Monday 21st September, 2026

Sri Lankans always use highways and waterways recklessly as if they had a death wish. This fact is borne out by the chilling statistics about fatal road accidents and drowning incidents. About seven people, including five youths, have drowned in separate incidents during the past week alone, according to media reports. Road accidents snuff out about seven lives a day. Drowning reportedly causes about 600-900 deaths annually.

The disturbing cluster of drowning incidents that received media attention, during the past three weeks, is as follows: a 13-year-old schoolboy drowned in the Maha Oya on 08 September; an 11-year-old Buddhist monk drowned while bathing in the Heen Ganga on 13 September; a 25-year-old Indian tourist drowned during a sea-rafting outing in Sri Lanka on 15 September, and four young people drowned while bathing in the Maha Oya on 19 September. There was also a drowning incident involving two young men, aged 23 and 24, in the Nanu Oya canal earlier in September.

According to media reports quoting the Sri Lanka Life Saving organisation, many fisherfolk cannot swim or even float. The vulnerability of others who do not live close to water bodies is self-evident. Swimming skills and water experience do not necessarily go hand in hand, and one does not have to be a good swimmer to operate a fishing craft, but the general consensus is that swimming or at least the ability to survive in sudden immersions should be in the DNA of the coastal and fishing communities. Shouldn’t a vast majority of inhabitants of a country that boasts an ancient hydraulic civilisation at least be able to float and survive, much less swim like otters?

Sri Lanka’s drowning-prevention efforts are noteworthy. They include Swim for Safety and women’s and children’s swimming programmes, Coast Guard lifesaving training, Navy and Police rescue training, community and fishermen’s water safety education, putting up warning signs, public awareness campaigns, and a national multisectoral drowning prevention action plan. If not for these initiatives, many more lives may have been lost annually. However, going by the sheer number of drowning incidents reported almost daily, it can be argued that much more remains to be done.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which plays an active role in helping Sri Lanka prevent drowning incidents, has identified several gaps in drowning prevention efforts, the main being that swimming education is not mandatory in schools, drowning data are fragmented between agencies and the effectiveness of existing interventions has not been adequately evaluated. It has recommended sustained national campaigns aimed at children, parents, boat users and tourists, as well as the expansion of community-level swimming and water-safety interventions. This, we believe, is the way forward.

There has been much hullabaloo about attempts to introduce sex education into the school curriculum. This is an issue to be dealt with separately, but shouldn’t survival skills take precedence over, or receive the same attention as, sex education in schools?

The best way to determine whether a bathing place is safe is to seek the advice of the people living close to it. Many Sri Lankans consider a dip in a waterway, a reservoir or the sea, or a boat ride, an integral part of a trip; they tend to throw caution to the wind and plunge into unfamiliar waters, particularly when they are sozzled to the gills. They ignore warning signs, which in some cases are not properly visible.

Serious thought should be given to adopting digital solutions to prevent drowning incidents. There is a need to introduce an official national water-safety app, supported by the Police, Coast Guard and lifesaving organisations, to enable people to check the latest safety status of beaches, rivers, reservoirs and other popular bathing places and the availability of lifeguards at such places before entering the water. Sri Lanka can learn from other countries, such as New Zealand, where Safeswim provides location-specific swimming risk information, current hazards, lifeguard patrol information and Australia, whose Beachsafe informs the public of beach locations, surf conditions, hazards and the status of lifesaving services. It may not be difficult to find sponsors for such an app.

A truly national effort is called for to prevent avoidable drowning deaths.

The 120th birth anniversary of President J. R. Jayewardene (JRJ) was commemorated in Colombo on Thursday. The well-attended event, with a representative audience, brought the UNP and its offshoot, the SJB, together, with their leaders, former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, respectively, stressing the need for their parties to unite and fight what they described as the JVP-led NPP government’s dictatorial rule. Ironically, about four decades ago the JVP itself used the same allegation in a bid to justify its violent campaign against the JRJ government.

JRJ or the Old Fox, as he was popularly known, achieved what many considered impossible; he rebuilt the UNP from a mere 17 seats, which it was reduced to in the 1970 general election, and steered it to a mammoth victory with a five-sixths majority just seven years later. He not only opened up Sri Lanka’s economy but also reoriented the country’s geopolitical alignment in a bipolar world. He was pejoratively dubbed “Yankee Dickie” because of his pro-American stance. His rule was a Dickensian paradox, characterised by both progress and decline. It ushered in economic growth and infrastructural development but upended Sri Lanka’s political culture, paving the way for the institutionalisation of corruption, abuse of power, political violence, electoral malpractice, and political interference with the judiciary on an unprecedented scale; the debilitation of state-owned enterprises, particularly the bus service, also began under the JRJ rule. The 1978 Constitution, which entrenched the executive presidential system, is one of the most enduring features of the JRJ’s political legacy.

On watching the commemoration of Yankee Dickie’s birth anniversary, one may have recalled an American Civil War marching song, ‘John Brown Body’. The missions of Brown and JRJ bear little resemblance to each other; the former is a rebel and martyred abolitionist and the latter is remembered mostly as a self-seeking, conservative political leader, but their causes continue to advance long after their deaths. So, on Thursday, one may have sung under one’s breath, parodying the John Brown song:

JRJ’s Constitution is strapped upon his back,His soul is marching on.

