G.L. Peiris — colours keep changing

Sri Lanka was very good in ‘diplomacy’ in the past. Many government supporters holding citizenship in Western countries were hired – for instance Palitha Kohana, Rohitha Bogollagama, Shirani Gunatilleke and Rajapaksa brothers were involved in fooling the international community.
Even though Norway stated last June that both parties wanted war, Sri Lanka successfully convinced the international community that it was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who walked away from the talks. In fact, Sri Lanka has expertly avoided international scrutiny. In 2006, the EU countries worked out a UN resolution demanding that Sri Lanka accept an international monitoring body. Understanding the danger, Sri Lanka found a ‘home grown solution’, the International Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) to look into a limited number of cases.
In the final stages of the war, when French Foreign Minister Bernard-Kouchner and UK Foreign-Secretary David Miliband went to Sri Lanka seeking a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds, President Rajapaksa gave them very harsh replies, which were proudly reported to the press by Rajapaksa’s Secretary — “Sri Lanka is a sovereign country which does not want to be advised by other states”, etc.
Last year, in a Special Session on Sri Lanka in the Human Rights Council, Western countries were preparing a snail speed resolution on accountability. Meanwhile Sri Lanka frantically formulated a self-congratulatory resolution with the help of a few Asian countries. This resolution was successfully passed.
But now Sri Lanka has lost its GSP plus trade concession and the UN Secretary General has appointed an Advisory Committee on Sri Lanka. Yet again Sri Lanka found a ‘home grown solution’, this time in the form of its ‘Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’ involving past government lobbyists.
In a joint briefing to the Security Council, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Sir John Holmes and Ms Navaneetham Pillai spoke strongly about the situation in Sri Lanka.
Failed talks

Since 1927, Sri Lanka has had numerous negotiations and ‘home grown solutions’. They never lasted weeks or even days. Most of the talks ended in failure as the Tamils’ aspirations were ignored. Of course, four negotiations ended successfully, but the signed agreements were unilaterally abrogated by then prime ministers and through biased Supreme Court decisions. These were in 1957, 1965, 1987 (Indo-Lanka) and 2005 (PTOMS).

In brief, some of the talks with dates:
Between 1927-1931, there were talks with Ramanathan brothers regarding the Donoughmore Commission; in 1972, leaders of the Tamil United Front (TUF) had talks with then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike; in 1977 July, Tamil United Liberation Front-TULF had talks with Prime Minister Jayewardene; in 1985 two rounds of direct talks took place in Thimpu, between militant groups including LTTE and other Tamil parties; in 1986 November, a talk took place in Bangalore, India – between the LTTE Leader Pirapaharan, his advisor and President J. R. Jayewardene through the mediation of the Indian Prime Minister; in 1990 President Premadasa negotiated with the LTTE; on 5 January 1995 President Chandrika and the LTTE Leader signed an agreement for cessation of hostilities. These are a few of the many talks that ended in failure.

Prof G. L. Peiris

When Prof G. L. Peiris used to visit Kumar Ponnambalam in the ‘90s, Prof Peiris believed that Tamils should have equal rights. Then when he became a politician, with President Chandrika he worked out a package, including decentralisation of powers which was never implemented. A few years later when he joined the UNP and Ranil Wickremesinghe, he was in favour of internal self-determination for the Tamils, but now he is with the Rajapaksas and is for a ‘home grown solution’, but not an ‘instant noodle’.
In future, if he joins the JVP, he will say that there are no Tamils in Sri Lanka and no need of any solution. If an academic who participated in many rounds of peace negotiations can bury his conscience for his political survival, what can one expect from an ordinary citizen from the South or elsewhere?
The 18th Amendment does no good for the masses in the South who voted for this government. If so, what can the Tamils and India expect?

Solidarity with Palestine is a Gimmick

History we witness today has roots in Israel’s birth in 1948 in Palestinian land, and now the Palestinians are demanding their political independence from Israel. According to the Jewish version of history, the land of Israel (Ertez Yisrael) is over 3,500 years old and the New Testament (Matthew 2:19-21) makes reference to it.
I would rather give importance to the suffering of the people, than politics. As far as the Palestinians are concerned they have open support of the OIC – Organisation of the Islamic Conference which consists of 57 Islamic countries. Apart from the OIC members, Palestine also has the support of many non-OIC members – China, Cuba, India, Russia, South Africa and others. Consider the “right to self-determination” in global terms, whether ‘internal’ or ‘external’ — there is no great difference between the Palestinians and the Tibetans, Kashmiris, Balochs, Chechnyans, Kosovons, the Tamils of Sri Lanka and others.

Where does Sri Lanka stand?

As far as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is concerned, where does Sri Lanka stand? In 1980s, President J. R. Jayewardene said, “I am ready to go to a devil, if it is helpful to stop the militancy in Sri Lanka”, and sought the help of Israel.
When Rajapaksa was President, Committee for Solidarity with Palestine, he was in favour of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and maintained that the solution should be within the framework of a sovereign Palestinian state. (Excerpt http://www.president.gov.lk/sinhala/about.htm)
But surprisingly, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Israel, Donald Perera was interviewed in Ynetnews of July  21, 2010 — “We back Israel’s war on terror”. Donald Perera brings a new doctrine that the Palestinian issue is a terrorist problem. (See http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3923309,00.html.) Those who find disparity between the Palestinian, the Tamil and others could peruse international law on ‘self-determination’ and also consult Donald Perera.
Anyway these statements and events clearly show Sri Lanka’s dilemma in its foreign policy, towards not only Israel and Palestine but other countries as well.
Iran openly advocates that there is no such country as ‘Israel’. India and China are having a real race in Sri Lanka. Recently friends of mine told me that, if one goes through the minutes of the meetings that took place between India and Sri Lanka since 2008, these records show clearly how a small country with appalling human rights records dictates terms to a regional power!

