Lanka Citizen

by Chitra Weerarathne

“The Galle Face Green should be maintained as a public utility, in continuance of the dedication made by Sir Henry Ward. The necessary resourcer for this purpose, should be made available by the government of Sri Lanka, the successor to the colonial governor, who made the dedication referred to,” the Supreme Court yesterday said in a judgement.

The court said that, the purported agreement, entered into between the Urban Development Authority and the EAP Limited is ultra vires and of no purpose or avail in law.

The case related to the management agreement or the lease entered into on February 15, 2003, by the UDA and the EAP Network Private Limited, whereby it was sought to hand over the management and control of the 14-acre seaside promenade of Colombo, the Galle Face Green to E.A.P.

When this fundamental rights violation plea, was supported on February 13, 2004, leave to proceed was granted. The Interim Order directed the UDA to refrain from putting into operation, any lease or agreement, to effect the use, occupation and or the management of the Galle Face Green.

The judgement said that the UDA denied the right to information of the petitioner, The Environmental Foundation Limited, and subjected the petitioner to unequal treatment.

The UDA was directed to pay the EFL, Rs. 50,000/- as costs.

Miss Ruana Rajapakse, appeared with Miss Pamoda Rajakeeya for the petitioner. Romesh de Silva PC, appeared with Sugath Caldera, for the UDA.

S. Parathanlingam PC, with N. R. Sivendran and S. Cooray appeared for the EAP Group.

The judgement was by the Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva with Justice N. K. Udalagama and Justice N. E. Dissanayake agreeing.

Courtesy The Island

by Nalin de Silva

We have outlined some aspects of the logic and attitudes of western GJC Chinthanaya. Western knowledge is based on the GJC Chinthanaya, one of its attitude being the domination of the world, which includes not only the domination of the other people, which Europeans and their descendants in North America have been engaged since the fifteenth century, but nature as well. The Biblical attitudes that man has been created in the image of God, and that the world (universe) including the woman has been created for the man, and that the Jews are the chosen people have been changed so as to replace Jews by the white Europeans, and after about three hundred years since the renaissance, the white Anglican Christians had become the dominant people on the earth. Since the fifteenth century that saw the emergence of the GJC Chinthanaya, it took about three hundred years for the English to rule the world defeating finally not only the Pope but the Catholic Chinthanaya as well. However, the Catholic Chinthanaya has not died down completely as could be seen from the advent of Communism and Fascism in the twentieth century, which are in the final analysis based on the community feeling reigning over the individual, and superficially on the three fold logic. Both Communism and Fascism were products of Germany which remains a Catholic country to date, but which gradually follows Anglo Christian countries and their culture. It has to be emphasised that the logic of Catholic Chinthanaya is two valued three fold, while the logic of GJC Chinthanaya, which is Aristotelian, is two valued and two fold

The economic man giving priority to the economics with welfare of man being substituted by the economic welfare, and the material goods acquired by the individual becoming a yard stick of the success of the individual, is a product of the GJC Chinthanaya that climaxed in England, in Europe, which has begun the next stage of development in USA. If Liberalism was a product of England (if one wishes Britain or UK) neo Liberalism is a product of USA. It is the evolution of the western society with its leadership changing from English kings and prime ministers to the American presidents that began after the so-called second world war, which has been identified as Post Modernism by some intellectuals in the west. If industrial revolution and machine technology belonged to England, electronic revolution and information technology belong to USA, though countries such as Japan may be producing more computers than north America. If India and China continue to take the path of Japan imitating the western Anglo Christian countries, they would soon lose their identities and become so called neo liberal countries with the individual dominating the community going against Hindu and Confucian cultures respectively. India and China could become economic giants in the future at the expense of becoming spiritual pygmies, and losing their sovereignties as well.

In any event, it has to be pointed out that the Newtonian world view that was challenged by scientists such as Heisenberg produced by German culture, as well as by people such as Bohr who had been greatly influenced by the Chinese culture, has been to a large extent defended by those in the USA and England with what could be identified as the neo Newtonian world view, if one wishes to do so. The adjective neo as far as we are concerned, implies a development within the same GJC Chinthanaya, though the paradigm may have been changed somewhat in certain cases. In that sense it is possible to identify Einstein as a neo Newtonian, with his opposition to interpretations of Quantum Mechanics by Bohr and Heisenberg. Einstein’s relativity did not change the GJC Chinthanaya though the Newtonian paradigm was changed as a result. Similarly what is known as post modernism could be identified as neo Modernism. It is clear that a paradigm shift has occurred in the GJC Chinthanaya in certain areas during the twentieth century without a change in the Chinthanaya as a whole. The logic of the GJC Chinthanaya has not been changed and in certain fields in “neo Modernism” the Einsteinian paradigm reins supreme. However, we do not subscribe to the nomenclature of neo this and neo that as we do not believe these limited changes only in certain areas warrant a change of name. For us it is Modernism and Modernity that has evolved for five centuries.

In the Newtonian paradigm, within the GJC Chinthanaya it is assumed among others that (i) the world (reality) exists outside the observer independent of him, (ii) the world obeys laws that could be discovered by the observer, (iii) the laws as well as the observer are rational, (iv) it is through the sense organs that the observer observes and understands the world, (v) there exists a space which is absolute, (vi) time which is absolute flows uniformly through absolute space, (vii) space and time are continuous, (viii) the properties (measurements) of objects exist independent of the observer, (ix) the measurements such as lengths, energies can take continuous values, (x) all the properties of an object can be known (measured) simultaneously at least theoretically, (xi) measurement of a property gives an already existing value, (xii) the objects exist independent of each other, (xiii) the objects move with velocities that could be measured or are at rest, in space and time (xiv) a system could be analysed into components, (xv) properties of objects could be deduced from fundamental properties implying reductionism. In the Einsteinian paradigm only (v), (vi) and (xiii) were modified, and space and time became relative, while what was introduced as space-time became absolute. However, with the Quantum Paradigm most of the others were rejected. The western world has failed to come to grips with the Quantum Paradigm, and as a consequence the GJC Chinthanaya has not been changed.

