Replacing one flawed amendment by another flawed amendment (constitutional reforms of Sri Lanka)

By Sunmanasiri Liyanage

(September 04, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) May be due to the fact that they have to cater to the exigencies of the power hungry and powerful politicians, legal draftsmen/women have oftentimes been careless in drafting legislations, particularly the constitutional amendment bills. This is evident when one has a cursory glance at the drafts of the 13th Amendment and the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. The 17th Amendment was hurriedly passed by the Parliament in 2000 to introduce limited checks and balances on the powers of the executive presidency, especially with regard to making high level appointments like the chief justice, the inspector general of police, and the election commissioner and the appointments to the important commissions. It proposed to set up a constitutional council comprising 10 members, seven of them non-parliamentarians. When the president makes the above mentioned appointments, she/he has to act on the recommendations of the constitutional council.

However, the legislation has left many questions unanswered and the Supreme Court informed Parliament of some of those issues at that time. Partly due to these drawbacks, the 17th Amendment was not properly put into practice, except for a very brief period. However, we have to keep in mind that the main reason why the Constitutional Council was not set up following the enactment of the 17th Amendment was that it intended to restrict the powers of the executive President.

A generation of hypothetical situations would help us understand the practical problems involving the implementation of the 17th Amendment. If the President refuses to appoint the persons who are nominated by the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition or by the minority parties in parliament or if the President refuses to appoint his/her nominee, setting up of the constitutional council would not take place. Similarly, if the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition fail to reach a consensual decision once again setting up of the Constitutional Council would be problematic. It appeared that these hypothetical situations were not anticipated by the law makers or legal draftsmen.

One of the objectives of the proposed 18th Amendment to the Constitution is to replace the Constitutional Council by a Parliamentary Council consisting of 5 members, 3 are ex-officio—the Speaker, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The other two members will be separately nominated by the Prime Minister and the Leader of Opposition to include ethnic groups not represented by the three ex-officio members. Of course, unlike the Constitutional Council this body cannot recommend the names of the people for above mentioned positions or to the commissions. The President can seek the observations of the Parliamentary Council in making those appointments. In a way, with the proposed 18th Amendment, the process that was unleashed by the 17th Amendment with regard to the powers of the President is intended to be reversed. In other words, the unrestrained powers of the executive President will be re-established if the 18th Amendment is passed.

Once again we can pose hypothetical or counterfactual questions to see the constitutional coherence of the proposed amendment. Suppose if the leader of the opposition refuses to nominate a member to the Parliamentary Council, can the Parliamentary Council be duly set up? Suppose, the President and the Prime Minister belong to two different parties and the Prime Minister refuses to nominate his candidate, can the Parliamentary Council be set up? Hence what happened to the Constitutional Council would happen to the Parliamentary Council as well making that component of the 18th Amendment inoperative.

Let me now turn to more substantive points. One of the key issues that were raised against the present Constitution has been that it had created a monster in the institution of the executive presidency. Hence, the left in Sri Lanka including the JVP has been campaigning for the abolition of the executive presidential system or at least for introducing checks and balances to reduce the powers of the executive president. At the moment besides almost impossible impeachment procedure specified in Article 38(2), there is no any other constitutional mechanism to question the acts of the executive president. The cases cannot be filed against the President while she/he is in office. The two members of the present Parliament, Vasudeva Nanayakkara and M Sumanthiran know this very well. As the term of the President is not restricted as the 18th Amendment proposes and if the president using his/her official powers gets elected once again, then there is no room for citizens to question his acts.

When the appointment of the election commissioner and the election commission is solely the responsibility of the president under the proposed 18th Amendment, one may justifiably raise the question if the elections can be free and fair. Hence, if the ruling party wants the incumbent president to run for another term, what should be done is to extend the term for three terms by amending the Article 31 (2), not to remove it.

