By Peter Bouckaert | The Guardian
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During the Vietnam conflict, the US military developed some creative ways to increase the numbers of Viet Cong insurgents it claimed to have killed. "If they're dead, they're Viet Cong," meant that any Vietnamese killed by American soldiers would automatically count as enemy fighters.

Sri Lanka's defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has taken such creative accounting to new heights. The United Nations reported that at least 7,000 civilians were killed and tens of thousands wounded during the final months of the brutal conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in May 2009. But Gotabhaya has repeatedly cast aspersions on the idea that there were any civilian casualties.

In his recent statement before a Sri Lankan commission looking at lessons learned from the war, Gotabhaya claimed that injured Tigers "changed their uniforms into civilian clothes" and that the Tigers must have suffered at least 6,000 dead and 30,000 injured – suggesting those counted as civilian casualties were really just Tamil Tiger fighters who had shed their uniforms.

As for the widespread war crimes and human rights abuses by both sides reported both during and after the conflict by various UN agencies, the US state department and human rights organisations, the defence secretary seems to be suffering from severe amnesia. He told the Lessons Learned Commission: "No complaints about human rights violations or abuses by the army were brought to my notice. None at all."

Despite the promises made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon in June 2009 to investigate wartime atrocities, as well as Sri Lanka's international legal obligations to investigate alleged laws of war violations, the president and his brothers in power have not lifted a finger to do so. The president often appears stunned when other governments both praise the government's victory yet insist on accountability for laws of war violations.

Gotabhaya also proclaimed that the military operation was a really a "humanitarian intervention" in which "we took great care to avoid [endangering] civilians … our military had to stop operations and give protection to people, food convoys." In practice, however, rather than protecting civilians, the government blocked access by humanitarian organisations. The International Committee of the Red Cross complained publicly that it was unable to reach those most in need.

There are genuine concerns that the Lessons Learned Commission will serve only to whitewash allegations of serious abuses, and that its conclusions will be used to brush off calls for an international investigation. The panel's mandate is deliberately limited: its main responsibility is to understand the reasons for the collapse of the 2002 ceasefire agreement, and there is no express mandate to investigate laws of war violations.

The government clearly wants to avoid an honest attempt to find the truth. During a BBC interview in June, Gotabhaya threatened to have the commander behind the final military offensive, Gen Sarath Fonseka, executed after he promised to co-operate with investigations into wartime violations. The government took Fonseka – who earlier this year unsuccessfully ran against the president – to court martial, where he was convicted, essentially cutting him off from any capacity to challenge the Rajapaksa version of events.

The government announced in June that it will deny visas to the members of a UN expert panel established to advise Secretary General Ban on mechanisms for accountability. For those who didn't get the message, protests against the panel led by a government minister outside the UN compound in Colombo should have: this government has no interest in investigating abuses and providing victims a measure of justice.

Add to this the continued suppression of government critics, civil society, and media, the restricted access for independent monitors to the northern and eastern parts of the country where the fighting occurred, the lack of information about an estimated 8,000 suspected Tamil Tiger fighters currently detained in "rehabilitation camps," and the conditions are ripe for a complete rewrite of history.

What the Lessons Learned Commission makes of the testimony it receives remains to be seen. One would hope that it would see the government's version of events for what it is: a cynical fabrication designed to avoid scrutiny. Unfortunately, there is every reason to fear that the panel will believe the story that is being spun by the Rajapaksa brothers, which basically runs to the formula from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland: "Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't."

© The Guardian

Lanka Business Online
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Civil society organization representing several interest groups in Sri Lanka have come out against proposed changes to the constitution as a move that will further destroy democratic values and individual freedom.

Sri Lanka's organization of professional associations said the constitution change which lifts a two-term limit on the president and has also come under fire for undermining the judiciary and the election office was not promoting good governance.

The change would also effective repeal a previous amendment which aimed to increase the ability of the public service to act justly towards the people and establish rule of law through a constitutional council, critics have said.

" [T]he OPA wishes to state categorically that the proposed Amendment is not in the interest of promoting good governance or in the national interest and requested all concerned to give further consideration to the viability of enacting this constitutional amendment," the organization said in a statement.

Sri Lanka's civil rights movement (CRM) said it was "outrageous" that the constitution change was being "rushed through" as being urgent in the public interest for supreme court approval without people having the chance to even discuss the issue.

The CRM said neither the people nor lawyers had time to make considered representations to the Supreme Court.

Transparency International, an anti corruption body said a 17th amendment to the constitution which attempted to make the public service independent (act justly and fairly by the people) has been made virtually redundant.

"With the new Amendment, the Public Service (including the Police) will be open to political exploitation allowing the politicians to interfere with all aspects of the Public Service," the organization said.

"This, TISL believes, is not in keeping with the democratic values and will affect the independence of the Public Service."

Chandra Jayaratne a retired business executive who has been speaking on behalf of better governance and civil liberties said the proposed amendments were a setback.

"The public service and police service is totally made subservient to the needs and directions of the political masters and this structure will leave the public served by them without recourse and effective fair and unbiased service and protection," he said in a statement.

"Post these amendments the democratic expression of franchise by the eligible public will take a nose dive within politically controlled institutions and media sans independence.

"Within the framework structure and processes binding key institutions of public service, law enforcement, justice, rights and freedoms and good governance as proposed, the public will find it impossible to hold key persons and institutions accountable in all these areas."

Bishop Duleep de Chickera from Colombo's Anglican Church said "all who value democratic freedom in the country voice their objection to" the constitution change and the changes should not be "rushed through" the parliament.

"It is when the people are properly informed of the pros and cons of constitutional change, and given a chance to participate in this process and make informed decisions, that democracy prevails and our legislators fulfil their obligations," he said in statement.

"The political freedom that our legislators are endowed with is determined by the democratic rights and aspirations of the people. To disregard these obligations amounts to a misappropriation of the peoples’ trust."

Last week the business supplement of Sri Lanka's The Sunday Times conducted a poll among its readers and said 90 percent of the respondents said 'No' to the constitutional change aimed at lifting the term limits of the president.

About 8.5 percent approved the change and 1.5 percent were undecided.

"While many respondents gave an emphatic NO, NO, NO answer (many repeating the word twice or thrice for emphasis), the same emphasis (YES, YES) was given among the few who support President Rajapaksa’s plan for a third term, saying there is no other leader in the country," the newspaper said.

In many elections leaders had promised to "abolish" the presidency not to extend the term limits, the newspaper quoted a reader as saying. Others said that constitutional changes should originate from the people to increase their freedoms and rule of law.

"Constitutional Change is a must to bring the democratic values and features back into the governance system in Sri Lanka," said another reader.

Another response said there was little understanding in Sri Lanka that a primary purpose of a constitution devised in Western Europe was to restrain the arbitrary power of the state and rulers over people and a constitution must also give absolute guarantees of equality and individual freedom.

"Until the people understand these two basic principles Sri Lanka will only have fascist nationalism by majority vote (also a Western European invention e.g. Germany and Italy) and not true democracy."

© Lanka Business Online

By Shamindra Ferdinando | The Island
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Sri Lanka is in the process of building and re-deploying its naval and air assets to thwart any future attempt to open up illegal sea routes to and from the country.

The navy and air force will re-position their assets in support of ground deployment in coastal areas.

In line with this strategy, the navy has shifted its north-western headquarters from Puttalam to Mullikulam to exercise naval command and control from Udappuwa to Arippu.

