Saturday 14th February, 2026

A nine-day protest by beach seine fishers against a ban on the use of tractor-mounted winches to haul their nets was called off yesterday following a discussion with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The protesting fisherfolk had been demanding a meeting with the President, but in vain. Why did the President wait for nine days to invite them to a discussion? He could have stepped in to have the fishers’ protest called off on the first day of agitation itself.

Governments usually do not agree to negotiate with any protesters immediately after the launch of their agitations lest others should be encouraged to do likewise. Politicians in power seek to wear down protesters by resorting to brinkmanship. They consider it infra dig to blink first, so to speak. This is the name of the game, but governments and the public stand to gain when the issues that lead to protests and strikes are resolved promptly.

Minister of Fisheries Ramalingam Chandrasekar and his deputy Ratna Gamage opted to play a game of chicken with the protesting fishers, refusing to soften their position that the ban on ‘mechanised’ beach seine fishing must continue. They declared that the ban at issue was non-negotiable, provoking the fishermen into intensifying their protest. They should have invited the protesters to the negotiating table.

There are two schools of thought about the use of tractors fitted with winches to drag fishing nets. Environmentalists are of the view that the use of winches to haul nets causes serious environmental issues, such as the destruction of coral reefs. Those who practise this fishing method argue that there are no corals in the areas where they practise beach seine fishing, and they avoid reefs, which damage their nets. Tractors do not cause sea erosion, they insist. Daring the government to prove scientifically that the homegrown method of hauling nets causes environmental damage, they demanded that they be allowed to use tractors and winches pending an investigation. Why the government did not adopt the proposed course of action is the question. It should have taken up the fishermen’s challenge.

Cabinet Ministers and top bureaucrats rarely succeed in resolving labour disputes under their own steam. They only confront strikers or protesters, provoking the latter into escalating their trade union action, much to the inconvenience of the public. The President has to intervene to do the work of ministers and ministry secretaries and resolve labour issues. This has been the situation under successive governments.

One of the main arguments against the executive presidency is that the President tends to run a one man/woman show, undermining the Cabinet and the state service. Unbridled powers vested in the President have been blamed for this situation, which however is also due to the failure of Cabinet Ministers and top bureaucrats to carry out their duties and functions effectively.

If ministers cannot tackle serious issues without presidential interventions, which are frequent, why should the public pay through the nose to maintain a Cabinet of Ministers?

Friday 13th February, 2026

Justice has caught up with those who killed SLPP MP Amarakeerthi Athukorale and his security officer. The Gampaha High Court has sentenced 12 convicts to death for the double murder they committed during the 2022 uprising, popularly known as Aragalaya. This judgement has evoked the dreadful memories of the crimes committed in the name of a people’s protest movement about four years ago.

Aragalaya began as an outpouring of public resentment fuelled by the 2022 economic crisis and the resultant shortages of essentials. It developed into what may be described as a carnival of protests at Galle Face, where a motley crowd of activists championing various causes gathered under the ‘Gota Go Home’ banner. It was subsequently hijacked by some ultra-radical political forces with sinister agendas following an SLPP goon attack on the Galle Face protesters in May 2022. Retaliatory attacks carried out by organised groups among protesters turned Aragalaya into a firenado of violence that swept through many parts of the country. It was during that violent phase of Aragalaya that mobs killed MP Athukorale and his security officer and torched scores of houses belonging to SLPP politicians and their cronies. All SLPP MPs would have suffered the same fate as Athukorale if they had not gone into hiding. The destructive forces responsible for committing crimes in the name of Aragalaya must be brought to justice.

The genuine Aragalaya activists who acted as a pressure group, calling for an end to the Rajapaksa rule, wanted to call off their protest campaign following the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa; their goal was to see the back of Gotabaya as evident from the catchy hashtag, “GotaGoHome”. But some opportunistic political forces, particularly the JVP, sought to use Aragalaya to capture Parliament. Minister K. D. Lalkantha himself has admitted that the JVP strove to lead the Aragalaya activists to Parliament, but without success. JVP leaders are seen in social media videos urging the people to rush to Colombo and march on Parliament and deliver a coup de grace to a teetering system. If the military had not made a decisive intervention at the eleventh hour, using force, aggressive mobs that surged forward menacingly, pulling down barricades, would have captured Parliament and perhaps set it on fire, plunging the country into anarchy. One may recall that a grenade attack on a UNP parliamentary group meeting chaired by President J. R. Jayewardene, with Prime Minister R. Premadasa seated next to him in 1987 almost made the country descend into anarchy. That bomb attack, which left a minister and a public official dead and 16 others injured, was blamed on the JVP.