By Ravi Perera

Parliament debating the 18th Amendment

When the required majority was mustered in parliament, the constitutional changes that followed became a certainty. That the amendments to the constitution were principally to do with the strengthening of the office of the presidency, an office many independent thinkers have concluded to be unsuitable for our clime and culture, did not raise many eye brows.
Neither did it matter that the issues were not particularly canvassed before the people at any preceding   election. If at all it was the undesirability of this office that was highlighted by all parties hitherto. The supreme court too held that no direct consultation of the voter was necessary. All that was needed was to gather the required numbers in the legislature.
In any event, as portentous as it sounds in the newspapers, it is unlikely that our general public would be too concerned about the ramifications of constitutional amendments. Laws matter only if there is an independent and objective arbiter, either in the form of sturdy institutions or an inspired public culture.
President Richard Nixon, only just elected for a second term had to leave that incredibly powerful office at the insistence of the American public, because of his involvement in the Watergate cover-up, surely a trivial misdemeanor in the context of our public mores. It did not matter that he was the most powerful man in the world and head of the executive branch of the US government. The media, the police, the judiciary, the general public and finally even Nixon, by resigning, did what was necessary to keep their country great.
On the Watergate issue which was principally concerning the ‘standards’ applicable to public life, the otherwise partisan American political institutions took a united attitude. Several senior Republicans told their president in effect, “This is not acceptable”. The American people did not allow President Nixon to devalue the office of the presidency.
But in Sri Lanka where the general public seems to have no ethical expectations from the elected and the   application of the law depends on who is in power, what laws are brought in by the wielders thereof can surely be of only academic interest. We have gone too far down the road of cynical abuse of all laws and norms to worry about amendments thereto.
For the sake of discussion, it seems that most republican constitutions in the world today have restrictions on a prolonged incumbency of the highest office in the country. Extended periods in office smack of a monarchy and inevitably become an opening to the corrupting influence of prolonged power. By the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution brought in 1951, the United States has restricted the presidency to only two life time terms. In Russia more than two consecutive terms are disallowed, but a person can be re-elected, after a break in the tenure.
In the case of the United States, even prior the 22nd Amendment which made it law, no president, save for Franklin D. Roosevelt, served more than two terms. Roosevelt justified his third term on the grounds of the Second World War, which disrupted the normal running of the country. George Washington rejected the idea of a third term. Several other subsequent presidents also refused to go beyond a second term, thus giving the two term restriction the strength of a constitutional convention, until Roosevelt broke it.
One of the arguments of constitutional experts against a term restriction on the incumbency is that the president becomes a lame duck in his second term. Particularly in a culture where personal loyalty is valued more than fidelity to principles or policy, the certainty that the president is on the way out would loosen those loyalties. For a master to retain the servant’s craven obedience, his position must be secure indefinitely. It is also relevant that in the parliamentary system which we learnt from the British, there are no restrictions on the tenure of the prime minister. But of course in a parliamentary system there are many checks and balances against prime ministerial abuse of power.
The British culture itself provides a bulwark against excesses on the part of the elected. Even today many ministers take the train to work. In Sri Lanka, if a president were to win a third term, he would hold office for something like 18 years. Given the socio-economic realities of the country, getting a third term seems improbable. The deep rooted causes that made us a poor country in the first place, remain fundamentally unchanged. Even today our growth rate is below many countries far less endowed. Some argue that the governing party will invariably abuse the state machinery to their advantage to ensure a continued stay in office. If this argument is accepted, we must believe that it is impossible for an opposition party to defeat the incumbent. But this has not been the case historically. Although election malpractices, sometimes on a large scale have occurred, by and large the will of the voter has prevailed at our elections.
For someone like Ranil Wickremesinghe to argue that he will not win at an election, because and only because of abuse of the state machinery by the government, is to be totally oblivious to his patent lack of appeal to the voter. In fact, a UNP led by Wickremesinghe is morally unable to argue for restricting the presidential terms of a currently popular leader like Mahinda Rajapaksa, while doing nothing about the stranglehold on its leadership by a person who is anything but popular.
On the issue of the presidency, Ranil Wickremesinghe was always ambivalent. As far as he was concerned the only fault with that office was that he was not holding it. Had Ranil been in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s shoes today, there is no doubt he would have done the same, making the identical claim perhaps even more personalised, that for the good of the country he needs to be at the top. Unfortunately most Sri Lankans seem to suffer from an inability to leave office gracefully. They never take their bow to a cheering audience. Invariably, the exit from the public stage of a majority of our so-called leaders happens to the angry boos of a long suffering public. And that too, only long past the retirement age, when he can hardly stand up.
The other day I was in a three-wheeler whose driver, according to a sticker pasted to the vehicle, belonged to the Kotahena Three Wheel Drivers Welfare Association. We can assume that this association has a committee of management of which there is a president. Can we ever expect the president of the Kotahena Three Wheel Drivers Welfare Association to vacate his worthy office unless dead, incapacitated (doubtful) or removed by court order? Even if removed, it is most likely that the president of the Kotahena Three Wheel Drivers Welfare Association would maneuver to promote a relative who has taken to the formidable profession, to his post. For further proof of the office hogging attitude of the Sri Lankans just look at the goings on in any sporting body. It is anything but sporting. How then do we expect our leaders traveling in those maniacally driven convoys to vacate their offices just because of some trivial legal requirement? Like so aptly put by the president recently, we are not ‘Sorbonne’ but Lanka born!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great book. I just think it’s time for a different perspective.

Recently, I’ve been reading Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”.

In Huxley’s book, people are not born, but created. No mothers, fathers or families. They are grown in bottles, their destiny decided at the moment of creation. Each is then conditioned through sleep hypnotism to repeat a particular pattern of behaviour. There’s a Government endorsed drug people can take to escape problems. There is no marriage. Everyone belongs to everyone, and everyone is happy. Or conditioned to be so.

That doesn’t sound like a perfect world to me. Just the other side of the coin.

More importantly though, it got me thinking. If Sri Lanka is Orwellian, then maybe there’s a place that’s Huxleyan.

A colleague of mine was describing how in Oslo, Norway, people have to punch their own tickets into a machine. No one checks it for them. It’s quite possible to ride around all day without paying a thing. And yet the people punch. When he asked them why, they just shrugged and said, ‘because we’re supposed to.’ That sounds like conditioning to me. Which brings me to this.

An old college friend of mine was arguing about how everything in life is dictated by law. He tried to explain. ‘When you’re at the pedestrian crossing and you see a red light, you stop, right?’

I laughed. Everyone knows here, the people cross when they want, where they want. It is an insouciant bending of rules, a swift middle finger to the system. Here, red only means ‘be careful. Vehicles could run you down as you stroll across anyway.’ Those little ‘stick it to the systems’ are part of what makes us Sri Lankan. Teenagers flock to White Horse under the sign that says, “No alcohol served to those under 21.” When driving, we cross lanes when we want.

But our little acts of deviousness have climbed their way up to the top. And now we see the politicians rob with impunity. It seems that power and greed go hand in hand.

People jaywalk because they’re in a hurry. Or simply because they don’t want to wait. Unfortunately, as a consequence, people get used to the bending. That’s why politicians here can do what they do and no one really shouts too loud about it.

But what happens if we conform? Will there be a day when we blindly follow orders? Will we form orderly queues at bus stops? Will we wait till the red man goes green? Will we then become automatons, following orders without questioning? Isn’t that a form of repression just as insidious? To blind people with contentment- give people everything they want to live, and they’ll live happily, never questioning where the powers that be get the money for their expensive Pajeros. They won’t care about tender fixing, or corruption or democracy, or anything other than themselves.

Perhaps we need to stay angry.

And perhaps (dare I say it? We don’t really want change. Perhaps we want noise and chaos.

We don’t want to punch our tickets on the train when no one’s watching.
We don’t want contentment.
We like grumbling good naturedly about the state of the nation over our morning coffee.
Maybe we deserve what we got. Because subconsciously we want it that way.