A criticism that was leveled against the 17th Amendment that seems to be quite justifiable is that it takes away the powers of the Parliament and facilitates handing them to so-called independent people. Without spending time on this argument, just accept it as it is. President Rajapaksa always argued that he would like to be a president more accountable to parliament. In this situation, what could have been done was to repeal the 17th Amendment totally and replace it by a separate Amendment making important appointment to above mentioned positions by the President accountable to parliament. This may be done in many ways. I will suggest a simple mechanism without disturbing unnecessarily the existing constitutional framework. The president can make appointments but the appointments are subject to the approval by not less that 60 per cent members of parliament including those not present. By introducing such a mechanism, the important appointment can be made subject to non-partisan parliamentary ratification.

If one conducts a simple survey to ascertain people’s views on constitutional reforms, he or she will for sure find that people would place electoral reforms as the priority number 1. I believe people gave the UPFA closer to a two-thirds majority in parliament primarily because the people in this country are fed up with the electoral system that has been in operation and want it changed. Instead of taking this into consideration, the attempt of the UPFA to present a constitutional amendment that does not reflect either this desire of the people or the promises made by the UPFA at both parliamentary and general elections this year is unacceptable and would produce adverse results not only for the country but also for the UPFA as a coalition. It is not seldom that politicians unwittingly dig their own graves.



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Protest mounting against 18th amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka

New UNP parliamentarian Manusha Nanayakkara is the latest in the line up to strengthen the hands of the Rajapaksas

(September 04, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) No valid argument is available to prove that the 18th amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka will not further the draconian powers of the executive President at which the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa as well frowned before he tasted the sweet fruit of power accumulation.

The naked truth behind the Rajapaksa regime's ability in mustering parliamentary two third majority is sheer selfishness and disregard of democratic principles by the so-called representatives of people. If there is any politically valid argument in what they state, that is the long lasting love of Sri Lankan polity to have the toughest dictator to rule or overrule themselves. No wonder many corrupt people also say Sri Lanka needs the kind of laws in Islamic countries to discipline the society. We will have wait and see till they wake up to the reality of their dream.

The supporters of the amendments to strengthen the hold of Rajapaksa's immediate family must leave out the words such as democracy and they can talk openly what they gain and what the people will be given through this move. There are too many greedy elements in the highest echelon of Sri Lankan politics and the people who yearn for absolute power will no sooner suffer. Losing power will be extremely painful in this context. No one can hold on permanently and no one have done so, so far in the history.

However, while the major opposition United National Party (UNP) leadership fails to maintain the collective unity and discipline of even the freshest parliamentarians, the People's Liberation (JVP), the leftists and activists are getting together to muster isolated protest to the draconian amendments to the constitution.

"People's Delegate Conference will be organized to protest against the dictatorial 18th Amendment to the Constitution on Monday, 6th September 3.30 pm onwards at Jayewardene Centre, Colombo-7" said the convener of the delegate conference Attorney Sudarshana Gunawardana.

Leaders of the political parties including UNP, JVP, Democratic National Alliance (DNA), Left Front, United Socialist Party, Democratic People's Party will address the conference.

Trade Unionists and the leaders of the civil society including the Platform for Freedom will also address the conference.

JVP is organizing a massive protest against the constitutional amendments on September 07. Leftists, activists and civil society protest is scheduled on September 08, the day the government has planned to pass the bill.



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Essay: A friend indeed (How moral is profit?)

By Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe
He was my childhood friend. In fact, we are relatives. It is normal that most of us in the village are related to each other in some way. We lived in a beautiful, traditional village in tropical Sri Lanka. There is no hill top in our village surrounding that our explorative young feet missed to climb. No stream was shy to provide us a pool to quench our sweat soaked naked bodies.

He is before me now. The boy who used to wear a pair of cotton shorts with all sorts of stains is now in a neatly ironed suit. His long sleeved light blue expensive shirt and the tightly knotted red and black patterned tie prevent the cool comfortable evening breeze to kiss his chest that was bear all the time except the few hours he was in school in the past.

“This is not mere insurance policy. This is a way you perform your duties towards your offspring,” he explains to my unenthusiastic ears. In sweet words, he says that if I am killed in some way, the insurance company will pay my family a handsome dividend. But, I don’t want to die soon since my children are small and also because I have many stories to write one day. The topic of death is appalling. But he speaks nice words targeting to sell an insurance plan to me.