A former senior Indian police officer discusses grey-zone warfare in an article we have reproduced today from The Statesman, an Asia News Network member. This doctrine of hybrid conflict has gained currency in diplomatic, defence and intelligence circles the world over. What we witnessed during the final phase of Aragalaya (2022) can be dubbed ‘grey-zone terrorism’. Arson attacks on the houses of prominent SLPP politicians and others were well organised; they could not have been carried out by flash mobs consisting of non-violent protesters. Unfortunately, those crimes have not been probed properly. The then SLPP-UNP government was wary of investigating those serious transgressions; instead, it generously awarded compensation to the victims of arson attacks far in excess of their losses. The incumbent administration has rightly instituted legal action against some of the culprits who helped themselves to public funds by playing the victim card and inflating estimates, but most of the arsonists and the masterminds behind the arson attacks have got off scot-free. They must be traced and made to face the full force of the law.

The welcome judgement in the Athukorale murder case offers a lesson that should not go unlearnt. Those who join mobs and commit crimes must remember that they run the risk of being tried and thrown behind bars. On seeing the instigators of violence during Aragalaya savouring power and going places, the killers of Athukorale and his body guard must be ruing the day they committed that crime.

Thursday 12th February, 2026

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake once spoke of a ‘shadow state’ run by powerful crime syndicates and vowed to dismantle it. The general consensus is that such an unseen, parallel power structure really exists and must be eliminated as a national priority. However, criminals are not alone in running ‘parallel governments’. Extremely powerful business cartels also challenge the writ of the state and exploit the public, with impunity.

Transport Minister Bimal Rathnayake has evinced a keen interest in bringing order out of chaos in the passenger transport sector. He deserves praise and public support for his efforts. He has taken upon himself the onerous task of safeguarding the interests of commuters and ensuring road safety. His attempts to bring the private industry to heel have run into stiff resistance, with the bus mudalalis issuing warnings and even threats.

Minister Rathnayake has warned that the tough measures under consideration to make roads safer include the cancellation of the route permits of the buses whose drivers and conductors are addicted to narcotics. Desperate situations are said to call for desperate measures. In 2021, the then State Minister of Transport Dilum Amunugama made a chilling revelation: about 80% of private bus drivers in Colombo and its suburbs were addicted to drugs. The situation must be more or less the same in other parts of the country as well. A survey conducted by the Lanka Private Bus Owners’ Association (LPBOA) has revealed that 45% of private bus drivers are addicted to narcotics. Their addiction to relatively new drugs such as ICE (crystal methamphetamine) is on the rise, according to the police, who disclosed in 2023 that out of 1,781 drivers subjected to drug tests in the Western Province about 100 had been found to be under the influence of dangerous drugs; most of them were ICE addicts. LPBOA President Gemunu Wijeratne himself has said that about 50% of bus workers are addicted to narcotics.

The severity of drug addiction among bus drivers and conductors may have compelled Minister Rathnayake to consider deterrent measures, such as the cancellation of route permits, as a way out. Private bus owners’ associations have condemned the proposed move and threatened to stage a countrywide strike.

Wijeratne did not mince his words when he tore into the government, at a media briefing, the other day. Insisting that bus owners must not be penalised for what their workers did, he said they had no way of finding out whether drivers and conductors were under the influence of drugs. “Would Minister Rathnayake resign if his driver was found to be using illicit drugs?” Wijeratne rhetorically asked, accusing the government of selectively implementing the law. He cited several instances where NPP politicians and their cronies had got away with serious transgressions.

Wijeratne’s arguments are not without merit. The legal process was blatantly subverted to let former Speaker Asoka Ranwala off the hook following a road accident he caused two months ago, as Wijeratne said. Ranwala was not made to undergo a blood-alcohol test for more than 12 hours, and the police audaciously claimed that they had run out of breathalyser test kits. No legal action has been taken against the questionable release of as many as 323 high-risk containers, without Customs inspection, from the Colombo Port. A mega coal scam has gone uninvestigated. When a cannabis plantation on a plot of land belonging to an NPP MP’s relative was raided, it was the police officers responsible for the raid who had to face disciplinary and legal action. The JVP supporters who parked buses on the Southern Expressway in violation of traffic laws last year have got off scot-free. So, Wijeratne may have struck a responsive chord with the public when he highlighted how the government itself was undermining the rule of law. However, the fact that the incumbent administration shields transgressors within its ranks is no reason why the private bus operators should be allowed to enjoy the freedom of the wild ass. Wijeratne seems to think two wrongs make a right.

The government should not make hasty decisions when handling sensitive issues. It ought to respect the fundamental legal maxim, audi alteram partem, and listen to what the bus operators have to say. However, the imperious private bus associations must not be allowed to intimidate a democratically elected government. Wijeratne has warned that the government’s efforts to cancel the route permits of buses driven by drug addicts will be its undoing, for the bus operators will launch a countrywide strike. He has asked the government not to rouse ‘sleeping tigers’. In saying so, he has made an unintentional allusion to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam militarily neutralised by a previous government. It remains to be seen whether the incumbent administration with a supermajority is equal to the task of taming the ‘sleeping tigers’, safeguarding the interests of the public and ensuring road safety while redressing the legitimate grievances of the bus operators.