Western Classical Economics is essentially built on the Newtonian paradigm and not even on the Einsteinian paradigm. In general it is assumed that rational selfish individuals competing with each other in a Newtonian space and time, who try to satisfy their “infinite” needs (including sensual pleasures) with finite “resources” on the earth, during their lifetimes, contribute towards the economy of a country. With this view western engineering sciences and related disciplines try to maximise the resources (”efficiently” use them, or theoretically looking for infinite energies), and the medical sciences take pains in attempting to avoid death, as if it is possible to do so. However, it has been shown that the human beings are not rational beings taking decisions on a rational basis always, nor are they selfish. In fact it has been shown that human beings are no more rational than the capuchin monkeys. (For details please read the article entitled Monkey Business that appeared in the 5th November 2005 issue of the New Scientist). However, the western Christian modernity assuming the existence of a rational man, in five hundred years has reduced everything to Economics and Economic man. Marxism, though with a superficial three valued logic, subscribed to reductionism, and in essence reduced social evolution to economics.

There is no pluralism in western Christian modernity which pays only lip service to the former. It is the Judaic Christian culture and the GJC Chinthanaya that dominate the world. The other cultures and Chinthanayas are given the freedom to agitate on soap boxes (soap box freedom), as has been demonstrated by the recent incidents in UK, Australia and the present crisis in France involving black Muslims. Only the knowledge constructed in the GJC Chinthanaya is recognised as true or objective knowledge with other systems considered as “traditional” knowledge. How can there be pluralism in a Chinthanaya that has absorbed a version of a chosen people found in the Jewish culture? The White Anglo Saxon Christian Males are the chosen people in the world with other European whites following Lutheran religions coming second.

The attitudes of Jathika Chinthanaya based, among other things, on Buddha’s advice to Gahapthi Upali to continue to pay respect to the Nighanata Natha Putththa, and not to hasten to become a disciple of Buddha, is pluralistic to the core. The Sinhala people have tolerated the others through out history and also knowledge systems other than their own. The Jathika Chinthanaya of this country has a logic which is four valued that contains not only propositions of the form A and its negation but also of the form neither A nor its negation. The logic of the Jathika Chinthanaya is not two fold, and there does not arise the necessity of expressing the world in terms of binary oppositions. The question of an economic man presiding over the destinies of all other men would not arise in the Jathika Chinthanaya. There is no reductionism taught in Jathika Chinthanaya and the welfare of the man is not believed to be confined to Economics. It is neither the individual nor the community that take precedence over the other, and aspects other than economics of people are also considered. The Sinhala leaders of the past had taken into consideration the integrated life of a person dealing with bringing up children and making them useful citizens of the country, the spiritual life and such other aspects of life. The people were not measured with an economic yardstick, and the economy had to be integrated with the environment, nature and also the spiritual and other non economic lives of a person. The cyclic logic of Jathika Chinthanaya helped people to lead a more balanced way of life, one aspect of which depending on the other and finally ending up as Dhamma, which anybody could learn from the texts, even if it was not possible to find a teacher at a particular period of life.

However, it has to be pointed out that we have not formulated the theories of economics within the Jathika Chinthanaya. We have not even begun this work, but it does not mean that we have no intuitive ideas on what could be called a Jathika Arthikaya. The so called Thulana Arthikaya is only one aspect of a Jathika Arthikaya, arising out of four fold logic. A Jathika Arthikaya would not give prominence to either the “private sector” or the “state sector”. As we do not think in terms of binary oppositions, within a Jathika Arthikaya it is possible to have both “private sector” and the “state sector” complementing each other. Also there would not be a ban on investments by the foreigners, provided of course the investors agree to the conditions imposed by Jathika Arthikaya. Within a Jathika Arthikaya neither the nature nor the man become the important component, and it would not be assumed that the world has been created for man, nor that the men are rational and selfish, and are all out to compete with each other. The Jathika Arthikaya would also see to it that the “economic man” does not take the upper hand over the “spiritual man” and others.

Finally as some people have over the years gained the idea that Jathika Chinthanaya rejects everything western, we have to emphasise that it is the imitation of western knowledge and attitudes under western cultural colonialism, which most of the so-called intellectuals among us are unaware, that we are against. It is possible to absorb western knowledge into our culture when it is necessary to do so, and still be independent without losing our identity.

2005-11-24

The western media, the peace lobby and their fellow travellers have done it! They have dubbed Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse a hawk. How have they come to such a conclusion so soon? What he really intends to do by way of resolving the conflict remains to be seen. A man, we believe, should be judged by his deeds and not words.

In 1994, President Kumaratunga was hailed as a dove. But within a few months of assuming office, the dove metamorphosed into a hawk. She waged war on the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which met its match in her. With the passage of time she turned into a cross between a hawk and a dove (supposing such a thing is ever possible) and towards the end of her second term became a confirmed dove cooing for political reasons.

Even her worst critics (read the UNP) began to sing hosannas to her, when they knew her presidential days were numbered and went to the extent of offering her a job after retirement if Ranil became President.

Ranil, who had been the Prime Minister under President Wijetunga (1993-94), who was branded a hawk, was considered a dove and became elected Prime Minister on his promise to usher in peace, in 2001. LTTE Leader Prabhakran himself said at the Wanni Press conference in 2002 that the south had given a mandate for peace, implying that he, too, considered Ranil a dove. But, the Tigers let that dove down badly by thrusting a polls boycott on the Tamil people, though his government had been dislodged because of his CFA deal with the Tigers.

The UNP believes Ranil would have become President but for the LTTE-instigated boycott. Thus, we have a dove in the soup.

Thondaman and Hakeem, who joined forces with Ranil, because they considered him the only dove in the presidential race, capable of making peace, are whistling a different tune now and are billing and cooing with Mahinda, whom they considered a hawk only the other day.

A local saying comes to one’s mind: A kabaragoya (water monitor) becomes thalagoya (land monitor) when one feels like eating it.

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake has also been dubbed a hawk because of his aversion to LTTE terror and his tough stand on it. What would those who call him a hawk call the LTTE Leader who has not only demonstrated his aversion to democracy but killed many a democratic leader and is issuing threats of war? A dove or a hawk?