Scene from a civil society protest

So the unthinkable has finally happened. The Rajapaksa dynasty has been legally approved. Its totalitarian ambitions are now backed by the Constitution.  Not only has the road for President Namal been cleared, but the independence of all democratic institutions has been compromised in one fell swoop.
Yes, there are those amongst us who say that Sri Lanka needs a dictator, or that economic growth requires political stability. But political stability does not require a dictatorship and mere economic growth (as we can see in other countries) is not the panacea for all the problems facing us today. There are others who argue that the judiciary, police, armed forces and the public services were corrupt and politicised anyway – but they fail to understand the tragic consequences of legitimising those anti-democratic and corrupt practices.
We have now legalised the patronage and feudal politics that made Sri Lanka a failed democracy. The extension of presidential terms is the least of the problems: the scrapping of the Constitutional Council (flawed as it was) and replacing it with a Parliamentary Council which only has the power to make its observations to the President, is the most serious component in the 18th Amendment. Tellingly, the President does not have to abide by the Council’s observations.  If this isn’t paving the way for a dictatorship, what is?
Ever since the Rajapaksas gained power, and most clearly in the past week, what we have seen is the total failure of the people and institutions that should have protected our democracy, failed as it was. After all, a failed democracy is better than no democracy at all. The judiciary failed us; our elected representatives kicked us in our faces; the media failed us; and most of all we let ourselves down.  In this article, I would like to explore some of the reasons for this collective failure – not to join in the chorus of accusations and blame which are ultimately counter-productive, but to see if there are any lessons to be learnt from this debacle, which might help us in what is surely going to be a hard, long and violent fight for our freedoms.
During this week, the UNP and Ranil Wickremesinghe in particular, have been vilified and berated possibly even more than the Rajapaksas. And the chorus of blame has been led by those of us fighting to protect democracy. The failure of the oldest and possibly largest political party in Sri Lanka to conjure more than a weak effort at opposing the 18th Amendment and the complete incompetence and more alarmingly, indifference, of Ranil Wickremesinghe to this issue has rightly come in for a lot of criticism. I found myself intrigued by this: why is it that despite knowing the past record of the UNP and Ranil Wickremesinghe, we continue to expect them to show us the way? What is the basis for this enduring and unshakable faith that liberal minded, supposedly progressive and pro-democratic elements have in a political party and leadership which has consistently failed to deliver in the past several years?
This becomes even more amazing when you consider that whatever resistance and agitation against the 18th Amendment, unsuccessful as they were, came not from the UNP or under the leadership of Wickremesinghe.  The UNP according to Wickremesinghe did not have the ‘time’ to prepare a challenge in court.  The political party with the wealthiest of supporters and the largest network of professionals did not have time to prepare a challenge to what was inarguably the most dangerous piece of legislation to be passed in this country? What kind of an excuse is that?
The JVP managed to put together a challenge; surely the UNP has more resources at its disposal than the JVP?  Although Wickremesinghe did not have the time to prepare a legal challenge, he clearly had enough time to attend a meeting organised by members of civil society organisations on Monday evening and to hang around engaging in small talk!  The UNP’s puny efforts at mobilising a protest rally didn’t take them too far beyond Sirikotha;  the most visible demonstrations came from the JVP (who as usual displayed their organisational skills and the loyalty of party cadres) and disparate groups of individuals and members of civil society organisations.
Some UNP MPs tagged on to these protests – but the fact that the major opposition party was unable to successfully mobilise a public rally against the Amendment is a severe indictment.
Much has been made of the apathy of the Sri Lankan voter.  But the joyful scenes of kiribath eating on state television hardly suggested apathy.  As a friend remarked, Sri Lankans now seem to have adopted the tradition of eating kiribath at funerals; we marked the end of a bloody war which cost thousands of lives with one kiribath feast and the death of democracy with another.  But there are certain requisites for a mobilised and active citizenry (as opposed to those who fawn over leaders who will annihilate them without a moment’s consideration if need be); citizens who will fight to protect their freedoms.  These requisites include visionary political leadership, an independent and analytical media, and active and engaged civil society organisations.
Sri Lanka it seems, falls short on all of these.  And a fundamental reason for this is that in Sri Lanka, political parties, the media and civil society organisations have been far too cosy with each other.  One may argue that in many societies in the world today the relationship between political parties and the media are too cosy; but this cosy relationship that civil society organisations in Sri Lanka have with political parties and the media is quite unique.  So much so, that as others have argued, Sri Lanka does not have civil society organisations.  Civil society organisations are generally regarded as collectives based on shared values and interests that are theoretically distinct from the state and from the market.
While the boundaries between these entities have always been blurred, in Sri Lanka they are almost non-existent.  The ‘NGOisation’ of civil society has meant that organisations are dependent on donor mandates and interests as well as funding; increasingly the funding of NGOs takes place within market relations; even the jargon now is borrowed from the market: NGOs now ‘bid’ for work; compete with each other for funding and have a ‘brand’ that they sell.
But the particular tragedy in Sri Lanka is that the distinction between civil society organisations and the UNP  is almost indistinct.  Ranil Wickremesinghe behaves more like the Executive Director of a failing NGO than the leader of a political party.  And so-called civil society organisations in Sri Lanka have depended far too much on Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP to achieve its objectives.  Even the most radical and progressive of civil society organisations are only able to see the UNP as its political messiah.  The UNP’s accommodating position with regard to ethnic minorities and its support of the peace process is largely behind this support.
But what these civil society organisations failed to see was that the peace process unleashed by the UNP was doomed to failure because it was primarily based on a neo-liberal understanding of the economic dividends of peace. This is the only kind of peace process that Ranil Wickremesinghe understands and as we now know, it completely failed to grasp the political realities of the South as well as that of the LTTE, much less cope with them.  But the blind faith of civil society organisations in the UNP has meant that like the UNP, they are removed, distanced and out of step with the public.  So much so that with the failure of the UNP, civil society organisations are unable to see a way forward; like the UNP they are depressed and defeated.
If we are to defeat the Rajapaksas and their totalitarian and dynastic project, then this is the challenge we have to face; because strong and vibrant civil society movements are essential for mobilising and leading the public; to shake the apathy, self-interest and narrow vision that has eviscerated our society.  The challenge is for existing civil society organisations to move out of their comfort zones and for new and creative movements and alliances to be built.  These movements cannot be, indeed they must not be, dependent on international donor funding and interest.  This does not mean that they cannot obtain international funds nor have international links, but that their interests cannot be determined by donors.
It means that they must be driven by social, civic and collective interests, rather than arrogance, personal ambition and wealth. Sri Lanka did have strong and active civil society movements in the past and there is no reason why we cannot have them again.  There are already several small initiatives that are beginning to emerge – but we need to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes we made in the past.  Most of all we need to realise that the strength of civil society organisations come from being embedded within the community.
I can almost hear the hoots of derision and the cynical comments my proposal will provoke, but we cannot afford to be cynical and defeatist at this point in time.  Totalitarianism thrives on the cynicism and pessimism of the people it seeks to control.  We cannot merely stop at finger-pointing and blaming.  We cannot merely blame the apathy of people when we are so much a part of that apathy. We must prevail over the Rajapaksa project.  We have no other choice.

