effective sitting Parliament. This has indeed been the position of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. They have been pushing for General Elections to be held as soon as possible subject to health sector clearance and guidelines. For whatever reason, certain political parties and civil society groups have been trying to block or postpone the elections. As Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said recently, normally it is Governments that try to evade elections while the Opposition demands them. In this instance, these roles have been reversed, he said.

The Opposition’s claim that elections should be held only when the virus is completely controlled or eliminated does not hold water since many local and international health experts predict the virus will be with us for at least two more years. Even if a vaccine is made available at least by this time next year, not all the seven billion people in the world will get it at once. Thus we are possibly looking beyond a two-year window until the Coronavirus is eradicated, if ever.

It would be a crime to deny the voters their franchise for such a long period of time. Now that the country has been opened and normalcy has been more or less restored, there can be no more excuses to delay the General Election beyond the 60-70 days required by the Election Commission for logistical arrangements and for political parties to campaign (The polls date is likely to be announced on Monday by the NEC).

Besides, the Director General of Health Services has provided very clear guidelines on holding the election under the present circumstances, including the deployment of health personnel at all polling stations, temperature checks and hand wash facilities. The only practical problem we can foresee is the identification of voters with face masks, but this should be a matter of asking them to remove it momentarily for the presiding officials to check against the ID card.

Sri Lanka is not the only country going through this experience. Eight other countries including South Korea have successfully held elections, sometimes in worse Coronavirus conditions than ours. The polls held in South Korea have been hailed as the most successful electoral exercise ever held there. Our health and electoral officials should study this model and take any appropriate lessons to suit the local context and conditions. Neighbouring India and Singapore are also planning to hold elections soon and our officials could get in touch with them too.

Now it is up to political parties to instill discipline in their supporters and activists to ensure that they do not violate social distancing and hygiene norms at any time. Huge rallies are unlikely and even pocket meetings have been restricted to 30-50 people seated or standing according to social distancing rules. Perhaps this will bring politicians closer to the people than on previous occasions, when they could only be seen from a distant stage.

Political parties will also look to the electronic media to take their message across, but one wonders whether airtime can be given to hundreds of candidates within a limited time frame of two months or so. Social media is the other obvious platform, but this is fraught with danger due to the possibilities for malicious mudslinging, outright fabrications, fake news, deep fake videos, trolls and targeted ads bearing false accusations against opponents. Political parties will necessarily have to ‘police’ the content posted by their candidates to avoid such ramifications.

This is also an ideal opportunity to ponder why our elections authorities have seemingly abandoned the idea of electronic voting, which would have made things easier for all, despite earlier demonstrations and commitments. In some countries, it is even possible to vote online from the comfort of your own home. Going forward, serious thought must be given to this idea.

The one lesson we should learn from the present experience is that we should not let an invisible virus defeat us and take our freedom away. An election is perhaps the supreme expression of freedom and now we have a chance to savour it again. It is now our duty to vote and reinforce our democratic ideals.

The Island Editorial

Thonda power

As public optimism grows that the lock down/covid restrictions would be further relaxed this week, a short reader's letter that we publish today raises a question that is in many people's minds. Did not the good sense that applied in imposing an island-wide curfew on Poson Day (Friday) and the day before not apply to late CWC leader Arumugam Thondaman's funeral upcountry? True, a curfew was imposed in the Nuwara Eliya district on the Poson and pre-Poson days. But the television coverage of the funeral clearly showed the whole country that large crowds converged for the event, officially described as one with state patronage (as opposed to a state funeral?). There was no social distancing and both Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his son, Namal, were caught on camera hugging the late Thondaman's son in sympathy. It would have been an obviously impossible task for police to enforce health safety rules at such an event just as much as it would have been impossible to impose them at Mihintale where tens of thousands flock on Poson Day every year.

A parliamentary election is approaching and we'll know the date when it will be held on Monday, Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya has said. The Ceylon Workers Congress which has over the years delivered a bloc of Indian Tamil estate votes to rival parties and groups contending for national power is now a member of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)-led alliance. The late Arumugam Thondaman had handed his nomination for the forthcoming election. Given his demise, the SLPP has nominated the late leader's son to his vacancy on their candidates list for Nuwara Eliya. This was on a decision of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa who opted for Jeevan Thondaman, Arumugam's son, over a nephew, Senthil Thondaman, who is also a contender for CWC leadership. What will eventually happen within the CWC over the leadership issue is still an open question with Senthil commanding support and influence in the union and Jeevan claiming an inherited legacy. However that be, the political interests of the SLPP, seeking a two thirds majority in the next parliament, obviously took precedence over the safety interests of the whole country in the matter of Arumugam's funeral in the present lock down situation.

This is a fact of life that we Lankans have to live with perhaps a price of democracy. Whatever political dispensation that is in office will always bat for the home side. Hopefully, the ignoring of the safety rules will have no repercussions. There was a report that a journalist covering Arumugam's death both in Colombo and upcountry had developed some symptoms but was ruled negative for Covid-19 after testing. Generations of Thondamans have wielded enormous political power in this Island during the post-Independence period as vividly recounted in a contribution to this issue by Rajeewa Jayaweera, a regular contributor to our newspaper. Obviously 'Thonda Power' flowed from the CWC's ability to deliver a crucial bloc vote to whichever side they favoured during an election. These votes obviously mattered over safety considerations.

A statue of the late Mr. S. Thondaman, Arumugam's grandfather, stands outside the old Parliament building which is now the Presidential Secretariat, where many of the political 'greats' of this country are similarly remembered. Savumiamoorthy Thondaman undoubtedly was of great service to his people who were unjustly disenfranchised by the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948. He shrewdly wielded the clout he commanded to deliver a plantation bloc vote to suit the swings of the political pendulum. This enabled him to serve as a minister in different governments which, no doubt, enabled him to serve his people. The junior Thondaman who's just passed away, was not a patch of the old block who commanded the respect and affection of his people for the great service he had rendered them. The dynasty continues. Whether the thousand-rupee daily wage for plantation workers that Arumugam discussed with Prime Minister Rajapaksa will also be part of a short-term package is also to be seen.

Reasons later?

Whether the five-judge bench of the Supreme Court which delivered a unanimous judgment on far-reaching constitutional issues over the country being without a parliament for the last several months as a result of the covid pandemic, did not adduce any reasons for its decision. Nor did it say reasons later as it is often done. The court is not obliged to give its reasoning on a Leave to Appeal matter as it must if the case itself was heard. Given the issues involved, the nature of the case itself and the sharp division of opinion on either side of the political divide, it is most unlikely that reasons would be given in present context. Rajan Philips, our widely respected columnist, writing in this page has offered an incisive analysis on this matter and its possible repercussions in the short to medium term which we commend to our reader.

There is no doubt that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa acted well within his powers in dissolving Parliament. This was not contested by the appellants who claimed that their fundamental rights had been violated by what followed the dissolution. Parliament is unquestionably a continuing institution and the periods in which it is in abeyance is constitutionally prescribed. A prorogation, for instance, can only be for a period of two months. A new Parliament must be elected within three months of the dissolution of its predecessor, but the current situation did not make that possible. If a presidential election intervenes between a dissolution of Parliament and an election of its successor, a period of four months from the dissolution and the sitting of a new Parliament is permitted. If the election is called at the end of a prorogation, then a period of five months will elapse between a dissolution and the election of a new Parliament. Article 70 of the Constitution provides for all these matters indicating there had been careful thought about all possibilities. But the totally unanticipated pandemic has turned everything topsy turvy.

The government, seeking a two thirds majority in the new Parliament, is anxious to have an election as early as possible on the nominations already submitted. If fresh nominations are called, the deeply divided UNP has another chance to sink its differences. But this is not to be. The court has not set an election date which remains the prerogative on the Election Commission which is firmly on record saying that it will act only in accordance with the health guidelines. It is the wish of the whole country that no liberties would be taken with these for the sake of expediency. So let us wait and see whether it is June, July or August or even later.

Sunday Times Editorial

The need to safeguard constitutional governance

The Supreme Court this week dismissed in two sentences, petitions relating to the constitutionality of Executive Presidential decisions. It disallowed the petitioners Leave to Proceed with their cases thus not having to give detailed reasons for their decision.

This decision has legitimised those Executive decisions challenged before the court though one of the issues, that of holding – or not holding a parliamentary election on June 20 now is of academic interest.

Had the Parliament elected in 2015 been allowed to run its full term, these elections would anyway have been held only in October this year. There’s now a sense of urgency on the part of the Government, however, to rush through an election before the deteriorating economy gets any worse.

Public health notwithstanding owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no question that a parliamentary election is high priority — not so much for the reasons trotted out by the Government, but because a country sans an elected Parliament for too long is not in the best interests of Constitutional Government.