On the invitation of navy Commander Vice Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa after declaring open the new headquarters last week said that new permanent bases would be set up to enhance security. A key element in the new deployment plan would be to ensure north-eastern seas could not be used for illegal activities, the Defence Secretary said.

Sri Lanka took delivery of two Israeli-built Fast Attack Craft (FACs) which are now undergoing trials since the end of war. They are among six FACs expected to join the navy.

Authoritative sources told The Island that the US had enhanced Sri Lanka’s air surveillance capability by providing sophisticated real time data link system.

Sources said that the SLAF took delivery of the system early this year following the conclusion of the war in May last year. Mounted on two Beech King Aircraft SMR 2201 and SMR 2202, the system would Sri Lanka obtain real time intelligence, which would give the military top brass to act swiftly.

During the war, Sri Lanka had mounted a different system on Beech King Aircraft to obtain real time intelligence. Separately, the SLAF deployed UAVs (Unmanned aerial Vehicles) on surveillance missions day and night.

During the initial stages of the Eelam war IV, the US enhanced Sri Lanka’s coastal surveillance capability, though there had been some hiccups.

Despite various constrains, the navy set up Automatic Identification Systems (AISs) at selected coastal bases to monitor ship movements on its own in the wake of concern raised by a third party. Sources recalled the delay caused by similar situation leading to the failure on the part of the government to neutralize threat posed by LTTE aircraft by deploying Chinese radar. Despite a delay, Sri Lanka finally acquired Chinese radar during the Eelam War IV.

© The Island

The Times of India
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Army Chief Gen V K Singh arrived here on Sunday on a five-day visit which is expected to provide an impetus to defence cooperation between India and Sri Lanka and lay the ground for a bilateral defence dialogue.

Singh, who is accompanied by his wife, was received by his Sri Lankan counterpart Lt Gen Jagath Jayasuriya at the airport on Sunday.

Singh, during his stay here is scheduled to meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Prime Minister D M Jayaratne, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and External Affairs Minister G L Peires.

His visit is considered preparatory to the Indo-Lanka defence dialogue that is scheduled to begin next year.

The Indian Army chief will be given a ceremonial guard of honour tomorrow before he begins discussions with Jayasuriya and other top military officials of Sri Lanka.

General Singh served in the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) during Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka in 1987.

He will tomorrow pay floral tributes at the memorial for the IPKF soldiers and officers, who were killed during the war with the LTTE.

Singh will be the first Indian Army Chief to visit the memorial, since the time it was erected.

The Indian army chief, who was awarded the 'Yudh Sena Medal' for his distinguished service during 'Operation Pawan' against the LTTE in Sri Lanka, is also expected to visit the war-ravaged Vavuniya in the North on Tuesday.

Media reports said that also on the anvil are visits by Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal P V Naik and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar to Sri Lanka.

Naval chief Admiral Nirmal Verma had visited Sri Lanka in June.

Besides an annual defence dialogue, India and Sri Lanka are looking to step up maritime-security cooperation and during the upcoming talks would consider increasing the level and frequency of defence exchanges, reports said.

© The Times of India

By Dr.Rajan Hoole | Transcurrents
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With the LTTE gone, our common objective should be creatively to use the potential the people of this country have to live and prosper together. We see instead fears of an LTTE resurgence being drummed up artificially to justify policies that foster division and discord.

The strength of a nation depends on its ability to speak the truth about its actions and be transparent and respectful of the law in its dealings. The contrary often signals that the nation blunders on by continual evasion and major violations of human rights. Symptomatic of the state of affairs here is the alacrity with which some leading sections of the state and private media rushed to misquote Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala’s presentation before the LLRC as justifying blanket exemption from humanitarian law in fighting terrorism.

An earnest investigation would show that the Military used excessive force in ‘liberating’ Sampoor during the night of 27th August 2006. Moreover, subsequent policies of the Government towards the Sampoor population were meant to further its agenda, with scant regard for rights of the civilians. Humanitarian law now or in the future would never countenance excessive force or displacement that was avoidable or permanent.

Once Sampoor was captured, there was no further threat to security. President Rajapakse said on 4th September 2006 that they recaptured Sampoor ‘purely for the benefit of the people’. Military Spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe told the Daily Mirror categorically (5th September 2006) that ‘the threat posed by the LTTE to the Trincomalee harbour and the adjoining naval base was no more following the successful operation involving the three forces.’ He added that once the area was cleared the civilians could be resettled in the next few days. This was never done.

Contradictions and abuse of International Law

The Government’s obligation under international law was expeditiously to help the people to return to their homes and let any new development proposals go through the due process. That is the minimum courtesy the Government owed them. Many women and children were involved; including those forcibly conscripted by the LTTE who had escaped. Instead, ‘attacks or other acts of violence against internally displaced persons, who do not or no longer participate in hostilities’ prohibited by international law, were regularly carried out by state-sponsored vigilantes against a terrified people.

Citing national security (ICCPR Art. 12) for the permanent displacement of a Tamil population is a dangerous argument and also tenuous. Admiral Wijewickrema referred hesitantly to the security argument (contradicted by Prasad Samarasinghe) telling Lakbimanews (29 Aug.10) that the LTTE used the area to attack Trincomalee naval base. He added as though to convince himself, “It was decided by the government that this place, like any other harbour area in the world, will not be occupied by people.”

Who, and by what right, decides that Tamil people should be deprived of their homes in several parts of the North-East? It is a structure in which almost unlimited power is held by military and ex-military men who had previously, along with the LTTE, violated international human rights and humanitarian laws by which these same people were protected. Other areas facing expropriation for new military establishments are Mullikulam, 28 miles south of Mannar and Channar east of Vidatthaltivu, which supplies its water and agricultural produce. The pattern is the same. Reasonably prosperous people who farmed from a few to 40 acres of rich agricultural land are to be given 20 perches of land in some barren backwater. This is just the thin end of the wedge.

The ICRC commentary on Article 17 of Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions, applicable to internal and international conflicts states, “Clearly, imperative military reasons cannot be justified by political motives. For example, it would be prohibited to move a population in order to exercise more effective control over a dissident ethnic group.” This is why it is dangerous. Depriving Tamils of their habitations on security grounds carries the general presumption that Tamils are collectively a security risk. Whence, they must be corralled and checked by repressive means. In 1984, the UNP government started with Weli Oya and the present one wants to go to the logical extreme. It gives the world the message that a façade of a single nation could only be sustained by systematic ethnic oppression. This is a logical consequence of state ideology.

Policies inspired by Sinhalese supremacist ideology create conflicts where none existed. The people of Sampoor never drove the Sri Lankan Army out, nor did the LTTE fight for it. Sampoor was gifted to the LTTE when the Army quit area near early 1996 to move troops to the North. It was due to the weakness of the State, which also did not anticipate a Sea Tiger threat to Trincomalee. If the displaced people are allowed to move back, they would continue peacefully as before. Why bring up an artificial threat to Trincomalee now and turn the population into a disgruntled one?

Supremacist Ideology and Vandalism

For a military hierarchy and extremists behind the present government, depriving minorities of their habitations is also based on the ideological presumption that Tamils and Muslims are usurpers who robbed land that belongs to Sinhalese Buddhists. Thus coveting land anywhere in the North-East to build a Buddhist temple or to create conditions for Sinhalese settlement becomes a birthright. The Hindus have no such rights, not even to keep a temple they have possessed for centuries.

