Saturday 28th February, 2026

The JVP-NPP government is practising the very antithesis of what it promised workers during its election campaigns. Pledging to look after workers’ interests, the JVP/NPP leaders said there would be no need for labour struggles under an NPP government. But they are now emulating their predecessors who mismanaged labour issues and suppressed trade unions.

The government has locked horns with the GMOA (Government Medical Officers’ Association). They are engaged in a contest of attrition, which is not likely to end any time soon, given the intransigence of both sides. The government is determined to wear down the GMOA, and vice versa. The warring doctors have withdrawn from health camps and outreach programmes and threatened to intensify their trade union action. One wonders whether the medical professionals in the NPP parliamentary group have sought to settle old scores with the GMOA, which they are not well disposed towards; instead of making a serious attempt to resolve the ongoing trade union dispute amicably, they keep on provoking the protesting doctors.

The GMOA has put forth several demands, including the establishment of a special service category called the “Sri Lanka Medical Service,” for all doctors, updating the Disturbance, Availability and Transport (DAT) allowance, resolving transportation issues in line with Circular 22/99, converting the additional duty allowance into a fixed allowance, resolving issues related to research allowances, addressing concerns of doctors engaged in postgraduate studies, updating the approved cadre of doctors in the health sector and initiating time-bound discussions with the Ministry of Finance on the doctors’ demands.

What is up the government’s sleeve is not difficult to guess. The JVP/NPP is all out to tame the trade union sector, which is strong enough to act as a countervailing force against it. The GMOA is one of the most powerful trade unions, and the government’s battle plan seems to be suppressing it in a bid to intimidate all others into submission. The JVP/NPP leaders have apparently learnt from how the LSSP, as a constituent of the SLFP-led United Front government, broke the bank employees’ strike in 1972. The J. R. Jayewardene government crushed a general strike in a brutal manner in July 1980 by sacking tens of thousands of strikers, and thereby effectively neutralised the trade union sector. All governments with steamroller majorities succumb to the arrogance of power, which drives them to ride roughshod over trade unions and professional associations that refuse to obey their dictates.

Opinion may be divided on the GMOA’s demands, and in fact it may not be possible to meet some of them for pecuniary reasons, but it defies comprehension why the government refuses to listen to the protesting doctors, and adopt a compromise formula. Political muscle flexing will only make an already bad situation far worse in the health sector. The government should not dupe itself into believing that tactics such as astroturfing and social media attacks will help tame trade unions.

Labour disputes tend to snowball and cause hardships to the public. Hence the need for swift action to resolve them. It behoves the government, which came to power, promising to look after the interests of workers, to invite the GMOA to the negotiating table and try to prevent the escalation of the ongoing dispute.

Friday 27th February, 2026

Three teenage girls from a children’s home in Kalutara have been arrested for breaking into a canteen and making off with a stock of confectionery worth Rs. 40,000. Upon being informed of the theft, the police lost no time in recovering the sweets and making arrests. Those who conducted the ‘raid’ posed for photographs with the recovered items and released them to the media. Such is their selective efficiency.

One may recall that some years ago, the police arrested a small schoolgirl in Kalutara for stealing a few coconuts. In the same district, a little girl was taken into custody for stealing a five-rupee coin. If only the long arm of the law dealt with the politically backed perpetrators of serious crimes in a similar manner.

The three girls arrested for stealing sweets may have thought that in a country where people get away with grand thefts, their offence would go unnoticed. The incumbent government tells us that its political rivals stole colossal amounts of state funds while in power, but no legal action has been taken against most of them. Worse, the corrupt politicians in the Opposition have embarked on a crusade against corruption.

Worryingly, the incumbent government, which has undertaken to eliminate bribery and corruption and restore the rule of law, is led by a party with a history of terrorism, extortion, armed robberies and wanton destruction of state assets. A Cabinet minister has had the audacity to boast that he and his ‘comrades’ destroyed transformers, etc., in the late 1980s. He has sought to romanticise such acts of terrorism which are nonbailable transgressions under the Offences Against Public Property Act. Strangely, no action has been taken against him or his colleagues on the basis of his confession. If such crimes had been investigated properly during previous governments, some of the ruling party politicians who indulge in moral grandstanding would have been behind bars.

It has now been revealed that the procurement of eight shipments of substandard coal has caused a staggering loss of Rs. 8 billion to the state coffers. The coal supplier is said to be a company blacklisted for selling substandard rice to Sathosa. The corrupt coal tender has not been cancelled.

The present-day rulers, who came to power vowing to eliminate bribery and corruption, are now in overdrive, trying to justify losses caused by low-grade coal imports and shield the racketeers. Substandard medicines imported after the 2024 regime change have not only caused massive losses to the state but also snuffed out several lives in government hospitals. Much has been spoken in Parliament about corrupt procurement deals in Sathosa under the current dispensation. Curiously, no arrests have been made.

What was made out to be a new beginning in late 2024 has turned out to be another false dawn. The champions of good governance have been exposed for corruption and abuse of power.