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”
— George Orwell, 1984

UNP protestors mourning the death of democracy and Sri Lanka is well on the path to dictatorship and oligarchy

As I pen these lines the knowledge bears heavy upon my soul that by the time these words go to press, Sri Lanka is well on the path to dictatorship and oligarchy: from the moment the Speaker puts his signature to the 18th Amendment bulldozed through Parliament on the 8th of September, his brother will become the constitutionally sanctioned autocrat of our troubled island. Perhaps 8/9/10 will go down in history as the day one of Asia’s oldest democracies lost her soul.
It is unfortunate that the government’s propaganda machine has been so effective as to still the consciences of the majority of Sri Lankans, most of whom are not even aware that as they go about their lives, apathetic and ignorant, their democratic rights are being signed away by the man who claims to be their liberator, Mahendra Percival Rajapaksa.
In what has been an insidious political maneuvering since he assumed the Presidency of Sri Lanka in 2005, Mahinda Rajapaksa and the ruling family have finally shown their hand in a way that makes it impossible for any right thinking citizen to ignore. That is why the newspapers, pundits, columnists, lawyers and civil society on every side of the ideological divide have made a unified plea, because not even Mahinda Rajapaksa and his talented team of spin doctors at the state media houses can disguise this unbridled lust for absolute power as an act of patriotism. Finally then the true persona of the man so many have hailed as liberator is laid bare.

Mangala Samaraweera

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution so secretly drafted and so insidiously placed upon the agenda of the legislature is nothing but an unabashed power grab by a man who has had despotic ambitions from the start; a man who has done everything in his presidency so far to arrive at this day – the day when he can secure the position of ‘President For Life’, for himself, until such time that his brothers and sons are ready for the throne. For those who gave him the benefit of the doubt when he had artistes write songs about Mahinda being a ‘Maharajaneni’ as far back as May last year, let there be no mistake now that as of September 8, 2010, Mahinda Rajapaksa is the self appointed king of Sri Lanka.
This new Amendment which aims to reverse the progressive 17th Amendment, a historic piece of legislation endorsed unanimously by parliament and also allows an executive president to serve an unlimited number of terms in office, has been rushed through the legislative process like no other bill put forth by the Rajapaksa Administration. There is good reason for this. While protecting the presidency and keeping it in the hands of the Rajapaksa family, the 18th Amendment also ensures that all appointments to the public service, judiciary and the appointment of the elections commission or commissioner fall under the writ of an almighty executive president.
In short, the 18th Amendment is a piece of Rajapaksa legislation that ensures that the Rajapaksa writ holds sway over every single area of governance and public life, exactly that which the 17th Amendment sought to prevent by way of de-politicizing the public service, judiciary, police and ensuring independence during elections. It is indeed a strange situation we are faced with today.
For decades, the central political and public debate in Sri Lanka has been about trying to find ways to dilute the extraordinary powers vested with the executive president by the 1978 Constitution. At the last two national elections, this debate and discourse took pride of place in the plethora of political issues raised. How ironic it is then for us to find ourselves at this juncture. While all those of us in the political firmament have been determined to redefine the Sri Lankan constitution that would make the presidency more accountable to the people, Mahinda Rajapaksa has checkmated the nation by this constitutional coup to increase his powers and ensure that he and his family remain at the helm of this country for an indefinite time to come.
In short, he has managed in less than a week to change the Sri Lankan presidency into the office of an all powerful dictator. It should be recalled that some of the worst dictators the world has ever seen have tried to legitimize their positions by conducting nominal elections. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein held an election every five years where he was the only candidate. So does Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Adolf Hitler too obtained a 2/3 majority in the notorious elections of November 12th 1933; armed with this majority, within 12 months Hitler substituted his personal dictatorship for its democracy, destroyed all political parties but his own, wiped out the labour unions, stamped out democratic associations of any kind, abolished freedom of speech and of the press, and stifled the independence of the courts.
Today it has become crystal clear why President Mahinda Rajapaksa has chosen to associate himself with the worst human rights violators and dictatorial regimes in the world at present. Since assuming power Mahinda Rajapaksa has strengthened relations with the military dictators of Myanmar who brutally massacred Buddhist priests clamoring for democracy and have imprisoned democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi  since 1989 when her party won an election. Rajapaksa is bosom buddies with Libya’s Mohammed Gaddafi who has ruled that country for 40 years without an iota of democracy and Mahmaud Ahmadinejad of Iran who last year squashed opposition protests after a disputed election.
In 2006, when I attended the UN General assembly in New York with the President, many were surprised when our leader embraced the Zimbabwean dictator to express his admiration for the aging tyrant. The 18th Amendment, passed into law last Wednesday ensures that all future elections are rendered meaningless, given the sheer power and control over state machinery by the incumbency.
Where the 17th Amendment upholds the writ of the Commissioner of Elections appointed by the Constitutional Council over the state media during elections, the 18th Amendment holds that the Elections Commissioner (appointed by the President) will control all public and private media, ensuring that the writ of the incumbent will also extend over independent media houses during polls. In short, a political opponent would stand no chance against the Rajapaksa juggernaut; picture the last two elections held in Sri Lanka magnified a thousand fold.
It has long since been established that candidates constantly come into presidential office swearing to abolish the executive presidency only to experience the absolute power of that office and be intoxicated by it. Few who ascend the presidency have ever wanted to relinquish it. To her credit, former President Chandrika Kumaratunga made a sincere attempt to introduce a new constitution minus the executive presidency on 3rd August 2000; history would have been so different if she succeeded then. When a man is afforded unlimited terms in that position, with full control over state machinery indefinitely, only the naive would believe he will give it up one day when his ‘vision for Sri Lanka’ is achieved.
But here’s the rub. Both Mahinda Rajapaksa’s election manifestos, Mahinda Chinthana and Mahinda Chinthana Idiri Dakma clearly stipulated that the executive presidential system will be abolished. In April 2010 he received nearly two thirds of a majority to abolish this system. It is therefore abundantly clear that Mahinda Rajapaksa did not win a mandate from the people to extend his term in office indefinitely. He received a mandate, both in 2005 and in 2010 to abolish the presidency and replace it with a different system of governance. So never mind his opponents, this move to extend his presidential term indefinitely is a grotesque subversion of the people’s franchise and a slap in the face for those who voted for him.