But Sampoor also has traditions old as any in that region, as old as Koneswaram and the economic and cultural links centred on it covering the villages of Trincomalee District. Pathirakaali Amman temple in Sampoor, which forms part of the tradition, is destined to decay without devotees. The houses of those devotees that were largely intact in early 2007 were destroyed after the Government arbitrarily changed its mind and decided that there would be a harbour, an Indian coal power plant and no people; at least not Tamil.

Narrow nationalists pervert and mangle historical reality to make their claims. The rule of the kings of Kotte and Kandy in the region is cited to assert Sinhalese claims to the East. These kings however respected and fostered local traditions. The last rites of Bhuvaneka Bahu VII were performed at Koneswaram. They did not build a Buddhist temple in the precincts of Koneswaram citing some dubious history, as modern narrow nationalists have done. With regard to Sampoor, the respect Kandyan kings accorded local traditions is evident in the extract from the diary of Jacques Fabrice Van Senden, administrator of the province of Trincomalee, Wednesday 7th, 1776:

“Visited the Temple at Tamblegam. Shown images rescued from Koneswaram – King Koneesar and Queen Isowerie in well lit temple – Presented by King Kollekote, founder of the tank at Kandelay. Representation by priest: While Tamblegamme was under the King of Kandy, a tenth of the produce was collected as tribute by the prince, who remitted half in favour of the Pagoda (Temple); that since the Company had taken the entire tax, death had entered the country and the harvest was diminishing yearly, that before the death of Commandant Shorer, they had obtained a promise from him that he would request permission to assign at least 600 parrahs of paddy yearly for the maintenance of the temple.”

Unlike today’s narrow nationalists, the kings of Kandy and Kotte were often cosmopolitan in outlook, whose culture was sensitive to local traditions and customary law. Today’s politics of narrow nationalism is about creating discord, and its ideas of development, vandalism – vandalising the rich tapestry of Lankan heritage.

And debilitation of the State

The weakness of the State as evidenced in repeated humiliation at the hands of relatively small insurgent forces over decades owes much to its human rights violations. The LTTE’s strength was the State’s brutality and the fears it created by development projects like Weli Oya. The State can only become strong if it seeks reconciliation with the minorities rather than design policies treating them as a security risk.

Today’s hard line is also influenced by propaganda which lauds President Rajapakse as the man of destiny, who defeated Tamil terrorism. The facts speak differently. Even after capturing Elephant Pass in 2000, the LTTE had reached a dead end. By conscripting children it made it evident that Operation Jayasikuru had depleted its fighting capacity. The country had a splendid opportunity to do something right by itself in passing Kumaratunge’s constitutional package of August 2000. Had that been done, the Sri Lankan state would have been on course steadily transforming to one representative of all peoples of Lanka and giving it the moral high ground to check mate the LTTE and its backers.

The opportunity was undermined by Sinhalese extremists joining forces with Mahinda Rajapakse, Ranil Wickremasinghe and the LTTE. This failure, signifying Sri Lanka’s inability to resolve the ethnic problem, combined with the LTTE’s ability to manipulate the politics of the South, with its total control of political space in the North-East, gave it the propaganda edge to push for the Norway-brokered CFA. The rest of the decade was the playing out of a tragedy where the worst could have been avoided. If that were now understood, the end of the war should have led to humility rather than the arrogance on display.

© Trans-currents

Interviewed by Udara Soysa | The Sunday Leader
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Bob Dietz, the Asia Programme Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists in an interview with The Sunday Leader stated that Sri Lanka’s media policy is an embarrassment to the entire nation.

He was highly critical of the role of Attorney General Mohan Peiris. The lack of government response to Sandhya Eknaligoda’s call for help in dealing with the disappearance of her husband Prageeth is more than unconscionable. Expressing concerns also about cyber censorship, he stated the CPJ deplores “the crude shutting down of websites, which is evidence of surveillance of email traffic.”

Q: How do you see the current trends of media freedom in Sri Lanka?

A: We don’t see much of a ‘peace benefit’ for the media now that the war has ended. The administration seems intent on stifling criticism, there have been no prosecutions in any of the attacks on journalists or media institutions since President Rajapaksa has been in high office, the situation looks pretty much as it did during the worst of the civil conflict.

The lack of government response to Sandhya Eknaligoda’s call for help in dealing with the disappearance of her husband Prageeth is more than unconscionable — at this point it is a simply craven on the part of the authorities from President Rajapaksa down to the district police level. It’s shameful. It’s an embarrassment to the entire nation. I personally single out Attorney General Mohan Peiris for this — when CPJ met with him in February, we asked him to at least extend some consolation, if not actual assistance, to Sandhya.

He gave us a sympathetic response, but he has done nothing. As with the rest of the government and the civil service, she and her two sons have not had one word of condolence, let alone explanation. AG Peiris’s hardhearted response is a personal moral failure on his part as much as it is a failure on the part of the government in which he serves. I understand he is in line to become a Supreme Court justice. Sri Lanka will be a poorer place if that comes to pass.

Q: What do you think of the recent attack on Siyatha TV station?

A: That attack, which we denounced, seems politically tied – a way for anti-Fonseka people to strike back at the owners of the station and the rest of its network. It doesn’t seem linked to the station’s editorial position, but rather to its owners’ political ties, particularly in the recent presidential election.

Q: How do you see the situation of law and order in the country?

A: The conflict has ended, terrorist attacks are a thing of the past. But for CPJ’s concerns, we see an intimidated media. There are still scores of exiled journalists — not, by any means, all of them Tamil — fearful of returning home, fearing they could be attacked or victimised like some of their colleagues. The government has refused to address that, and it seems from their inactivity that they are actually happy with the situation.

Q: What are your concerns about internet censorship in the country?

A: We see the crude shutting down of websites, evidence of surveillance of email traffic. But the real threat to governments in many other countries — the move to other digital platforms, mobile phones and the like — is the next challenge. They are all scuffling to find a way of stifling that way of communicating. Sri Lanka isn’t there yet, but we have to assume that will be the next step.

Q: What is your biggest concern regarding Sri Lanka?

A: For Sri Lanka’s media, that they remain under the same threat they did while the country was mired in conflict. This government shows no intention of easing its anti-media policies. Its hard line response to criticism threatens to drive away from the international community. It seems like its desire to remain in power — and stifling the media is a big part of that tactic — will over ride any commitment to democratic rule.

Q: What are the positive developments you see in Sri Lanka?

A: The media, despite the pressure on it, continues to present some form of a reality check. But it is under a tremendous amount of pressure, and I worry about its survival.

Q: What is your request to the Sri Lankan authorities?

A: End your anti-media policies, welcome back exiled journalists and, extend protection to those that need protection.

© The Sunday Leader

By Kumar David | The Sunday Island
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It may seem exaggerated to suggest that the repeal of presidential term-limits is tantamount to a big bold step towards cementing a dictatorship in this country. I have heard it said: "Though the change is undesirable, well, what does it matter? If the present incumbent is unpopular he will be defeated next time, if popular he will win and that’s not entirely unfair". This misses the point.

The result of the next and all future elections that the present incumbent contests after fixing the constitutional amendment is not in doubt. Voices crying out from experiences of unrestrained abuse of power and unchecked electoral malpractice portend the future. Removing presidential term-limits is the necessary and sufficient condition for this game plan. Stop thinking law, think politics!

The unfolding reality

Once the rules are changed to allow additional presidential terms the rest is simple. A regime with the unique election rigging skills and repressive know-how of the incumbents will have no difficulty fixing the outcome of future electoral exercises. Ensuring the removal of term-limits is the sine-qua-non; thereafter securing the desired outcome in perpetuity is well honed. Repression, crushing of dissent, silencing critics and intimidating the media will be an ancillary function in the years leading up to the next election. That is to say tomorrow will be like yesterday but on a fortissimo scale. The public and the opposition must grasp the deadly danger facing the country right now. I must repeat myself; this is not about relaxing term-limits it is about preparing to use the jackboot.