If Mahinda is a hawk, then what is Bush, who is refusing to give in to America’s terrorists and unleashing unbridled force to eliminate those terrorists in other lands? By the same token he, too, must be a hawk, mustn’t he?

If Bush is a hawk, why are Sri Lanka’s NGO doves begging for funds from his hawkish government? Shall we call it a co-habitation between the hawk and the dove? Or, is it that Bush is a hawk only when the US interests are threatened, and he is a dove as regards others’ conflicts?

The same goes for Blair, who is bombing Iraq and Afghanistan into the Stone Age to safeguard British interests, while his government is pressuring Sri Lanka to make peace with the LTTE, having banned it in its soil.

We have a situation where the international hawks are feeding the local doves. What a paradox!

What if Mahinda, too, strikes a peace deal with the LTTE by any chance? (Politicians are noted for their lateral thinking.) Won’t he then be a dove all of a sudden just like Ranil? And won’t those who are calling him a hawk then have to eat their words?

In reality, there are no permanent hawks or permanent doves in this world. It is the circumstances that make a hawk or a dove of a leader. We have seen hawks becoming doves and vice versa in different situations.

It is still too early to say whether Mahinda is a hawk or a dove. On the other hand, what the peace activists and the western media should be concerned about is not so much whether Mahinda is a hawk or a dove but how to make a dove of the LTTE leader. If they could do that today, peace will dawn on this land tomorrow –– that’s for sure.

courtesy The Island

MEASURES OF SUCCESS
Prof.Rajiva Wijesinha

As might have been anticipated, I am relieved by the result of the Presidential. More importantly perhaps, I am delighted that the new President has manifested, after his election, a grace and inclusiveness that bodes well for the future. There seems little doubt that, as far as he himself is concerned, pluralism and democracy would be best served in our country by his leadership.

This is vital since the election results may encourage disruptive and separatist forces to foment unrest. In this regard it is heartening that the fundamentalist forces that tried, most obviously in the form of the distasteful and fraudulent advertisements placed by Lalith Kotelawala, to promote religious polarization have so signally failed. The healthy vote for Mahinda in the Catholic belt, and also in several Muslim areas of the Eastern Province and for instance Beruwela, makes clear that he represents hope for a wide cross-section of our citizens.

At the same time the results make it clear that he should move quickly to restore the confidence of those of our citizens who feel deprived of a voice in their own government. Clearly Tamils in the Central Province, as well as many in the North and East, have voted against him. They need therefore to be brought back into the body politic. I believe Mahinda would have been ready to show his anxiety to do this, by making Mr Kadirgamar Prime Minister. However, perhaps anticipating that and the consequent perception that the new government was more inclusive than any of its predecessors, the Tigers prevented such an innovative and positive step by assassination.

In the absence of anyone of Mr Kadirgamar’s stature, Mahinda will have to work incrementally, to make it clear that his is a government for all Sri Lankans. In this respect, it would be useful if he immediately targeted basic constitutional reforms that can be achieved through consensus, along with social policies that allowed those who feel marginalized to enter into full citizenship. And, given the circumstances, he needs to move quickly to make sure that all segments of the population receive the benefits and understand the value of democratic representative government.

Unfortunately it seems that the opposition, as at present constituted at any rate, will not help. I am saddened, though I must confess not surprised, at the failure of the current leadership of the UNP to respect the will of the people as expressed at this election. Ranil Wickremesinghe not only failed to turn up to the declaration of results, he even on that day held a press conference at which, according to the ‘Island’, he claimed that no one had obtained ‘50 per cent of the valid votes cast’.

This is arrant nonsense, though perhaps he should be forgiven since he must have been both tired and emotional at the time. Fortunately this blunder was contradicted directly by his chosen spokesman, the Deputy Secretary of the Party Tissa Attanayake, who according to the same news item granted that the required majority had been achieved. However, he was only slightly less gracious, in that in admitting the constitutional acceptability of the position, he nevertheless asked for a repoll, on the grounds that the margin was narrow – ‘namely 28,632 votes more than the constitutionally required 50 per cent of the total valid votes cast’.

Though the margin is narrow, it is substantially more than that received by HE Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1988. He received only 21,810 votes more then than the required 50%, in a context in which the poll was only 55%. This means he was elected by under 28% of the people, whereas, with the poll on this occasion being over 73%, Mr Rajapakse clearly has the support of nearly 37%. It will be noted that, despite all the machinations of the UNP government in the 1982 referendum, it was with under 38% of popular support that citizens were deprived of the right to elect parliamentarians for a further 6 years.

It seems that the UNP also regretted the boycott of the poll in the North, which is understandable since all their eggs had been as it were in the Tiger basket. More upsettingly it was not just them, but even the London Times, following the lamentations of the drawing rooms of Colombo, argued that, had citizens in the North exercised their franchise, the opposition candidate would have won.

This assumption is far from definite since, at the last Presidential election, only just over 110,000 voted. Indeed, a majority of them voted against Ranil even though the murderous attack on Chandrika had made clear the wishes of the LTTE. Given that Mahinda’s majority over Ranil was over 180,000, it is unlikely that, unless the LTTE had enforced a total commitment to the UNP (which is what some sections of that party had looked forward to), Mahinda would have been definitely defeated as those opposed to him now claim. The UNP would of course have been happy with that, and would have claimed it a victory for democracy had the Tigers delivered 90% majorities for Ranil throughout the North.

In this context it is perhaps salutary to remember that the destruction of democracy in the North began with the Jaffna DDC elections of 1981. On that occasion, when nominations were called, the TULF was able to defy the LTTE call for a boycott. However, following Cyril Mathew’s antics which included the burning of the Jaffna Public Library, support for the LTTE went up so that the following year they could insist that the TULF boycott local elections.

The destruction of democracy in the north was then sealed, after the referendum that prevented the youth movements that had developed apace in south and north from working democratically, through the bizarre sixth amendment to the constitution which ensured that separatist movements were driven underground. Given that that amendment was introduced in response to the vicious attacks on Tamils in July 1983, in the days when JR and his acolytes thought that the Sinhalese attacks on Tamils were to be explained as justifiable resentment against Tamil extremism, it is not surprising that many Tamils assumed there was no point in following the democratic path.