In 1977 when J.R. Jayewardene moved to change the constitution and establish an executive presidency it was the likes of Mahinda Rajapaksa and many other senior SLFPers who took to the streets claiming that it was paving the way for dictatorial government. Today those same SLFPers are supporting this Draconian piece of legislation that not only establishes an all powerful president, but changes the very nature of the state, making a farce of democracy and placing all power in the hands of a single family. There is no doubt in my mind that a majority of the opposition to this Amendment comes from within the ranks of the government. And yet, in the face of this subversion of democracy and in fact the very parliamentary system, SLFPers have chosen to be silent, perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of a sense of complacency. I can only hope that they will remember that it was in their hands to reverse this, in their power to stall the Rajapaksa power trip in its tracks.
The rest of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s numbers he achieved by using the full might of the government’s financial strength, to bribe and entice opposition members to sign over a country’s democratic rights to a despot in waiting. Where financial enticement failed, the Rajapaksas employed tactics of terror and intimidation, threatening lawsuits and trumped up charges against those they needed to pass the 18th Amendment into law. It is this purchase of opposition MPs to pass this bill that will be most harshly judged by history.
The people who voted with the opposition voted stoically and determinedly against Mahinda Rajapaksa and the continuance of the executive presidency. They voted for an opposition which had pledged to abolish the all-powerful presidency and bring about a parliamentary system of governance in its stead. The opposition members who have crossed over with little moral compunction represent the interests of that section of the populace; people who categorically rejected the Rajapaksa doctrine for Sri Lanka even when they were at the height of their popularity and power. What kind of warped politicking is this? How will the MPs who have betrayed the mandate they have received answer to their electorates?
You have repaid their faith in you by signing over your voters’ rights to a President they rejected, ensuring that their votes will count for nothing ever again, given the all powerful nature of the incumbency. All this for money? All this because you refuse to stand up to the man who has proven time and again that his word is good for nothing? There is no doubt that this is a crime for which your voters will never forgive you. You have betrayed them and signed away what was left of their freedom to a megalomaniac in return for the perks of ministerial office.
As for the minority parties who have opted to support this ludicrous piece of legislation, I can only say to them that they have dug their own political graves, by having entrusted more power into the hands of a extremist madman who will use the additional power you have gifted him to further oppress your people.
There is simply no precedent for the way in which this bill was rushed through. It was proposed as an Urgent Bill, begging the questions about why and in whose interests it was necessary to speed up the process, disallowing time for debate, protest or the creation of public opinion. Furthermore the government has opted to do away with the need for a referendum despite the fact that record low voter turn out in April meant that this government has a mandate of a mere 34 percent of registered voters.
If the government was not afraid that the people would vote against this amendment en mass, why not offer a referendum? Surely an amendment that vests so much power indefinitely in an incumbent was more than worthy of seeking the explicit opinion of the general populace? Instead, the amendment was introduced so suddenly and without any warning, ensuring that there was no time for the opposition to educate the people about how dangerous the legislation would be for the future of democracy in this country.
The President should have followed the example of his friend, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who directly went to the people to remove the two term barrier; Chavez called a referendum instead of trying to device an artificial majority in parliament through coercion and intimidation, blackmail and bribery.
The nature of executive presidencies is such that in most parts of the democratic world where the system is in place and there is legal immunity for persons holding the office, term limits are practically mandatory. Term limits offer a slight deterrent to incumbent presidents, ensuring that when their term or terms of office are ended, they will be vulnerable to legal action.
The unlimited number of terms clause put forth in the 18th Amendment nips this small safeguard in the bud, assuring the incumbent president of immunity for life. The floodgates are therefore open for the Rajapaksas, with this Amendment being passed into law, to commit all manner of sins against the Sri Lankan state and citizenry at an intensity greater than the abuses that currently occur. Given the powers afforded to the incumbent by this legislation it is more than likely that Sri Lanka will never be able to prosecute the Rajapaksas or hold them accountable for their misdeeds while in power.
This climax has been some time coming. Those of us who recognised Mahinda Rajapaksa for the megalomaniac he truly was some years ago, realised that this day would come. Ever since he assumed office in 2005, the Mahinda Rajapaksa presidency has unfolded before our eyes as a truly Orwellian nightmare. When we expressed our fears then we were labelled unpatriotic and envious. Today, things have come full circle. Supporters and detractors alike have had to swallow the bitter pill that Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family are only concerned about entrenching themselves in power and perpetrating a dynasty; that their lofty rhetoric about patriotism, about being custodians of this nation, it was all a means to an end.
An end in which the Rajapaksa family will finally own Sri Lanka, her people and their vote. If we are mourning the death of democracy today, we must indeed share some of the blame. Sri Lanka has been too gullible, too ready to forgive, too willing to overlook the sins of this regime, to believe it was working in the interests of this country. If the lunatic fringe has won the day, it is because the moderates have chosen silence over dissent and passivity over affirmative action. Today, Mahinda Rajapaksa stands exposed, his power lust, greed and deception is there for all to see. We cannot continue to stand mute in the face of this revelation.
Once again, I must beg forgiveness of my country and my people for having once supported this man’s effort to attain the presidency. Once, he was able to fool me too. I will rue that day as long as I shall live. And to correct my mistake, I pledge my life and all the strength left in me to make it my cause to strip him of power and reverse his dictatorial policies in order to regain Sri Lanka.
I urge all those who believe in democratic values and oppose this dictatorship to join hands with me and those of us in the opposition who believe that the future of democracy in Sri Lanka is far more important than one man’s madness and power lust. Together we are stronger than them, together we can stall their despotic march, for a few of us who uphold the principles of democracy, freedom and equality for all can take on an entire regime of despots and still emerge triumphant.
The time to unite, rise up and act is now.
“Na antalikkhe na samuddamajjhe – na pabbatanam vivaram pavissa Na vijjati so jagatippadeso – yatthatthito munceyya papakamma.” Not in the sky, nor in mid-ocean, nor in a mountain cave, is found that place on earth where abiding one may escape from the consequences of one’s evil deeds.
(The Dhammapada)