Administering a nation by Executive Presidential fiat for an extended period is fraught with potholes on the democratic highway. The Government stubbornly refused to recall the old Parliament opting to interpret the Constitution the way its hurrah boys saw it. It was no different to past Governments. The sum effect of it, however, is the country sliding into dangerous terrain in representative Government.

The fact that the Executive President is a former Army officer and prone to placing ex-military personnel in key public sector posts gave credence to those who saw a trend towards the seeds ‘militarisation’ seeping in to an otherwise civilian administration.

The Prime Minister defended this exercise arguing that retired military officers are “civilians”. That premise is technically correct, but wears thin when gun-toting security forces personnel accompany such civilians when they have a job to be done.

The Executive Presidential system sees two countrywide elections costing some Rs. 15 billion because a President and a Parliament have to be elected.

Questions of whether the President has powers to use public funds from the Consolidated Fund after last Tuesday (June 2) also seem academic now. The Government is simply forcing the pace with its own interpretation of the Constitution with no legal or even political impediment to stop the ruling juggernaut from doing as it pleases.

The Government may want to change the Constitution but till it does that it must not trample or make a mockery of the Basic Law of the country. It appears that the Government is getting increasingly comfortable the way it is going about its business in a footloose fashion, administering the nation without a Parliament, without a declared State of Emergency, without a Budget or Vote on Account.

All its actions cannot be put on COVID-19. There’s a need to recalibrate this unorthodox arrangement and bring the country back on track towards proper Constitutional Government before it strays too far from it towards one-party rule.

Human rights: Searchlight on America

This past week has seen much of global attention diverted from the COVID-19 pandemic to the outbreak of angry protests in the United States of America (USA) over the cold blooded murder laced in racism by policemen of an innocent man on a street in the state of Minnesota.

The ongoing happenings sweeping the US and spreading to other parts of the world must be so embarrassing for that country’s State Department that has hectored the world about human rights and pontificated on the treatment of minorities to other nations. Condemning authoritarian rulers in countries that do not promote their agenda, the US State Department is seemingly hoist with its own petard.

The incumbent US President is in the eye of this storm. Not having won the popular vote, he has been gunning for the minorities in his country ever since he became a virtual default President. Accused of being a ‘white supremacist’, the Mayor of Atlanta said in an understatement that the US President was “throwing matchsticks into the fire” by his utterances on the ongoing rioting throughout the country.

Some Governors, Mayors and Police chiefs have asked the man to keep his mouth shut and his fingers off tweets. Some Americans may think he is a jackass and a dangerous jackass at that, but he remains a hero to a group of Americans who want to see him re-elected come November.

For Sri Lanka, a President such as this is not all that bad. He has pulled his country out of the UN Human Rights Council where his predecessor sponsored a resolution against Sri Lanka. The Diaspora lobby of the rump LTTE may win over some Congressmen, but the State Department’s wings are clipped today. Mixed signals from the White House make the ‘bleeding hearts’ (overseas) in the State Department a shadow of what they were in terms of articulating US foreign policy and in bullying smaller nations with homilies on good governance.

An old wound has opened up again in the US; it is called institutionalised racism. Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery (African slaves were treated as property not humans); Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after a million people marched to Washington DC the previous years under the leadership of Martin Luther King, to give black Americans equal rights hitherto enjoyed only by whites, including the right to vote.

These past few days have seen millions of liberal, educated white Americans stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those protesting continuing racial discrimination in their country. Yet, many Americans just cannot seem to rid themselves of the anti-black, anti-brown and anti-Hispanic DNA in their blood. The world’s searchlight on human rights and minority rights is now on them.

Daily News Editorial

Defending Lanka’s cyberspace frontline

COVID-19 has given the popular social media term ‘going viral’ a physically deadly meaning to all of us. Computer malware, because of its operation as software that intrudes and spreads throughout computer systems at speed, are as destructive in digital systems as physical viruses are in the human body.

Since the dawn of human civilisation, the world has known of the physical devastation caused by biological viruses, especially the communicable ones, although it is only in the 1930s that we could actually see them, with the advent of electron microscopes. Since the late 20th Century, humanity has become so dependent on digital communications and computer systems, that the damage caused by computer viruses is considered almost as damaging as the biological disease-causing ructive ways. Digital communications are, today, enabling the greatest ever human consultation and collaboration in the battle to contain and ultimately suppress the COVID-19 pandemic. The degree of digital communications usage today, in terms of volume and geographical ones.

It is ironical that, in the 21st Century, humanity is now discovering that the biological and digital viruses are complementary in both constructive and immensely destscale and, in depth of content, is truly historic.

On the one hand digital communication systems, popularly termed ‘cyberspace’, are being used to the optimum for the immediate contingency response to the pandemic. This includes sharing of data, research and administrative remote deliberations and, public communications to manage societal reactions and guide social hygiene, among other things.

On the other hand, the digital data and communications networks have opened up an exotic new cosmos of remote human interaction that is now being explored in all areas of collective human activity – economic, administrative, technocratic and professional. Humanity, even as it struggles with poverty, war, social oppression and immense ecological degradation, is, under the compulsions of a deadly health crisis, exploring cyberspace for virtual alternatives to social interactions now blocked by counter-pandemic measures.

It could be said that the world’s digital data and communications systems have reached such a stage of maturity that its powerful new sinews are now opportunely available for dealing with one of the worst global emergencies confronted by humanity in centuries. What is ironic is that the sheer speed of human communications and movement achieved by humanity today, including the speed of data exchange, contributed to the contagion. COVID-19 seems to be the fastest spreading contagion ever, and the awesome processing and transmission speeds and capacities of 21st Century digital systems are a critically appropriate counter to it.

At the same time, our digital systems are being abused and manipulated in ways that could undermine these efforts and misguide human users into behaviour that spreads rather than counters the contagion. This is why the public needs to be alert not only for the physical disease threat but also for the viral and criminal threat we face in cyberspace.

Just last week the information technology authorities in Sri Lanka detected and responded to several ‘cyber attacks’ on the digital systems of some public and private sector institutions. These seemed to be criminally motivated in terms of commercial plunder and, the country’s cyber management and support infrastructure responded quickly enough to ensure minimal loss of data and finance.

In the previous week, no less than five public and private institutions came under simultaneous cyber-attacks. In these cases, there seems to have been political motivation originating from overseas remnants of the crushed former secessionist movement.

The Information & Communications Technology Agency (ICTA) and the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (SLCERT), are the lead agencies, along with the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), managing Sri Lanka’s digital data storage and communications systems. SLCERT units already have a reputation of consistent and successful professional response in cyberspace contingencies, and went active immediately to deal with the latest cyber attacks. The Air Force’s own IT units, previously tested in cyber warfare with now defunct secessionist groups operating overseas, also gave their support.

As described above, the world’s digital systems have now taken on a new critical importance for the whole of society, not just in the combatting COVID-19. Some dimensions of organisational life, in the economy, administration and corporate management, among others, are being transformed forever as we get used to working from home or, engaging in planning and decision-making remotely or, operating technology remotely.

Thus, the defence of our cyberspace is now becoming an integral part of the overall defence of our geophysical territory and society. Both the public and private sectors and, also, civil society organisations relevant to aspects of public health, security and social management, must all collaborate in further building up the architecture – institutional and virtual – in the defence of our cyberspace.

Cyberspace may be as infinite and vast as the physical world and humanity’s engagement with it is inevitably multi-dimensional. All relevant stakeholders in society, therefore, need to be involved in its exploration.

The Island Editorial

When clay feet of gods crack

The best description of what caused the painful death of George Floyd at the hands of the US police has come from the lawyer of the victim’s family, Benjamin Crump: "It was not the coronavirus pandemic that killed George Floyd. It was the other pandemic. The pandemic of racism and discrimination." This particular pandemic, however, has hardly spared any nation.

Speaking, at Thursday’s memorial service for Floyd, rights activist Al Sharpton declared that the victim had changed the world and the fight would go on until the whole justice system was changed. His declaration may have struck a responsive chord with people the world over, but the question is how long the ‘change’ and the ‘fight’ will last.

Police brutality against, and racial attacks on, black Americans has a long history which is replete with mass uprisings. However, none of these events has brought about the desired change. The Harlem riots, in 1935, left about five people dead. Thirty-four people perished in the Detroit clashes, in 1943. The killing of a black teenager triggered violent clashes in 1964. Riots in Watts, Los Angeles, in 1965, led to the killing of at least 34 people. Race riots swept across the US, in 1967, and left scores of people dead. In 1968, the assassination of Martin Luther King sparked riots in most parts of the US and about 50 persons died therein. (Historians believe the number of deaths may have been much higher.) In 1980, the acquittal of four police officers involved in the killing of a Black youth, in Miami, led to a wave of violence, which snuffed out about 20 lives. The savage beating of a black man and the subsequent acquittal of police officers responsible for the attack resulted in race riots, which left about 63 people killed and properties worth billions of dollars destroyed, in 1992. A New York police officer killed a black man, triggering riots, in 2014. The following year another victim of police brutality died in Baltimore and violence broke out. In 2016, the police killed African Americans, triggering riots in some states.