“By the way, what happened to Sira, the guy of the village doctor, who used to play with us?” I ask. I lost contact with the village ever since my father passed away since my mother decided to go back to her parents in her home village together with her children, although father’s family provided us security and welfare. Until we left the village, my uncles and aunts looked after us well. Uncles cultivated our rice field and stocked our barn for the season. Aunts took my younger sister and brother that were twins to our father’s ancestral home and looked after them so that mother could pay her full attention to the baby. For the New Year, they even painted our house. But my mother was somehow compelled to go back to her village and to live with her people. We enjoyed a similar life full of love there as well. But I still remember how all my uncles and aunts were looking with tearful eyes at the train slowly picking up the pace taking us away from them. Time departed us. But still the love blooms once we meet occasionally. The times have changed. Amidst so many changes that I do not mention here, my childhood friend is an insurance agent who wants to sell a life insurance to me.

Here he talks about our friend Sira. “He could not get adequate marks at Advanced Level to enter university. But he learnt his father’s traditional medicine and astrology. You know, he is one of my long time customers. Last year, he withdrew a bonus of……” Insurance again. Business. Profit. His car glitters golden in setting sunshine.

He is trying to terrify me to buy a life insurance for the sake of my children. His company is trying to replace the security, love and affection we, as a family of a prematurely died father, had from our extended families with insurance. It is a thriving business with huge profits not only to the owners but to the sales representatives like my friend as well. I looked at his brightly polished expensive pair of shoes. In his right calf, just above his ankle, now covered with light blue comfortable socks, he has a scar of deep cut. He tripped down from a rock as we were bathing near a waterfall. We tied a piece of cloth torn from my sarong above the laceration and carried him to the village doctor who gave him first aid and sent for a bullock cart to be made ready to take him to the hospital. One hoot awoke the boatman from his after lunch nap and before his boat touched the shore of the river bank of the other side several able bodied youth snatched him to be laid on the bullock cart made ready to take him followed by a whole array of relatives and friends. His injury was a common issue for the village. A group went to the jungle to fetch a kind of woody creeper that is good to cure lacerations. My friend talks about hospital cash of the insurance policy. A private hospital ambulance is ready for the clients of the insurance company. Health is business too. Business for profit.

He opened his James Bond bag to take some pamphlets out. He carries a blue labeled water bottle too in his bag. It was quite extraordinary for me. Why? He sensed my feelings. “I am a man from village. I cannot drink the chlorinated water of urban supplies. This is pure bottled spring water.” Water too is business. Business for profit.

Business will not spare air. Recently, the world environmentalists discussed about the quotas for polluting air. Less polluting countries can sell pollution permits to highly polluting countries that exceed the permitted limit. Instant profits to less polluting countries. But the highly polluting countries would not mind the loss. They will start more industries that would ultimately find profits from the less polluting third world countries.

How moral is this kind of trade? Is it ethical? My childhood friend and present sales rep is trying to monetize my love to my children. They call it marketing. What is this market?

Money and market are two of the most wonderful creations of the mankind. When we were small children, I used to visit the village fair with my mother once in a while. My friend’s father used to collect the surplus production of the village like vegetable, fruit and green leaves etc. He took them in a hired cart to the Sunday fair in the town. Most of his goods came from his own garden. He earned a reasonable profit from the items he collected from others. He settled money to his suppliers in the evening. One can tell my friend’s father to buy something for him or her from the fair. He willingly carried a heavy bag made of coconut leaf on his shoulder in the return journey. At a house he stops to give something he rests a while sipping a cup of tea with palm sugar and chews a betel leaf. The villagers did not have much money. But, they managed to be content with their needs that were lesser than today. People need money and markets to sell their surplus production and to buy or barter other needs.

Profit is the driving force of the market. No market will exist without profit. Markets need professional traders. They depend on the profit. Profit is not unethical or immoral. As same as money and markets are real, so does the profit too. Blaming profit for human agony is like criticizing science for innovation of nuclear bomb. It is the greed for power to be blamed for nuclear armaments. In the same way, not the profit but the greed for profit created the present human agony.

