Editorial

Down the pallang with no end in sight

Published

5 years ago

2021/04/4

It was a tragedy for this country that Venerable Madulwawe Sobitha Thera, who founded and led the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ), died prematurely. Had he lived, the Sirisena – Wickremesinghe government he helped install in 2015 may not have come to its ignoble end five years later. He was the lynch-pin of the force that was able to marshal a common opposition to take on, and stunningly topple, the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime which through its infamous 18^th Amendment to the Constitution abolished the two-term limit on the presidency. Rajapaksa fatally sought a third term for himself, but the end of his presidency and subsequently his government, did not drive him into the political wilderness as it would have most mortals. He lived to fight another day, making those who ousted him eat more than humble pie by first installing his bother, Gotabaya, as the country’s sixth president, and then reducing the once proud UNP to zero in Parliament.

That is contemporary history that our readers are all too familiar with. We all well know too many of our past presidents falsely pledged to abolish the executive presidency created by President J.R. Jayewardene, who too hankered for a third term after decreeing a two term limit, but thought better as two insurrections in the north and south, wracked our island home. Sri Lanka survived those insurgencies with the JVP now in the political mainstream and the LTTE not quite dead, with a diaspora seeking to keep its ambitions alive active in many western countries where votes are bartered for influence. Some of its cult followers are still among us here in Sri Lanka. Former President Maithripala Sirisena, who pledged at Ven. Sobitha’s bier to abolish the executive presidency, though reduced today to a mere Member of Parliament, continues to maintain a low profile presence in national politics. His UNP bete noire, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who helped crown him as president and then sought to strip him of power, clings to the leadership of his party which up to now has been unable to even fill the solitary National List seat in Parliament it secured at the last election.

If Ven. Sobitha had lived, it would have been difficult for the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government to welsh on its promise of abolishing the executive presidency. The moral force of his authority would also surely have prevented the many omissions and commissions of the yahapalana government which was anything but that. But all that was not to be and the country today is at the brink of an abyss with the rupee devalued to 200 per U.S. dollar for the first time in its history, and its national debt estimated to run at over 98% of its GDP. Even though the country’s per capita income has increased steadily over the last two decades, revenue collection has been well below government expenditure, and has not been adequate even to cover recurrent expenditure of the state. Added to this dismal fiscal picture are the everyday travails of ordinary people struggling to make ends meet in the face of an ever-rising cost of living with no relief in sight. Covid has aggravated our predicament and where we go from here is anybody’s guess.

It is in this context that the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) that Ven. Sobitha founded and led is seeking to soberly present to the people the very real dangers confronting the country. Led by respected elder statesman Karu Jayasuriya, the organization is seeking to push the rulers into a correction course through its various activities. It seeks to project an apolitical stance and denies subversive interests. We have published in this newspaper, as we do today, much of what NMSJ and its leader is saying but whether or not such utterances resonate in places where it matters is hard to say. The 20^th Amendment that abolished the 19^th has thrown the baby with the bathwater. None can claim that the ousted leaders and members of yahapalana or their successors were paragons of virtue. The people know too well that succeeding political establishments this country has seen in the 73 years post-Independence has each been worse than its predecessor. The government that has presented some new math on the result of the recent vote at the UNHRC in Geneva continues to muddle along endangering both national security and the national economy.

Not a day passes without one blunder being followed by another. We had the bond scam under the previous dispensation. This one did better with the sugar scam followed by the coconut oil scam. There was no loss but only “foregone revenue” was the feeble defence on offer. This from the keeper of the public purse charged with the responsibility of balancing budgets where revenue monotonously falls short of expenditure. The last lot says that the sugar scam cost the country more than the bond scam; whether the reference was to the first or the second fiddle at the Central Bank or both together, the people don’t know. Environmental degradation continues unabated and the problem has assumed frightening proportions. A minister from the ruling family outrageously declares that two reservoirs will be built in the Sinharaja reserve to provide water for their pocket borough. He promises to plant 150 acres elsewhere to compensate saying that rubber will be planted to give people an income. We have not not had any word that this madcap project has been abandoned if it was ever seriously considered.

The predicament of the people will surely get worse before it gets better – if at all. We have to keep on voting in scoundrels despite their sorry performances and sordid track records for want of alternatives.

NMSJ criticism is offered non-abrasively. Let the issues raised be viewed in a similar spirit and properly addressed.

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Editorial

Carnage, justice and politics

Published

5 hours ago

2026/04/6

Thilina Walpola

Monday 6th April, 2026

Seven years have almost elapsed since the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, but there are still no answers to some vital questions about the tragedy that shook the world. Several schools of thought have emerged on the mastermind/s behind the 2019 terror strikes. It is being claimed in some quarters that the terror attacks were carried out by National Thowheed Jamaat (NTJ) leader Zahran Hashim and his followers at the behest of Islamic State (IS), which was suffering severe setbacks at the time. This argument has not found favour with others who think that some foreign powers were behind the terror attacks or the handlers of the suicide bombers were on a mission to facilitate the return of the Rajapaksas to power by stoking fears about national security among the people. These allegations, counter allegations, arguments and counterarguments have given rise to various conspiracy theories which have obfuscated the main issue.