The current rulers claim to be on a mission to restore the rule of law in keeping with one of their main campaign promises. That no doubt is a noble goal that must be achieved. However, mere rhetoric won’t do. They have to back up their words with deeds.

The least the government can do to convince the public that it is serious about fulfilling its pledge to restore the rule of law is to ensure that the police deal with the corrupt elements in both the Opposition and the government in the same way as they did in the case of the three girls who stole sweets in Kalutara.

Thursday 26th February, 2026

The CID yesterday arrested former Military Intelligence Chief Major General (Retd.) Suresh Sallay in connection with the ongoing investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks (2019). Police Spokesman ASP F. U. Wootler told a hurriedly summoned media briefing that the arrest of Sallay was based on credible evidence. If so, the burden is on the police to prove their very serious charges against the war-time military intelligence officer who played a pivotal role in eliminating LTTE terror. Otherwise, they will have to face the consequences of their actions when their current political masters lose power. It amounts to a grave violation of fundamental rights to arrest people without sufficient grounds and hold them on remand for extended periods.

Everything possible must be done to trace the masterminds behind the Easter Sunday carnage and bring them to justice. However, efforts to ensure that justice is served must be devoid of partisan politics. The unprecedented politicisation of the CID under the current dispensation has severely undermined the integrity of the investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks. The CID is now under two former senior police officers, namely ex-SDIG Ravi Seneviratne and ex-SSP Shani Abeysekera. While in active service, they reduced the CID to a mere appendage of the UNP-led Yahapalana government and were accused of launching politically motivated probes and arresting the political opponents of that failed regime. They themselves have been accused of failing to act on warnings to prevent the 2019 terror attacks. Both Seneviratne and Abeysekera joined the Retired Police Collective of the JVP/NPP, which, after forming a government in 2024, brought them out of retirement and appointed them as Secretary to the Public Security Ministry and CID Director, respectively. They have to advance the incumbent government’s agenda as a quid pro quo for their elevation to the current positions.

Whenever the JVP-NPP government faces trouble on the political front, the police come to its aid, making high-profile arrests. So, the Opposition’s argument that the CID has arrested Sallay to distract public attention from the mega coal scam, which has sent the government reeling, is not without merit. Most of all, with the seventh anniversary of the Easter Sunday carnage only about two months away, the government needs to show that it is on course to fulfil its pledge to bring the terror masterminds to justice.

Curiously, one main aspect of the Easter Sunday carnage continues to be ignored; it is the alleged foreign involvement therein. Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, who was the Justice Minister in the Yahapalana government, taking part in a Sirasa TV programme in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election hinted at the possibility of some world powers having had a hand in the Easter Sunday bombings. He said that he had opposed the handing over of the strategically important Hambantota Port to China in 2017, warning the Yahapalana Cabinet that another world power would seek to take control of the Trincomalee harbour, the oil tank farm near it, and the Colombo Port, and that if Sri Lanka did not grant those demands, it would be plunged into a bloodbath and forced into submission. He said the Yahapalana administration had ignored his warning and gone ahead with the Hambantota Port deal, and three months later his prediction had come true; the US asked for the Trincomalee harbour with land around it, and India demanded that the Trinco oil tanks and the East Terminal of the Colombo Port be handed over to it. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had sought to grant those demands and presented a bill to Parliament to amend the Land Ordinance, Dr. Rajapakshe said, adding that he had moved the Supreme Court successfully, aborting the Yahapalana government’s bid to hand over the Trincomalee harbour and land. That administration’s attempt to grant India’s demand had come a cropper due to protests, and a few months later, the Easter Sunday attacks had happened, Dr. Rajapakshe said, drawing parallels between the destabilisation of Sri Lanka and that of Bangladesh.

If one reads between the lines, it may not be difficult to figure out what Dr. Rajapakshe chose to leave unsaid. He is not alone in claiming that there was a foreign hand in the 2019 terrorist bombings. Speaking at St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya, on 21 July 2019, Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith flayed President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for having failed to resist the foreign conspiracy to destabilise the country.

Among the key witnesses who expressly testified before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) on the Easter Sunday terror attacks that there had been ‘an external hand or conspiracy behind the attacks’, were Cardinal Ranjith, Ravi Seneviratne, Shani Abeysekera and SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena, who said an Indian named Abu Hind ‘may have triggered the attacks’. Abu Hind was a character created by a section of a provincial Indian intelligence apparatus, and the intelligence the Director SIS received on 4th, 20th and 21st April, 2019 about the terror attacks was from this operation and the intelligence operative pretending to be one Abu Hind, according to an international terrorism expert who testified before the PCoI. In an interview with BBC in 2019, Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa declared that according to ‘investigative evidence’ he was privy to, India had been behind the Easter Sunday terror attacks. Curiously, the alleged foreign involvement in the Easter Sunday terror attacks has been ignored.

A thorough probe must be conducted into the alleged foreign involvement in the 2019 terror attacks, which may have been the beginning of a sinister campaign to make Sri Lanka’s economy scream in 2022, as we have argued in a previous comment.