Thus, one is being overoptimistic when one expects the murder of Floyd to help end institutional racism or change the US justice system. However, it will give the Black Lives Matter movement a new impetus.

Meanwhile, sundown towns and counties, which the so-called coloured people once had to leave before sunset, may not be there in the US, and Blacks may be able to move about without carrying the Green Book, but discrimination against non-whites is far from over. Behind America’s façade of ethno-religious tolerance and democracy, there exists a racist deep state. The election of Donald Trump as the President marked the resurgence of White supremacism.

Many thought the election of Trump’s immediate predecessor, President Barack Obama, signalled a new beginning in the US race relations and urged other nations, troubled by ethnic tensions, to follow the American example, but what is going on, in the US, at present, is proof that it was only a false dawn. His election had more to do with the depths of despair the Bush administration and the global financial meltdown had plunged the US into than any improvement in race relations.

That the US is not short of enlightened citizens who cherish the core values and principles enunciated by the founding fathers is evident from the salutary ethnic mix in the ongoing protests. However, institutional racism has eaten into the social fabric of the US as in other countries including the US allies that have taken upon themselves the task of defending global democracy and human rights. It finds expression in police brutality and various other forms of acrimony and hatred towards African Americans.

The brutal killing of Floyd was not the cause of the riots that are sweeping across the US; it was only the trigger that gave vent to people’s pent-up anger. One may recall the Occupy Wall Street protest campaign, which was fuelled by the frustration of the Americans, especially the youth, at income inequality, corporate greed and the influence of money on politics. That protest fizzled out owing to government resistance, but it gave rise to Black Lives Matters, etc.

It has become clear, once again, that the most powerful human rights god has feet of clay, and they are cracking.

Daily Mirror Editorial

Biodiversity: Urgent and existential

The United Nations yesterday celebrated one of the most important days of the year — World Environment Day. Experts have for several years been emphasising the vital need for people to get involved actively in the battle against climate change. If this crisis is not resolved, the experts say that within the next two decades, many islands including our neighbour Maldives will disappear from the earth and even islands like Sri Lanka will lose a large part of the coastland. That means thousands of families will be displaced and they will have to find new houses in other places.

Not only world experts but even spiritual leaders have proclaimed the need for a clean environment and biodiversity. For instance, the Lord Buddha proclaimed: “May all beings be happy.” That means we cannot destroy or harm anyone or anything including people, animals and trees. Other religions too protect the nature as part of their theology or philosophy. That is why we are told to refer to the sun as brother sun and moon as sister moon. People need to consider nature as our sister or brother.

According to the UN, the food we eat, air we breathe, water we drink and climate that makes our planet habitable all come from nature. For instance, each year, marine plants produce more than a half of our atmosphere’s oxygen and a mature tree cleans our air, absorbing 22 kilos of carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen in exchange.

Despite all benefits our nature gives us, we still mistreat it. That is why we need to work on that. That is why we need this observance of World Environment Day. Since 1974, it has been celebrated every year on June 5: engaging governments, businesses, celebrities and citizens to focus their efforts on a pressing environmental issue.

This year, the theme is biodiversity – a concern that is both urgent and existential. Recent events from bushfires in Brazil, the United States and Australia to locust infestations across East Africa – and now, a global pandemic – demonstrate the interdependence of humans and the webs of life in which they exist.

According to the UN, biodiversity is the foundation that supports all life on land and below water. It affects every aspect of human health, providing clean air and water, nutritious food, scientific understanding and medicine sources, natural disease resistance and climate change mitigation. Changing or removing one element of this web affects the entire life cycle and can produce negative consequences.

Human actions including deforestation, encroachment on wildlife habitats, intensified agriculture and acceleration of climate change have pushed nature beyond its limits, the UN warns. It would take 1.6 earths to meet the demands humans make of nature each year. If we continue on this path, the biodiversity loss will have severe implications for humanity including the collapse of food and health systems.

The UN says the emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the fact that, when we destroy biodiversity, we destroy the system that supports human life. Today, it is estimated that, globally, about one billion cases of illness and millions of deaths occur every year from diseases caused by coronaviruses. About 75 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted to people by animals.

In Sri Lanka, the government needs to encourage people to actively take part in the battle against climate change. At a personal level, we could do it by saving water or electricity and planting a tree or trees in our home gardens. For instance, every time we switch off non-essential night bulbs or other electrical equipment, we are contributing to the battle against climate change. When opening taps to wash our hands or utensils, we need to open them only halfway. The water used to wash rice, vegetables and food items could be collected in a big can and used to water the plants, instead of using freshwater. This maybe difficult but the difficult way is often the better way. If we could reduce our shower bath times from twenty minutes to fifteen, we could save litres of freshwater. Some enterprising and eco-friendly citizens have used equipment to divert the shower bath water to the toilet system while others are using equipment for rainwater harvesting.

As King Parakramabahu the Great has said, not a single drop of rainwater should be allowed to go waste and we should use rainwater for sustainable human development.

Daily News Editorial

Reflections on Poson and Nature

Legend has it that one fine Full Moon Poya Day 2,328 years ago, King Tissa was hunting deer in a park close to the royal city of Anuradhapura. Then he heard someone calling his name. Since no one dared to call the King by name, he turned upward to see just who could denigrate the King in this manner. It was a sight that immediately calmed him down – a retinue of saffron-robed monks and a sage.

The visitor on top of the rock was none other than Arahat Mahinda, son of Emperor Dharmashoka in neighbouring Jambudvipa, present day India. He had brought the precious gift of the Buddha Dhamma to Sri Lanka. It did not take too long for the King and his 40,000 followers to embrace the timeless words of the Enlightened One. The King even earned the sobriquet “Devanampiya” (Beloved of the Gods) after he embraced Buddhism. This was the precise moment that started a Buddhist civilisation and an agri-based socio-cultural revolution in the land that continues to this day. Thus Poson can be called a watershed moment in Sri Lanka’s annals.

While Sri Lanka later on embraced a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural milieu, the tenets and ethos of Buddhism have permeated to every level of our society, regardless of ethnicity and religion. It is this unique adherence to the Four Sublime States – Metta (Loving Kindness), Karuna (Compassion), Muditha (Sympathetic Joy) and Upekkha (Equanimity) that has enabled Sri Lankans to wither any obstacle in life, be it the war, tsunami and now the Coronavirus pandemic.

In fact, this year’s State Poson Festival in Mihintale, which will be graced today by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is being marked under the theme “Arogya Parama Labha” (Health is the Greatest Wealth) in the context of the pandemic faced by the entire world. These timeless words of the Buddha, uttered more than 2,500 years ago, have never been more appropriate. The Buddha Dhamma gave prominence to two factors that are essential for life – health and the environment. This was not surprising, since the Buddha had realised the essential link between the two.

Again, our affinity for Nature and the Environment goes back all the way to that initial interaction between Arahat Mahinda Thera and King Devanampiyatissa at Mihintale. Arahat Mahinda stopped the King’s hunt, extolling that all life is precious and that we should radiate compassion towards all beings. He then tested the King’s intelligence with questions about the mango grove in Mihintale, which the latter successfully answered. From then on, ancient Kings declared Abhaya Bhoomi or sanctuaries where life was allowed to blossom freely. As Arahat Mahinda Thera espoused, respect for the environment is one of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism.

It is thus a happy coincidence that we are also celebrating World Environment Day (WED) today. Accordingly, the National Poson Festival will also have a component to mark the WED. This year, the WED theme is biodiversity – a concern that is both urgent and existential. Recent events, from bushfires in Brazil, the United States, and Australia to locust infestations across East Africa – and now, a global disease pandemic – demonstrate the interdependence of humans and the webs of life, in which they exist. This is a lesson for all of us here in Sri Lanka, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.

Biodiversity is the foundation that supports all life on land, air and below water. It affects every aspect of human health, providing clean air and water, nutritious foods, scientific understanding and medicinal sources, natural disease resistance, and climate change mitigation. Changing or removing one element of this web affects the entire life system and can produce negative consequences.

A recent UN report warned that human actions, including deforestation, encroachment on wildlife habitats, intensified agriculture, and acceleration of climate change, have pushed Nature beyond its limit. It would take 1.6 Earths to meet the demands that humans make of Nature each year. If we continue on this path, biodiversity loss will have severe implications for humanity, including the collapse of food and health systems.

This is no laughing matter – if, for example, bees go extinct, there is every possibility that all life on Earth could follow suit. The emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the fact that, when we destroy biodiversity and interfere with Nature, we destroy the very systems that supports human life. Ironically, Nature bounced back in a remarkable manner during the last 2-3 months of lockdown sans human activity, which in itself is a lesson for humanity.