This constitutional amendment is the key to unlocking the whole chain. If it goes through there may never be a free presidential election again until after the day sometime in the future when direct intervention by the people reverses the setback. Here we come Manila 1986! Here we come Timisoara and Bucharest December 1989! Sans a democratic way people invite leaders to depart in the way Marcos and Ceausescu were asked to quit. The repeal of presidential term-limits in Lanka will have profound and long lasting implications and the way back will have to be the people’s power road. Relaxing term-limits look like just another constitutional exercise, actually it is a watershed. It is a decisive event after which the residues of democracy, such as they are, will be fatally crippled.

Unseemly haste

The newspapers at this time of writing say that the proposed changes will be rushed through the cabinet of ministers by the end of August, taken to the courts for an OK straight away, and brought to parliament on about September 8. When you read these lines the timeframe of this indecent haste will be clearer, but the question is why does an amendment to the constitution have to charge forward at the speed of an Olympic sprint? Constitutional changes need to be debated in public and there has to be an extended period of consultation with all stakeholders, which means the whole people. The APRC has been plodding along for years but its recommendations make no mention of extending term limits, in fact it envisages the end of the presidential system. So why is the government in a mad rush to prove that cynics like me, who said from day-one, that the APC/APRC exercise was a farce, that the regime set it up as a cosmetic exercise to quieten local and foreign critics, and that the report will end up in the dustbin, so apodictically correct? The answer is simple political cunning!

In hindsight people have woken to the reality that the APRC exercise was vapid drama, a confidence scam pulled by the regime. I do concede that notwithstanding these phony intentions (not of the APRC but the regime) the exertions of some committees did produce useful documents, especially the Expert Committee Majority Report, but that’s a separate matter. The indecent trashing of the APRC and plunging in a diametrically opposite direction personifies an emperor without his loin cloth.

The Rajapaksa regime is hell-bent on preempting matters before public opposition builds up and clearly it has doubts whether its deals with somersaulting SLMC turncoats and Tamil crossover knaves will hold up indefinitely. If these are not the real motives for haste, then there must be other behind the scenes deceptions that the public is not privy to. For example did big money cross under the table?

However, the overriding motive for haste I believe is to stall the consolidation of internal opposition within the SLFP itself, both at the leadership level and in the rank and file. Given the opportunity, the SLFP will turn against the amendments. Contrary to the opinion of some big mouths, people are not worried about the price of chilies only, they are concerned about political issues as well; otherwise why bother with Lessons Learnt etc Commission at all?

I am also curious about the Socialist Alliance (LSSP, CP, DLF and two middle of the road parties), a tail of the UPFA. Will the SA parliamentarians vote against the government and lose ministries and numerous other choice privileges? I don’t think so; these people know where their bread is buttered. The curious thing then is why go on a rampage, chests puffed, bellowing opposition to term-limit extension? Did they not know all along that they would stick their tails between their legs and beat a retreat when Mahinda read them the riot act? Nevertheless, I will give my comrades the benefit of the doubt for now; let us wait a few more days and see if the SA dares to say ‘No’ loud and clear – abstention is hogwash. I for one would owe them a big apology for writing this paragraph if they stand firm. It is an apology that I am yearning to have to make!

War dividends

Peace Dividend refers to the improvements in the economic situation that follows the end of a war and the benefits that post war quietude brings; more economic activity and confidence, tourist arrivals, enhanced investment and post-war reconstruction. The end of war also brings a War Dividend; exultation that glorifies the supreme leader, militarization of society – Join the forces and retire an ambassador! – repression and fear of the impunity with which state power is wielded against the citizen. I always maintained throughout the war that if the Tamils were crushed rather than reaching out to a negotiated settlement, Lanka will reap this war dividend in fulsome measure; and so it has come to pass.

The psychological pressures and political balances created by the overwhelming victory of the state over the LTTE is the backdrop without which this march to dictatorship would have been impossible. When military victory comes in an ethnic (race, language, religion) war, then public acquiescence of even the worst features of the victor regime ensues. This state of public apathy makes the subsequent fight against creeping dictatorship more difficult, but that’s no reason for diminished effort; rather it should motivate redoubled effort till wider sections of the populace wake up.

Is it too late?

Is it possible even now at this fifty-ninth minute to force the government to retreat from this diabolical venture? It is possible but it depends on fomenting an internal crisis within the SLFP and on the mobilisation of a unified and determined opposition campaign. Many high personages in the SLFP leadership are aghast at these moves and have left it to insipid newcomers like GL to play knock-kneed centre forward for Rajapaksa’s sales team. I have heard from Socialist Alliance (SA) leaders of SLFP highfliers who have approached them and begged to push hard against presidential term-extension, pleading that they (the SLFP lot) were too afraid to speak up. The less said about their vertebral columns the better but there is a fair possibility that if the SA takes a strong stand it will embolden internal forces of dissent within the SLFP and deter more crossovers from the ranks of the opposition. Strongly expressed dissent within the SLFP can upset Rajapaksa’s apple cart. Therefore this is an important moment when the metal of the SLFP and SA leadership is going to be tested.

While the regime is in indecent haste to push through the amendments, unfortunately the opposition is showing pretty little energy in mobilising against it. The UNP is flatfooted, embroiled in its own squabbles; therefore the onus falls squarely on the shoulders of the JVP. The JVP regrettably has limited experience, except in two election campaigns, in working collectively with other organisations and political parties. It is also inflexible in collective team work and across the board coordination. This time however the impending disaster is too serious for these games. The mood in all the left and democratic organisations is for urgent united action; the demand is that the JVP must participate and play a role commensurate with its size and influence. With the UNP flat on its belly the JVP must help coordinate a joint opposition response without losing a moment.

© The Sunday Island

By Vikramabahu Karunaratne | Lakbima News
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Hitherto, the left in general considered the UNP to be the party of the pro imperialist, conservative bourgeois. Hence the breakaway party led by the late S.W.R.D. Bandaranayke was accepted as the party of liberal nationalist capitalism. People were made to accept that the western colonial traditions were protected by the UNP, whilst the SLFP stood for local traditions. Even Sajith Premadasa insists that the UNP is not a party of the Colombo 7 elite, implying that such an opinion exists in society. This widespread belief is used by the present leaders of the SLFP, the Mahinda crowd, to attract the rural Sinhala middle classes and also to cover up the regime’s total subjugation to the neo liberal policies of global capitalism. I have tried to explain in this column, in the past, the changes that have taken place in imperialism. The latter, defined by Lenin and others before the First World War, has developed on to become present day global capitalism. These are qualitative changes and very significant in relation to the struggle of the masses.

We cannot talk of American or Yankee imperialism today as we used to do in our undergraduate days. The economic, political hegemony that the US had has been replaced firstly by G8 and then by G20. The multilateral organisations, WB/IMF/ WTO have substantial supervisory powers and their significant role was very evident during the last period. They were instrumental in controlling the competitive trends among the global powers during the worst part of the economic crisis. No longer is the image of US imperialism, with a tall white man in a three piece suit and a top hat, valid for the regime controlled by Obama. He is black enough to be classified with the ex-colonial masses, and in fact he could be a Muslim. As far as the masses in the Indian subcontinent are considered, imperial looking Sonia is easily identifiable as an oppressor!