There is hardly anything that politicians spare in their quest for power, and they have made the most of many tragedies, from the rape and murder of Premawathi Manamperi during the 1971 counterinsurgency operations against the JVP to the Easter Sunday carnage. The countless extrajudicial killings during the second JVP uprising and the civilian deaths during the Eelam war are issues that politicians have flogged hard to advance their political agendas. The SLPP came to power, promising to uncover the truth about the Easter Sunday carnage, but reneged on its pledge. The JVP/NPP made a solemn pledge to bring the masterminds behind the terror attacks to justice expeditiously, and secured the support of the campaigners for justice, but its promise also remains unfulfilled although it has been in power for nearly one and a half years.

Those who are seeking justice are confused. They first pinned their hopes on the SLPP and backed it in elections. After being ensconced in power, the SLPP insisted that NTJ leader Hashim or Moulavi Nauffer had masterminded the terror strikes; they cited FBI reports, etc., to bolster their claim. Those seeking justice then accused the SLPP of having masterminded the terror attacks to capture power. Now, the leaders of the JVP/NPP who, as Opposition MPs thundered in Parliament, blaming Islamic extremists for the carnage, and urged some Muslim politicians to put the genie back into the bottle, have changed their tune. They have held their immediate predecessors responsible for the terror attacks and are in overdrive, trying to prove their claim.

Partisan politics have stood in the way of efforts to find out the masterminds behind the Easter Sunday terror attacks. There has been a call for a fresh, thorough probe into the carnage, based on the findings of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCOI) which probed it. This, in our view, is a sensible suggestion. Prejudices and political affiliations of some lead investigators have tainted the integrity of the ongoing probe. An investigation must be free from the influence of those who are trying to cover up their own lapses that led to the terror attacks or to settle political scores. The police have impartial, capable officers and they must be entrusted with the task of investigating the 2019 terror strikes.

Meanwhile, Opposition and SJB Leader Sajith Premadasa, in his Easter Sunday message, has said that delivering justice for the victims of the 2019 terror attacks remains a fundamental responsibility of the state. He has lamented that it is a grave failure as a nation that justice has not yet been delivered to those killed, injured and affected by the Easter Sunday terror attacks. What he says is true, but there is no way he and other SJB MPs who were members of the UNP-led Yahapalana government can absolve themselves of the blame for that dysfunctional regime’s failure to prevent the Easter Sunday carnage. They were in the Yahapalana Cabinet. The PCOI report says, “The government, including President Sirisena and Prime Minister [Ranil Wickremesinghe] is accountable for the tragedy” (p. 471). In other words, the PCOI has held all members of the Yahapalana government, including those who are currently in the SJB, accountable for the carnage. The JVP propped up that failed government which could not protect national security.

The former members of the Yahapalana government and others who won elections by promising to serve justice to the Easter Sunday terror victims should now cast their politics aside and make a concerted effort to have the carnage thoroughly investigated and clear doubts in the public mind.

Editorial

Needed: Negotiations, not muscle flexing

Published

1 day ago

2026/04/5

Thilina Walpola

The Health Ministry and the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) are playing a game of chicken over doctors’ transfers. The GMOA is protesting against an alleged government move to gain control of doctors’ transfer scheme. It insists that doctors’ transfers must be handled professionally, free from political interference, for the benefit of doctors and the public. Accusing the government of trying to politicise doctors’ transfers for the benefit of the ruling party loyalists in the health service, the GMOA says that such a course of action will plunge the medical service into chaos and place the doctors serving in the ‘difficult areas’ at a disadvantage.

Health Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa has told the GMOA in no uncertain terms that it is his way or the highway. No trade union action would deter him from implementing the new transfer scheme, he said, on Thursday, warning the post-intern doctors that unless they applied for postings by Saturday (04), they would not be allowed to join the state health service.

The GMOA is not entirely blameless for unresolved trade union issues in the health sector. It has been afflicted by what may be described as the Uncle Sam syndrome; it apparently believes that only doctors’ interests must be looked after in the health sector. It has alienated other health workers. However, one cannot but endorse its position on doctors’ transfers, which must be effected systematically, with the participation and concurrence of the trade union representatives of medical officers. Politicians are driven by partisan political interests and known to act according to their whims and fancies. It is thanks to them that the state service finds itself in an unholy mess. There is provision for appeals under the current doctors’ transfer scheme, and the government can intervene in case of complaints of irregularities and injustices.