Today, Nature is under severe strain due to a variety of factors from plastics pollution to fossil fuel usage. Many of the animals and plants that we now take for granted could be gone from our midst in just 30-40 years. If we continue burning fossil fuels, our coastal cities could be inundated by 2100 as a result of Climate Change and an associated sea level rise. It is time for the world to work together to honour commitments to the environment and save the only planet we have.

The Island Editorial

Confusion worse confounded

Sri Lankan elections, save the presidential polls, are apparently jinxed; they are not held on schedule. In 1975, an SLFP-led government postponed a general election by two years. Five years later, a UNP government went to the extent of replacing a general election with a heavily rigged referendum to retain its five-sixth majority, which it abused to its heart’s content. The UNP-led yahapalana government postponed local government elections by nearly two years and put off the provincial council polls indefinitely. The LTTE did not allow most elections to be held in areas under its control, and even the ones that took place there were far from free and fair. Most of the elections in the other parts of the country were also marred by violence, rigging and other forms of malpractice. Now, another general election has been delayed, and nobody knows when it will take place.

Chairman of the Election Commission (EC) Mahinda Deshapriya has said the much-delayed general election will be held either in July or August, and his outfit has informed the Supreme Court (SC) that it cannot be postponed beyond August. In an interview with Derana TV, yesterday, he said that although the EC had previously asked for nine weeks for preparations, that period could be reduced. If the election can wait until the end of August, the question is why the EC previously set 20 June as the date for it, amidst the Covid-19 crisis, triggering a legal battle.

What if something unexpected happened and the August deadline could not be met? Nothing is so certain as the unexpected, as the saying goes. Whoever would have thought, in early March, Covid-19 would make it impossible to conduct the general election in late April and even in June?

There are several schools of thought anent the constitutional provisions governing the conduct of a general election. One insists that only the President is constitutionally empowered to decide on the date for a general election, and it was wrong for the EC to postpone the election to 20 June; the new Parliament has to have its first sitting before the expiration of three months from the dissolution of the previous one. It maintains that unless this constitutional requirement is fulfilled, the dissolved Parliament has to be reconvened. The SC has dismissed the fundamental rights violation petitions against the EC for setting 20 June as the date for the election. One can argue that the constitutionality of the EC decision to postpone the general election beyond 02 June is no longer in doubt.

The EC Chairman has not explained why the general election has to be conducted before the end of August. One of the tasks the EC has undertaken is to educate the public on matters related to elections and franchise. It conducts seminars, etc., for that purpose. It should clear up confusion in the minds of people as regards its decisions and the legal position thereof.

Meanwhile, the EC Chairman usually does not pull punches or prevaricate. He faces curveballs in interviews or at media briefings boldly and even launches counterattacks, as it were. He dominates discussions, but, strangely, he was on the defensive in the Derana interview, especially when he was asked to comment on dissension in his institution; he did not look confident or sound convincing. He ought to give straight answers to questions on discord in his outfit; the public has a right to know what is going on there. When one member of the EC often strikes discordant notes, even criticizes some of the commission’s decisions and actions and goes so far as to challenge them in courts, then there is a serious problem, which needs to be addressed.

Daily Mirror Editorial

Is there help for Sri Lankans stranded in Kuwait?

The migrant workers’ affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and stranded mostly in the Middle East is a matter of concern. 

Accusations are aimed at the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) for the lukewarm interest it shows in bringing down these workers. The regime however was quick to bringdown some workers from Seychelles during the height of the pandemic.

The talking point right now relates to the Sri Lankan workers stranded in Kuwait. Official figures reveal that as many as 19,000 Sri Lanka workers are stranded in Kuwait. These Sri Lankans have been the victims of a cold war between the state officials of Kuwait and Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan officials have aired that Kuwait is selecting workers who are infected with the virus and sending them back to Sri Lanka.

The island’s airports remain closed for the public. Hence expatriate Sri Lankan workers have to receive government patronage or intervention to return to Sri Lanka. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said that he hopes to implement a new mechanism to bring down these foreign workers. But he has not specified as to how he would set about this task. 

These expatriate workers are as important as any other worker who sweats in Sri Lanka for a living. The GoSL must take note that these expatriate workers are helping the country earn foreign revenue and also raise the country’s profile. Most of these expatriate workers are qualified or part qualified and are employable overseas. For the record these expatriate workers help the island earn something close to US $ 7 billion. The Sri Lankan expatriate work force is said to be around 2 million.

The GoSL showed the world that it shows a lion heart when extending its hand to help people during a crisis. The island’s government came in for praise for acting quick and bringing down stranded Sri Lankans; who were affected by the pandemic. The state’s COVID-19 combat programmes have also come in for praise because now new patients are only being found within identified clusters. 

Given this scenario the government mustn’t get into conflicts with other nations; largely because it is debt-ridden and needs to keep ends warm with these Middle Eastern nations for the prospect of future employment.

It is heartening to know that the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLFEB) has taken measures to issue circulars to foreign employment bodies and embassies to educate sponsors through them. These circulars specify that sponsors must take care of Sri Lankan expatriate workers and refrain from neglecting worker rights, terminating contracts and paying them less.

The SLFEB is operating a hot line (1989) which operates 24 hours. 

For the record Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Leader Sajith Premadasa has also thrown his weight behind these stranded Sri Lankan expatriate workers in Kuwait. He has spoken to Kuwait Embassador in Sri Lanka Khalif bu dhhair and sources say that the outcome was positive. 

However when the Health Minister of Sri Lanka states that many Sri Lankan returnees are infected by COVID-19 it amounts to ‘taking about the problem, but not the solution’. According to Sri Lankan newspapers as many as 522 Sri Lankan migrant workers who were infected by the virus have been repatriated. Many more are expected to return to the island.

At present the prospect of them returning home looks bleak. This is because the state took a decision stop planned air flights to bring back Sri Lankan migrant workers from Middle Eastern countries who are infected with this virus. 

The GoSL has to take all precautionary measures to protect those citizens not affected by the pandemic. But the regime also has to do all it can to look into the welfare of migrant workers who are at risk due to inadequate and crowded living conditions, limited access to health care and poor work conditions. 

The government has to walk the tight rope with an election on the cards, but it must not jeopardize the wellbeing of its citizens here who have done well to survive the pandemic till now. 

Daily News Editorial

A victory for democracy

A major hurdle for holding the 2020 General Election has been overcome with the dismissal of the Fundamental Rights petitions that challenged the dissolution of Parliament and the slated date for the poll (June 20). This can be described as a major victory for democracy and the franchise, since any further delay, the Coronavirus pandemic notwithstanding, would have further complicated the present imbroglio.

This verdict makes it clear that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa made the right call in dissolving Parliament and calling for a General Election. President Rajapaksa and others in the Government have made it clear that there was no Constitutional requirement per se for recalling the dissolved Parliament. As many of the respected President’s Counsel who made submissions observed, a “dead” Parliament cannot be brought back to life unless in the case of an exceptional emergency. They noted that the Coronavirus pandemic did not qualify as such a dire emergency, since it has been controlled to a great extent within our borders and there were no signs of community transmission. This is indeed a victory achieved by our heroic health personnel and Security Forces/Police/CDF personnel.

Now the onus is on the National Election Commission (NEC) to fix another date for the poll, since June 20 is out of the question for all intents and purposes. The NEC has already gone on record saying they need around 60-70 days to prepare for the polls, not to mention the need for political parties, independent groups and candidates to engage in propaganda. The NEC is likely to receive health guidelines for conducting the poll (also covering pre and post poll periods) from the Director General of Health Services and the Health Secretary today, which will enable it to fast track the preparatory phase. The health authorities had earlier indicated that the poll can be held subject to the relevant health and safety precautions being taken.

This brings us to the question of propaganda and campaigning. Politicians depend on huge public rallies and close interactions with the voters to drive their message home. It is still not known whether the health authorities will permit such gatherings due to the possibility of a second wave of the disease. But what are the alternatives available to the political parties and candidates ?

Posters are now passé due to environmental concerns and prohibitive costs. The electronic media should be an ideal outlet for propaganda, but it will be logistically and financially impossible to accommodate thousands of candidates on radio and TV – the two State-owned TV networks were overwhelmed trying to give time slots to the 35 presidential aspirants last year. However, it should still be possible to give air time on a limited basis for the leaders of all political parties to make a pitch for their respective candidates.

The other option is social media. With practically everyone in the country having two or more mobile phones, most politicians are already on social media 24x7 to interact with potential voters. But the problem with social media is the possibility for the dissemination of hate speech, fabrications and other defamatory or incendiary material by individual candidates who will be in the so-called “manape” (preference votes) tussle. Political parties must give clear guidelines to their candidates on the use of social media and also have a close tab on what they are saying over such platforms, which are hard to police.