A pro-18th Amendment march in Colombo

It gives me no pleasure to contradict an Editorialist I respect in a paper I like, but the passage of the 18th Amendment does not mark the ‘death of a nation’. Nor does September 8, 2010 “mark the death of democracy”, as the TNA declaimed during the parliamentary debate. If these claims are to be believed, both the nation and democracy, or at least one, should be dead by the time you read these lines. I really don’t think either are.
The nation was far more in danger of death at the hands of the Tigers than it is now, and anyway, nations are too strong a socio-historical reality to be killed off by constitutional amendments. The TNA shouldn’t confuse the death of their pinups, Prabhakaran and the Tigers, with that of Sri Lankan democracy, which is far more durable an entity, and far more robust in the Southern two thirds of the island than in its North. The more alarmist civil society intelligentsia should not mistake the visible disappearance, possibly terminal illness and potential death-knell of their party of choice, the UNP, for the ‘death of democracy’ in Sri Lanka.
What has taken place is a shift, not an ending. It is not an irreversible shift either. A reversal of the conditions that made the shift possible will render the shift reversible.
Any game has an umpire and as the saying goes, the umpire or referee’s word is law, or else there will be anarchy. One may disagree with the verdict but the point is that the Supreme Court heard the submissions of the critics, and doubtless read the papers, and has ruled without dissent on the matter, following which parliament has voted.
All this was avoidable. Had the UNP not set fire (quite literally) to the August 2000 Draft Constitution presented by President Kumaratunga and negotiated by Professor G.L. Peiris, K.N. Choksy and Karu Jayasuriya, there wouldn’t have been an 18th Amendment.
While the Amendment rolls back an attempt at roll back (the 17th amendment) and therefore restores a status quo ante, taking us back to vintage J.R. Jayewardene ’78,  it makes de jure what was de facto, and gives constitutional form to the wartime Presidency.
It brings Sri Lanka more in line with the forms of state that are most widespread in precisely that part of the world which most strongly supported Sri Lanka in the war. Though it has its exceptions, this is the state form or regime type that preponderates in Eurasia and the global South, characterised by a strong centre (governed by the most ideologically diverse array of ruling parties and personalities).
This evolution or modification of state form almost always occurs in the context of a real or perceived external encirclement or threat. External threat or intrusion almost always leads to internal hardening.
The 18th Amendment is far less of a turning point, and far less dangerous than President Jayewardene’s Referendum of 1982, which arbitrarily extended the term of parliament by postponing a scheduled parliamentary election by means of a fraudulent and coercive referendum. This took place at a time when the main Opposition party, the SLFP, had been decapitated by the deprivation of Mrs. Bandaranaike’s civic rights. All this closed off the safety valves and rendered explosion inevitable. It came six months later in the form of massive anti-Tamil violence.
Today’s big story is surely the meltdown of the main democratic opposition.  The Sirimavo Bandaranaike administration of 1970-77 had a far greater degree of structural control over society, what with the abolition of the independent Public Services Commission, the notorious District Political Authorities and the near monopoly of the mass media.  Yet it was swept away in 1977. In 1982 J.R. Jayewardene needed to have Sirimavo Bandaranaike politically ‘decommissioned’ and the most dynamic elements of the SLFP (Vijaya Kumaratunga, Ossie Abeygoonesekara) locked up on spurious charges of Naxalism, printing bogus rice ration cards etc. in order to make his move. Mahinda Rajapaksa has not suppressed the UNP in the least, has been solicitous of the political fortunes of its leader (far from depriving him of civic rights) and is the beneficiary of a seemingly endless stream of defections due to the ‘bandwagon effect’.
Work the simple arithmetic. How many of the votes for the 18th Amendment, from senior ministers to teleplay Barbies, come from former UNPers who crossed the floor precisely during the tenure of Ranil Wickremesinghe as UNP leader? How many non-UNP Opposition votes are those of defectors from Ranil’s stint as Opposition Leader? The numbers and trajectories of the parliamentarians tell the story: if the 18th Amendment renders the Presidency overly powerful, it is Ranil Wickremesinghe who has empowered him.
President Jayewardene would never in his worst nightmares, have thought that the 65th anniversary of the United National Party would have been commemorated in the Centre named after him.  The Jayewardene Centre was used for exhibitions and gatherings of friendship societies etc., and not the anniversaries of the UNP which can usually fill an indoor stadium. It is not as if Mahinda Rajapaksa used state repression to reduce the numbers attending the UNP anniversary celebration. No, it has taken Ranil Wickremesinghe to confine to the Jayewardene Centre auditorium, what used to be the country’s largest single political party!
What is even more telling –  and disgraceful – is that the UNP was reduced to such a pathetic state of insecurity that it chose to boycott the debate in the legislature on the 18th Amendment, thereby passing up the chance to use the best possible platform, the floor of the House, to place its critique before the country and on the parliamentary record.
The slew of defectors from the UNP, which include not just the old but the young, new, and popular (such as the lass from Gampaha with all those UNP preference votes) shows that the undercurrent of popular opinion is still flowing towards the incumbent. The multiethnic character of the support from the Opposition (SLMC, two Tamil MPs) is telling, but still more so was the silence of the largest institution which crosses the Sinhala-Tamil divide; the oldest globalised, multinational institution in the world, the Catholic Church, headed in Sri Lanka by the brilliant and multilingual Archbishop (soon to be Cardinal) Dr. Malcolm Ranjith. This is hardly a besieged, unpopular administration which has become more authoritarian as a defence against popular pressure and national isolation.
The 18th Amendment’s foes have it wrong and fans may not have it right. All the parallels deployed by the foes, from Louis Napoleon to Marcos, are wrong. These regimes were either defeated in war (Napoleon’s nephew by Prussia), or were perceived as puppets by the populace (Marcos, the Shah), or bureaucratic autocracies divorced from national, religious and popular sentiments of the majority (Poland). The Rajapaksa regime is as much or far more populist and patriotic than praetorian.
The fans may not have it right either. The trade-off of a developmental miracle or sustainable ‘take off’ requires many factors which are not yet in place and some, not even on the far horizon, ranging from standards of education through ethnic reconciliation to the efficacy of public services.
The success of the mutation of the form of state will stand or fall on whether or not the administration delivers the goods to the vast majority of the electorate. It has delivered some of the greatest public goods such as victory, pride, peace, security and stability, but that political capital won’t last forever. The litmus test will be whether, as in East Asia, the strong state/political leadership will deliver rapidly rising levels of prosperity and an improved quality of life, not just for the ‘haves’, the crony capitalists  and the courtiers but for the overwhelming majority of the citizenry.

JVP Leader, DNA Leader and UNP Leader at election event (file photo)

Yesterday it was announced that a coalition was in the offing- between General Sarath Fonseka’s Democratic National Alliance  (DNA) and the UNP led United National Front (UNF).

This was following the call from some parties to have a broader alliance, for greater impact. Hardly rocket science- the UPFA already has a near two-thirds majority in Parliament. As such, the Opposition is forced to voice grievances in Parliament which are quickly drowned by the outraged shouts (and sometimes insults) on the Government side. In terms of power, the Opposition’s got the thin end of the wedge.

The main cry for many is the need for a strong, vibrant Opposition- one which is able to provide some sort of check and balance to the Government. The fact is, right now that doesn’t seem to exist.

The main Opposition party, the UNP, has come under fire of late, with several consecutive losses under their belts. What’s more, the party has turned inward on itself, with petty infighting and finger pointing. What’s more, Opposition Leader Wickremesinghe is working with the President to implement constitutional reforms. While there’s nothing wrong with having a different point of view when discussing reform, Wickremesinghe doesn’t have the political clout to stand up to the President. It looks like the Opposition is opposition in name only.

In that sense, joining with Fonseka seems like a good idea, in theory. Then again, there’s that sense of deja vu. The last time Fonseka decided to work with the UNP, it didn’t exactly end well. Fonseka has publicly said he thinks the UNP could have done more to help him once he was incarcarated. Besides that, the merge didn’t yield the fruitful results expected- the common candidate Fonseka polled even fewer votes than Wickremesinghe had previously.

So while it might make sense to join forces, the Opposition needs to put aside their political and personal differences if they want to make any sort of impact. That means no more personality clashes, contradictory statements or subtle digs.

Possible? Yes. Probable? Maybe not.