The doctors’ transfer scheme has worked all these years, and there is no reason why the government should meddle with it. At the time of writing, the GMOA was discussing ways and means of intensifying their trade union to win their struggle. It is likely to resort to a continuous strike if the government leaders try to bulldoze their way through. Its calls for negotiations with the Health Minister have gone unheeded.

The JVP-NPP government’s intransigence, and threats and warnings to workers involved in trade union struggles evoke the dreadful memories of a bygone era when a government, intoxicated with power, rode roughshod over trade unions and resorted to mass sackings to crush strikes and intimidate workers into submission. The politicians of the incumbent government sound just like the ministers in President J. R. Jayewardene’s UNP government. One may recall that in July 1980s, when workers struck work, demanding a pay hike, acting on President Jayewardene’s orders, Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa warned that the workers would be treated as having abandoned their jobs unless they returned to work immediately. More than 40,000 workers who defied the government order were terminated overnight, and the vacancies so created were filled with UNP supporters. Interestingly, the JVP, which had agreed to join that strike, pulled out at the eleventh hour on some flimsy pretext. It was honeymooning with the UNP at the time.

The JVP leaders who came to power, claiming to espouse Marxism and promising to safeguard the interests of workers and resolve all labour issues through negotiations, are emulating their capitalist predecessors, such as Jayewardene and Premadasa, whom they condemned as the worst enemies of the working class. It can also be argued that the current leaders have taken a leaf out of the late LSSP leader Dr. N. M. Perera’s book. In 1972, NM, as the Finance Minister of the SLFP-led United Front (UF) government, chose to wear down the bank employees who launched a strike, demanding better pay and improved service conditions. The UF government invoked emergency regulations and threatened to terminate the strikers who did not return to work. NM succeeded in breaking the strike, which lasted for 108 days. This is how all governments react, regardless of their political ideologies, when their interests are threatened.

The JVP-NPP government should negotiate with the protesting doctors and make a serious effort to resolve the transfer issue amicably. Its intransigence and threats will only prolong the ongoing trade union dispute, causing untold hardships to the public who cannot afford out-of-pocket healthcare expenses.

Editorial

Brouhaha over a book

Published

2 days ago

2026/04/4

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 4th April, 2026

Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader and former minister Udaya Gammanpila is complaining that a fake copy of his book on the Easter Sunday terror attacks, Pasku praharaye mahamolakaru soya yema (“Searching for the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday attacks”), has been released on social media. He says the spurious book in Portable Document Format is based on an incomplete manuscript of his work, sent to former top military intelligence officer Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Suresh Sallay for fact-checking on a specific section. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) took the incomplete manuscript into custody after Sallay’s arrest, Gammanpila has said, alleging that the fake book is based on that document. He has threatened legal action against the CID for misusing intellectual property and forgery.

The fake book under discussion will perhaps be the least of Gammanpila’s problems. The self-styled Hercule Poirots in the CID and their political masters must be drawing up plans for a witch-hunt against him, for he has ruffled the feathers of the powers that be by challenging the government’s narrative about the Easter Sunday carnage, and taking up the cudgels on behalf of those arrested by the CID, which is headed by a member of the JVP/NPP—retired SSP Shani Abeysekera, who is a member of the NPP’s Retired Police Collective.

The CID has been an appendage of the political party or coalition in power all these years. The JVP/NPP came to power promising a radical departure from the rotten political culture and swift action to depoliticise vital institutions, such as the police, but it is stuck in the same old rut as its predecessors; it keeps all state outfits under its thumb to advance its political agenda. The CID has been doing more political work than criminal investigations, under successive governments; no wonder unsolved crimes abound and the conviction rate remains extremely low (4% to 6%).

The release of the fake book at issue can be considered a propaganda misadventure. The controversy created by that ill-conceived move will help Gammanpila sell more copies of his book and bolster his claim that unable to counter his arguments, the government is trying to create confusion in the public mind about his narrative. Gammanpila’s real book offers fresh insights into the crucial issues surrounding the Easter Sunday carnage and related matters.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has drawn criticism for attending Gammanpila’s book launch on 31 March. It is being claimed in some quarters that he should not have been there as the SJB does not subscribe to the contention that Zahran Hashim was the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday terror attacks. This argument is not tenable. One’s presence at a book launch is not tantamount to one’s endorsement of the views of the author concerned.

Interestingly, the JVP leaders, including Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Vijitha Herath, vigorously promoted Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidential election manifesto, Mahinda Chinthanaya, in 2005, as a silver bullet capable of solving all the problems Sri Lanka was facing at that time. Videos of their fiery speeches promoting Mahinda Chinthanaya are available in the digital realm. A few years later, they turned against President Rajapaksa and even tried to topple his government. Today, they are vilifying Mahinda, who would not have been able to secure the executive presidency in 2005, much less become a prominent national leader, without their help. Sajith has not promoted Gammanpila’s book, has he?