The poll itself will be a novel experience for the NEC, political parties and the voters, since a poll has not been held here in living memory under the present circumstances. The NEC will essentially look for precedents from around the world. South Korea recently held a national election amidst the pandemic, which has since been described as the most successful election ever held in that country. Forty four million voters followed stringent guidelines to cast their vote. South Korea disinfected polling centres, and mandated that voters practise physical distancing, wear gloves and masks and use hand sanitizer. Voters had their temperatures checked on arrival at the booths. Those who had a temperature above 37.5 degrees Celsius were sent to booths in secluded areas. The COVID-19 affected and quarantined individuals were allowed to vote by post.

But South Korea is not the only country to have held elections during this period – eight other countries have done so successfully. India and Singapore are among the other countries that are planning to hold elections amidst the present conditions. This is inevitable because many health experts say the Coronavirus pandemic could last as long as two years – even if a vaccine is made available by this time next year, vaccinating seven billion people will not be an easy task. It would indeed be a violation of the people’s right to vote if an election were to be postponed by two or more years until the pathogen is wiped out. Thus the Supreme Court has reached the right verdict and now it is up to the NEC to deliver the goods.

The Island Editorial

Constitutional Covid-19

The Supreme Court (SC) having dismissed all fundamental rights petitions against the Election Commission (EC)’s decision to hold the next general election on 20 June, the EC can now go ahead with preparations for the much-delayed polls. Conducting the election on 20 June is not within the realm of possibility, and, obviously, the EC will have to decide on another date; it is meeting, next Monday, for that purpose, according to media reports. No EC decision will be legally valid unless there is unanimity among all three EC members. This is an absurd constitutional requirement, which has the potential to disrupt the electoral process.

Pro-government legal experts are of the view that the President and the Cabinet can govern the country even after the expiration of three months from the dissolution of the last Parliament until the election of the next Parliament. When will we be able to elect the next Parliament? There are also bound to arise some questions about parliamentary control over public finance.

Interestingly, the EC also drew fire for having set the date (20 June) for the general election beyond the constitutionally stipulated deadline (02 June). What made the EC do so is anyone’s guess, but now it can postpone the election even further! Until it decides on the date of the general election, the President and the Cabinet can govern the country. One may recall that during the failed constitutional coup in 2018, the then President Maithripala Sirisena ruled the country briefly without both Parliament and the Cabinet.

What if something unexpected happened and the general election could not be held in the near future? One can only hope that the national health emergency will be over soon and the situation will become conducive to the conduct of an election. All three branches of government must remain functional.

Meanwhile, if the provisions of a Constitution mean different things to different people and lead to frequent disputes, there is something fundamentally wrong with that basic law, and its defects warrant the urgent attention of the nation concerned. Hurriedly introduced amendments thereto only make the situation worse. The 19th Amendment has rendered the constitutional mess even bigger although it contains some salutary features. The less said about other constitutional amendments, especially the 18th one, the better. The 13th Amendment plunged the country into a bloodbath, but the Provincial Councils it created have remained defunct for a long time.

What Sri Lanka’s democracy is facing is constitutional Covid-19, so to speak. It must be handled with care if disaster is to be averted. At least, now, the political party leaders who wrap themselves in the flag and would have the public believe that they are even ready to die for the country should come together and reach a consensus on when the country can go to the polls. They must heed the expert opinion of the health authorities and follow the guideline set by the latter. Sorting out problems on the political front is a perquisite for preparing the country for the economic crisis, the like of which it has not experienced.

Daily News Edtorial

A resolute step by the President

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, no doubt, would receive the ringing endorsement of all law abiding citizens for the sentiments he has expressed on eliminating underworld crime. Addressing security and police top brass at the Presidential Secretariat, the President was unequivocal in pointing to the various lapses in the system that allowed underworld crime to thrive, particularly drug related crime masterminded from behind prison walls by drug barons serving sentences.

He pulled no punches in blaming certain shortcomings in the law enforcement in this regard. With justifiable indignation the President noted that despite high ranking police officers being entrusted with the custodial care of prisoners, criminal activity continued to be directed from prisons. He said he was determined to end the wave of underworld crime via the prisons and would spare no individual whatever his position, rank or political affiliations found aiding and abetting criminal elements, in his mission to end the menace of killings and drug related crime.

Citizens who are aware of the record of President Rajapaksa who, as Defence Secretary launched a crackdown on the underworld in Colombo would hardly doubt his commitment in this respect. Besides, President Rajapaksa today has all the top officers who helped him win the war, on his side, if he decides to enlist the services or expertise of the military to eradicate the underworld monster that has grown out of proportion.

True, there are top police officers whose dedication to fight the criminal underworld is well-known, who even risk their lives. But it is an open secret that certain men in khaki work hand in glove with drug lords and criminals, besmirching the image of the entire force. During the recent coronavirus curfew a police officer was found transporting drugs in his vehicle while a senior prison officer is currently under probe for assisting an underworld drug king pin run his business from his prison cell.

A newspaper yesterday reported an incident where a bribe of Rs.500,000 was being paid to some jailors to smuggle mobile phones into the cells of certain prisoners serving time on drug offences. In fact, the President during the discussion stressed that prisoners should not have access to mobile phones and SIM cards and that prison officials should make sure this is the case.

Over the years the media had carried reports of the goings in the dark underbelly of prison life where incarcerated drug barons and police officers/jailors figured prominently. It is this subterranean layer that has been found to be responsible for even contract killings outside prison walls (it is from a prison cell that the contract to kill High Court Judge Sarath Ambeptiya was given).

For a majority of those behind prison bars, with drug money to throw around, the prisons have become a home away from home. Even provincial level politicians are known to be in the pay of the drug lords. The revelations made by the notorious underworld drug king pin Makandure Madush on politicians, following his arrest, tell a tale.

Hence, the President’s assertion that he would not spare any politicians in his fight against the drug underworld is most welcome because most citizens feel it is their influence that permits the drug lords to operate with impunity and scant regard for the law.

There can be no half- hearted measures in the fight against big time crime. In this respect all arms of the law enforcement, including the Courts and the justice system should work in tandem. We say this because, while the Police may apprehend suspects and haul them before the Courts, more often than not, this is a futile exercise.

To cite an example, one of the suspects involved in the recent shooting at a hotel in Ratmalana was a prime suspect in the killing of cricketer Dananjaya De Silva’s father in 2018, but had since been released on bail to operate with impunity.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, it will be recalled, in his early days as President, earnestly pleaded with all concerned not to scuttle his actions to tackle crime and ensure the people’s welfare and well-being. This is the way to ensure the safety of the people’s lives from marauding criminals on the loose.

True, the courts are compelled to implement the laws as they stand and there are certain technical points and loopholes in the laws that let some rotten elements go scot free. Thus there is a dire need to drastically change the structures of our laws and bring them up to date with modern times and modern requirements, particularly to deal with the prevailing culture of impunity in the criminal underworld of this country.

Ideally, the new Sri Lanka we see, along with the other changes, post-Coronavirus, would also hopefully lead to a country free of crime, vice and drugs. Judging by his pragmatic and swift actions, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is certainly on the right track towards ushering in this cherished objective.

The Island Editorial

Gota’s labours - II

The armed forces, about eleven years ago, wrested control of the areas that had been under the LTTE. However, there are some places where the writ of the state still does not run, as we have argued in a previous comment. They are the country’s prisons, which have become a gated underworld of sorts. Convicted criminals enjoy unbridled freedom there thanks to some corrupt officers. We reported, yesterday, quoting a senior Police Narcotic Bureau officer that convicted underworld figures smuggled in mobile telephones into prisons by paying corrupt officers as much as Rs. 500,000 each. The state pens are also awash with narcotics and other banned items.

Corruption has eaten into the vitals of the prison system because successive governments have let the grass grow under their feet without grasping the nettle. The situation has become so bad that convicts have been carrying out their underworld operations from inside their cells for the last couple of decades. The task of cleansing the prison system is as uphill as the Labours of Hercules. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has had to clean the Augean stables that are our jails that stink to high heaven.

President Rajapaksa seems determined to neutralise the underworld and rid the prisons of corrupt practices that have stood the convicted drug lords and other criminals in good stead. He read the riot act to a group of senior prison officers, at a meeting, on Monday. He spoke plainly, when he told them those who could not carry out their duties and functions properly had to go. He asked how any person with a conscience and an iota of self-respect could allow criminals to smuggle phones into prisons. He gave the officers a choice between reforming themselves and being reformed. That earful was long overdue. The people had given him a mandate to do a job and he would do it, come what may, said the President, pointing out the absurdity of criminals in jail enjoying freedom to do what they are serving prison terms for. He has struck a responsive chord with all law-abiding citizens who live in fear of dangerous criminals.

It is, however, doubtful whether the prison officers will be able to do as the President says. The corrupt elements among them are extremely powerful because of their links to drug cartels and other crime syndicates; they are ready to go to any extent to safeguard their interests.

One may recall that, in 1997, an upright prison officer named Upali Tennakoon suffered a violent death at the hands of an underworld gang because he had been instrumental in tracing drugs and weapons in prison. The prison guards in league with criminals must be traced, arrested and prosecuted if the President’s attempts to prevent criminals serving sentences from running their gangs are to reach fruition.