Profit is one aspect of human life. It drives the market that is essential for the economic life of the modern man. But market is not everything and so is the profit too. Traders need profit for their existence. But it is not everything. It should remain in its place without invading and dominating all the other parts of the life. For instance, profit should not prompt the market to interfere the relationship between a mother and a child like in advertisements of some milk powder companies. Profit should not target to monetize my emotional life of love, affection and duties towards my children, my dear insurance agent friend. I feel jittery, Machang. (A colloquial Sinhala and Tamil word used to address friends)

Free profit from greed! Then profit will stand for market without affecting the human life. Market is the gun that fired profit into the guts of life. It is not the market that the man invented to exchange the needs for life. It is the present day sophisticated market that exists for profit. That market crawled into the human society like a virus and spread rapidly. It ate into each and every vein, blood cell and gene of the social structure. Man to man relationship was reshaped and restructured by market during the last one or two centuries. Greed for profit became the basis of this new market economy.

Market seized all hiding shy elements of human life out of their safe heavens and threw them to the market counter to be bought and sold. The rose that bloomed in wilderness to be plucked by a lover that earned to gift it to his fiancée was ‘harvested’ and ‘transported’ to the market so that the market could hold the flower in between the lover and fiancée on Valentine Day.

The point is not against the modern marketing principles or its science. It is so simple; we should not put everything into market. You can argue that everything can be marketed. Our attempt is not to defeat you theoretically. Do not market everything although you can do so. There are things that should never be put into market. Love is one example. Greed corrupts profit and the profit corrupts the market. Life must not be made naked to corruption.

We cannot get rid of the pursuit of profit in the present day society. However, pursuit of profit must be tolerated only until to the extent of a clearly demarcated line of morality. Greed for profit must not be allowed to kill humans, make them ill, starve them and fool them. Do how many people die in this world since greed for profit stands between their basic needs like food, water, medicine and the access to resources to fulfill those needs?

World Food Programme (WFP) says that there are 1.02 billion undernourished people in the world today. That means one in nearly six people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life. WFP further says, “As well as the obvious sort of hunger resulting from an empty stomach, there is also the hidden hunger of micronutrient deficiencies which make people susceptible to infectious diseases, impair physical and mental development, reduce their labor productivity and increase the risk of premature death.” (http://www.wfp.org/hunger)

Proportion of children under five years of age suffering from under-nutrition (according to the WHO Child Growth Standards) was 20% in 2005. An estimated 112 million children are underweight. Undernutrition is an underlying cause in more than one third of child deaths.

So much people are affected by hunger in a time the world leaders are spending lavishly for armaments in their struggles for superiority. Meanwhile the world business communities that fund the states are thriving with huge profits. Agriculture, food processing, distribution and marketing are among the most successful big businesses in this world where so many people are affected by hunger.

By the time I am writing this essay, rice harvesting of the major season is underway. The government registered average price for a kilo of unprocessed rice is around US $ 30 cents per kilo. The same rice is sold in the market after processing around $ 80 cents a kilo. Average Sri Lankan rice farmer is a small industry poor man that lives hand to mouth. According to the Ministry of Social Security and Social Welfare, there are 350,000 recipients of concessions provided to extremely poor people of the country. This allowance is yet to be raised to Rs. 1000 a month. These people are subjected to live with 1/3 of a dollar per day. Sri Lanka government provides 'Samurdhi' poverty concessions to low income groups. The Deputy Minister of State Revenue and Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said in the parliament on May 05, 2009 that the number of Samurdhi recipients was 1,672,159 in 2008. He further stated that by 2007, there were 452,000 families that earned less than Rs. 6283/= per month. This is well over 5% of the population of Sri Lanka. They are unable to afford the price of a kilo of rice today.

How can more than 150% increase of price occur in between the rice field and the retail department store? Food procession and distribution costs do not amount so much. There are big businessmen that grab huge profits from rice walking between the farmer and the consumer. They block our hand moving to mouth to feed us with our traditional staple food. How ethical is gaining massive profits through keeping others hungry.