It is argued by psychologists that certain persons are programmed almost at birth for failure. In the same family we come across the successful entrepreneur while his sibling is a never-do-well type, going from one misadventure to another. The former works hard, educates himself on relevant matters and when investing, takes calculated risks, while the latter prefers to laze about, spends much of his time in idle chatter and insists on investing in hare-brained schemes.
Whereas one man diligently prepares himself for success, why the other seemingly does everything to sabotage any chances thereof is a puzzle as deep as the murky human soul. While the psyche of a human is primarily formed by social, personal and passed on attributes, the resulting personality is so complex that it is never possible to predict the final outcome.
The same perhaps applies, in a different way, at a social level too. In the modern world when knowledge and  information is so accessible, why one society  groveling in poverty moves from crisis to crisis while others achieve a stable and  prosperous society  is a question as complex as the diametrically divergent paths individuals choose to walk on. Certain societies find it comforting to think of the state bureaucracy as a big breasted provider while others prefer to, by and large, pursue careers based on individual initiative. The former are inevitably poor and aid receivers. The latter, while prosperous, also seem to lead in many areas of human endeavour such as research, high quality products and intellectual achievements that further the human progress.
Does it happen because of an extreme climate which discourages industry or is it due to other factors like the paucity of natural resources? Could historical wrongs leave scars that retard subsequent generations?  Can we look for the causes in areas like cultural inclinations or even the genetic make-up? Like in the case of individuals, attempts at generalizing the causes of success or failure of a given society, becomes difficult when confronted by the complexities of the real world. If it is the climate we blame, Singapore and Malaysia are as hot and humid as Sri Lanka. Although natural resources have helped certain countries to advance, particularly in the Middle East, we have cases such as Japan, Israel and Hong Kong which have no resources to speak of. Many African countries on the other hand are blessed with enormous natural resources.
The other day in a national newspaper, I read a speech by a prominent politician extolling nationalisation . According to him, the ‘people’ should welcome the   policy of widening the scope of state ownership of economic activity as well as real estate in the country. State ownership means ‘ownership’ by the people. Private ownership was an evil to be tolerated only because it is impossible for the state to run everything.

Blast from the past

Those who remember the heady days of the 1960s and the ‘70s would recall that this is only a blast from the past. Then when the coming of socialism to a theatre near you seems the only thing worth talking about, nationalization sounded as natural as breathing. Even the Buhari, the run-down Malay restaurant in Maradana, was not spared the pain of nationalisation, thus enabling a deliriously grateful people to enjoy a huge greasy buriyani after laboring all day building up socialism.
When this politician sang the praises of nationalisation  it may not have occurred to him that there isn’t a single example in recorded history where socialism has worked. Countries like Russia, China, Vietnam and even little Albania, which experimented with the concept for decades now, cannot wait to dismantle their state run economies. Since these countries initiated sweeping economic reforms, the living standards of their people have improved impressively. China is now the second largest economy in the world. Of course we do not expect our politicians to be aware of international trends or even   be interested in them.
In the social priorities here, learning, which is an objective process, is placed well below areas such as cultural practices, taking activities which seemingly enjoy the approval of the majority as such. It is a well known truism that cultural competence doesn’t equate to good character, leave alone ability. Ability, particularly managerial skills, is not something that our murky political culture can foster. Every country has its own culture but not every country enjoys good living standards.
In our context, there is perhaps another reason for certain politicians to advocate greater state ownership. In their relentless quest for total control of the levers of power, state ownership provides a fiefdom to do as they please. What the state owns is under their command and control. Although a democratic process gives much legitimacy to the elected, it sadly cannot bestow either intelligence or managerial skills to them.
In developed countries, the existence of an independent and an objective state structure ensures that the damage that the elected can do in their appointed period of power is minimized. There, the media is vigilant and the voter more assertive. In the absence of such safeguards, a politician can even demand that we go back to a feudal economy and will be hailed as a patriot. Only a few will point out that in a feudal economy it was the king, the nobility and the clergy who came first in the pecking order. They ate first whatever the meager surplus that the system produced.

Better or worse?

Can it be said that we receive a better service in any field where we have nationalized it as opposed to countries where such services are provided by the private sector? Take education or even energy as examples. In the short period that I took to type this article there were two power blackouts. Our power is apparently the most expensive in this part of the world.
In education, the best kept secret is that any parent who can afford it will send their children abroad to study, mostly to English-speaking Western countries. As a case study, just investigate how many cabinet members today have their children studying abroad. They are also likely to have generators at home to protect them and their electrical equipment from constant power disruptions. Mind you, these are people who advocate wide-scale nationalisation .
Some time back we saw the efforts as well as the money spent on setting up a so called budget air-line. This was in addition to the loss making SriLankan Airlines which is also state owned. There is an interesting book written by Kevin & Jackie Frieberg titled Nuts, which is about the successful revival of the US airline the ‘South West’. The management spared no pain to achieve their goals, even radically changing the work culture of their staff in the process. In some airports, the South West ground crew managed to turn around an airplane in an incredible 15 minutes thus giving them a huge advantage over rival airlines (yes, from the sighting of the plane, landing, discharging of the passengers, reloading, to take off, in only 15 minutes!)
Just reading the book will tell you why our highly politicized government machinery should never undertake projects of this nature. Not only do these fanciful projects waste a lot of money in a poor country but they also take away funds from essential infrastructure like roads, schools and hospitals.
But then ultimately, it is the people of a country that will determine its future course. If what they are programmed by their culture to think of as good, can only bring a bitter harvest at the end of the day, there is nothing anybody can do about it. Whether certain countries or cultures are programmed for mediocrity at best or failure at the worse, is something that we can only answer much later, historically.

I was walking back home and this random guy I know (who I assumed was a trishaw driver) asked me if I would join him for a drink. I said alright since I hadn’t had one in a while. So then we started drinking. He asked me to play the guitar and then he started pointing out how I was messing up some bits. He was saying it was the cigarettes that were making my fingers shiver. He then went on to talk about the difference between alcohol and nicotine. And then he told me “Do not smoke cigarettes or marijuana or arrack.” If you have to just have a beer once in a while and maybe a cigarette or two with that. He said that’s all I would need. He told me to stop smoking and if anyone asks say “I don’t smoke”.

He told me that there isn’t much in this life but you have to make the best use of it. He told me to live for my family; for my brother and my mother, father, for my wife and my children, that I can go far if I give up all this. He said he was just trying to do good by showing me the way. We were both smoking at the time. I had finished mine. He then lit up a cigarette and passed it to me. I said “I don’t smoke”. I promised him, swearing on the lives of my mother and father, that I would quit.

His name is Jagath. He lives close to my house. He works at the courts in Mount Lavinia as an apprentice to a lawyer. He hopes to move to Dubai next month. He’s trying to get a job as an ambulance driver. I hope he does get it. He asked me if I could just help him with one thing. Find him a cheap phone. All he wants is to get a call once in a while. I asked him what he wanted most about this life. He said “I hope that in my next life I will be able to build my own home and raise a daughter. That is all I want.” He was so genuine throughout the conversation. He had doubts as to whether I would smoke again. I tried my best to convince him I won’t. My parents must have told me not to smoke a thousand times, but the way this guy said it was just… I can’t explain it. It was just so genuine. I wish I had recorded it. It was so unexpected.

Two years passed, and I hardly see much of Jagath save for when we cross path once in a while. There’s not much to speak about, I had quit smoking for only 2 months before getting back to it, but I never smoked in front of him again.

It was the 13th of April, 2010, myself and my brother come across Jagath on the way home. He looks distraught, standing alone under the streetlight, the orange glow of the sulphur lamps making his stance seem all the more dramatic. He waved at us, so we walked towards him and said hello. He took his hands together and greeted us, and he wished us a happy new year. He told us that he would be going to Korea soon, I didn’t believe him. “Boru boru”, I said. “Aththa aththa”, he assured me. He didn’t seem as excited as he was the last time he told me about his plan to leave the country. At that point I wondered if he was going to ask us for help, financial assistance or something, but he went on instead.