There is a pressing need for a blanket ban on mobile phones inside prisons, and that should apply to prison officers as well. Cell phone jammers should be installed in all prisons.

Corrupt guards instigate prisoners to violence when the police conduct search operations in prisons. Raids, however, must go on; there is no other way to find drugs, arms and other such banned items that find their way into jails. Precautions, however, must be taken to prevent clashes between convicts and the police during search operations.

The easiest way to trace the corrupt guards in the pay of criminals is to follow the money trail. All prison officers must be made to declare their assets and liabilities annually, and tainted prison officers placed under surveillance. If the existing laws do not provide for such action, new ones must be made.

Daily Mirror Editorial

Why this vicious attack on Saroja Sirisena?

There are severe attacks on the newly appointed Sri Lankan High Commissioner in London Saroja Sirisena. There were several attacks on Ms. Sirisena who climbed the ladder in her profession thanks to her educational and professional qualifications at a relatively young age. The attacks were both personal and professional. Some of the attacks were baseless are not related to her professional duties. Yet this is not the first time that Ms. Sirisena became subject to cruel attacks. There were a series of attacks when she was appointed as the Ambassador to Austria in 2019. However it is clear that these attacked are coming not from outside, but within the diplomatic circle itself.

Responding to the latest attack on Ms. Sirisena, the Sri Lanka High Commissioner-designate to the United Kingdom, Ministry of Foreign Relations on last Friday (29) issued a statement. The statement states, “The attention of the Ministry is drawn to news reports appearing in some newspapers and websites with allegations against the present High Commissioner in the UK, regarding her medical treatment”.

“The Ministry wishes to clarify that the procedure and the payment related expenses in this instance had been approved by the Ministry, in accordance with Ministry Circulars, established procedures and based on precedents, including with respect to such treatment received in third countries. All Government officials contribute to a medical scheme ‘Agrahara’ which they can avail of in Sri Lanka. Similarly, a medical scheme is extended to all home-based officers appointed by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to Missions abroad, within which the case under reference was granted approval to proceed with an essential medical procedure.”

Referring to the restrictions on public servants and those in the diplomatic services in responding to media, the Foreign Relations Minister stressed, “It is regretted that public officials who cannot engage with media on personal matters, are maligned and subject to violations of their privacy, including attacks on critical medical issues, as in this case.”

With regard to qualifications, Ms. Sirisena has been in foreign service for over two decades. Having joined the service in 1998, during her career, she has served as the Director General Economic Affairs, Director General Public Diplomacy and Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Sri Lanka, Consul General of Sri Lanka in Mumbai, Director General for External Relations in the Ministry of Economic Development of Sri Lanka, Director, South Asia and Director, Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Sri Lanka. Her previous diplomatic posts include Minister Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Minister Counsellor Sri Lanka Embassy in Brussels and First Secretary Sri Lanka Embassy in Paris. Immediately prior to her appointment in London, she served as the Sri Lankan Ambassador to Austria and as Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office in Vienna. A graduate on political science from the University of Melbourne, Australia Ms. Sirisena has completed post graduate studies at the École nationale d’Administration in France. She is also the daughter of reputed Gynaecologist Dr. L. A. W. Sirisena, who is a teacher to a large number of leading medical practitioners serving both here and the world over.

Among her credible interventions to defend Sri Lanka’s integrity was her strong protest last month to the UK based the Guardian newspaper which had posted a questionable quiz in its online edition using the word ‘Eelam’. Published on May 15 the question read-‘Eelam is an indigenous name for which popular holiday island?’ When a reader selects the correct answer which was Sri Lanka, a further description ‘the full name of the island’s recent military insurgency was LTTE – Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam’ appeared. Ms. Sirisena immediately protested to the quiz and in a letter to the editor of the publication had questioned the use of the word ‘Eelam’ as an ancient name for Sri Lanka.

Ms. Sirisena in her letter noted that the LTTE is a banned organisation in many countries, including the UK, and it was wrong to promote their ideology in a publication.

Following her intervention, the Guardian removed the controversial quiz. 

Daily News Editorial

Strictly abide by health guidelines

More and more positive signs are emerging on the prospects of normal life resuming in the country after a near three month lockdown due to the Coronavirus.

The Election Commission has issued print orders for ballot papers in respect of the upcoming General Election that was pushed back due to the outbreak of the pandemic in the country. Not stopping at that, it has called for the necessary health guidelines for going ahead with the exercise. The Commission though was compelled to play it safe at the outset what with the entire State sector paralyzed due to the lockdown and regular curfews being imposed in the wake of more and more positive cases being reported.

In any event the final decision in this regard will be taken by the Supreme Court which is hearing the slew of cases before it on the feasibility or not of holding the election. The school authorities too have reportedly sought safety guidelines for reopening the schools. All Zonal Directors of Education are to be sent circulars laying down the stipulations and the conditions for reopening schools in keeping with the health guidelines.

Churches and other places of Christian worship reopened over the weekend after a near three month closure, for the faithful to pray and attend to their other spiritual needs although Holy Mass will not be held just yet since there is still the risk of large congregations which is not in keeping with the social distancing rule and certain other practices and rites that will be difficult to observe for the same reasons.

Sports fans, too, no doubt, will be cheered by our national cricketers taking to the field once again after a long hiatus. Practices in preparation for oncoming fixtures resumed yesterday (June 01) at a Colombo venue under the watchful eyes of the National coach and support staff.

Understandably the boys will be required to comply with the health guidelines currently in force and avoid close contact with each other. Tours by India and Bangladesh have been slated for next month but the visitors are reportedly yet to get the green light from the authorities at the other end.

The Health Ministry has meanwhile has issued guidelines for the reopening of gymnasiums countrywide, thus lifting the ban on gyms that came into force with the Coronavirus lockdown.

All these positive signs now being witnessed from the perspective of combating the Coronavirus, no doubt, was the result of the monumental work and painstaking labour and sacrifices of our Security Forces and health officials. It is therefore the duty of all citizens to secure the situation without conducting themselves recklessly and irresponsibly.

It is in this light that the unpardonable health blunder witnessed at the funeral of CWC leader and former Minister Arumugam Thondaman was indeed regrettable and by all means could not be condoned.

True, the late minister was a legendary figure in plantation politics and like his late grandfather Saumyamoorthy Thondaman, was much beloved by the plantation community and the legacy they left behind on behalf of their marginalized and repressed lot cannot be overlooked.

Hence, the collective grief that was displayed is most likely a spontaneous one and not deliberately done in violation of the strict restrictions and health regulations imposed on the mourners.

But one cannot be blind to the fact that there was an islandwide curfew in force especially with a view to rein in the large crowds gathering at any place. There was also the uncalled for conduct on the part of a senior official of the late Minister’s Trade Union who reportedly berated one of the country’s highest ranking health officials for restricting the gathering at the funeral by his guidelines and imposing of the curfew. Now Public Health Inspectors (PHIs) have threatened legal action against the organizers should there be even a single detection of the Coronavirus among the crowd.

The Government is going to great lengths and is at great pains and even taking unpopular decisions in an all out attempt to combat the pandemic amidst claims by the health authorities, including the GMOA, that a second wave could be a real possibility.

An islandwide curfew was imposed the other day to coincide with the recent Ramazan festival and now Poson, one of the sacred landmark events for Buddhists, is going to be held under a blanket curfew as was the case with Vesak and Easter Sunday. There were also strict instructions relayed to the public on the numbers permitted to attend funerals and limitations with regard to the final rites and almsgivings.

These guidelines needless to say are meant to be applied across the board and to all people and communities if we are to prevent a resurgence of the pandemic in our midst. Some cannot be more equal than others.

The Island Editorial

Crack down on underworld

There have been several underworld attacks during the last few days. Many may have thought the capture of Sri Lanka’s Napoleon of Crime, Makandure Madush, who was once blamed for most of the organised crimes that shocked the country, would debilitate the underworld, but other criminal gangs seem to have stepped in to fill the void created by his arrest. The disintegration of his crime syndicate has apparently led to other underworld gangs emerging stronger.

The police update the number of ordinary people taken into custody and prosecuted for curfew violations but the underworld gangs strike at will and get away.

On Friday, a gang led by a criminal operating from Dubai fired at a restaurant in Soysapura in full view of the police, for not paying protection money. Three armed policemen, deployed there to protect the eatery, did not respond, and they have been interdicted. The place had come under attack previously, and its owner received death threats. The Dubai-based criminal had given him a choice between paying up and a violent death. The police should have been better prepared to counter Friday’s attack.