Most of Sri Lankans are Buddhists. Lord Buddha analyzed profit in one of his preaching called Mahachaththareesaka Sutta. Lord Buddha does not deny profiting. Instead, he states that targeting mere profiting is a wrong livelihood. When one focuses only to profiting he tends to be a cynic and does many other offences as well, according to Buddha’s teaching.

Many of the pre-modern cultures of the world like the small Sri Lankan village where I and my insurance agent friend spent our tender ages had economic models that sustained the man’s life in the societies where money, market and profit was not prominent.

Profit is not an offence but a phenomenon that is essential for the economic life of the man. But greed for profit is a crime that should be avoided. It should not be accepted as a positive principle of economy. Pursuit of profit must be bound with social responsibility. We have to reconsider the economic models in the past, especially the micro level people’s initiatives to start a dialogue to find ways to save the mankind and nature from the evils of the modern market that is driven by greed for profit.

Tomorrows markets need to be free from greed of profit. I have a dream of a socially responsible profit. It is not a profit that generates massive disparity. It is a profit that drives a human market. We cannot go back to the village we lived in our childhood my friend, even if we want to do so. But I have a dream of a world in which my kids explore the beauty hand in hand with my childhood friend’s kids.



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Sri Lanka, China Form Strategic Shield against the West

FRIDA GHITIS | 02 SEP 2010
WORLD POLITICS REVIEW
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- On a steamy afternoon in the Sri Lankan capital, if you glance across the water at Colombo's legendary Galle Face Green seaside promenade, past the spray of the Indian Ocean, you can make out a milky line of giant cargo ships at the point where the sky blends with the sea. That ocean traffic on the horizon, those dashes of gray steel, glide along the world's busiest sea lane, navigated by anywhere from 100 to 200 ships every day. This is the maritime pipeline that makes it possible for China to remain the world's fastest-growing economy. It is also the visible explanation for China's generosity toward Sri Lanka and a centerpiece of this country's vision for the future.

Sri Lanka, the small tear-shaped island at the foot of India, has always held a special place in the hearts of global strategists. In earlier centuries, Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial invaders sought to exploit its riches, but they also coveted the island for its location. Now, in what may become the Chinese Century, it is Beijing that has its sights on the country formerly known as Ceylon.

China's interest has been warmly reciprocated by Sri Lankan authorities, who see Beijing's embrace as the key to prosperity at a time when the West demands pesky human rights standards in exchange for its largesse.

While the West today is removing preferential trade treatment from Sri Lanka, citing its failure to cooperate with human rights investigations, Beijing is happily expanding its presence. Last year China became the country's biggest financial investor, and the level of cooperation is increasing by the day. Chinese businessmen and technical experts are a regular presence in Colombo's hotels, and government delegations make frequent visits. China is allowing Sri Lanka to develop its economy, while Sri Lanka is providing China with a key strategic position in the Indian Ocean -- one that could evolve into a political and even a quasi-military alliance.

Sri Lanka has become one of the beads in China's so-called "String of Pearls," a series of ports between the Persian Gulf and China that protect Chinese trade routes and create the foundation for what could become a series of bases for China's fast-growing navy.

In order for China to access the Middle East oil that fires the pistons of its economy, freighters carrying petroleum must slice through the Persian Gulf waters, sail within sight of Sri Lanka's shores, and make their way around Southeast Asia until they reach a Chinese port. Similarly, Chinese exports destined for Europe must reverse the route, passing near Sri Lanka on their way to the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Mediterranean Sea. Freighters headed to the east coast of the United States, where hungry American consumers gobble up Chinese products, continue on to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Chinese presence in Sri Lanka has become inescapable. Strong bilateral relations are nothing new, but the ties have strengthened greatly since Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to office five years ago, and even more since his forces won an apparently decisive victory in the war against the separatist LTTE, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

That military victory against an organization that perpetrated acts of extraordinary brutality was widely cheered by Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese -- as well as by large sections of the minority Tamil, who dreaded the extreme methods of the Tamil Tigers and breathed a sigh of relief at the war's end. But the victory came at a horrific cost to civilians.