I have dwelt on this point before, to be told that there is no purpose in repeating myself. Certainly it is clear that the selective amnesia of some sections of the United National Party and their supporters regarding the history of this country is a political reality that cannot be changed. However, we as citizens should remember the facts. And we should also note that the boycott in part of the country on this occasion was not as severe as the boycott enforced in some areas of the south in 1988.

That boycott was welcomed by the UNP, because it was in electorates that favoured Mrs Bandaranaike that voting was lowest – and, as noted above, Mr Premadasa’s margin was just over 20,000 more than the required 50%. Then too there were allegations of malpractice as well as unfair deprivation of the franchise, but the Supreme Court, dominated by a Chief Justice promoted over the head of the most senior judge at the time, decided that the case brought against the election result at that time was not urgent. It was finally decided some years later.

Under the circumstances it is sad that the UNP seems to wish to encourage disruption by not acknowleding and accepting the verdict of the people. Mahinda, in thanking Ranil by name despite his unfortunate absence at the declaration of results, has made clear his determination to work towards unity. It would be tragic if, once again, personal ambition and churlishness prevented the development of a national consensus.

courtesy Lanka Academic

By Gihan de Chickera

On the day before the Presidential Elections a horrific incident took place in Jaffna which failed to make news in the rest of the country, where last minute preparations were being made for the following day’s elections. On Wednesday November 16, a youth accused of being a thief was brutally tortured and beaten to death in public at Jaffna Hindu College. His body was displayed in public, and a sign over it read – “This is the robber. He has been caught and has faced the justice of the People”.

Citizens of Jaffna who gathered around the battered body of the victim - 20 year old Mekansi Dinesh - knew exactly who the so called ‘people’ mentioned in the sign were. They also knew who was responsible for carrying out this brutal form of ‘justice’. Dinesh, a petty thief, had been brutally killed by none other than the LTTE. The people of Jaffna knew even better to keep quiet about the incident- lest they face the wrath of the Tiger.

The funeral procession and final rites of Dinesh took place along the empty streets of Jaffna the following day while the rest of the country was busy going to the polls to vote in the next Executive President.

Jaffna town, which had grown into a bustling Northern hub after the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) between Ranil Wickremesinghe and the LTTE three and a half years ago, on Election Day, was a virtual ghost town. No one was around - traders had pulled up their shutters. The Jaffna-Karainagar bus was stoned, and the driver badly injured. After the incident, public transport came to a complete standstill and the bus depot was deserted. People stayed indoors preferring to enjoy a series of Tamil movies on TV rather than defy the LTTE by venturing out to vote.

The killing of Dinesh clearly demonstrates the power wielded by the LTTE in the Peninsula and also exposes the terror methods adopted by the outfit to operate in Jaffna. The LTTE was free to brutally kill a man, place his body out in public and proclaim that what had taken place was a form of ‘people’s justice’. The obvious message projected through this was that laws of the South are unimportant to the people of the North. The people of the North have their own way of dealing with criminals, and the police, judiciary or government can do nothing to stop it. However it was the LTTE and not the people of Jaffna who killed Dinesh. Dinesh was killed in the goriest possible manner by the Tigers to send a message out to both the government and the people of Jaffna that they are the undisputed rulers of the North.

Such dastardly crimes continue to be committed by the LTTE with impunity primarily due to the aggressive extremist political activities of the organisation which has enabled them to make massive inroads into the social fabric of Jaffna. The CFA allowed the LTTE to engage in political activism outside their areas of control and the present situation in Jaffna proves they have exploited this situation to the maximum - with observable dangerous results. As a result the Tigers now command de facto control in the Peninsula – although according to the CFA, only the southern tip of the Peninsula below Muhamallai and Pallai is under LTTE control.

If until now anyone had doubts as to how effective this political network of the LTTE was, then the recent boycott of the presidential election should put all such uncertainties to rest. The highly sophisticated and sinister strategy of the LTTE to garner political power in the North received its first public showing through the election boycott. Without making a single ‘official’ statement calling for the boycott the LTTE successfully kept hundreds of thousands of people indoors and neither the government nor the armed forces could do anything to stop them.

So what is taking place right now is that officially the LTTE says one thing, while their several front organisations give a different message (or threat) to the people. Furthermore, an illusion is created that the demands made by these LTTE front organisations actually reflect the true thinking of the Tamil people. There is no way of showing concrete evidence that these organisations are linked to the LTTE, although everyone in the North knows this for a fact.

The LTTE has made inroads into several social organisations in the North such as the Federation of Fishermen’s Association, the three-wheeler drivers’ association, the University Students’ Union, the traders in the market place etc.

“It’s very simple. There were anyway several community based organisations in Jaffna even before the ceasefire. Now if a person wants to be the president of such an organisation they must be LTTE supporters if they want to be able to work. So the LTTE controls the leaders of these groups and in this manner controls the organisations,” said one man in Jaffna. The media in the North is also totally controlled by the LTTE. Apart from the traditional civil organisations, the LTTE also operates through separate front bodies such as the ‘Peoples Army’ and the ‘Organisation for protecting culture’. Some estimates indicate that a total of 57 such community based organisations run by the LTTE exist in Jaffna alone. The danger is the people know that if they defy these LTTE proxy organisations they would be harmed or even killed.

Most of these LTTE front organisations in the run up to the elections issued statements through the press and through the distribution of leaflets calling for the people of Jaffna to boycott the elections. The overriding message in these campaigns was that the Election was an affair for the South, and the Tamil people should show no interest in it because they have their own leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran in the North. Therefore not only were people told that they have a duty to refrain from voting for a leader of the South – but they were also told that casting such a vote would be a vote against Prabhakaran.

In addition to the poster and leaflet campaign carried out against the election, a group of LTTE backed University Students burnt effigies of the two candidates Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapakse on the day before the polls – projecting a message that they opposed both Sinhala leaders.

