Connect with us

Editorial

Judges in the buff

Published

on

Saturday 27th March, 2021

The Opposition would have the public believe that the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka could have been avoided if the government had cared to do so. Its MPs sounded like a group of apologists for the western bloc, when they waxed eloquent, in Parliament, on the UNHRC decision, the other day. There was absolutely no way the government could prevent hostile actions of the UNHRC, which is acting at the behest of the western powers bent on punishing the SLPP leaders and the war-time military personnel for defeating terrorism and ending the armed conflict, which the US and its allies used as an excuse for their involvement here to further their geo-strategic interests. However, there are others who could have obviated the need for the UNHRC resolution at issue.

No need for the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka would have arisen if the US, the UK and their hangers-on had made LTTE eschew violence and agree to a political solution, when they acted as the self-appointed ‘Co-chairs’ of a peace process which Sri Lanka was forced to enter into, in the early noughties. If they had cared to tame the LTTE, the Eelam War IV could have been prevented. Instead, they gave kid-glove treatment to the LTTE in spite of its blatant truce violations and acts of terrorism and went so far as to tie the implementation of a USD 4.5 billion aid pledge to the progress to be made in ‘peace talks’ between Sri Lanka and the LTTE. Thus, the US- led forces helped promote LTTE terrorism by tying the hands of Sri Lanka.

Likewise, if India had desisted from creating the LTTE to settle scores with Sri Lanka, or disarmed the outfit in keeping with the Indo-Lanka Accord, in the late 1980s, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved, and there would have been no need for UN involvement here. It, however, acted wisely later by helping Sri Lanka in more ways than one during the final Eelam War. Having done so, it has been supporting the UNHRC witch-hunt against those who neutralised the LTTE!

Let it be repeated that the leaders of the present dispensation are facing UNHRC hostility because they dared defeat terrorism and, thereby, brought to an end massacres, political assassinations, child abductions, extortion and gun-running. They may be blamed for many things including corruption, abuse of power, suppressing democratic dissent, nepotism, environmental destruction, etc., but the fact remains that they and the Sri Lankan military deserve praise for having eradicated LTTE terrorism and making all Sri Lankans, especially children, safe.

Time was when husbands and wives did not travel together lest their children should be orphaned in case of terror attacks on buses and trains. Parents were scared of sending their children to school in the North and the East as the LTTE abducted them and turned them into cannon fodder. The TNA leaders are now in a position to champion democracy because the LTTE has been defeated. While Prabhakaran was alive, they chose to lick his boots instead of fighting for democracy. Some of them are commemorating the dead LTTE leaders who gave them doormat treatment!

The end of Sri Lanka’s war has benefited everyone except the economic refugees masquerading as war victims, arms dealers, and the western powers.

There was only one way the present-day leaders could have prevented hostile UNHRC action against Sri Lanka; if they had emulated their predecessors and continued with the flawed ceasefire with the LTTE, during the previous Rajapaksa government, instead of defeating terrorism, there would have been no trouble for them or the Sri Lankan military, in Geneva, but nobody except LTTE backers would have been safe in this country, and thousands of more lives would have been lost.

Meanwhile, the Geneva resolution at issue is an indictment of the Opposition as well. The UNHRC has frowned on the postponement of the Provincial Council elections. The SJB leaders, as powerful Cabinet ministers in the yahapalana government, were responsible for manipulating the legislative process to postpone the PC elections indefinitely for fear of losing them. Let the UNHRC be informed that the blame for what has befallen the PCs in the Northern and Eastern Provinces as well as in other parts of the country should be apportioned to the TNA, which, together with the JVP, helped the yahapalana government postpone the PC polls, in the most despicable manner, while promoting devolution of power.

The US, the UK, the EU and India stand accused of having helped engineer the 2015 regime change here, and, therefore, they cannot absolve themselves of the blame for what the yahapalana government did or did not do. So, the question is whether they have any moral right to make an issue of the postponement of the PC polls, having remained silent thereon while their puppets were in power here.



Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Editorial

Councils soaked in acrimony

Published

on

Glorious uncertainties define both cricket and power politics—where nothing is more certain than the unexpected. Explosive starts therein do not necessarily guarantee smooth sailing or easy victories; unforeseen trouble comes from unexpected quarters. Whoever would have thought that the people would ever rise against the SLPP government elected by them with a two-thirds majority in 2020, and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former military officer, would head for the hills a little over two years into office? So, it is only natural that the NPP government is experiencing difficulties on all fronts.