The police must assess underworld threats properly before taking action to counter them. Ordinary policemen are no match for hardcore criminals, some of whom are well-trained military deserters. They are sitting ducks before heavily armed gangs like the one responsible for attacks on the Soysapura eating house. Besides, they have to travel to and from work, and criminals can easily target them. This is why the police must deploy the Special Task Force (STF) when they take on criminal gangs. Had the STF been deployed in Soysapura, on Friday, the criminals would have either refrained from carrying out the drive-by shooting or perished in the attack. The success of neutralising threats from dangerous elements hinges on the response time of the law enforcement officers or the military personnel. The mere presence of a few police constables carrying weapons does not scare hardcore criminals.

Extortion is a serious problem many members of the business community have had to live with. They choose to part with big amounts of money, monthly, and remain silent as they fear reprisal in case of complaining to the police.

The police are capable of neutralising extortion gangs if they are pressured to do so. How they dealt with the extortionists, at the Peliyagoda fish market, in 2011, is a case in point. Acting on orders of the then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, they conducted a raid and rounded up all members of the gang engaged in exacting money from fish traders. That operation led by SDIG Anura Senanayake effectively ended extortion at the fish market. There were enough armed police personnel to prevent any of the gangsters from retaliating or fleeing. That is the way to confront the underworld. Extortionists, in other areas, also operate openly, and their identities are known to traders and the police, but, curiously, no action is taken against them. The police must be made to explain why criminal gangs are operating so freely.

The STF has arrested two members of the gang that attacked the Soysapura eatery. It is hoped the police will arrest the other gang members and crack down on the criminals who terrorise the public in other parts of the country as well.

Last year, the people elected as President the former frontline combat officer, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, known for his contribution to the defeat of the LTTE, mainly because they were concerned about the deteriorating security situation in the country; they feared for their own safety following the Easter Sunday carnage. The incumbent government has promised to ensure that extremist terror would not raise its ugly head ever again. Defence Secretary Kamal Gunaratne is also a former military officer who played a pivotal role in decimating the military wing of the LTTE. The challenge before the government is to rid the country of criminal gangs and live up to the people’s expectations.

Daily News Editorial

Protecting wildlife during a pandemic

While the attrition among our human population from the global COVID-19 pandemic remains relatively low compared with many other countries, we now hear that our wildlife population is coming under an ever-increasing threat from us, humans. Earlier last week, a most rare creature anywhere in the world, the black leopard that is a precious feature of our island’s wildlife, was found illegally trapped and then, tragically, died after being rescued.

And, another leopard was found caught in a snare last Friday near Yatiyantota. Both big cats, magnificent creations of Mother Nature and stars of this country’s wild fauna, were victims of callous human greed, and the rarer specimen unfortunately did not survive the suffering of its cruel entrapment.

This unscrupulous greed and wanton exploitation of our natural environment – fauna and flora – is ultimately part of the larger dynamics of Humanity’s poorly managed relationship with Nature. Our overall failure to better protect our Earthly habitat is a major contributory factor to the degradation of that habitat.

The recent centuries of environmental over-exploitation and devastation have been accompanied by a corollary toxicity emerging from our natural environs in the form of plagues, deformities of plant life including food crops and, dangerous biological mutations like Coronaviruses.

Patting ourselves on the back for our relative success in pandemic containment is of no use if we fail in the protection of our larger, already fragile, natural environment. Continued disregard for Nature will only worsen the conditions of our island habitat.

Even before COVID-19 struck, our isle has been besieged both within and without, by environmental degradation and worsening climate change. Sri Lanka’s human population density (among the highest in the world) has resulted in topographical damage that makes landslides and floods an annual, traumatic routine. Overcrowded hillsides are quick to collapse while the natural drainage systems cannot handle the shock of sudden, massive rainfall far in excess of the normal annual precipitation, resulting in the flooding of waterways and inundation of residential areas. Just over a week ago, several lives were lost in such floods.

The rapid and improperly planned and managed human settlement expansion has also resulted in the savaging of our forest cover, reducing it from more than 50 per cent of the island’s land mass a century ago to just 13 per cent today (and dwindling further by the day). Humans may have had success in housing and real estate ‘development’ but, in doing so in an inadequately planned manner, we are rapidly ‘de-housing’ or physically displacing our island’s wildlife from their home habitats. This is the cause of the Human-Elephant conflict and many other such conflicts between man and animal.

As we have repeated many times in these columns, our encroachment of wildlife habitats has caused the increasing invasion of human settlements, plantations, farms and other places by wild creatures – from insects and reptiles to vermin rodents, carnivores and the largest of mammals (elephants).

This island’s wild animals, however, will likely view the whole process in reverse. With their naturally evolved, evenly balanced, proportions of the natural populations, it is the wild animals that are resisting the encroachment of their natural living spaces by the island’s bloated human population.

The Sri Lankan Leopard is the country’s biggest carnivore and with less than a thousand of these magnificent cats in existence in the wild, it has been internationally classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as an ‘Endangered’ species. The Black Leopard, which was found ensnared in the Laxapana area on May 27, is far rarer and was thought to be extinct for decades before a few sightings in the high hill country by scientists using motion-sensitive night vision video systems earlier this year.

Equally rare are similar species are found in Taiwan, known as the ‘Formosan Clouded Leopard’ and in Kenya, where it is known as the ‘African Black Leopard’. There are less than ten Black Leopards so far sighted in our hill country, and this animal is classified as a ‘Critically Endangered’ species.

The COVID-19 outbreak and consequent lockdown cannot hinder the careful surveillance of our wildlife as well as valuable indigenous plant life to protect them from illegal commercial exploitation. The respect given to wildlife by our village culture must be upheld while all encouragement and incentives should be extended to volunteer watchdog civic groups who work closely with the Wildlife Conservation Department in the protection of our wild fauna and flora.

The Department itself needs full backing by the law enforcement authorities and also political endorsement by the Government if it is to fulfill its role. Finally, however, it is up to the citizens to fulfill their patriotic duty by treasuring these gifts of Nature that help beautify our island home. Most importantly, it is our flora and fauna that ultimately completes the wholeness of our island natural environment and makes it habitable for us.

The Island Editorial

Pumping up Petromax

It takes a thief to catch a thief. Sri Lankans seem to go by this saying. When they helped engineer the 2015 regime change by voting against the then UPFA government, the people thought all thieves in the previous administration would be brought to justice and their ill-gotten wealth confiscated. After all, that was the main campaign slogan of the yahapalana camp. Disillusioned, they voted for the SLPP, five years later, in the hope that the rogues in the yahapalana administration would be arrested and prosecuted for their crimes, only to be disappointed, again. Rogues of all hues continue to go places.

What is currently unfolding on the political front reminds us of a satirical Sinhala song about a drama. A group of village youth and some adults enact the Dutugemunu-Elara story with the help of a Petromax lamp for want of an electric lighting system. Just as the duel between the two kings begins, air pressure drops in the lamp, plunging the stage into darkness. A few minutes pass, and an inquisitive villager in the audience goes behind the stage. What he sees has him in stitches; ‘Dutugemunu’ and ‘Elara’, in full regalia, are taking turns to pump up the lamp so that the show can go on!

What we witnessed before last year’s presidential election and the subsequent change of government was a political war of epic proportions between the UNP-led UNF government and the SLFP dissidents. The SLPP promised to jump-start the legal process which had stalled, anent the bond scams, and see to it that the scammers would pay for their crime without further delay. It promised to bring former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran here to stand trial for his role in the bond rackets. But when it captured power and the court ordered the culprits to be arrested, they were allowed to go into hiding, and the CID acted like a headless chicken thereafter. It was obvious that the police were steering clear of the bond racketeers due to political interference. The suspects would not have been able to avoid arrest without government help. Machiavelli has famously said, a promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

The SLPP made a solemn pledge to make essential commodities available at affordable prices while it was in the opposition. Its leaders vowed to crush the Millers’ Mafia responsible for hoarding paddy and keeping the prices of rice extortionately high. People voted for them in the hope that the SLPP leaders, who take pride in having neutralised the LTTE’s military muscle, would tame the big-time millers in next to no time, only to realise they had been taken for a ride. Last week, the government allowed the Millers’ Mafia to increase the prices of rice. The head of the Consumer Affairs Authority, which had conducted raids and made the millers agree to sell rice at lower prices, was left with egg on his face.

The last government was involved in a mega racket, where substandard milch cows were imported from Australia and sold to local dairy farmers. Some of those cows were sick and farmers who bought them testified before a presidential commission that probed corrupt deals under the yahapalana administration. They revealed how they had been duped. The SLPP, in its opposition days, condemned their rivals for lining their pockets at the expense of the local dairy farmers, but it has reportedly decided to resume the controversial scheme and import cows from Australia! Now, it is clear that the corrupt elements responsible for the controversial cow deal will never be brought to justice. The present-day leaders seem to have taken the masses for asses.

There is nothing stupider than to expect politicians to go all out to put one another behind bars. They are aware that such action is tantamount to mutually assured destruction. We see the warring political bigwigs of both the government and the Opposition taking turns to pump up the Petromax lamp, so to speak. Their show will recommence when the apex court sorts out the general election issue.