Election Day was termed a ‘day of mourning’ by the LTTE front organisations and people were told to remain indoors. On the day before the elections the Peoples Army issued a severe statement warning that polling agents would be shot and killed if they engaged in their duties. This was a direct threat at the EPDP, and as a result EPDP polling agents refrained from going to polling booths for fear of being killed. Only a very few people voted – among them were the supporters of the EPDP who in the Kayts island voted under army protection- which is also a violation of election laws. But then again they had no choice. There were also reports of elderly people being slapped in the face by young LTTE supporters for casting their votes.

Also on the day before the elections, LTTE political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan made a statement saying that the election was only for the Sinhalese to decide on their leader. Head of the LTTE peace secretariat Pulidevan made a separate statement saying they were not concerned with the elections. On Election Day three grenades were lobbed on to the polling booths in Chavakachcheri, Chundikuli and near the Nallur kovil. Of these only the grenade in Chavakachcheri exploded. However the message to refrain from voting was being made crystal clear to the people of Jaffna.

Ultimately just 8524 people from a total 701,938 registered voters cast their ballot in Jaffna, amounting to just 1.5 percent. Even this pathetic figure surprised people and election observers who initially estimated no more than 2000 votes coming from the peninsula – due to the tense situation that prevailed.

Even though the LTTE made people feel that both Sinhala candidates were their enemies, this sentiment was not held by the Jaffna people when the Presidential election was first announced. At the time, it was clear that most people in Jaffna were ready to support Ranil Wickremesinghe. “We wanted to vote for Ranil. We thought even the LTTE will want him because he was willing to give a federal solution to solve the conflict,” said one Jaffna resident. In reality this feeling never died, as was evident from the few votes that were cast in Jaffna of which over 75 percent went to Ranil Wickremesinghe. The LTTE however had a different agenda to that of finding a permanent peace and as a result preferred having a President who could not offer them a concrete solution. Prabhakaran knew this would serve to further strengthen the LTTE politically.

The criticism levelled at Wickremesinghe by the LTTE in order to validate their stance on the UNP candidate was irrational, to say the least. The organisation blamed Wickremesinghe for dragging the peace talks and not discussing the core problems faced by them. The chilling fact is that such opinion of Wickremesinghe was echoed by the people in Jaffna in unison – and it is clear the people were parroting this out due to the fear of challenging the views of the LTTE. The fishermen’s Federation which is a wing of the LTTE also complained that their situation had not improved despite the ceasefire.

And so an overall sinister atmosphere prevails in Jaffna. The feeling that the LTTE has eyes and ears everywhere runs strong. People are afraid to disapprove of the LTTE for it is never clear if the person you are speaking to is a supporter of the LTTE or not. People are constantly looking over their shoulders. The EPDP, police and armed forces are largely confined in their movements, and no one ventures out after eight o’clock in the night.

How deeply the people of Jaffna fear the LTTE can be proven from an event in recent history. In 1997 The LTTE openly opposed the local government elections being held in the North and East as they saw it as one of the government’s publicity stunts. They ordered people not to vote and even shelled the Jaffna peninsula on the morning of elections. However despite such violent overt opposition by the LTTE, 50% of voters in Jaffna went to the polls on that occasion.

The people on that occasion were not afraid of being identified and picked on, when they went to cast their vote. The difference now is that the LTTE is seemingly all over the place – and people don’t know when they are being watched and even how severely they would be dealt with if they dare to resist the LTTE. This is the power the LTTE wields right now. It is a power derived from gun point. What the future holds for the country in such a context is forbidding – particularly for the people of Jaffna who above all crave to live in peace and freedom.

courtesy Daily Mirro

For its defeat at the Presidential Election, the UNP has no one to blame but itself. It unwittingly engineered its own defeat by making a highly unnecessary move, which triggered a political avalanche. It all began with the UNP’s call for a presidential election at a time the electorate had taken it for granted that the next presidential election was due only in 2006.

President Kumaratunga’s popularity was on the wane and her actions were doing more harm than good to the UPFA government. The JVP had broken ranks with it over the controversial P-TOMS. President Kumaratunga stood accused of furthering her personal interests at the expense of her government through a deal with the LTTE. The government was becoming unpopular by the day (as evident from the erosion of its vote base in most of electorates and the increase in the UNP vote despite Ranil’s defeat at Thursday’s election).

The UNP should have allowed her to continue until next year. Either it was cocky that it could successfully face an early presidential poll or it may have thought that by stepping up pressure on the government to call a presidential election, instead it would be able to get a general election from a badgered CBK desperate to take a warring Opposition off her presidential back. This, some believe, was the card up Ranil’s sleeve, when he chose to foot it out from Devinuwara to Colombo through the tsunami hit southern littoral.

In politics, as in life, nothing is so certain as the unexpected. The JHU, which is adept at stealing others’ thunder–remember how it stole the show at the Donor Conference in Kandy and eclipsed the JVP in the protest against P-TOMS–made a master move. It took the battle for the presidential election to courts. And the rest is history.

Another mistake the UNP committed was to make Prime Minister Rajapakse the underdog in the race, by siding with President Kumaratunga who was slapping road blocks one after the other on his way. For the well organized and obviously well funded UNP propaganda blitz the state media still under President Kumaratunga’s control was no match. Propaganda, if it is to be effective, should be positive and subtle, but the UNP campaign was far from that. The outcome was that Mahinda projected himself as the victim of a conspiracy and a great deal of sympathy accrued to him as a result.

The most negative aspect of the UNP campaign was the attempt to drag religion into it. In these columns we have likened some propagandists to that legendary monkey which in good faith tried to kill a mosquito on a sleeping king and cut him to death in the process. Such tactics as were employed by the UNP propagandists were na`EFve and counterproductive. In a society where politics has attained the status of a major religion, simply because the clergy ask the people to vote for a particular party, they are not going to do so. If so, the JHU would have captured state power last year as all the candidates in the fray were Buddhist monks.