The NPP may have expected the 06 May local government (LG) polls to be a walk in the park for it, but their outcome has left 178 out of 339 local councils hung. It has since been trying to seize control of the councils where it obtained more seats than the runners-up, but could not secure absolute majorities. It has also had to bite the bullet and resort to horse-trading, just like other parties, to enlist the support of its rivals to muster working majorities in the councils where it has obtained pluralities.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake warned, before the 06 May LG polls, that if the NPP’s rivals won any LG bodies, those councils would find it extremely difficult to receive state funds, and that it was therefore prudent for the public to vote for the NPP so that their interests would be served better; the government politicians have been repeating this warning since the conclusion of the polls as well in a bid to prevent its opponents from gaining control of the hung councils. But the Opposition parties, especially the SJB, the SLPP, the UNP and the UPFA, have already closed ranks and seized control of several hung councils, including the Kadugannawa Urban Council, the Kuliyapitiya PS, and the Udubeddera PS. The SLPP, which could not win a single council in last month’s election, has had its members appointed Chairpersons in a couple of LG bodies, with the help of other parties!

Whether the NPP government will shoot itself in the foot by carrying out its threat to stop allocating funds to the local councils which the Opposition has gained control of remains to be seen. Such a drastic course of action will lead to battles on both legal and political fronts and cause public opinion to turn against the government, which has promised to adopt democratic best practices and lead by example.

Some of the Opposition parties have formed a common front, and their coming together bodes ill for the NPP, for that will make the ongoing anti-government campaign better focused and more aggressive. This must be a disquieting proposition for the NPP, which has benefited from its rivals’ disunity. The SJB, the UNP, the SLPP and the UPFA have made a public pledge to work together and jointly administer the local councils under their control. It is popularly believed that Opposition alliances formed in a hurry for expediency usually do not last long, but there have been instances where they worked, the 2015 regime change being a case in point.

Going by the outcomes of the general elections during the past several decades, Sri Lanka has shown signs of returning to alternate power shifts, which characterised electoral politics prior to 1977. This trend has become more manifest since 2015. Gone are the days when political parties had solid vote bases. Floating voters now hold greater sway than in the past and have determined the outcomes of elections, especially in 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2024 and 2025.

The NPP has won elections by attracting the swing voters who previously backed the UNF and the SLPP in 2015 and 2019/20, respectively. But there is no guarantee that the NPP will be able to retain their support in future elections. A significant drop in its national vote share in last month’s LG polls indicates that the NPP has alienated a considerable number of floating voters owing to unfulfilled promises, anti-incumbency sentiments, and serious allegations against some of its leaders.

Signs are that the deepening acrimony between the NPP government and the Opposition in Parliament will percolate down to the local councils, further complicating their administration. Ordinary people will be the losers.

Continue Reading

Editorial

Sugar Scam: Get at bitter truth

Published

on

Saturday 14th June, 2025

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is reported to have said, quoting the Attorney General’s (AG’s) Department that the questionable reduction of the special commodity levy (SCL) on imported sugar in 2020, during the SLPP government, did not amount to a criminal offence. The AG’s Department has reportedly directed the CID to conduct further investigations to find out whether anyone gained undue benefits from the duty reduction. Why the probe dragged on for years is the question. There was ample time for the suspects to cover their tracks.

The CID has belaboured the obvious. The SCL reduction per se was not an offence—criminal or otherwise. The Cabinet of Minister has the authority and discretion to increase or decrease SCLs. What is really at issue is the economic fallout of the SCL decrease in question and the undue benefits that accrued therefrom to a few sugar importers connected to the SLPP government.

One can only hope that the CID and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption will conduct a thorough probe into what has come to be dubbed the sugar scam, which was one of the issues the NPP flogged very hard during its election campaigns.

The CID and the national anti-graft commission have not been free from political pressure. So, it is possible that the present-day rulers do not want a precedent created with the SCL reduction at issue being deemed a punishable offence, for they themselves stand accused of having manipulated import duties for the sake of its cronies among big-time rice millers.

What the critics of the SCL reduction have said is that the SLPP government adopted that measure after ensuring that all sugar importers, except its financiers among them, had replenished their stocks and could not take delivery of any more shipments of sugar. When it slashed the SCL on sugar imports from Rs. 50 to 25 cents a kilo, its cronies had placed orders for sugar and/or some of their shipments were on their way to Colombo. The SCL was a well calculated move that stood the SLPP financiers in good stead at the expense of the state coffers; it is believed that among the beneficiaries of the questionable SLC reduction were those who sponsored the propaganda events held by the SLPP ahead of the 2019 presidential election.