New face of global capitalism

The system of monopoly capitalism has changed. The economic system of multinational companies has no specific imperial image. The military and political options are secondary. What really matter are the agreements made by the dependent regime with the global financial institutes. The latter has enough managerial powers to press the borrower to take the suggested path by the system. Ethics have changed so much that very often the traditional servile sections in the dependent society are ignored, to tie up with the nouveau rich. Neo liberalism is truly liberal in that context. The search for the westernized elites as the dependable elements in the developing world is virtually over. What the neo liberal capitalist matrix wants, is the man with the power and the eagerness to go along with its path of development. The leader could be conservative, liberal, chauvinist, nationalist, socialist or even Marxist. It does not matter as long as he agrees with the technology transfer and modernization given by the system. So, global capitalism is marching along silently with a benevolent face.

Now, we hear from the IMF mission who came recently that, “Overall economic conditions are improving as expected in the last visit, and the economy is likely to show strong growth this year. External balances are strong, remittance inflows continue at a high rate, tourism prospects continue to improve rapidly and gross reserves remain at comfortable levels. We assess the Central Bank’s recent rate cut as appropriate. With bank lending only slowly beginning to rebound, and economic growth still below potential, we see little sign of emerging demand-driven inflationary pressures, and average inflation for the year as a whole is expected to remain in the single digits... Performance under the programme has been good. End-June performance criteria on domestic budget borrowing, reserve money, and net reserves have been met. With budget revenues increasing and expenditure restraint continuing, fiscal performance so far remains consistent with achieving the government’s full-year deficit target of 8 percent of GDP. Financial sector reforms continue to go forward in line with the programme.” Cheers! Well nothing to worry, Mahinda is doing well. Lankan women even with iron nails in their bodies have remitted money, the workers have not challenged even though their salaries are intolerably law, and the cuts in welfare and increases of taxes are tolerated by the suffering masses. So, Mahinda should continue on this path.

However the mission advised: “First, a fundamental tax reform is needed - and planned - to simplify the existing system, broaden the tax base (including by restricting concessions), spread the tax burden more equitably, and support economic growth, all while boosting the revenue-to-GDP ratio. The resulting fiscal space could allow increased public capital spending on reconstruction and infrastructure as well as social spending to support the vulnerable, but it is clear that the country’s large investment needs cannot be met through the government budget alone. Private sector investment will be needed to play a critical role. To foster this investment, policies will need to be geared toward preserving macroeconomic stability, ensuring external competitiveness, facilitating capital market development, and improving the investment climate, all of which would lay the basis for higher sustainable growth in a post-war environment.” If you are prepared to forget the cliche about the vulnerable, the command is clear: tax the poor more, help the rich and preserve the stability.

We were dependent heavily on these organizations since 1977. In addition to the IMF standby agreement, we are today attached to the World Bank Group’s current Country Assistance Strategy for Sri Lanka, covering the period from July 2008 to June 2012. The CAS supports the government’s 10-year Development Framework, with an annual lending envelope of around US$200 million. Then there are other project agreements. According to their evaluation reports we have done well. But in the last three decades we had in addition to the struggles of the workers for better living, two massive insurrections by both Sinhala and Tamil youth. They were fighting for their land, human rights, culture and traditions - in short for their natural existence. Workers lost jobs and the youth lost everything; the suffering of the masses was unbelievable.

But now the global exploitative matrix has selected their new server. He is pushed to strengthen his power by meddling with the constitution. What is going on is the constitutional consolidation of the regime based on Sinhala chauvinism. With the new legitimacy it will be used against the workers, peasants, fishers and all minorities. Mahinda has done the job better than J.R. Jayewardene; that is the ruling of the global capitalism. JR was not able to fool anybody in the left, but MR, with his past credentials of being a friend of the workers and the left, could drag even Vasu to the guillotine!

© Lakbima News

By Tisaranee Gunasekara | The Sunday Leader
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Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” — William Pitt the Younger (Speech in the House of Commons – 18.11.1783)

So the Emperor is finally divested of his dazzling patriotic mantle, his vulturous greed for power and grandiose dynastic ambitions bared. The proposed 18th Amendment to the Constitution is quintessentially Rajapaksian: anti-democratic and deceptive, megalomanic and supercilious, rapacious and unctuous. The confluence of its two main components – presidential term-limit removal and negation of the 17th Amendment — would produce a supra-presidency which Mahinda Rajapaksa can hold for life and bequeath to his chosen successor. A virtual monarchy with a reassuringly democratic title – this was the predestined destination of the Rajapaksa project.

The road to tyranny is often paved with indifference on the part of unexceptionable, law-abiding citizens. No perilous turning point happens in a vacuum but is preceded by innumerable official misdeeds, to which society should have reacted with outrage but did not, deeming them unimportant, irrelevant or kosher. The Rajapaksas have come within striking distance of transforming Sri Lanka from a flawed democracy into a dynastic oligarchy because their crimes and abuses have gone largely unchallenged by Lankan society, especially that intellectual-ethical obscenity, the zero-civilian casualty myth (and the incarceration of more than 300,000 Tamils in ‘welfare villages’).

The case of Sarath Fonseka was a dry run for the 18th Amendment. The regime demonised and persecuted Gen. Fonseka and yet, no societal opprobrium ensued. The opposition launched a few desultory protests, but failed to comprehend the gravity of the common threat or to unite to defeat it. Emboldened by this indifference and ineptitude, the rulers imposed a pernicious sentence on Gen. Fonseka, depriving him of his rank, honours and even pension.

It was news for a couple of days while the normally voluble Buddhist monks, business and artistic communities and academia acted deaf-mute. For the Rajapaksas this would have been proof-positive that Lankan society will not react, even in its own defence or enlightened self-interest.

When a society is afflicted with indifference, resistance becomes a non-option. In such bleak psychological landscapes would-be tyrants thrive. Today the Rajapaksas are making a blatant power-grab, motivated by nothing other than greed and ambition, and, yet, where is the outrage? Why aren’t we opposing, to the full democratic measure, this most anti-democratic deed? Is our psychological degradation so complete, we see nothing wrong in Mahinda Rajapaksa being president for life or Namal (or Basil or Gotabaya) Rajapaksa succeeding him? Or have we been deceived by that beguiling lie assiduously spread by Rajapaksa apologists – that the 18th Amendment would not endanger democracy, because the electorate can vote out Mahinda Rajapaksa or his chosen successor, whenever necessary?

L’ affaire Mervyn and the 18th Amendment

Rajapaksa-justice is an oxymoron, as is evidenced by the scandalous exoneration of Mervyn Silva by the SLFP disciplinary committee. This was despite the existence of innumerable visual records in the public domain of Mr. Silva getting the Samurdhi official tied to a tree. The SLFP disciplinary committee claimed that the incident was a mere piece of theatre; an Orwellian self-incriminatory letter was obtained from the hapless victim, indubitably under duress. The entire charade was so specious as to insult the intelligence of even a small child; it demonstrates the contempt with which the Rajapaksas hold the Lankan people, including fellow SLFP leaders.

The conduct of the SLFP disciplinary committee is a prototype of how the 18th Amendment will work, in reality. The electoral removal of President Rajapaksa presupposes the holding of even marginally free and fair elections. Are free and fair elections possible, once the 18th Amendment empowers President Rajapaksa to hire and fire all key officials, including the Election Commissioner and the IGP? On the contrary, the 18th Amendment is tailor-made to prevent free and fair elections.