He spoke of his mother, he had never mentioned her before. He told us how she had fallen gravely ill, I couldn’t understand every word of his Sinhala, but I could make out that it wasn’t at all a good thing. He then told us about his father, how he had injured his foot, at least that was all I could gather from what he was saying. He was still holding each of our hands throughout this entire time, his eyes moving from one to the other, sometimes unable to hold his gaze. His voice changed for a split second, as he told us that he has no new year this year, “mata awurudu nehe”. It was then that I realized both his parents had passed on. He told us that he no longer had a will to live, he told us that he wouldn’t be alive much longer. He looked on to a light-post behind us and said that soon we’d see his face in black and white up on that very place. He told us that he had no one now, no one to go back to, “budu saranai”, he said.

I couldn’t even mention the word “God” or even the concept, to someone who doesn’t believe in the existence, to someone whom their parents are the only thing they have, “God” would probably sound redundant. I kept quiet. I let go of his hand and he rubbed his eyes, I’d never seen his eyes tear before. We asked about Korea, what chance he had of getting a job there. He said it could go either way, he was uncertain, but there was very little hope in his voice.

He told us of the work he was doing here, the salary he earns is gone within a few days. But before this it didn’t matter, as long as he had someone to return to. He told us that he’s alone. He told us he’d be leaving at 5.45 in the morning, he didn’t ask us for anything. Before we went my brother only said one thing, “for your good heart, I’m sure you’ll get a job”. And with that we left him, not knowing if we’d ever see him again.

It is the 22nd of July as I write this, and Jagath is still alive. He didn’t get the job.

You’ll find him sitting around at the trishaw stand near my house, wearing a black hoodie that I gave him by request. I don’t understand why he wanted a hoodie in this sun, and quite frankly, I doubt his sanity. He often asks me for financial favors these days, and a lot of the time I’m quite hesitant to give in. Sometimes he admits it’s for alcohol, other times I have no idea what it’s for. I know for a fact that he doesn’t abuse drugs, but I can’t be sure. He looks either inebriated or just very distraught. Maybe it’s the emotional trauma, maybe he’s turning into a junkie. Either way, it’s sad to see him this way, and as much as I’m ashamed to say this, I try to avoid crossing path with him. And I hate that.

Is it a human limit, or an effect that social conditioning has on us that makes us look down at people at one point? I used to admire Jagath’s sincerity, now I doubt his sanity itself. Who am I to judge? So what if he’s on the lower end of the social strata, if his needs in life are booze and clothing, I can’t say mine are much better. It’s all subjective, but I just wonder if he has the choice anymore, or if he feels compelled to go down the path he’s stumbling along. Maybe he needs help, maybe we all do. Maybe we should set aside these inhibitions that keep us from talking to fellow humans and helping them when they’re clearly in need. Maybe we should help each other. Or maybe I’m insane.

By
Edward
Mortimer

It is now over a year since the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, claimed victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam  (LTTE). But war is still being waged on the “paradise island” – by the government, against the country’s journalists.

Lasantha Wickrematunge lies in state during his funeral ceremony in Colombo. Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images

Last week alone saw one media outlet receive a threatening letter and the head of another charged with fraud by the Supreme Court after publishing stories critical of the government. And two international NGO workers involved in protecting journalists had their visas revoked.
The situation has been deteriorating for some time. According to Amnesty International at least 14 media workers have been killed in the country since 2006 and more than 20 are thought to have fled – more per capita than have left Iran. Arbitrary arrests, abductions and assassinations have been documented for over three decades. No one has ever been prosecuted for these attacks on the media.

In January last year, as the Sri Lanka Army closed in on the last remaining pockets of resistance held by the LTTE, the government imposed a media blackout on the war zone. (It also denied humanitarian access to civilians trapped by the fighting and, like the rebels, displayed callous contempt for civilian life.)

Away from the killing fields, the local media suffered a sharp spike in attacks. Just days after independent broadcaster MTV was raided by gunmen, Lasantha Wickrematunge  – editor of The Sunday Leader and prominent government critic – was assassinated in broad daylight in a high-security zone regularly patrolled by the army.

The end of the war has changed nothing. Phones are tapped. Emails hacked. Media outlets harassed and journalists threatened. One – Prageeth Eknaligoda – has been missing since January’s presidential election. Small wonder that so many journalists say they now resort to self-censorship.

And they are not the only ones who live in fear. NGO workers, lawyers, members of the opposition – the culture of impunity puts them all at risk. The state has also ramped up its vitriol against external critics: last week a cabinet minister began a hunger strike and orchestrated a siege of the UN offices in Colombo in response to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, setting up a panel of experts to advise him on accountability for alleged war crimes during the final stages of the civil war last year. The minister has since ended his “fast to death” amid growing speculation that the protests were supported, if not sponsored, by the government.

All this is happening under the noses of the world’s press. While burning effigies of Ban draw the spotlight for a few days, Sri Lanka’s slow descent into dictatorship has mostly gone unnoticed. Global media coverage of the conflict in Sri Lanka during the past four years is about a tenth of that given to Iraq. In 2009, the New York Times and the Guardian devoted four times more space to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza (death toll 1,400) than the bloody end of Sri Lanka’s civil war (estimates range between 7,000 and 40,000 civilians dead). China Daily gave Gaza over six times the coverage, and the Independent Newspapers group in South Africa over 10 times. All papers ran more articles on Tiger Woods last year than on the Sri Lankan conflict.

This global silence plays into the hands of the Sri Lankan government’s apologists, both those who delude themselves and say, as one did in a meeting at London’s Frontline Club last week, that missing journalists have merely run off with mistresses, and those who are paid to delude others. The government has spent lavishly on public relations firms such as Bell Pottinger – which counts General Pinochet and Trafigura among its past clients – and its US subcontractor Qorvis, which also represents Equatorial Guinea’s unsavoury dictator. The pardoning on World Press Freedom Day of J.S. Tissainayagam, a journalist previously sentenced to 20 years’ hard labour, is part of this PR strategy.

All of us who care about universal values, and freedom of expression in particular, have a duty not to let Rajapaksa’s twisted version of events go unanswered. If we do so, we encourage other states to believe that they too can get away with the “Sri Lanka option” – using brutal methods to crush internal opposition, without regard for civilian casualties or international law. It has been reported that leaders from Colombia to Thailand have been following Rajapaksa’s “success” with great interest.

Those brave Sri Lankan journalists who continue to seek out and report the truth despite the high risk of “disappearance”, torture and assassination, surely deserve the support of their international colleagues. Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s murder has rightly been denounced around the world. Wickrematunge, who chillingly foretold his own death in an editorial published posthumously, should be no less well known. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a press freedom organisation, rates freedom of expression in Sri Lanka as lower than in Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan, yet somehow the world – including the mainstream media world – does not seem to notice.
Surely it is time for that to change.

Courtesy The Guardian UK