As the controversial final offensive pushed relentlessly ahead last year, China blocked efforts to bring the matter to the U.N. Security Council. But China was already on its way to forging the alliance years earlier. In 2007, when Washington stopped direct military aid to Colombo on human rights grounds, China quickly picked up the slack, providing powerful new weaponry that made America's decision irrelevant. Chinese weapons played an important role in the government's ultimate success against the LTTE in 2009.

Sri Lanka has resisted international pressure to open itself to human rights investigations about what transpired during the final months of the war, when hundreds of thousands of civilians were displaced and thousands more are believed to have been killed. The U.N. launched such an investigation, charging some 7,000 civilians died as the fighting reached its final climax.

In order to pressure Colombo to allow a war crimes probe, the European Union last February threatened to remove favorable trade status. The threat failed to change the government's stance, and in August, Sri Lanka lost tariff preferences under the union's so-called Generalized System of Preference Plus.

Sri Lanka remains defiant in the face of Western pressure, partly because China's help is easing the pain. Authorities say the country received $1.2 billion from China in 2009 in the form of grants, loans and credits, constituting the majority of what Sri Lanka received last year and making Beijing easily the largest contributor among foreign countries and multilateral agencies.

Chinese funds built the gleaming convention center near the airport, but the most important project for both countries is the one under construction in the south of the island. The Hambantota deep-sea port, whose first phase was recently completed, is one the largest of China's String of Pearls ports. Its 55-foot depth makes it one of the deepest in the region. The joint venture, expected to cost $1.5 billion, will give China a place to dock its most massive ships and provides Sri Lanka with an opportunity to expand its position in international shipping. Sri Lanka aims to lure large ships traveling between Asia and the West to use the port for refueling and maintenance.

Other Chinese projects in Sri Lanka include a major power plant in the town of Norochcholai with a price tag of $1.35 billion, financed by Exim Bank of China. The first phase of the plant already went online. China is also engaged in a number of crucial and costly road-building projects, including one that would cut the travel time between Colombo and the main airport at Katunayake to about 20 minutes. It now takes between one and two hours, depending on the capital's unpredictable traffic congestion.

For Sri Lanka, the end of the war with the Tamil Tigers means a new era. Pressure from the West to look back at what transpired during the conflict, or at the cost civilians paid for that victory, are seen by the government as an affront to its sovereignty and an unnecessary rehashing of a necessary war. Instead of looking back, it prefers to look to the future. And a big part of the future can be seen from the country's shores, where the big Chinese ships dotting the horizon symbolize new opportunities for Sri Lanka.


You may also like to visit our Sinhala Blog W3Lanka

Cheap labour from IDPs of Sri Lanka changing the labour terrain

By Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe

(August 29, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Working class of Sri Lanka is facing new challenges following the defeat of the Tamil liberation struggle and the capitalist re-unification of the state structure.

In the latest development, the garment factory owners struggling to survive amidst the loss of GSP Plus tax concessions from European Union are in a mass recruitment drive of Tamil girls among IDPs for cheap labour in factories.

Anton Marcus, President of the Progressive Free Trade Zone and Apparel Union told the Sunday Times, “After many years of war, the people in these areas are ignorant of workers rights, wages and so on and are easy prey for the apparel operators. Most of the big names currently touring the north and east are known to be serious violators of labour laws. There is a huge dearth of factory hands at the moment because many are leaving owing to poor wages and working and living conditions. Therefore the apparel bosses have switched to the north and east where there is widespread unemployment. These people are willing to work for any wage and they care less about the working or living conditions. At the end of the day, these workers will be exploited.”

The trend recalls the history of colonial planters importing low-income group people from South India as plantation workers in the 19th century. Poverty stricken Sinhala villagers that lost their traditional livelihood due to land grab of the colonial companies grew a deep rooted jealousy and hatred with the Indian workers and it still prevails even more than 60 years after gaining independence. To appease them, Sinhala rulers took back the citizenship right of these Tamil workers and deported thousands of them against their wish. Indian origin Tamils are still struggling far behind the other communities to achieve due equality.