The proposed Advisory Council is a toothless entity; its sole task is to offer advice which the President may accept or reject, as he sees fit. The President will be empowered to appoint members to ‘independent’ commissions and remove them, thereby devaluing these entities into presidential appendages. This subversion of the independence of the Independent Commissions would enable the total subjugation of the public service, the judiciary and the media to the will of the omnipotent President. The 18th Amendment will further strengthen the presidency at the expense of the legislature, the judiciary and the citizens, thereby exacerbating the imbalance inherent in the system.

The 18th Amendment will enable the President to make and break careers with total impunity. Would public officials, civil or military, want to antagonise President Rajapaksa by acting justly and independently, when their career prospects and opportunities for post-retirement preferment are completely dependent on him? Particularly when they know how far, fast and hard a man can fall, once he has antagonised the Rajapaksa brothers?

After all, Gen. Fonseka was the third member of the triumvirate which defeated the LTTE, a man whose popularity was second only to the Rajapaksa brothers’, a warrior with a very real following in the Lanka Army, a Sinhala supremacist hero-worshipped by Southern hardliners and the Sangha. Today he is defeated and humiliated, a fallen idol whose fate is of indifference to his erstwhile devotees. The contradictory trajectories and the contrasting fates of Tiger Kumaran Pathmanathan (KP) and anti-Tiger Sarath Fonseka indicate how to survive in a Rajapaksa Sri Lanka.

The faultline is whether one is with the Rajapaksas or against the Rajapaksas. All other factors, from ethnicity and religion to party affiliations, will avail a citizen nothing if he/she takes that fatal step of opposing the Rajapaksas effectively. For the Rajapaksas, patriotism is ultimately a means to an end, an attractive garb under which their naked power-hunger is concealed. After all, Mahinda Rajapaksa, during his years as the leader of opposition, did maintain a near total silence about the Wickremesinghe-Pirapaharan appeasement process and the ensuing Tiger atrocities.

So Sri Lanka is a land polarised between the friends and the enemies of the Ruling Family. In this land, anyone who is willing to play by Rajapaksa rules and submit to Rajapaksa dictates can lead a ‘normal’ life, without experiencing state terror. The North has been bludgeoned into sullen silence; Tamils will be stigmatised and repressed as Tiger supporters if they show signs of democratic dissent. If the 18th Amendment is through and the Rajapaksas entrench themselves, a majority in the South, including most of those who voted against the UPFA, will consent to Dynastic Rule and the loss of basic rights and freedoms, in return for a measure of peace and normalcy. Extreme economic deprivation can shatter this deceptive calm, but a general outburst of discontent may take years to happen.

If the 18th Amendment is through, other constitutional reforms will follow, subverting democratic freedoms in the name of national security. The regime’s political solution to the ethnic problem (if it materialises) will involve less and not more devolution. The Rajapaksas do not want to share power anymore than they want to give it up. Democracy is incompatible with the Rajapaksa project; and in this battle for supremacy, the Rajapaksas seem to be winning.

© The Sunday Leader

By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene | The Sunday Times
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There is a certain bitter irony over the weeping and wringing of hands indulged in by some this week in respect of what the draft 18th Amendment to Sri Lanka's Constitution seeks to do to the country's constitutional structures.

In the first instance, the utter consternation that is being expressed over this constitutional amendment is hard to understand in the natural order of things. The 18th Amendment Bill, in all its deeply subversive glory, is only a logical culmination of the deliberate displacing of Sri Lanka's constitutional institutions, (with our blessings as it were), over the past decade.

Early experiments in devaluing democracy

History would record that the first danger signal came in 1999 when the appointment of a Chief Justice by former president Chandrika Kumaratunge weakened public confidence in the apolitical functioning of the courts. Like Pontius Pilate, there are many among us who cannot disclaim responsibility for the undermining of the judiciary during that period, wash their hands desperately as they may.

The 17th Amendment, passed by Parliament in 2001, was the one hope that the country would pull itself back from the brink during that time. Thereafter it was Kumaratunge who was responsible for the first crack in the 17th Amendment by declining to appoint the Chairman of the Elections Commission on her Presidential watch, even though the nomination was made duly and properly by the Constitutional Council. Kumaratunge was unceremoniously tossed out of office by her former (judicial) protégé in 2005.

But emboldened by the easy success of these experiments in devaluing democracy, Kumaratunge's successor, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, went a step further. Brushing aside the mandatory requirement of approval by the Constitutional Council required under the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, he made his own appointments to the earlier independent commissions on the police and the public service, the judiciary and the National Human Rights Commission.

Weak and faltering opposition

This was the preliminary testing of the waters, so as to speak, in relation to an even greater departure from the constitutional norm. Opposition to these actions was weak and faltering, both from the political parties as well as from the so called watchdogs of society, namely civil society, the academia, the media and professional associations. Lawyers (including a former president of the Bar Association) and retired judges jostled with each other to accept unconstitutional appointments to the commissions.

The main opposition, the United National Party did not take the discarding of the 17th Amendment as a primary rallying point and it was left to one of its senior frontliners, Karu Jayasuriya to hold forth almost singlehandedly on this point. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, (the 17th Amendment's most enthusiastic backer initially), also hemmed and hawed on its proper implementation.

With such a dismal resistance, the stage was set for a more definitive political drama with appointments not being made at all to the National Police Commission, the National Human Rights Commission and the Bribery and Corruption Commission. This process has now culminated in this proposed 18th Amendment Bill and the constitutional entrenching of authoritarianism in its most aggravating and chilling forms.

The point however is that this draft constitutional amendment did not emerge suddenly out of the clear blue sky, as it were. There is a specific history and a specific background to its emergence. So, why should anyone express consternation or dismay at this point? Did we really expect that, after such tremendously successful attacks on constitutional institutions over a long period with nary a whimper of protest or effective stirring of our collectively deadened conscience, the administration would magnanimously wave its magic wand and bring institutional democracy back, out of the immense goodness of its heart when the war ended last year?

Taking naivete to an extreme level

Did we expect that when we cheered the Rajapaksa administration to casually dismissed patterns of extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances as collateral damage and abused those who called for accountability from state sponsored executioners, that the authoritarianism would stop there? Did we expect that when we justified assassinations of editors and the beating and hounding of journalists as inevitable or when we jeered when a journalist of Tamil ethnicity was arrested and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment based on one or two articles that he had written on the travails facing the people of the North and East to a little known magazine, that the danger would stop there? This is, if one is being charitable, to take naivete to its most extreme level.

And in this context, the government is not engaging in lessons learnt and reconciliation on the one hand while perpetuating unabashed executive authoritarianism on the other. The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission is merely a shrewd and successful exercise in deflecting attention away from constitutional reforms that will forever change the nature of our political society.

Tossing away constitutional safeguards like garbage

The draft 18th Amendment tosses away the safeguards of the 17th Amendment in regard to Presidential authoritarianism like so much constitutional garbage. The Constitutional Council which acted as a fetter on Presidential discretion in making appointments to key positions in the judiciary, the public service and important constitutional commissions, is replaced by a veritably toothless five member Parliamentary Council whose observations on the pending appointments may be called for and then thrown into the wastepaper basket.

That by itself, would have been scandalous enough. But the cynics may have been inclined to dismiss such doomsday warnings if the Bill had not coupled these changes with the abolition of the two term restriction contained in Article 31(2) of the Constitution. It is this abolition which takes the 18th Amendment Bill from being scandalous to a new and hitherto unprecedented level of positively dangerous.