Moreover, the UNP, possibly due to the wrong advice, pinned its hopes on the northern vote–it was said to be looking at something like 450,000 votes–which it sought to gain by appeasing the LTTE. It didn’t realise that the LTTE’s claim of having over half a million votes at its disposal was highly bloated. True, the LTTE delivered 650,000 votes to its proxy, the TNA last year in the North and the East. But it did so through large scale rigging.

The heavy presence of polls observers from the EU, which is considering a total ban on the outfit made the LTTE wary of mass rigging. Had it supported Ranil openly and allowed the Tamil people to freely exercise their franchise, it would have exposed its real strength as well as the actual number of people living in areas under its control. That kind of exposure is detrimental to its interests. So, a polls boycott was the only option. It was not a matter of the LTTE not loving anyone or loving anyone less; it was a matter of the LTTE loving its cause more.

The UNP by wooing the Tigers, on the other hand, antagonized the Southern electorate, where the JVP through its Ali-Koti theory generated a massive protest vote to compensate for the loss of votes due to CBK pulling in a different direction.

In the end, Ranil failed to secure either the northern or the southern vote and fell between two stools. He should have heeded the saying: A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

The CWC and the SLMC may have delivered some votes but the UNP’s obsequiousness to them and the deals struck between them in a hurry alienated a vast number of voters in the south. And some of those failed kingmakers are now said to be trying to crown themselves by leaving Ranil and throwing in their lot with Mahinda.

Ranil is more a victim of a badly planned strategy than an individual loser. The UNP, thanks to its miscalculations and blunders, snatched defeat from the jaws of what might have been its victory. And the defeat has been debited to Ranil’s account. However unfortunate it may be, there is little he can do about it.

by Ajith Samaranayake

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse’s accession to the Presidency at last Thursday’s election was cast in the heroic mould and in times past would have been celebrated in ballad and song.

It reached out in time to the ancient past and invoked the symbolism and imagery so deeply embedded in the native psyche and in space to the vast reaches of the countryside where the bulk of Sri Lanka’s peasantry find their spiritual being.

Above all else it mobilised and tapped those wellsprings of idealism and passion which had been submerged for almost three decades by a consumerist ethos and a heedless hedonism embodied by the market economy and the urban barons operating its levers.

If it was not quite a re-play of the popular revolution led by Prime Minister Bandaranaike in 1956 (an oft-invoked parallel) it nevertheless stirred ancestral memories of braver times in contrast to our own more dull and colourless days.

On another level it was a rare act of political daring for Mr. Rajapakse was courageous or foolhardy enough to scorn political orthodoxy and forge an unlikely coalition with the forces of political radicalism and Sinhala nationalism.

In the face of concern by even well-meaning sections of his own party and, of course, those political wiseacres of the conservative Right he forged an alliance with the JVP and the JHU which radicalised Sri Lanka’s stagnant politics. The result was that while the Prime Minister was able to draw in new allies into his campaign (supplemented by the MEP, LSSP, CP and the NUA who were already his partners) the UNP was stuck with their old faithful, the CWC and the SLMC.

It is to his credit that he was able to hold this unlikely coalition together not to speak of such colourful mavericks as Mr. Vasudeva Nanayakkara and lead it to victory in the face of the Cassandra-like prognostications of the pundits that by so doing he had alienated the minorities.

What is more this was also entirely in keeping with Mr. Rajapakse’s own political character. For although he has never been a communalist or a fanatical Buddhist (his wife after all is a Catholic) he had identified himself being a southerner with the forces of patriotism and Buddhism.

This incidentally did not prevent him from sympathetic identification with the broad Left forces although he has never been a doctrinaire socialist. However he was astute enough to see that these nationalist sympathies could be used by his opponents to paint him as being unsympathetic to minority aspirations therefore somewhat queering his pitch and in recompense sought to draw in as much of the non-minority forces as possible into his campaign.

He met both Mr. Thondaman and Mr. Hakeem and with hindsight both of them might well have second thoughts about spurning his hand for he has proved even if in a sadly negative way that it is possible to win a Presidential Election fought on the terrain of a national electorate without substantial Tamil and Muslim support. On the whole then his victory has vindicated his strategy of a coalition with the nationalist forces.

Mr. Rajapakse was also shrewd enough to seek to shed at least some of the encumbrances thrust upon an incumbent by distancing himself from President Kumaratunga’s policy on the P-TOMS and his insistence that any solution to the National Question should be within the parametres of an unitary state.

However by travelling to Jaffna and by his insistence on a negotiated settlement leading to a honourable settlement he sought to erase the hard-line Sinhala image foisted on him by his rivals. That this two-track approach has worked is also borne out by an interesting set of statistics.

That is the Rajapakse victory in the Sinhala Catholic strongholds of Ja-ela, Wennappuwa, Katana and Nattandiya which gives the lie to the stories peddled by some plutocratic peace merchants that Rajapakse’s alliance with the JHU would spell doom to Catholics.

If the Prime Minister distanced himself from his President on the ethnic issue in this manner he had no qualms about associating himself with her in his economic policy. The balanced economy he advocates is the same as the people-friendly economy of the Kumaratunga administration and therefore ensures continuity on this front.

On the other side of the coin UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was singularly unfortunate to have much of his support base cut off from under his feet by the decision of the LTTE to tell the Tamil people to boycott the election. Although he did retain the support of his old allies, Messrs Thondaman and Hakeem this LTTE diktat was certainly detrimental to the Opposition Leader who had been projected as the peace candidate.

It is also doubtful how much Mr. Wickremesinghe gained by being projected as the best manager of the economy for it is clear that large sections of the peasantry and the urban middle-class rejected the UNP’s neo-liberal economics although the party’s natural allies among the upper and professional classes did not desert the Grand Old Party.

Another achievement of the Rajapakse triumph was how it neatly turned tables not only on his conservative critics but also those comfortable urban commentators who seem to fondly believe that they have a monopoly on mass opinion. Jehan Perera for example was widely quoted internationally as seeing the election in terms of binary opposites, namely nationalism versus internationalism and tradition versus modernity.