About half a century has elapsed since JRJ introduced the current Constitution to achieve his presidential dream. All his successors, except Ranasinghe Premadasa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, contested presidential elections, promising to abolish the executive presidency and restore the Westminster system, but they have followed the Machiavellian maxim on promises and considered ‘the word broken is the necessity of the present’.

JRJ may be blamed for many wrongs, but it may be argued that he was less hypocritical than his successors. He made no bones about his autocratic disposition, and had the courage to stand up for what he believed in. He yearned for absolute power, and blatantly undermined the separation of powers and reduced the legislature to a mere appendage of the Executive. He also sought to keep the judiciary under his thumb, but with little success, thanks to some upright judges who had the courage to act without fear or favour. It was not without reason that he bragged that the only thing he could not do with his executive powers was to make a man a woman and vice versa. He brooked neither criticism nor dissent and bulldozed his way through. He did not scruple to amend the Constitution to advance his political agenda. All his successors have emulated him.

It may not be too cynical a view that the JVP should replace Rohana Wijeweera’s portrait at its Pelawatte office, if any, with that of JRJ, for its current policies are more closely aligned with JRJ’s capitalist ideology than its founder’s. The JVP-led NPP government is apparently pursuing open market policies more vigorously than its predecessors. Whoever would have thought that the JVP would ever embrace capitalist policies, much less pursue them with missionary zeal and capitulate to the Bretton Woods twins. The JVP’s 36-page Revolutionary Policy Declaration with Wijeweera’s imprimatur, ends with the Communist revolutionary slogan, Death to imperialism––Liberation to the People and Death to Capitalism––Victory to Socialism. But the present-day JVP leaders have embraced capitalism. They sought to kill JRJ for what they described as his capitulation to India. Today, they themselves stand accused of touching their forelocks to Indian leaders.

The SLFP also denounced JRJ’s economic policies vehemently while in the political wilderness, but unflinchingly adopted them after its return to power. So, the SLFP, too, should have JRJ’s portrait hung at its Darley Road office. The SLPP should also consider hanging a portrait of JRJ at its Nelum Mawatha office, for it also follows his policies.

The leaders of the JVP, the SLFP and the SLPP are no admirers of JRJ, but imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery. The Old Fox must be guffawing wherever he may be.

Saturday 19th September, 2026

The US has refused to grant Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a visa to attend the UN General Assembly in New York next week, according to a BBC report. Washington claims that it has denied visas to Palestinian representatives, including Abbas, for their failure to live up to peace process commitments. Sanctions were initially imposed in August last year, when 80 Palestinian officials were denied visas for the annual UN meeting in New York, BBC report says.

The US has accused the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation of “glorifying terrorism” and attempting to “internationalise” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is laughable that such concerns about peace have been raised by the US, which has made six major military interventions commonly known as wars since 1945, namely, Korean War (1950–53), Vietnam War (major US combat involvement, 1964–73), Gulf War (1990–91), Afghanistan War (2001–21), Iraq Invasion (2003–11), War against ISIS in Iraq and Syria (from 2014), Libya engagement and the ongoing Iran war.

Interestingly, the Trump administration has granted Iranian leaders visas to attend the UN summit. A State Department Spokesman is reported to have said that a core delegation from Iran will be allowed to attend the summit in line with the United States’ obligations as the UN host country. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are expected to be granted US visas.

Aren’t the US obligations as the UN host country applicable to Palestine? The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has called the visa sanctions “an unjustified measure that runs counter to efforts to rebuild trust, develop Palestinian-US relations, and create the necessary political climate for implementing the two-state solution and achieving peace and stability”. It has vehemently rejected the long-held accusations by the Trump government and Israel, noting that Palestine has a right to seek accountability against an occupying force under international law.

One may recall that the UN had to contend with a similar issue in 1988; over a statement concerning Yasser Arafat’s visa, the UN Legal Counsel stated that the 1947 UN-US Headquarters Agreement gives persons, covered by Section 11, an “unrestricted right” to enter the US for the purpose of UN proceedings. The US maintained that its law preserved its authority to exclude persons on national security grounds. The UN Legal Counsel responded that there was a difference of opinion between the UN and the US concerning the legal character and validity of that US security reservation.

The Headquarters Agreement has created a special treaty-based obligation concerning the entry and transit of accredited representatives of UN member states attending official UN business. It establishes the protection against impediments to transit, and its Section 13(a) specifically says immigration laws must not interfere with that protection and requires US visas, where necessary, to be issued promptly and free of charge. Section 12 of the Agreement specifically states that the US authorities must provide necessary protection to such persons while they are travelling to or from the UN Headquarters district, and this provision applies regardless of the relationship between the person’s government and the US. The Agreement however does not give UN representatives unrestricted freedom to visit other parts of the US unless such travel is for official UN meetings or official UN business.

There have been only half-hearted attempts to address the issue of access restrictions imposed by the US on some accredited representatives of UN member states, seeking to attend UN proceedings. It is time the UN stopped dilly-dallying and grasped the nettle. It should ensure that UN representatives attending the UN General Assembly and other official events of the world body are not left at the mercy of Washington. But who will bell the cat?