Coupled with the immunity that is afforded to an Executive President this Amendment will result in a virtual monarchy. Cosmetic measures such as bringing the President before Parliament are precisely what they are, namely a superficial gloss over the fact that the Presidency would far override Parliament and would be uncontrollable in the worst possible meaning of the term.

Revealing the nature of the monster

With an independent Elections Commission and a Police Commission thrown to the winds, the deletion of the number of terms that an incumbent can contest means that a sitting President will have all the huge state resources at his will, including the state media, police officers and public officers to subvert the results of an election whichever way that he pleases.

It is clear therefore that the nature of the monster as fully revealed cannot be accepted in selective doses, though we may like to or prefer to. In this 18th Amendment Bill, we see the designs of the Rajapaksa Presidency exposed in its most naked and visceral manner. The responsibility of creating the situation that made it possible for such an amendment to be presented in Parliament and for the political context which makes the passing of such an amendment with a two thirds majority, a given, must therefore be ours and ours alone.

There is none among us who could wash his or her hands of the responsibility of ushering in an era of monarchical despotism despite futile wailings at the proverbial eleventh hour.

© The Sunday Times

By Shanie | The Island
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"The example of four Presidents voluntarily retiring at the end of their eighth year, and the progress of public opinion that the principle is salutary, have given it in practice the force of precedent and usage; insomuch, that, should a President consent to be a candidate for a third election, I trust he would be rejected on this demonstration of ambitious views." —Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United Sates. He was born in America, although his ancestors were one of the early settlers most of whom had gone from Wales, Scotland and Ireland in Britain. As a young thirty-two year old and as one of the intellectual leaders of the American Revolutionary War, he was tasked with drafting the Declaration of Independence. Denis Healey, a British Labour political leader, was to write over two hundred years later that the drafters of the Declaration of Independence ‘matched reason with integrity, common sense with vision, and expressed themselves with a grace and clarity which later generations have rarely matched.’

The American Declaration of Independence has become something of a classic, providing the philosophy for democratic governance and the rights of free peoples. Its preamble is particularly apt for countries faced with growing authoritarianism and despotism. It states, inter alia: ‘We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men (sic) are created equal, that they endowed…with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed……All experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.’ Throughout the world, we have seen, as in Philippines, how peoples’ power was able to throw out elected leaders turned despots.

Sri Lanka was one of the earliest countries in the democratic world to opt for universal adult franchise whereby every adult man and woman, without qualification, had a right to vote and elect a representative to the national legislature and to local government councils. By and large, over the years, we have had reasonably free and fair elections that resulted in regular changes of government; there has however been some concern over the fairness of this process over the last three decades. There were several factors which helped to ensure the fairness of the electoral process and the rights of the people. Among them were a fearless and independent judiciary, an alert civil society, a robust free media and a depoliticized public service, election commission and law enforcement agency. We need to continue keeping these national institutions intact and free from political interference if we are to
preserve our democratic freedoms, and keep the potential despots at bay.

The Seventeenth Amendment

The seventeenth amendment to our Constitution was enacted during the Presidency of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge and was a consensus document accepted by the major government and opposition political parties. The amendment set up a Constitutional Council comprising three political leaders from both sides of the House of Parliament but seven others who were eminent non-political figures of integrity selected in a bi-partisan manner by consensus between parliamentarians from both sides. This Council in turn selected persons to be members of various Commissions like the Public Service Commission, Elections Commission, National Police Commission, etc. The members were selected after careful vetting of nominations received. The selected names were submitted to the President for formal appointment. The President had no right to appoint anyone from outside the list submitted by the Constitutional Council. Indeed, there was the well-known stand off between the President and the Constitutional Council with the President questioning the ‘independence’ of a nominee, a retired Supreme Court Judge, to the Elections Commission. But the Constitutional Council displayed their independence by standing firm and refusing to withdraw their nomination.

The Seventeenth Amendment worked well with the Commissions showing much greater independence in the discharge of their functions. The people had greater confidence that that the rule of law would prevail and that they could expect justice; the concerned public servants also found greater confidence in being less subject to political interference and the comfort that one did not need to be a sycophant to advance in his or her professional career. This amendment was a significant step for better governance in our country and for halting the slide to the politicization of all our national institutions.

The Eighteenth Amendment

This is why the eighteenth amendment now sought to be introduced is one of the most retrograde pieces of legislation in our nation’s history. It compares with the infamous (twelfth?) constitutional amendment that the J R Jayewardene Government brought forward in 1987 to deal with the Supreme Court unseating of a Member of Parliament elected to the Kalawana seat. That member happened to be a member of the ruling UNP government. The government sought to bring a constitutional amendment, as urgent legislation, to allow the unseated member to sit in Parliament. Being certified by the Cabinet as an urgent bill, the draft bill had to go up to the Supreme Court for a determination. The Bench headed by Chief Justice Neville Samarakoon heard the then Attorney General and threw out the proposed amendment without even bothering to hear the submissions of the Counsel for the intervenient petitioners!

The draft of the proposed 18th Amendment has not been released for public discussion but, reportedly, it virtually repeals the 17th amendment, hailed, despite its correctable flaws, as a fine example of consensus politics providing for better governance. The Constitutional Council, which had a 7-3 majority of persons of eminence and integrity who had distinguished themselves in public life, is to be replaced by a Parliamentary Council of five Members of Parliament. But even this Council will have virtually no powers. The President will propose names that he or she intends appointing as Chairpersons and members of the various Commissions. The Parliamentary Council will have the grand task of making observations on the names. The President will be under no obligation to give any regard to these observations and he could appoint anyone of his choice. Gone will be the whole purpose of the 17th amendment to ensure eminent independent persons to be responsible for better governance and functioning of our public institutions, independent of political interference and control.

The other change proposed in the 18th Amendment is the removal of term limits for the Executive President. The US President Thomas Jefferson’s view on this is very salutary. In the US itself, it was a convention observed by all Presidents that they would not seek re-election for a third four-year term. But Franklin Roosevelt broke this convention when he made use of the World War to seek re-election for a third and fourth term in 1940 and 1944. The US Congress then decided to pass an amendment to their Constitution on 1951 imposing a two term or eight-year limit for their Presidents. Nearly all democracies have term limits for the Executive Presidency. The exceptions have been countries like Uganda where Idi Amin wanted to be President for life and Robert Mugabe now in Zimbabwe. Mugabe began as a much respected and pragmatic leader but sadly too long a spell as President seems to have corrupted him and he now leads a country in shambles, politically and economically. Its currency has had a free fall. Power, wielded over too long a period, tends to corrupt, as Lord Acton said many years ago, and this is what seems to have happened to Mugabe. Let us not allow this to happen here as well. We are not talking here of President Rajapaksa; it can happen in the future to any President.

Having an election at the end of each term will not rid the country of a potentially difficult situation. After all, Mugabe was ‘the official victor’ at every election. At the last Presidential election in Zimbabwe, Mugabe lost to his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai by 48% to 43% in the first round. Since no candidate secured more than 50%, a run-off election took place. And, lo and behold, this time Mugabe secured 86% and Tsvangirai only 9%. Mugabe has been in power for so long that Zimbabwe’s ills are not confined to a collapsing economy but the people have to cope with a frightening security situation – intimidation and disappearance of political dissidents is reported on a regular basis. Tsvangirai himself had been badly beaten up and the wife of another political opponent was burnt alive by a petrol bomb.