Daily Mirror Editorial

Death of Thondaman and the passing of an era

On the evening of May 26, news trickled in that Arumugam Thondaman, the leader of the Ceylon Workers Congress had passed away. The name Thondman is synonymous with the sufferings, plight and subsequent semi-redemption of the most exploited community in this country –the Tea Estate Workers and their struggle to gain basics.

Lured from the drought-stricken blazing hot pIains of South India, these workers were strangers to the chilly climatic conditions in the hill country. Yet on arrival, they were frog-marched from the point of landing to the hill country. By day they hacked and cleared the way to what was going to be the future tea estates.

There was no shelter awaiting the incoming workers. They were forced to sleep in the open during the first days of their arrival. The late Rev. Paul Caspersz who researched the background of the community, states the sudden exposure to the cold climatic conditions and malaria, killed off hundreds of these miserable workers. For these workers there was no respite or escape from their places of work, where they were kept in slave-like conditions. Two or more families often forced to live in a single dwelling of 10 x 12 sans toilets or water facilities. They could not escape the estates, as the peasantry looked on them as enemies. The Kandyan peasants whose lands were robbed by the British, and hemmed into land-holdings described by the Kandyan Peasantry Commission as being the size of a postage stamp, looked on the Indian workers as persons who occupied their lands. They looked on the estate workers as their enemies.

By 1931, there were around 700,000 Tamil plantation workers, who had formed their own trade union. In the same year these workers were also granted the franchise. Following Indian leader, Nehru’s advice to the Indian workers to form their own political party, the Ceylon Indian Congress was born, which morphed into the CWC to contest the first general election.

Saumiyamoorthy Thondaman was its first president. At the election, the CWC won all seats it contested. The then prime minister claimed the Kandyan peasantry were discriminated because their interests were not represented in parliament, as a result of the overwhelming numbers of Indian Tamils in those areas. He brought in the Ceylon Citizenship Act, which effectively disfranchised the Upcountry Tamils. India claimed the estate workers were Sri Lankan citizens and not India’s responsibility. A majority of estate workers became ‘stateless ‘lost representation in parliament and became unimportant in local electoral politics. All mainstream political parties soon forgot this section of the population.

It was left to Saumiyamoorthy Thondaman (Arumugam’s grandfather) and the CWC to single-handedly take up the cause of the estate Tamils – their pitiful housing, the slave-labour work conditions, education of plantation children etc. At that time, while the whole country enjoyed free health services, estate management was forced to make payment if workers had entered government hospitals! In addition to this work-place related discrimination, opportunistic politicians portrayed the estate Tamil community as a fifth column of India. Those backing their cause were looked upon as traitors. Even other trade unions ignored their plight.

However, despite a lack of parliamentary representation and support from fellow trade unionists, using his position as head of the single largest TU in the estates, slowly but surely Thondaman successfully began negotiating better conditions for his constituency. Not surprisingly, Thondaman became by default, the undisputed leader of the Estate Tamil community. The manner in which he won the citizenship rights back for his community was epic. With no government attempting to solve the issue of statelessness, Thondaman called on all Estate Tamils to down tools on a particular day and pray for the restoration of their citizenship rights.

On a single day, all plantation workers, led by Thondaman downed tools and prayed. The country’s economy came to a standstill. President Jayawardene signed legislation granting citizenship rights to the estate community.

However, since the death of Saumiyamoorthy Thondaman in 1999, and the appointment of his grandson to lead the CWC, the estate community has made no significant gain either economically or socially. Even their demand for a daily wage to be raised to a paltry Rs. 1,000/- per day has not become a reality yet. Resultantly, rival TUs have sprung up in the estate sector. The appointment of yet another relative, not closely involved in the struggles of the community may lead to more fissures and leadership struggles. We may therefore be witnessing not only the end of a TU dynasty, but a weakening of the estate trade union movement.

Sunday Times Editorial

Migrant worker repatriation dilemma

The Government has run into some turbulence over the way it has handled the marooned Sri Lankan migrant workers, especially those in the Gulf countries.

The sheer logistical nightmare of bringing back tens of thousands of those working abroad would have been mind-boggling given the limited resources at the Government’s command. Additionally, it faced criticism for allowing those from Italy to return in the early days of the pandemic’s spread and letting them loose because they kept the country open purely to accommodate nominations for a Parliamentary election.

With airports and borders fast closing down around mid-March, and airlines being grounded, these workers grounded in West Asia seemed a forgotten lot. The Ministries of Foreign Relations and of Labour seem to have been sidelined by a different group at a different level which began to prioritise differently.

The Government seems to have not wanted the Gulf workers to return in haste. It was pointed out that a) there were no quarantine facilities readily available to lodge them for 14 days; b) that those workers may not get their jobs back in the likelihood of a recession in West Asia; and c) and finding jobs locally would be no easy task considering the recession locally.

These workers have been wanting to return since March but the Government is seen as being of the view that the country as a whole was going to be the loser in lost remittances if they returned.

Such foreign remittances have long been what has helped the Sri Lankan economy survive — for the country to not only pay its oil and import bills but even for MPs to buy their duty free cars so these can be flogged in the open market. The point is, whether the ultimate choice was with the Sri Lankan citizen wanting to return home, or the Government.

These workers have been huddled in transit camps in some of those countries and contracted the virus in the meantime. Now, two plane loads arrived in Sri Lanka last week carrying the virus with them. Even the economically developed countries have had similar issues of getting their citizens studying, working or holidaying, back home. They have dropped the ball in that field. It must also embarrass them that those workers from the poorer developing world feel safer at home than remaining in those developed countries.

Countries like India have problems of huge magnitude, particularly with domestic migrant workers. Scenes of their working population travelling through the sub-continent brought eerie reminders of the 1947 Partition. This is apart from their problem of getting overseas workers back home. There are many benefits, after all, in being a small island-nation with a manageable population and no porous borders.

We are told that Sri Lankan diplomatic missions in several countries had to plead with Colombo to get these Sri Lankan workers repatriated. It may be easier said than done, but there was also some hesitation shown in bringing these marooned workers because these folks were good “milch cows” for the economy as long as they were there. That has always been the case with almost a million Sri Lankan workers abroad.

Farmers mired in fertiliser crisis

The Constitution may invoke the blessings that the rains come in time for a bountiful harvest, but if those in charge of agriculture cannot ensure the farmers get their fertiliser on time, there would be little hope of such a harvest.

Desperate last ditch attempts are in progress to distribute the fertiliser to farmers who have cleared their fields and are already receiving rainfall. All types of excuses have been trotted out, that the previous Government left an outstanding bill of Rs. 10 billion to the private sector; that the COVID crisis disrupted imports and curfews dislocated local transport. All that is of little comfort to the farmer who is waiting with mammoty on his shoulder to till his land.

The GMOA, then in the forefront of the COVID task force, advocated home gardens and the like, and factory workers who went home during the recent lockdown started cultivating abandoned plots taking what was left of fertiliser in the market. The over-use of fertiliser by unskilled ‘farmers’ and the free fertiliser system have contributed to its abuse, and the abuse of the soil.

The Central Bank’s latest report refers to ‘smart agriculture’. They have long advocated the need for new technologies that range from high-yielding fertiliser, pesticides, irrigation and water management etc. The application of fertiliser is part and parcel of agriculture and there’s nothing smart about it when it is not available.

Sri Lanka has still not been able to extend its agricultural development into agro-based industry with the manufacture of fertiliser locally not firing. The country continues to rely on imports. About Rs. 35 billion is spent annually by the Government on the fertiliser subsidy. On the other hand, the last Government suddenly imposed a presidential decree banning certain imported weedicides saying they contributed to the widespread kidney disease among farmers. Then, it was found there was no co-relation between the two. No one really knows if the multinationals eventually won the day by debunking the theory, or the ban was merely a part of a populist, unscientific anti- multinationals campaign.

During the recent outbreak of COVID-19, Sri Lankans were fortunate that there was no shortage of rice, their staple food. It would have been hard to import rice had there been a shortage because it was not available ‘for love or money’ from rice-growing countries that were also hit by the virus and the import trade, shipping and harbours had become dysfunctional.

This is not just luck. Credit for Sri Lanka’s self-sufficiency in rice must go back to the country’s first Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake who opened up the Eastern Province with the Gal Oya scheme and which was to become the ‘rice bowl’ of the nation. Those who opened up the North Central Province with irrigation schemes, and more recently the Mahaveli scheme followed. Self-sufficiency in rice was a high priority in the 1960s, and the country should be proud to have achieved it.

The emergence of a ‘rice mafia’ that has been exposed with recent raids by the Consumer Affairs Authority shows how a handful of millers have monopolised the entire market. These multi-millionaires know to survive with political patronage. Exporting rice should be the next target of the country as a whole.

For now, however, the Government must ensure the farmer gets his fertiliser on time if the people are not to go hungry without their favourite rice plate in the months ahead.