But what the kinds of Perera do not realise is that nationalism is not always a dirty word particularly when the so-called internationalism which is championed is an abject surrender to President Bush or that modernity is only a vogue word for a kind of cultural neo-colonialism which has been deleterious of indigenous values in much of the Third World. Perera’s imaginary cultural war had little relevance in a context where UNP propagandists were trying to seduce farmers into slipping into bell bottoms or going in for chewing gum.

The lesson of the Rajapakse victory therefore is that in a Third World context there can be a rationale for nationalism particularly where the ruling class is perceived as being slavish to the forces of the new Global Raj.

The Rajapakse ascendancy therefore has framed the ideological debate in new terms. On the ethnic issue he is faced with the challenge of forging the broadest southern consensus since Independence on the terms of the settlement of the National Question in a manner acceptable to the broad swathe of the opposite constituency, namely the Tamil people, while Mr. Rajapakse himself will have to work overtime to convince the Tamil voter who either boycotted the polls or voted against him about his bona fides.

Again in a situation where in the southern electorate the election was keenly fought (the margin being very narrow in a substantial number of electorates for either winning candidate) the new President will face the challenge of re-drafting the social contract and drawing the Opposition into the nation-building exercise.

Given these challenges, however, Mr. Rajapakse can be satisfied with his victory particularly since he was a late starter who initially faced what seemed to be formidable odds. But he showed an instinct for the fight without soiling his hands and has emerged as a formidable leader at a crucial conjuncture in the country’s history.

It opens a new chapter in post-Independence history where a leader unburdened by either dynastic trappings or the stigma of elitism finds himself at the head of a popular movement. His tenure of office is therefore pregnant with profound possibilities.

courtesy Sunday Observer

By Predarika Loosenz, reporting from Colombo, Sri Lanka

Allied Press, 14 November 2005

Senior journalists and editors shed bras and ties and sarongs and
saris as they crawled naked out of the virtual offices of the well-
known e-news service Emp TV (EmpT Vision Ltd.) in Colombo early Monday morning.

The knickerless protest began after the ‘muckraking’ newswire joined Reuters, AFP and AP in publishing fake push-polls and pop-up stats, claiming the neo-liberal candidate ahead in Thursday’s Presidential election.

“We decided to leave our genitals on our desktops, and pixel in
question marks ‘????’ where our desires once parked overnight,” said Imeena Ibn a’ Hussar, a veteran yonimediacentric and art-
exhibitionist, heading on her kneecaps to her fave Colombo 3 wet spot.

“We are exposing our own delicacies to the westwinds because Empire TV bummed out by not exposing the financial forces out to funk the island.”

World Raid Organization Meeting

Ibn a’ Hussar was referring to the “KOWTOW IN KOWLOON” next month in Hongkong, where the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting will remove all local decision-making power from representative parliaments around the world, and turn them into capitalist rubber-stamp machines like imperialist legislatures in London, Ottawa and Washington. The neo-lib candidate’s shadow trade minister has promised to sign the sell-out accord in Pali, in keeping with the Sri Lankan elite’s characteristic of diversion from the mathematics of the real world.

No media of any weightage has reported on this heavy upcoming WTO December event, and great hopes were placed on Emp TV’s supposedly maverick news service to detail the massive sellout of sovereignty.

Last week, leading CEOs such as Charles Holliday of Du Pont, US, Jan du Plessis of British American Tobacco, UK, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe of Nestle, Switzerland, Andrew N. Liveris of Dow Chemical Company, US, Henry A. McKinnell, of Pfizer Inc., US, Gerard Mestrallet of Suez, France, Mikio Sasaki of Mitsubishi Corp., Japan and 45 other pirates wrote a letter threatening governments across the world, with serious repercussions by multinationals and banks if they did not sign the accord next month.

Upset about Pirate Fee Media Sellouts

The broad daylight butt-naked protest by Emp TV workers taking over the airlessness of Colombo’s ritzy World Trade Centre was virtually aimed at the editorial policy of Emp TV, the island’s premier alternative news service.

“Look, there is an EL NINO of resistance sweeping the world again,
from Korea to Southern Africa to Venezuela and Bolivia, and we must not falter.”

The defrocked journalists said Emp TV’s policy amounted to open
support for the neo-liberal presidential candidate in the upcoming
election. Many platitudinous journalists, along with NGOists, who
made their grand entry into the middle class off the last
dispensation are now supporting the rightist candidate. “A lot of
money has been poured in to buy their silence or their complicity,
usually couched in high philosophy.”

“Media-run elections have been made touchstones of capital’s version of ‘democracy’ because this media obtains huge amounts of bribes aka advertising contracts for such astro-turf or ‘fake grassroots’ spectacles,” said media-analist U.B. Nickerlos. “It is a good excuse to sell pulp and paper, ink, paint, plastic, pixels, soundbytes etc.
and not to mention a good dose of discredited capitalist economics.”

The Emp TV boondoggy-style uprising is possibly the first naked e- picket in internet history, leading to an almost total shutdown of
the island’s information highway during the a.m. rush hour, as dawn websurfers gawked at a dozen preening pettifoggers popping up at them on their way to their early morning wank-sites.

The protest is unusual for modern-day writers, who are seen as
quicker than most of their predecessors to genuflect at the ordure of crumbling capitalism: As Lenin noted a hundred years ago, “if you don’t aim at the banks and monopolies, your writing in the modern world is mere whitewash.”

Said veteran satirist Illucion Lajakarionandon Singho, “We do not
want to be hacks like Reuters and AFP stringers who just repeat neo- liberal hackitudes over and over again: such as ‘blessed are the paisa-makers.’” He was referring to a recent paid-advertisement by the Pope’s chief brown cleric here, sponsored by a private born-again insurance corporation owner, supporting the neo-liberal candidate.

“The role of advertising agencies also needs to be exposed,” noted
Illucion Singho, who refers to the internet, as the ‘Pimpernet.’

The island nation’s 5th Executive Presidential Election is being
mainly psychographed by leading Washington and London public-
relations agencies who have worked in tandem with the US State
Department, stage-managing electoral ‘pastel revolutions’ across
Eastern Europe. They have lent (at exorbitant interest rates) their
support to the neo-liberal candidate in Sri Lanka’s upcoming
presidential elections, despite his lucky-13 previous losses in
earlier elections.