Constitutional reform is a process not to be rushed through without public participation. This is what participatory democracy means and this is the only path to unity and reconciliation in a country. That is why we need to say ‘No’ to the 18th Amendment. It is not only what we do but the way we do things that determine who we are. Will our parliamentarians, when faced with a choice, be prepared to stand tall by keeping to their principles?

© The Island

Tamil Net
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Muslim and Sinhala traders from Southern Sri Lanka are actively plundering the properties abandoned when the people of Vanni were forced to leave them during war, with the assistance of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Vanni. The traders make huge profits transporting them in vehicles to Vavuniyaa, Anurdapura and Puththa’lam for sale. The plundered goods include iron objects, spare parts dismantled from abandoned vehicles, house fittings and other valuable things. SLA soldiers are given a percentage of the profits made by the traders for allowing them to plunder and transport the goods of the people in Vanni to the South, sources in Vanni said.

SLA authorities in Vanni, in response to the complaints of the resettled civilians, have stopped with putting up notices of warning against thefts in their area.

The plunder and transport of the goods of Vanni people take place most where there are SLA camps close by, the sources said.

Just after the war, the traders from South made a lucrative business in plundering the spare parts dismantled from motor cycles, tractors, trucks abandoned by their owners in Vanni.

The stolen spares are now being sold in the open markets in Vavuniyaa, Anuradapura and Puththa’lam.

© Tamil Net

By Yohan Perera | Daily Mirror
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Several political parties, including some UNP members, calling themselves the Movement against the 18th Amendment to the Constitution yesterday claimed that some ministers had expressed their desire to join the campaign against the reforms, which they described as a draconian piece of legislation.

The Movement will launch a civil disobedience campaign on Wednesday the day on which the constitutional reforms will be debated in parliament.

It has asked all public servants, MPs and others to wear black and launch a general strike on that day.

The Movement had also organized a massive protest at the Ayurveda junction on that day. The Media was told that several parliamentarians who are backing the Movement are also planning to hold a death fast.

UNP MP Dayasiri Jayasekera told a news conference that some ministers have been talking to them during the past three days and had informed the Movement they would make a decisive move at the right time.

He therefore challenged the government to have a secret ballot in parliament on Wednesday.

Mr. Jayasekera said the government which was aware of this move against the reforms was planning to get MPs to vote by name.

He explained that the Movement would continue with the campaign against the emerging dictatorship irrespective of the number of MPs the government gets in the House.

“We will fight even if the government gets a five-sixth majority in parliament,” he said.

New Left Front Leader Wickremabahu Karunaratne said Movement had decided to declare September 8 as a black day and called on the people to wear black on that day because democracy would be buried on that day. Free Media Movement Convener Sunil Jayasekera said the proposed reforms would have dangerous consequences on media freedom as well. He predicted it would not be possible for the media to publish any important state information as the entire state sector would be totally politicized through this piece of legislation.

United Socialsit Party Leader Siritunga Jayasuriya, Nawa Sihala Urumaya leader Sarath Manamendra also participated at the news conference.

© Daily Mirror

Photo courtesy: The Sunday Leader

Press Statement | Centre for Policy Alternative
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The Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo based think tank, has warned that the "cumulative effect of the proposed 18th amendment is the creation of an executive presidency that is even more entrenched and unrestrained than what was contemplated by Mr. J.R. Jayewardene in 1978". In a statement issued today (04), the CPA has strongly condemned the "manipulative and partisan manner in which the government has sought to introduce these changes to the supreme law of the land."

A vote on the proposed amendment will be taken on the 8th of September before Sri Lanka's Parliament.

The full text of the CPA statement follows:

"The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) expresses its deep disquiet and consternation at the proposed Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution Bill, which seeks to remove critical constitutional restraints on presidential power. We are convinced that the changes embodied in the Bill are entirely inconsistent with constitutionalism and liberal democratic values, and adversely affect the sovereignty of the people and the republican principle. We also condemn the manipulative and partisan manner in which the government has sought to introduce these changes to the supreme law of the land; made worse by the fact that these changes are contrary to what was promised in the Mahinda Chintana and Mahinda Chintana Idiri Dekma, and therefore contrary to the successive mandates given to the President by the people in the 2005 and 2010 presidential elections. CPA has petitioned the Supreme Court on these grounds this week, and hopes that the Court will declare that a constitutional amendment with such fundamental and far-reaching consequences would require the approval of the people at a referendum.

There are two substantive elements to the Eighteenth Amendment Bill. The first is the abolition of term limits on the executive presidency. The imposition of term limits is a characteristic feature of presidential systems, the self-evident rationale for which is the prevention of constitutional dictatorship by disallowing one person to hold office in perpetuity, even subject to periodic democratic election. In the context of the excessive powers conferred on the executive President, the relatively long six year term of office (cumulatively twelve years), the absence of fixed terms and comprehensive personal legal immunity, together with inadequate or ineffective checks and balances represented in the system of government established by the Constitution of 1978, the limitation to two terms that any one person may hold that office assumes even greater importance. It is this basic and critical safeguard for democracy that the government is now seeking to eliminate.

The second element concerns the negation of restraints on presidential power established by the Seventeenth Amendment. The Seventeenth Amendment was enacted in 2001 with rare cross-party consensus in Parliament with a view to de-politicising key areas of governance. It was the result of a long and sustained campaign for reform undertaken by civil society and democratic forces in the country, which established crucial procedural restraints on the exercise of presidential power whilst leaving the basic structure of the Constitution, including the executive presidential system, intact. An objective review of the experience with regard to the implementation of the Seventeenth Amendment demonstrates that to the extent its full potential was never realised, it was due to the intransigence and contempt for constitutional provisions on the part of successive Presidents, rather than any fatal structural flaw that made it inherently unworkable. In this light, the justifications advanced for the nullification of the Seventeenth Amendment framework are wholly unpersuasive.

In this regard, we also note that in addition to the abolition of the Constitutional Council (and proposed replacement with a manifestly ineffectual Parliamentary Council), the Eighteenth Amendment Bill also envisages fundamental changes to the independent commissions, in particular the Elections Commission and the National Police Commission. Many of the most important powers conferred on the Elections Commission by the Seventeenth Amendment essential to the integrity of the electoral process would be removed. The entire nature and purpose of the National Police Commission as the central mechanism of the political independence and professionalism of the Police would be altered, with the new Commission performing the role of a mere administrative complaints body.

Given the depth and extent of the changes contemplated in the Eighteenth Amendment Bill, therefore, we find the process adopted for its enactment wholly inappropriate. Once again the procedure for urgent bills has been engaged, and the conclusion is inescapable that this is to foreclose, or at least attenuate, legitimate public discussion, critique and debate of the substance of the proposed changes. It might be added that a similar singularity of purpose has nowhere been in evidence with regard to a new post-war constitutional settlement addressing the challenges of unity, diversity and ethnic reconciliation, which is essential to ensuring peace and the future stability of post-war Sri Lanka.

As CPA and other petitioners in the public interest have submitted to the Supreme Court, the proposed changes are fundamental ones that seriously affect the manner in which the sovereignty of people is exercised. There is no reason tenable in an open and democratic society that such momentous changes should be introduced without the broadest possible discussion and deliberation, or without the opportunity for the people directly to express their views in a referendum.

For these reasons, CPA is of the view that the cumulative effect of the proposed changes is the creation of an executive presidency that is even more entrenched and unrestrained than what was contemplated by Mr. J.R. Jayewardene in 1978. The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution Bill represents nothing less than an assault on constitutional democracy in the service of partisan advantage, and a consolidation of authoritarianism it would be too late to rue when its potential consequences begin to take effect."

© CPA