The cheap labour available in recently re-unified areas of Sri Lanka may have a greater impact on Sri Lanka's labour market in recent future with the revocation of restrictions of mobility that were imposed on security concerns. Even now, the cheap labour from the workers of minority communities have changed the labour terrain in rice cultivating districts like Polonnaruwa.

This can cause a new challenge to the workers' movements since there is a possibility of emergence of a new wave of racism among workers that clash in labour market for better demand for them. Similar riots took place in some states of India in recent times.

Another kind of manipulated labour migration is also visible in re-unified areas. The state and private companies that carry out development projects in Northern Province take labourers from south to north due to security and other issues instead of recruiting labourers from IDPs.

Media reports say even India is to bring a 20,000 workforce to Sri Lanka to employ in the 50,000 numbers mega housing project for IDPs of Northern Province.

Less attention is paid both by Sri Lanka and India regarding the feeble voice of the IDPs demanding employment in these development projects.

Governments are yet to identify that they are providing breeding grounds for fragmented Tamil nationalist forces that are manipulating the situation to revive Tamil racism among IDPs.



You may also like to visit our Sinhala Blog W3Lanka

The article that made The Economist barred entry to Sri Lanka

(August 21, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity)The following article was published in 'The Economist' on August 19.

It is a half-baked unprofessional journalistic piece, that portrays half truth regarding present situation in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka.

But it is published in prestigious The Economist that can have an influence in the minds of the possible investors in Sri Lanka.

Overall image created by the article is that Sri Lanka under Mahinda Rajapaksa regime is anti-Tamil, undemocratic, corrupt and nepotist although the country is recovering and on the development path under his rule. The article ended with the following sentence.

The country may be developing after the war, but democracy still looks frail.

Sri Lanka Customs has stopped release of all the copies of The Economist magazine, says the distributor in the island Vijitha Yapa Bookshop.

The government is yet to clarify if it is a formal confiscation under the draconian emergency regulations.

Similar action was taken last year and then the government banned sale of India's popular Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan and even arrested the manager of the distributor company Poobalasingham Bookshop, Colombo.

Sri Lanka's post-war recovery

Rebuilding, but at a cost

Sri Lanka is developing again. But not all can celebrate

Aug 19th 2010 | TRINCOMALEE

WEARING a crisp blue shirt, Kumaraswamy Nageswaran gestures dejectedly to a towering fence that keeps him from his village and his three acres of farmland on the Trincomalee coast. Five years ago, as Tamil Tiger rebels fought desperately with the Sri Lankan army, thousands of families fled Sampur and adjoining villages. They returned in the six months to January this year, only to find themselves victims of post-war development plans.

Sampur fell within an area demarcated during the war as a “high-security zone”, in an effort to keep fighters from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam at bay. The rebels were defeated in May 2009, but nearly 6,000 people still cannot get to their homes and lands, as the security zone remains in place.

Today, inside the fence, Sampur is being cleared for a 500MW coal-powered plant in a joint venture between India and Sri Lanka. Also planned are a jetty and a special economic zone. The government has started a construction spree. The short journey from Kinniya to Mutur still requires arduous travel over potholed tracks and three short trips by rudimentary ferries with spluttering outboard motors. But roads are being tarred and bridges will soon replace the tedious boat rides.

Along the way, towns and villages are limping back to life. Mutur, a predominantly Muslim township near to Sampur, was the site of a particularly bloody battle in 2006. Gradually it is lifting its head: new buildings, including a school, are rising; paint has been daubed on walls. With a bit more aid money, the recovery would move faster yet. Elsewhere in the district, officials have marked out vast stretches of pristine beach-front for tourist development and plush hotels.

The authorities say that land will be dished out through open tenders. But local leaders fear plots will instead be handed to henchmen of the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, most of whom come from the Sinhala-dominated south. Demands for preferential treatment for the inhabitants of Trincomalee, whether Tamil, Sinhala or Muslim, may fall on deaf ears.

Mr Nageswaran tries to organise locals, as the president of a welfare group for displaced people. The government has allocated them alternative land, he says, but it is poor, lacking decent soil or water for cultivation, and without the sea to fish in. Nobody asked them before making plans and they have no access to the “family that governs Sri Lanka” to explain their plight.