It will not be difficult for the CID to figure out who actually benefited from the SLC reduction. All it will have to do is to ascertain information about the sugar importers who placed orders immediately before the slashing of the SLC and about those whose shipments were reaching the Colombo Port when the SCL decrease was announced.

The SLPP government made the SLC decrease out to be a move intended to bring the sugar prices down for the benefit of the public, but Basil Rajapaksa himself admitted in a television interview that the sugar prices had not come down. The CID should also find out what the sugar prices were before and after the SLC reduction. It has been reported in the newspapers that the sugar prices did not drop despite the decrease in the SCL because most of the sugar importers had purchased sugar prior to the SLC reduction and did not want to adjust prices and suffer losses. The government craftily served the interests of the sugar importers, including its financiers by allowing the sugar prices to be kept at the previous level while its cronies were maximizing profits at the expense of the public and the economy. Such politically-motived moves made a huge contribution to the country’s worst-ever economic crisis, and they must be probed thoroughly and the culprits brought to justice.

Continue Reading

Editorial

‘Abaran goes to prison’

Published

on

Friday 13th June, 2025

Some Opposition politicians who earned notoriety for bribery and corruption while in power are now pretending to be as innocent as lambs—butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. They are playing the victim card, claiming that they have become targets of a political witch-hunt. They must be troubled by the prospect of having to play board games behind bars with two of their former ministerial colleagues who are already in jail. If they had realised that politics was a game of Snakes and Ladders and conducted themselves properly, while ensconced in power, they would not have been in this predicament.

Some government politicians would have the public believe that the wheels of justice have begun to turn faster since last year’s regime change, and therefore the credit for the incarceration of several Opposition politicians should be given to the current dispensation; the implication of their claim is that unless they had formed a government, the culprits would have got off scot-free. They are often heard predicting that some more Opposition heavyweights will be thrown behind bars soon. Is it that they think they are capable of influencing the judicial process to secure the desired outcome? The NPP politicians’ claims, predictions and warnings are arguably tantamount to an affront to the judiciary and the Attorney General’s Department.

SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam, a lawyer by profession, held a brief for his political masters yesterday. Addressing the media, he lamented that the blame for every corrupt deal was unfairly laid at the feet of the Rajapaksas. He used a popular local saying to drive his point home—”Whoever steals a bunch of bananas in the village, it is Abaran who is sent to jail”. If so, Abaran has only himself to blame! He becomes a suspect because of his bad reputation. This is why they say, “He that has an ill name is half-hanged.” Hence the need for politicians and their family members to be above suspicion so that not even their worst enemies can accuse them of corruption. When the members of the former ruling family, who are enjoying the life of Riley, claim that they are living off Daisy Achchi’s bag of gems, they insult human intelligence and lose public sympathy. Similarly, their self-righteous political rivals’ claim that they are living the good life thanks to the largesse of the likes of ‘Jayashantha Aiya’ is also absurd and reflects a very low opinion of the intelligence of the public.

Legal action being taken against the former rulers, their family members and cronies for corruption and other such serious offences is most welcome for two reasons. They must be made to face legal consequences for their crimes. Besides, a serious effort must be made to recover the losses they have caused to the state coffers. Jail terms and modest fines alone will not do. The other reason why they should be made to pay for their sins is that punitive action against them will set a precedent that future governments will be compelled to follow, and the present-day rulers will be held answerable for the questionable deals under their watch, when they lose power.

It has been reported that former Minister Chamal Rajapaksa will be questioned by the CID over compensation he obtained for property damage during Aragalaya (2022). When the news emerged that the SLPP-UNP government was planning to compensate the politicians whose properties had been destroyed by mobs in retaliatory attacks, we argued that the victims must be made to reveal whether they had declared the damaged assets to the taxman, and could account for the funds used to acquire them. The Opposition including the NPP should have taken up this issue in Parliament and tried to prevent the government from awarding compensation to its members generously at the expense of the public. Equally, all violent elements who carried out systematic arson attacks in 2022 must be brought to justice; deterrent punishment must be meted out to them so that there will be no repetition of such acts of pyro-terrorism.

Continue Reading

Trending