The assassination of the beloved Foreign Minister of the outgoing
President was seen as the first neo-lib shot fired to ensure the
election of its candidate.

Pop-up Conomics

All the private/pirate media outlets have joined in a fear campaign
claiming the choice is neo-liberalism or tribal war. Ads promising
bribes such as free CIC fertilizer have been popping up on old
movies, cartoons and MuzakTV as recommended by their ideological media-guide and new CIA-replacement, the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED already has its claws full trying to manipulate the 9 elections slated for South America in 2006 alone. The Sri Lankan election is to be a timely template for them.

Emp TV, a multi-planetary installation rumoured to have 25 stolen
satellites known as ‘Dahas-As’ roaming the heavens at any given
instant, was charged with accepting “earthly gratuities and
promissory notes in the here and after,” in exchange for a suspect
brooding silence during the island nation’s 5th, and possibly last,
Executive Presidential election.

Said another veteran photo-opportunist, Manic del Wanna-B, “Emp TV’s stance must’ve been adopted with the hope of gaining legal entry into the slave marketplace after years of popular brigandage.”

“We believe that in this perilous hour, a news service like Emp TV
should state clearly their position, rather than flutter their petals
coyly in the void like some cloying choirboy behind the altar of
human sacrifice.”

Vikings Ahoy!

Emp TV has also been accused of accepting money from the smiling yet greying Lion-Prince Pixel Jr., on behalf of high-heeled tanned
Vikings in t-shirts wielding sharp kronas and guilders, in the form
of paid advertisements purporting to purvey peace.

Several other popular ‘alter the native’ newspapers such as “The
Rave” have fallen in the last year, said U.B. Nickerlos, “to the
largesse of the valkyries of valhalla, who are the latest front group
for the oil-sukking Krackerfeller Korporation, kurrently waging mega-war in Iraq (or ‘New Iowa’) and Afghanistan (or ‘New Alabama’).”

Presidential Election: Sole Representation and the
Disenfranchisement of Tamils in the North and East

The Sri Lanka Democracy Forum (SLDF) condemns the election violence, intimidation and the consequent disenfranchisement of Tamil citizens by the LTTE in the North and East. The elections in the North and East were held in a climate of fear as the LTTE, through its front organizations, called for a boycott of the elections. This directive was backed by violence on the days leading up to and on Election Day, as LTTE cadres on motorcycles beat and chased away voters and tyres were burned as road blocks to intimidate civilians. LTTE cadres appointed by the New Left Front as
polling agents (normally used in elections to challenge fraud and can only be appointed by a party with a candidate in the elections), were used by the LTTE to intimidate voters inside polling booths and to identify voters who could then be targeted for retribution. On the day before the election, there were at least five grenade attacks on the offices of the EPDP in Jaffna, a political party supportive of
presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapakse. Two days before the election, cadres from the LTTE’s cultural wing brought a youth, twenty-two year old Dinesh, to the grounds of Kokkuvil Hindu College and tied, tortured and beat him to death in public view.
Grenade attacks and killings were also reported in the East on Election Day. The Jaffna Government Agent and the chief election officer for the Jaffna District stated that only 1.5% of the eligible voters cast their votes.

The 2005 presidential election in the North is very similar to the 2004 parliamentary elections when, once again, Tamils living in the North were denied their democratic rights. In this regard, the low voter turn out in this election is no different from the 90+% of the votes, which the LTTE manufactured in the 2004 elections for its proxy the TNA through violence, intimidation and massive fraud. Indeed, as John Cushnahan of the EU Election Monitoring Mission noted after the elections in 2004, the elections in the North and East were the “anti-thesis of democracy” and the “primary source of the violence was the LTTE who were determined to ensure that the
TNA would emerge as the sole representative of the Tamil people.”

After three and a half years of a much-violated Ceasefire Agreement, democratic space in the North and East has been greatly diminished, not only in terms of electoral politics, but also in terms of the rights to life, freedom of expression and freedom of
association. Indeed, the very basic civil and political rights necessary for democratic space and engagement have progressively been curtailed during a time of peace. During yesterday’s elections, yet another opportunity for the people of the North and East to voice their concerns on fundamental political and economic issues, as well as the peace process, was taken away from them. And, underlying and justifying this constant silencing of Tamil and Muslim voices is the LTTE’s claim to “sole-representation”.

SLDF calls on all political parties and civil society actors in Sri Lanka, foreign governments, multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union, and the Donors involved in the peace process in Sri Lanka, to publicly denounce the intimidation and violence that kept Tamils from exercising their democratic rights during yesterday’s presidential elections. Fundamental to this will be a refutation of the LTTE’s claim of sole-representation, which has been antithetical to democracy in both name and practice. Finally, given the LTTE’s attacks on democracy and the rights of Muslims and Tamils, any resumption of peace talks should be
inclusive with participation of independent delegations from the Muslim community and other Tamil parties. [SLDF Press Release]

by Wijitha Nakkawita

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, from the nuclear political family of Giruwapattuwa, yesterday reached the highest elected office in the country, that of Executive President. He followed the footsteps of the earlier generation of Rajapakses which produced the ‘Lion of Ruhuna’ D. M. Rajapakse, who was followed by not less than seven members elected to the State Council and the Parliament from this southernmost electorate of the country.

Rajapakse, who also celebrated his 60th Birthday yesterday, will take oaths as the 5th Elected Executive President of the country, at the auspicious time of 1.20 p.m. today, before Chief Justice Sarath N.de Silva at the President’s House.

He polled 50.33 percent of the votes polled at the election and was announced duly elected President by the Commissioner of Elections, Dayananda Dissanayake yesterday (18).

He also becomes the first Head of State and Government to be elected from the Ruhuna (Southern Province), since 1948. Despite little cooperation from some of the highest ranking members of the SLFP, and not being the leader of the party, he yet steadfastly protected and stood by the SLFP when others left the party at the time it was in dire straits. The common people of the strong SLFP districts gave him a massive mandate as in the case of the Southern Province repaying him for his party loyalty.

courtesy The Island