Ministers know what is happening. A soldier on the road to Mutur says government officials visit regularly, adding disgustedly that he is forced to salute the likes of Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, a former LTTE leader who is now deputy minister of resettlement, whereas “war heroes” like the former army commander, Sarath Fonseka, languish in jail.

Mr Fonseka, the country’s only four-star general, led the war against the rebels. He was cashiered on August 13th after a court-martial convicted him on three counts of using “traitorous” words and of a failure “to obey garrison or other orders”. The stripping of his rank, medals and decorations was endorsed by the president, whom he had dared to challenge at an election in January.

A wider crackdown against the opposition seems to be under way. Also on August 13th two MPs from Mr Fonseka’s Democratic National Alliance were arrested during what they called a “pro-democracy” protest. Police wielding batons and firing tear gas charged the demonstrators. The country may be developing after the war, but democracy still looks frail.

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A massive online campaign by the Avaaz community in Brazil won a stunning victory against corruption.

(August 19, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) This is an email received by us and it describes a people's struggle in Brazil that achieved victory.

The "clean record" law was a bold proposal that banned any politician convicted of crimes like corruption and money laundering from running for office. With nearly 25% of the Congress under investigation for corruption, most said it would never pass. But after Avaaz launched the largest online campaign in Brazilian history, helping to build a petition of over 2 million signatures, 500,000 online actions, and tens of thousands of phone calls, we won!

Avaaz members fought corrupt congressmen daily as they tried every trick in the book to kill, delay, amend, and weaken the bill, and won the day every time. The bill passed Congress, and already over 330 candidates for office face disqualification!

One Brazilian member wrote to us when the law was passed, saying:

I have never been as proud of the Brazilian people as I am today! Congratulations to all that have signed. Today I feel like an actual citizen with political power. -- Silvia

Our strategy in Brazil was simple: make a solution so popular and visible that it can’t be opposed, and be so vigilant that we can’t be ignored.

This victory shows what our community can do - at a national level, in developing nations, and on the awful problem of corruption. Anywhere in the world, we can build legislative proposals to clean up corruption in government, back them up with massive citizen support, and fight legislators who try to block them.

France's Le Monde called our "impressive and unprecedented petition" campaign a "spectacular political and moral victory for civil society." And while this victory may be a first, we can make it the precedent for global citizen action.

Amazingly, our entire Brazil campaign was made possible by just a couple of Avaaz team members, serving over 600,000 Avaaz members in Brazil. The power of the Avaaz model is that technology can enable a tiny team to help millions of people work together on the most pressing issues. It's one of the most powerful ways a small donation can make a difference in the world.

5.6 million of us are reading this email -- if a small fraction of us donate just $3 or $5 per week, or 50 cents per day, the entire Avaaz team will be funded and we can even expand our work on corruption and a range of issues. Click below to become a Sustainer of Avaaz and help take our anti-corruption campaigning global:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/ficha_limpa_reportback/?vl

We've seen the heart-wrenching movies about street kids and desperate urban poverty in Brazil, and we know that across the world political corruption preys on our communities and saps human potential. In Brazil, our community has helped turn the tide and usher in a new era of transparent, accountable politics. Let's seize the opportunity and begin to fight corruption everywhere it's needed today.

With hope,

Ricken, Luis, Graziela, David, Ben, Maria Paz, Benjamin and the entire Avaaz Team


SOURCES:

The Economist, "Cleaning up. A campaign against corruption":
http://www.avaaz.org/economist_ficha_limpa

The Rio Times, "Anti-Corruption Law in Effect This Year":
http://www.avaaz.org/rio_times_ficha_limpa

The story of Brazil's Clean Record law has yet to be told widely in English language media. Here are a few stories in other languages that capture the campaign:

Le Monde, "Operation "clean sheet" in Brazil": (French)
http://www.avaaz.org/le_monde_ficha_limpa

Correio Braziliense, "The arrival of 2.0 activists": (Portuguese)
http://www.avaaz.org/correio_braziliense_2_0

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